42 - Color Me In

“Stop looking at me like that,” Delaney instructed with a laugh while stiltedly spearing the chicken that was part of the souvlaki assortment Jon arranged for dinner.  There was chicken, lamb, shrimp and swordfish on skewers, accompanied by stuffed tomatoes and a huge Greek salad. 

Everything was delicious.  He’d even said so himself when sampling the swordfish, but that was about as far as he got with eating.  The entrée and side dishes were lying neglected in favor of the wine they opened to accompany the food, and he studied her over his glass.

Delaney's chicken didn’t go down smoothly, leaving a lump in her throat as she wondered about his thoughts.  Hers were stuck at a point after that sympathetic embrace, when soft orchestral music hit a crescendo into a full-blown romantic symphony and trilled her heart with the vibrato.

That’s what it felt like happened, anyway.  When he eased back just far enough to reach her mouth, the way he kissed her was fit for the end of an epic film, complete with swelling music and a beach sunset – or maybe the Eiffel Tower.

His lips were gentle, his touch was tender and the care he took in tasting her was enough to make a woman believe Harlequin Romances were documentaries.  Never had someone sipped her so sweetly and softly, and each stroke and caress took another brick out of the dam holding back Delaney’s emotions. 

Only the intervening knock of room service saved her from the utter embarrassment of wilting like a girl.  It also saved her from knowing what might’ve followed, but maybe that was for the best.  She wouldn’t have enjoyed pity sex.

“How am I looking at you?”

“Like I’m going to crumble in a million pieces right before your very eyes.  You don’t have to worry.  The expiration date on that has passed.”

“Never crossed my mind,” he sedately assured, leaning forward to park his glass and both elbows on the dining table.  “I was actually just putting a puzzle together in my mind.”

“Oh?” 

Jon’s watchful gaze tracked her alignment of flatware over a half-empty plate, and he held steady when she reclined in the chair with a partial serving of rosè.  “Your hair isn’t purple, it’s violet.”

Gripping the glass stem, Delaney tipped it to him in praise of the perceptiveness.  “The box said eggplant, but violet was the intent.  May is filled with reminders – Mother’s Day, Memorial Day, birthdays.  This is my morbid celebration of them all.”

“When’s their birthday?”

This was going to hit another nerve for him, she feared.  His daughter had still been in the news off and on when Violet’s death occurred, so Delaney had known about that unwitting similarity in their lives ever since it happened.  He reacted more strongly to the coincidence than she'd anticipated, and that made her reluctant to admit their daughters shared the same birthday.

 It would be better to find a lighter subject altogether.  They’d had enough life drama for one night, and adding his divorce story to the mix didn’t appeal to her.  She was ready to laugh and play with him.

“End of the month.  Hey.  Pearl sent me something today that I hadn’t seen before and found very, very interesting.”

Jon’s mouth pulled back on the left side and a knowing look bloomed in his baby blues.  She wasn’t fooling him with her redirect, but Delaney hadn’t been trying to.  He could be aware of her conversational jockeying all he wanted so long as he didn't try and fight it.    

“What’d she send?” he finally asked, playing along while reaching for more rosè.

Pleased by his cooperation, she flashed shameless dimples and hoped he would continue to be accommodating.  

“You did a show in Tarrytown, New York earlier this year.” 

“Yeah.  Kidney Foundation tribute for a very dear friend.  What about it?”

“Well…” She slipped the phone from her back pocket, and a practiced thumb brought up the text messages.  “There’s a YouTube video of you singing ‘Color Me In’.”

He hitched a single eyebrow high on his head and repeated, “What about it?”

What about it?  What about it?

That video was one of the most riveting things Delaney had seen in ages.  The music had a bit of a bluesy beat and the lyrics read like a tribute to everyone who created his personality to suit their fantasies.  There was no concrete reason to believe that’s what it was about, but as the song suggested, she let her “imagination go wild”.

