Текст книги "Reckless"

Автор книги: Devon Hartford

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 26 страниц)

I was ready to fall over and go at it right there in the entryway. Or have Christos smash me up against a wall while I straddled him and he entered me.

The next thing I knew, my mind-reading man repositioned me so I was straddling his waist. His powerful hands gripped my ass firmly. I hooked my arms around his neck and pulled myself close.

“I need you. Right now,” I murmured in his ear.

Christos carried me upstairs. I noticed art hanging along the walls in the upstairs hallway. Spiridon’s home was truly an artist’s paradise. I loved this place.

But I was even more in love with Christos.

My awareness of anything beyond him faded from my mind as we turned through a doorway. He kicked the door closed behind us, and he lowered me onto a large bed.

Chapter 16

SAMANTHA

The clicking of my zipper being pulled down swept me away.

To my pleasant surprise, having Christos pull my pants off without asking was perfectly acceptable. He was welcome to do whatever he wanted to me. The dirtier, the harder, the wetter the better.

I was smiling from ear to ear as his hands slid up my naked thighs. My pants, shoes, and socks were piled on the floor a second later. I was down to my panties, my shirt, and my sweater.

Nope, now my panties were off.

Oh, my.

Christos gently parted my legs, revealing my hot, wet center.

“You have no idea how often I’ve thought about this moment in the last several days,” Christos moaned. “I’ve been missing you like crazy.”

“Me too,” I whimpered.

 He stood up and ripped his shirt off. He was totally, certifiably sexy. His muscles were worthy of a magazine cover. His tattoos made me quiver with anticipation. He had a face that captained a thousand ships. I could picture him standing at the front of an ancient warship, wearing Roman armor, one sandaled foot planted commandingly on the railing as he pointed his sword forward and led his men to victory. Christos was some kind of mythically sexy hero of legend, and he was all mine.

He stared down at me. “You have the most beautiful pussy I’ve ever seen, agápi mou.”

“Christos!” I blurted, throwing my forearm over my eyes. He’d torn me right out of my romance novel book-cover fantasy moment by using that word. I’d never had anyone call my lady bits that before, and I wasn’t sure what to make of it. Christos was always throwing me off balance.

“What?” he smiled his cocky grin. “Do you want me to tell you your pussy is average looking? Or maybe a bit hideous?”

“Christos!!” He was making this worse.

He chuckled. “Then tell me how I’m supposed to describe it.”

“I don’t know!” I whined. “Are you even supposed to actually talk about it at all?” I wasn’t sure of the answer to that myself.

“Fuck the rules. I make my own. Your pussy is smokin’ hot. It tastes like cinnamon or I don’t know what, but I can’t get enough of it. It’s like dessert, but it never spoils my dinner.” He winked.

Suddenly, I was extremely nervous as I gazed up at this impossibly handsome and uninhibited man. He looked at me like I was a plate of food, so I asked, “What’s for dinner, anyway?”

“After I have dessert?” he stared between my legs as he said it, “then we’re having the main course, which will be my pig in your blanket,” he grinned that stupid, smirking, dimpled grin of his. “Oh wait, Pigs In Blankets is breakfast. Duh.”

I paused and took in the ridiculous look on his face. How did he always manage to set me at ease so damn easily? There I was, naked from the waist down with a handsome cavemen hovering above me, drooling over his dinner, and I burst out laughing.

He chuckled as he pulled his pants off one leg at a time like a normal mortal.

“Come here,” I said, holding my arms out to him.

He stood at the foot of the bed. “Boxers on or off?”

“What happened to going commando?” I dropped my arms to the bed, feigning surprise.

“Like I said before, when it’s winter, I need insulation for my jewelry.”

“Your jewelry?” I sneered.

“Gotta keep my 24-carat boys warm,” he snickered.

“Are they diamond studded too?”

“For her pleasure,” he said suggestively.

I shook my head. “Take your pants off, funny man.”

