Essence of Time (Stewart Realty) Read online

  You,” Jack’s voice was low, commanding. “Jenna, right?” The dark haired beauty who’d accompanied her friend over to their apartment looked up at him and nodded. “Roll over. My friend needs your ass.” She sighed and did so, nearly making Rob come all over himself at the sight of her sinuous, sexy form stretching and rolling, going up on all fours presenting her ass to him and her mouth to Jack’s waiting erection.

  He rolled a condom down over himself, letting the pot and booze numb him to the sight of his friend’s incredible thick cock fucking the girl’s mouth. The other girl was behind him now, kissing and nibbling at his neck, running her hands all over him, pinching his nipples, cupping his balls. She was like a god damned octopus. The music pulsed through the room. The noise of the partying outside slipped in through the open sliding glass door. The girl slid a finger inside Jenna’s pussy, then pulled it out, put it to Rob’s lips. He tasted her, keeping his eyes trained on Jack as the woman swallowed him again and again.

  A tube of lube appeared. He slid it around and inside the girl’s ass, breaching her tight ring of muscles with his finger first, moaning as the other girl kept working his balls and lower. At one point he looked up, a grey fuzziness edging his vision. Jack’s deep blues were on him, his hands buried in the girl’s coal black hair, his hips thrusting. “Fuck her man. Do it now.”

  A piercing urgency slanted across his vision, nearly blinding him. The other girl gripped the base of his cock, guided him to Jenna’s waiting ass. He groaned at her tightness, reached around, found the hard nub of her engorged clit, and rubbed as he slipped in further. The other girl’s lips found his. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, tasted pot, beer and something salty and spicy. Jenna cried out as he breached her, buried his cock in her ass. Jack kept whispering to her, still fucking her mouth. Rob tried not to get overwhelmed by what he was doing. The sight of his friend’s slick red shaft going in and out of her mouth, the tight-glove sensation of her body, the other girl reaching back, down his ass, and pressing into him…”Holy fuck!” he yelled and pounded into Jenna.

  Jack groaned and closed his eyes. Jenna groaned, arched her back and Rob cried out as he came in an intense, somewhat scary gush. The other girl gripped his face, kissed him as his hips kept moving, kept fucking as if of their own accord. When he opened his eyes, he met Jack’s, twinkling blue gaze, wicked and satisfied.

  Chapter Four

  Two Years Later - Paris

  Rob tried to focus and lost the battle. All he could see was René. The man’s voice was musical, and his nearly six-foot frame was slight, firm, and graceful. He liked to lean on the stainless steel counters in their classrooms, running his hands through his thick black hair. Rob had kept his head down, tried to concentrate. He’d learned a lot, making it through to the final stages of his degree, now in the master pastry class with one René Guilard. The man who would not stop staring at him.

  He’d been living small, in a one-room flat in the sixteenth arrondissment. A solid four-mile walk one way to l’ecole every day, but he loved it. The anonymity of it soothed him. He learned, he cooked, he walked the Seine and he had avoided pretty much any and all direct human contact for nearly two years. But now, his nerve endings sizzled every time the man looked his way. Those deep brown eyes were unsettling in the extreme.

  “Wait.” The man had said to him one evening at the end of class. Rob’s French was rudimentary at best, transactional at worst, but he understood what was being asked of him. He nodded, watching the rest of the class file out of the working gourmet kitchen. His puff pastry had failed, flopped back onto itself like a flaccid, useless dick. He frowned, watching the other, better students fawn around their instructor for about thirty minutes past class time. Finally the room emptied. René fussed around the various examples of pastry perfection, then stared at Rob’s poor, limp excuse of a creation.

  “So,” He flicked at it as if touching road kill. Rob frowned. He should have gone to medical school. “This thing is what you give me?”

  “Yes. Well. I mean, I suppose.” His word echoed through the empty space. “Never mind. Sorry.” He rose. The man was in his personal space so fast Rob didn’t have time to breathe.

  “No, you are overreacting. Typical American.” The man’s presence was overwhelming. Rob tried not to breathe too heavily. “Come.” He walked away as quickly as he had appeared. “We will have wine and discuss.”

  They’d enjoyed enough French wine for four men their size and by the end of the night, Rob was dizzy with the compliments and booze. When he felt hands on his shoulders, easing up into his scalp, combined with the easy French of his host, he’d smiled and relaxed. René’s lips touched his neck, making him shiver and his cock get so hard he grunted and leaned forward.