Jon obviously hadn't felt it was good enough to earn a hard spot on the latest album, and dubbed it as a bonus track.  Delaney liked it better than some of the other selections because it was different for him.  Watching the live rendition vaulted her opinion about a million miles past 'like' and into the land of 'obsessed'.  She'd watched the video no less than twenty times since Pearl sent it today.

The man was an incredible performer, but the reality was he had a pretty standard set of moves on stage.  These were not his standard moves. 

Jon's eyes had a naughty little sparkle and the way he swayed those slim hips was positively mesmerizing.  That maneuver alone could inspire sexual awareness in the most blasè of women, and when a woman had carnal knowledge of that swaying body... it was equivalent to soft porn.

“Those are some pretty hot dance moves you’ve been keeping under wraps.”

“Yeah, well.  I’d been drinking just a little.”

“You mean if I had fired up this song during one of our wine dates, you would’ve danced like this for me?  ‘Cause, I gotta confess… had I known, I would’ve taken ridiculous advantage of that.”

Silent laughter spilled from sapphire and aquamarine irises, finding voice when his head fell back with a chortle.  “I already said once that you can wrap most men around your fucking little finger.  If you put your mind to it, I’m sure that’ll apply to me once in a while, too.”

That was a backhanded yes if Delaney had ever heard one, and she leaned over the table to bat her eyelashes and doll up her dimples.  “Dance for me?”

“Gonna have to do better than that, Mou.”  The drawl was rich and teasing as wine swirled like a pastel whirlpool in his glass.  “I might be a whore, but I’m not a cheap one.”

The amount of pleasure she got from this man was absurd, and his sense of humor made her smile from the inside out. 

“Have I mentioned the X-rated thoughts the video inspires?  If the real deal carries half the steam of that performance, I’ll be riding you like a pogo stick until one of us goes unconscious.”

Oceanic pools of blue were infused with a sudden steaminess that made her think of a hot and inviting sauna.  He studied her with a sweltering gaze that upped the X rating on her thoughts to XX, and the lewd smirk skittering around the edges of his mouth tacked on one more to make them a full XXX. 

Throwing his chin toward the phone still in Delaney’s hand, he brusquely ordered, “Cue the goddamn thing up, but don’t expect me to sing.  I’ll never remember those lyrics.”

Delaney beamed like a kid at a carnival as he downed the rest of his wine.  He acted as though this was going to be a painful chore, but an act is all it was.  Mermaid strippers dancing in the oceanic pools told the real story:  foreplay was about to take on a memorable, new look.

“Pearl’s so jealous of me that she can't stand it,” Delaney mentioned casually as he kicked off his shoes and the YouTube app loaded.  “I guess she has very fanciful ideas of how you are in bed.”

“Jesus Christ, please don’t elaborate.”

Impishly sticking out her tongue, she disavowed, “I haven’t a clue what her fantasies are, nor do I plan to ask.”

Jon drained the last of the Hampton Water into his glass and returned the empty bottle to the table.  “That's one more point in your favor.  You better start showing me some flaws, woman, or I’m gonna think Dave hired you to fuck with me – and not in good way.”

The first notes streamed softly from the phone’s speaker, and Delaney punched up the volume as his Adam’s apple bobbed with another big swallow.  “Like Popeye, ‘I am what I am and that’s all that I am’.  Now stop talking and show me your moves, Swivel Hips.”

The glass was abandoned with a grin, and Jon held his hands straight out, fingers snapping in time to the music.  Head and shoulders rolled one direction while fluid hips glided the opposite way, and they alternated along through the intro.  The way his thighs shifted when he rose on the balls of his feet and twisted had Delaney leaning on the table with a fangirl sigh as, despite his warning, the lyrics flowed as effortlessly as the rest of him. 

“Hell-loo, my naame iis…

It really don’t matter now.

I’m a book of blaank paa-ges

Anything you want me to beeeee

Write a little love letter on... meeeee”

All the while, he moved with an agility that seemed to come more naturally than the familiar motions he was known for on the big stage.  Here, sequestered away from the world, he allowed the music to guide him, and the sensuality with which he followed was bewitching. 