“Your wish is my command.” He pushed his boxers down, revealing his rigid length. He was completely naked and completely flawless.

Oh, yeah. There was a reason why we were in his bedroom with the door closed and my pants and panties off. I fanned my face, suddenly struck by a 103-degree fever.

“Is it just me,” he asked, “or is your hotness turning my bedroom into a fucking sauna?”

“What, you mean like one of those bathhouses were people go to have sex?” I asked, still fanning myself.

“No,” he chuckled at me,” I meant your hotness.”

I frowned. “You were the one who said, ‘Fucking Sauna,’ so I thought that’s what you meant,” I sniveled.

He smirked and shook his head, gawking at my crotch as he crawled between my legs. “You’re crazy,” he grinned.

Before I could object, his arms were under my legs and his mouth was on my lips. My oh-so-very-wet lips.

My head fell back on the bed and I moaned long and low, then suddenly stopped short. “Are there any windows open? Can your grandfather hear us?”

Christos lifted his head and gazed up at me from between my legs with his mesmerizing eyes. “No, the deck is on the other side of the house. He can’t hear a thing.”

That feeling of sneaking around returned, but this time, with myself completely bared to Christos, his breath warming my core as he locked eyes with me, I was ready to indulge in some illicit love-making. Even if he had used that word to describe my, uh, female porthole. Or whatever it’s supposed to be called.

Christos’ head sunk back down and his tongue spiraled across the tight bud of nerves above my cleft. The intense ecstasy was instantaneous.

“Oh, Christos,” I moaned.

His tongue slid up and down my entrance before his fingers entered me.

“Ohhhh…” I moaned again.

He plunged and licked and loved my core until I orgasmed in his face, my back arching, his mouth pushing deeper into me, his tongue circling my pleasure center as my legs trembled and pressed against him.

When I had released the last breaths of my orgasm, I sank into the bed. He climbed up to my face and kissed me passionately while massaging my breasts through my sweater. I felt so kinky being clothed from the waist up and naked from the waist down.

“Cinnamon or nutmeg?” he asked.

“What?”

“How do you taste?”

“Christos,” I giggled.

“It’s like dining at a doughnut shop down there,” he laughed as our lips pressed together.

“You’re terrible!”

“Hey, what can I say?” He pulled away. “You’re the sweetest glazed doughnut I’ve ever had!” He hopped away before I could slap his arm.

He was laughing as he landed several feet from the bed, watching me. I had crawled to the edge of the mattress, ready to chase him, when I realized, once again, I was not wearing pants or panties.

I vaguely remembered seeing a Porky Pig cartoon as a little girl and being entirely disturbed that he wore a dinner-jacket and bow-tie, but no pants! And nobody ever said anything! Oh, and white gloves! Porky never forgot his gloves! Nobody went out of the house without gloves. He was shameless, that pig.

“Did you happen to notice the wall of mirrors behind you?” Christos asked mischievously.

“What?”

“It offers a truly tantalizing view from where I’m standing,” he grinned through lowered lashes.

I twisted my head around, and was greeted by a view of my naked backside. I was down on all fours, which provided a perfect view of my privates.

Horrified, I dropped my bottom to the bed, hiding it from prying eyes. I swore I’d heard someone shout, “Put your pants on, Porky!”

I glanced around, but it was only my imagination. However, I was not imagining Christos leering at the mirror.

I whined, “Stop staring!”

“Why?”

“Because I’m embarrassed!” I shrieked.

“Don’t be.”

There was such a finality to the way he said it, I had to pause.

“Agápi mou, you are the most beautiful woman ever created. You are a child of Mother Nature. Your beauty as a woman is your birthright. You should be proud of yourself. Own your womanhood. Own your femininity.”

I stared at Christos. He was completely naked, all muscled chest and rock-hard abs. His manhood was fully, proudly erect. He looked at me lovingly. If he could be confident, why couldn’t I?