  René stopped, came around to face him. “Robert.” His voice rasped lower than usual. “I find I am very drawn to you.” Rob sighed and looked up at the ceiling. This was it. The moment of truth. He looked back into René’s dark gaze, put his hand against the other man’s cheek, repressing a groan of happiness at the feel of the rasp against his hand. René smiled. “You are a virgin, no?”

  Rob laughed. “No. I’m hardly…” The other man touched his lips to Rob’s then, shutting off everything resembling logic in his brain. The rough feel of the René ‘s skin against his, the hard planes of his body pressed tight as they rose, standing, grasping each other, both of them breathing heavy, groping and reaching out as if for an anchor in a storm.

  In seconds they were naked. Rob felt the other man’s hard cock against his, rubbing into him, making him moan with need. “My darling,” René breathed into his ear. “I must have you.”

  Rob sighed and gripped René’s flesh, fisting his length, running a thumb along the fluid beading the head. He cradled the man’s face with his other hand, ran his tongue around his full lips. Dear god what was he doing? Since when did he…holy shit. René dropped to his knees, cupped Rob’s balls with one hand and slipped his lips over and down Rob’s aching cock. “I’m not gonna last. It’s…been…a while.” Rob gasped and groaned at the sensations of lips, tongue, the finger that caressed him between ass and balls. The orgasm surprised him, made his knees buckle as he gripped René’s dark hair and shoved his cock down the man’s throat. “Oh sweet Jesus.” He moaned and felt himself give, release like he never had before. The sounds René made as he drank him down made it worse, made him want to come all over again.

  René rose to his feet, wiping the back of his dark hand across his lips, his eyes sparkling with lust. “Yes,” he rasped, gripping Rob’s neck and pulling him back in for a mind-boggling tangle of lips, tongues and teeth. Rob groaned and pressed his still hard shaft against René’s. “Lovely,” René whispered against Rob’s neck, as he turned him slowly. Rob’s whole body burned with something he could not identify. He felt empty, cored out like an apple.

  “Please.” He sighed as René ran warm hands down his back, waist and hips, tugging him close. Rob arched his back, pressing back against the heat of the man’s hard shaft. He tilted his hips again, needing more.

  “Shh, my love,” René’s voice stayed low, soothing. His hands kept roaming, his fingers running down Robs’ balls and lower. “Must go slow.”

  “No.” He grunted, shoving his hips back. “Take me. Now.”

  René chuckled and Rob felt an oily warmth coat his ass, sensed a finger at his tightest hole. He tried to relax. But fear ringed the edges of his consciousness. René leaned over his back, licked his neck, turned his face around and kissed him, so soft and gentle Rob relaxed against him. “That’s it my love,” René’s French rolled around in Rob’s brain, combined with the wine and long-buried need. Something breached his ass, firm, painful at first. Rob gasped and tensed. But René’s lips, his soft words of comfort and that finger that kept working in, and up, reaching high and…

  “Shit!” Rob grunted as his cock jerked. René withdrew his finger slowly, using his other hand on Rob’s hard nipple, then lower, strok
ing his newly hardened cock. “Mmm hmmm, that’s it. Right there. Now please let me show you.” He sighed into Rob’s ear.

  Rob moaned, as the room dimmed. Something bigger pressed against him, and he arched back. “God, René. Please fuck me. Please!” He reached back, fisted his hands in the man’s silky hair, tried to relax his muscles and let it happen.

  Slowly, surely, René eased inside him, using his hand to work Rob’s shaft, his lips to soothe and comfort as Rob gripped the edge of the couch. Finally, he was fulfilled. Now, this was his moment. As René thrust high and hard and cried out Rob felt his cock jerk and release again, coating his belly with warmth. René gripped his shoulders and pounded into him making him grunt with pain and pleasure and the amazing erotic sensation of perfection.

  ****

  One Year Later

  “Rob!” The voice demanded.

  He groaned and rolled over, trying to bash the alarm clock that kept calling his name. “God damn it man!” A sudden wetness at his ear, a hand on his hard on, then teeth on his nipple forced his eyes open. Confused, disoriented, as he was pretty much every morning lately. His chest hurt. He put his hand over the pain. Lips covered his. A tongue invaded his mouth. An expert set of hands found his cock. “My love,” the voice muttered against his lips. “You must wake. There is a phone call for you.”