Delaney bit her lip when he pursed his lips into the semblance of a duck, humming along to his recorded voice instead of singing.  She nearly brought blood when hooded eyes lazily snagged hers to deliver unspoken promises.  

Then... he flicked open a button on his shirt.  She knew exactly what was under the black cotton, but her heartbeat thundered as though this would be her first time seeing his down-coated chest.  Who wouldn't go into cardiac arrest at the realization this sexy man was stripping?

“An-y-way you wanna begiinn

I’m in”

Another dexterous maneuver of thumb and forefinger separated the next button from its hole, and she leaned forward, bearing down on the chair.

“Girrl, you’ve got me un-der yourr speelll.

I fell.”

She thought maybe he was watching her, but Delaney was so engrossed in the careless release of the next button that she couldn’t be sure. 

“An-y shade you wan-na uuse,

Color me just right forr yoo-uuu.

Just color mee… iinnn.”

His shirt now hung completely open, leaving her an unrestricted view of how chest and ab muscles rippled for this private exhibition.  Who knew a navel could be so freeping sexy?  The way it changed shape in the fur of his belly, rubbing up against his belt buckle as hypnotic fingers went back to snapping and swaying…

Delaney shifted on her chair and hoped to God her lungs could remember to breathe without the assistance of her brain.  It went to mush the minute his right hand stretched toward her, the two middle fingers pulling sharply into his palm in three rapid successions. 

“C’mere, baby.”

If she’d had the ability to speak at that moment, she still wouldn’t have refused him.  It was too tempting to feel that suggestive swagger swipe against her, and twitchy palms slid inside his shirt as Delaney stepped in to pick up the cadence.  He immediately cradled her skull with one hand and used the other as a guide on her hip.

“You’ve got good rhythm,” was all he whispered before he started humming again.

The soft melody warmed her ear when he dipped close enough to feel his breath.  It was almost as balmy as the skin of his back, ribs, chest and shoulders, which she couldn't stop stroking.  Every muscular contraction tickled her palm, teasing her, compelling her muscles to contract in intimate places.

She wanted to jump right to the main event, but this was a moment that deserved to be savored and stored as a cherished memory.  Rushing it would only rob her of future pleasure, so she throbbed to the pulse of the music and his touch.

They swayed that way through the next verse and chorus, with Jon humming and Delaney imprinting an intricate trail of fingerprints on his torso. 

This might.  Sound cra-zy.

Do anything you wanna do

Your kiss. Can save me.

Let me wrap these arms around you

I wanna be the.  Song. That’s stuck in your he-eaad

Close. As a prayerr that you’ll nev-er for-ge-et

All I can say iis, just what I said

We’ll get there yet

Color me in

An-y-way you wanna begiinn

I’m in

Girrl, you’ve got me un-der yourr speelll.

I fell.

An-y shade you wan-na uuse,

Color me just right forr yoo-uu.

She thought he’d completely given up on lyrics until the recording reached the bridge.  That's when she felt a gentle nose bump against the shell of her ear, followed by a melodically recited, 

“Let your im-a-gina-tionn run wiiild

All I wanna do is make ya smi-ii-iile

And I've got a-allll nii-igght.”

Delaney lost all interest in the song at that point.  Rising on her toes, she ran an open mouth along his jaw, rasping, “I want you.”

The hand with custody of her skull burrowed fingers into upswept hair, tangling in the confined tresses to wrench her head back.  He regarded her from beneath lowered lids, his mouth set in a line that she might’ve interpreted as grim had she not already learned to identify desire on the face of this gorgeous man.

He wanted her, too.

“Our relationship went someplace new tonight.”  Jon's lips barely moved with the quiet reflection.  “If that means you need something different, you’d better tell me.”

Skin pimpled down the front of Delaney’s thighs, shins and forearms while a chill knit into the soft spaces between her vertebrae.  There was only one thing she needed.

“Just you.  Exactly as you are.”