I pulled my sweater over my head, then my shirt. I calmly reached behind myself and unhooked my bra. I tossed it at Christos. It landed right on his…

Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Where it dangled and swung.

I pointed and said, “It landed on your—!!!” That was all I could get out before I fell face first on the bed, bellowing laughter, clutching my sides.

“Gooooaaaallll!!!!” he shouted, then burst out laughing.

I buried my face in my arms and laughed so hard I couldn’t breathe. After a minute, I looked up and saw Christos still standing and laughing heartily, but bent over at the waist, resting his hands on the tops of his thighs.

“It’s shaking!!” I screamed, pointing at my bra. “Every time you laugh, it shakes!!”

He broke into another round of laughter and finally dropped to one knee. I expected my bra to finally fall off, but it didn’t.

Somehow, that was even funnier than everything else.

“It’s stuck!!” I squealed. “I lassoed your man-steer!!!!”

He laughed harder, but stood up slowly. Then he began to twirl his hips, and my bra twirled too. So did his man pole. Why did I imagine a rodeo cowboy swinging his cowboy hat in the air?

My bra spun faster and faster—

“Meat spin!!!!” he cackled breathlessly.

–until it flew off and landed on top of my…

Head.

I fell onto my back and couldn’t stop laughing. My bra was still stuck to my head.

“Nice hat,” Christos laughed.

I didn’t care. I was laughing too hard.

Christos stumbled over to the bed and plopped onto the mattress next to me. He rolled over until we were laying side-to-side.

He laced his fingers through mine and we held hands while we laughed and laughed for a long time. Slowly it faded into chuckles, then just breathy sighs.

“Was it good for you?” I gasped.

“Best ever,” he chuckled.

I glanced down and noticed he was still erect.

“How can you stay hard for so long?” I marveled.

He sighed while pulling my bra off my head and tossing it to the floor. “That’s easy, agápi mou. Everything about you turns me on. You’re my own personal Viagra. When I’m seventy-two and can’t get it up anymore, all you’ll have to do is throw your bra on my cock and I’ll be hard as a rock.”

“I can’t imagine you not being able to get it up, no matter how old you are.”

“Me neither,” he said with cocksure confidence.

“Tell me that part again about being together when we’re seventy?” I prompted.

“Oh, you mean when we’re old and gray and have been together for fifty years?”

“You mean when I’m like, 69?”

“I like 69,” he smirked.

“Christos!” I sighed. Why did I like the sound of that so much? I’m not talking about the 69 part, not that there was anything wrong with that, but I meant the being together fifty years part. And why was that making me horny again?

He rolled on top of me and I felt the length of his shaft pressing against my cleft.

“Condom!” I gulped.

“I bought a box on the way home.” He reached over and opened the drawer mounted to the wall and pulled out a new box. He sat up and opened the package with both hands while flexing all his muscles and snarling, as if the box were made of steel. “Roar!” he joked. Condoms flew everywhere.

“What are you doing?!” I asked.

He grinned. “You know that moment when pro-wrestlers rip their t-shirts off in front of the roaring crowd?”

“I guess?” I frowned.

“I’ve always wanted to do that. This seemed like the closest I was going to get. Roar!” he said again as he tore the flimsy condom box to shreds.

“You are such a dork,” I giggled.

“I have such a dork, but I assure you, I am not one myself.”

“Oh, that’s terrible. Don’t quit your day job. Comedy is not your calling.”

He smiled at me and licked his lips lasciviously while rolling the condom on, which for some reason was absurd. I couldn’t help but laugh again.

Then he leaned down between my legs and yodeled at my crotch, “Here, pussy pussy! Here, pussy, pussy!” He held his hand to his mouth as if he were trying to make his voice carry farther.

I propped up on my elbows and gaped at him. “What the hell’s balls are you doing?!”

“Don’t you like my catcalls?”

“That makes zero sense.”