  He groaned and sat on the edge of the thin mattress. His neck and shoulders ached. His head spun from too much rich red wine. But his body buzzed, cock standing to painful attention. He kept his head down trying to process. Images swirled through his brain. Christine. Jack. The last doctor he met here in Paris on the sly, offering his medical history as if presenting a prison sentence. The specialist’s sympathetic eyes. The recent clean PET scan.

  “Robert!” The man’s voice startled him. “Take the phone. Now. Emergency.” He looked up at René’s dark eyes and took the phone, not fully awake, and let René kiss him once. Then he stood, trying to focus on the voice coming at him from thousands of miles away.

  “Rob! Is that you? Can you hear me?”

  “Suzanne?” He ran hand down his face, filled a glass with water and downed it. His chest tightened. He’d stayed in contact with Jack for a few months using the phones his father had provided them. But Jack had gone deep into the BDSM scene, nearly disappearing while raving about Jenna, “subs” and “Doms,” and all sorts of shit Rob had no frame of reference for. Of course he, in the meantime, had been seduced by a famous male chef. He tried not to groan too loudly into the phone.

  “Rob. Oh honey, it’s Jack.”

  “What’s up? Where are you?”

  Suzanne had gone to medical school and, last he heard, had found the love her life in the form of one Mitchell Baxter, neurosurgeon to be. She whispered and he could hear the tinny sounds of a busy hospital behind her. “I’m trying not to screw up my current rotation, thanks. That’s why I’m calling you. Have you heard from him since graduation?”

  Rob winced. He’d had every intention of going back to the states for Jack’s law school matriculation. But René had made other plans and they’d ended up in Nice for that week. “No. Did you go?”

  “Yeah. But we had to leave that night. Mitchell had to start his residency.” He heard her sigh. “Rob, seriously I’m worried.”

  “Why? Isn’t he going back to Ann Arbor?”

  “I don’t know. He was so intent on Jenna. Jack was so obsessed with her…crap…hang on.”

  Rob waited in the kitchen, smiling when René handed him a strong espresso. The whole Midwest bullshit seemed so incredibly far away. He had guilt about not making it back for his friend’s graduation, but he’d claimed to understand. Jack’s last words burned a hole in his brain just then, “I’m going to ask her Rob. I want her so badly, all the time. Is this what it feels like? Love?”

  Rob recalled laughing, trying to keep his brain from going into overdrive. Jenna? The girl from graduation night? He’d tried to keep it light. “Come on man. Remember? We are not doing this. Not yet.”

  “Sorry dude.” Jack’s voice had been high, tight, and utterly different. Rob frowned, remembering. “I’ve found her, I swear. This is it.”

  “Okay, well, if you say so,” Rob had remained non-committal. Lame. Some friend he was.

  “Rob!” Suzanne’s voice snapped him back. “God dammit! Are you there? I am worried about him. He hasn’t answered his phone for three days. I know he was going to ask her to marry him. We need to find him.”

  “Okay, relax. Have you tried Evan?“

  She sighed. “Of course. Why do you thing I am tracking you down in France? This is not like him.”

  “Okay, let me, um…” He wasn’t even sure what he could do and that made him feel worse. “I’ll try him. I’ll find him Suze, don’t worry.”

  René leaned to nip at Rob’s neck, making his skin pebble but he frowned and walked into the living room, the small phone stuck to his ear. It took three tries but finally, “Hello? Frietag? That you?” Evan’s voice sounded breathless.

  “Yeah. Where’s our boy?”

  “I’ve been trying to call you.” Rob’s heart pounded. He sank into the overstuffed couch as René sat across from him, concern filling his large, dark eyes. “I had to take him to the ER.”

  “What happened?”

  Rob heard muffled sounds as if Evan had covered the phone with his hand. Then he returned. “Uh, not sure actually. I know he had big plans for Jenna that included an engagement ring but…um…hang on.”

  Rob tapped his foot and waited. His skin crawled with anxiety. Finally, Evan spoke again. “Okay. They’re releasing him with me. He had to get his stomach pumped.”

  Rob leapt up. “What the fuck?” He started pacing, already working through the logistics of getting home. “Why?”