“I’m catcalling your pussy.” He was totally amused with himself. “Here, pussy, pussy!”

“Stop!” I chuckled then dropped back down on the bed, shaking my head, but smiling wide. I loved his dorkiness more than I would ever admit to him. It somehow humanized him. It took him from being the finest man on the planet to a regular guy I could relate to. No matter how ridiculous his jokes were.

“You sure?” he asked. “Maybe I didn’t make myself clear.”

“What?”

He slid his tongue between my folds and I quivered. My legs lifted off the bed and my feet shook as his tongue swirled around my wetness. Then I jolted as the tip of his tongue stroked the center of my pleasure. I tingled and trembled to my toes as an orgasm rushed through my body almost instantly.

He lifted his head and gave me a curious look. “Yeah, that didn’t do it. I still haven’t made my case. I need to inspect this situation more carefully…”

“What?” I said breathlessly, still coming down from my orgasm. “I’m confused.”

He climbed up the bed and mounted me, lowering himself into my waiting heat. His rigidity entered my wetness.

“Ohhh my g-g-god-d-d-d,” I moaned as he filled me up with his massive fullness.

“Ahhh…” he groaned, all sense of comedy gone. “Every time I’m inside of you,” he hissed harshly, “I feel like it’s the first time I’ve ever had sex in my life.”

“Me too,” I murmured, “me too.”

He began a rhythmic thrusting that sent waves of pleasure cascading out from between my legs. I opened my legs farther, letting him in all the way. Within seconds, I tipped back head-first over the edge of ecstasy as another orgasm surged through me.

He sat up, repositioning himself so that his knees were now forward and his weight rested on his shins. My thighs draped over his as his hands cupped my hips and his thumbs caressed the crests of my pelvis. “Fuck, Samantha, your hips are a work of art. Fucking perfect, I’ve never seen anything like them,” he grunted as he worked his body repeatedly into mine.

My pleasure was building again. “Christos,” I moaned.

“Fuck…” he responded.

I felt a powerful orgasm about to peak as he plunged and plunged.

I was surprised when he started stroking my ribs with his fingers. “Christos!” I shrieked, kicking my heels up. I hadn’t expected his tickling touch and it distracted from my orgasm.

“Relax,” he said as he continued more gently, still stroking my ribs.

Strangely, the tickling sensation transformed into fluttery pleasure that danced in my chest like icy fireflies. I shivered instantly as waves of electric sex pulsed between my abdomen and my throat.

“Ohhh,” I moaned. My orgasm began to build again, but the sensation between my legs joined with the intensity in my ribs as he slid in and out of me. “Oh my god, what are you doing?” I moaned. “It feels so good…”

As the pleasure in my body built to maximum, his hands slid around my breasts and massaged them, heightening the fireflies in my chest ever further. It felt so unbelievably good. As if sensing my need, his palms brushed over the tips of my hardened nipples. He stroked them with the lightest circular touch, my pebbled flesh catching and scratching beneath his rugged palms. I shivered feverishly every time he completed a circle.

“Don’t stop,” I whispered. “Whatever you’re doing, don’t stop.”

A waterfall of sensation poured down my taut stomach as his hands slid downward and his fingers resumed their gentle feather strokes over my ribs. I was quivering and shivering as my entire body covered in goose bumps. I mean my entire body. I was freezing as pleasure wind-stormed through me.

I felt my orgasm building toward infinity as he pushed deeper and deeper. He arched his head back. “Fuck me… Samantha, you’re like fucking crack cocaine, woman. I’m addicted to you, agápi mou…”

Then he slid one hand around between my legs and his fingers found my clitoris. He rubbed and caressed, causing a firestorm to erupt from it. “Uhhhh,” I moaned as wet pleasure flooded out from my center and another orgasm took me.

I floated high on a cloud of pleasure far above the world, as everything slipped away, far, far below.