  “Well, they thought he’d taken something. Turns out he hadn’t. Well, other than two bottles of Maker’s.”

  “Jesus,” Rob leaned against the window, took in the surreal view of the Eiffel Tower as René put hands on his shoulders. There was more noise through the phone lines. Rob leaned back into René’s body, let the man soothe some of the tension out of him. “Here,” Evan said. “You talk to him.”

  “Wait, I…”

  But the next sound he heard was Jack. “Hey.”

  Rob winced at the sound of his friend’s rough voice. “Hey yourself, drama king. What the hell is going on over there?”

  “Oh, I apparently OD’ed on bourbon.” The silence lasted way too long to be considered comfortable, but Rob didn’t know what to say. “She, uh, said no.”

  “And that’s cause for suicide by corn liquor? Seriously?” Rob put a shaking hand on the table, his sudden need to see his friend, to be there for him overwhelming him.

  “Fuck you.”

  “Jack, talk to me.”

  “She’s a god damned slut, okay? I thought we had something meaningful. The whole Dom/sub thing you know? Screw it. I obviously was kidding myself. I don’t know. I snapped. It won’t happen again, trust me.”

  “Relax. I’m sorry. Do you need me to come…?” Rob realized he would do it, if asked.

  Jack cut him off. “No, no. I’m working for my dad this summer one more time and part time in the title company office. I need the cash more than I need the lawyering experience. Living in an apartment. It’s all good. I’m…I’ll be fine.”

  Rob heard the Jack he once knew returning with a vengeance. “I’ll be back in the states, um,” he looked up at the ceiling as René’s lips landed on his neck. “I don’t know exactly. But soon.”

  “Chicago, right?”

  Rob had lined up a job for himself already, through the school’s placement program, as sous chef downtown at one of the prestigious hotel restaurants, but the last thing he wanted was to leave France. He’d even toyed with cancelling the job. Staying there forever, in a sort of limbo fairytale, one that did not involve borrowed time, which was so much a part of his life in the States. “Yeah. Eventually.” He put his ha
nd on René’s pulled it to his lips. “Call me, anytime. Okay? I mean it. And…I’m sorry about Jenna.”

  “Fucking bitch.” His friend growled and then hung up. Rob sighed and dropped back onto the couch. René joined him, kissing him deeply, and soon he forgot everything but the man in his arms.

  ****

  Rob stared at his hands. His long, flour-covered fingers shook. He curled them into fists and tried to force the memory of the ugly argument he’d had with René into the back of his mind. Tried to focus on the present. The doctor’s appointment he had in a few hours. The fucking bread dough he was beating into submission at the job he’d taken in desperation after receiving his degree and passing on the Chicago sous chef gig. Why? What in the hell made him think he should stay here? Be in love? The compulsion to walk out, jump in a taxi headed straight for the airport and catch the first flight home, nearly overwhelmed him.

  He nearly leapt a mile when he felt René’s hands on his shoulders. “Relax,” he whispered near Rob’s ear. Rob frowned and ignored him. He had to get back home. The crisis with his old friend had made him unhappy, but worse, it made him homesick. He needed to get out of the surreal place, away from René, far away from all of it.

  “You belong here, with me.” The man had insisted the night before when Rob told him he’d decided to move back three months early; which meant he left in two days. “You know you do.” They’d stared at each other over the dinner table. Rob had nearly wavered but he had decided that this was not where he belonged.

  “I don’t love you.” He’d stated, standing, hoping it sounded like he meant it, because he wasn’t really sure that he did. However, he did know he had to get back to his real life. It was time to pick back up the reigns of borrowed time. He didn’t deserve to be this happy.

  René appraised him a moment, sipping his wine. Using the silence to speak for him. Rob swallowed, took a step toward the man who’d taught him so much about himself. Running a hand down René’s rough jaw, cupping his chin and making him turn so they were face to face. Rob sighed, let himself be drawn into an embrace as René stood and held him close, lips on his forehead, both cheeks, then lingering over Rob’s lips, firm and meaningful. Just as Rob was about to let himself be convinced to stay, René released him, stepped away. “Adieu lovely Robert.” He ran his fingers through Rob’s now long hair. “My fair one.” He muttered, keeping his hand on Rob’s face. “You are so sad, all the time. I liked making you happy.” Then he turned and left the flat.