SAMANTHA 

I heaved and sighed breathlessly for a long time. What an unbelievable release that had been.

When I calmed, Christos reached his arms behind my shoulders, sat me up with my legs still looped around his waist, then suddenly spun onto his back.

The next thing I knew, I was on top of him. He was still inside me.

“Was that some kind of Cirque du Soleil move?” I asked breathlessly.

He chuckled. “No, nothing that gymnastic. But if you want, we can try some things. Let me know if you want to play Pommel Horse or Parallel Bars,” he grinned.

“No! All fine here!” I was freaked out as it was being on top, I didn’t think I needed to be his human pommel horse.

I looked down at him. The view from here was quite different from what I was used to.

Whoa.

Guy candy alert! I ran my hands all over his muscled chest and tattooed shoulders. I think my mouth was watering. Time to unwrap my very own piece of gourmet man candy!

“Now it’s your turn,” he smirked.

Gulp. That’s when I realized he was my human pommel horse. “To what?” I squeaked.

“To move. However you want, agápi mou…”

Fear smacked me in the chest. I folded my arms across my breasts and collapsed against him. I was no gymnast! Gulp, gulp!! “No way! I can’t do that!”

“Why not?” he murmured, wrapping his arms around me in a warm hug.

My cheek laid against his chest. “I don’t know,” I said shyly. “I guess I’m just nervous. I’ve never done this before.”

“I know,” he said, kissing the top of my head gently, “and that’s okay. We can stop if you want. Or…” he murmured.

That was my Christos. Always pushing my boundaries, making me try new things, but always giving me the choice to wait, to try again when I was ready. He either believed in me like no one else and was the most nurturing man ever born, or he was a complete sadist. Maybe he was both. Oh! I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I’d have to table that discussion for another time, maybe in ten years? Grin. Yeah, that would be perfect.

“Or what?” I asked coyly.

“Or you might discover you like it. A lot.”

Oh, yeah. He was talking about me being on top. Um… Er… Ah… Uh… Hmmm.

Yeah, that.

“But I don’t know how,” I whined. Yes, I sounded like a baby. But I forgave myself on the grounds that an angelically beautiful man who was perfect in every respect, especially when it came to his performance in the bedroom, was asking me to pleasure him.

Gulp, gulp, gulp!

I was ready to bite my nails typewriter-style. Bite-bite-bite-bite-ching! Bite-bite-bite-bite-ching!

“All you have to do, agápi mou,” he whispered, “is move. Whatever you do will be perfect.”

“You sure?”

“Just being inside you makes me want to come. I’m amazed I haven’t already.” He kissed the top of my head several times. “Whatever you want, agápi mou…”

I sat up slowly and planted my hands on his muscled, pommel horse chest. I hoped he would be satisfied with a beginner’s routine.

Distracted by his beauty, and only slightly stalling, I started sliding my hands up and down his smooth skin, luxuriating in the feel of his manly chest. Damn it, he was totally hot! And the next thing I knew, I was too.

His cock throbbed inside me, growing impossibly larger, filling me up. I don’t know how that happened, but he really did feel even bigger than before. I rocked tentatively forward, then back.

“Like this?” I asked.

“Yes.”

I began rocking in a steady rhythm.

“Yeah…” he moaned. “That’s epic,” he sighed. He wrapped his hands around my pelvis gently and caressed the exposed ridges of my hips again.

He really liked doing that. Okay by me. For whatever reason, it made me feel very womanly. Not overly hippy, like I’d always felt in the past.

“Aaaaah,” he moaned. “Keep going, you have no idea what you’re doing…”

“I knew it, I’m doing it wrong!” I sighed, almost stopping.

“No-o-o-o,” he moaned, “don’t stop. You’re doing it perfectly…”

“You really like it?” I asked, sliding up and down his hard length.

“I fuh—fucking love it, agápi mou.”

I realized in this position my clitoris was tickling across the bottom wedge of his pelvis, right above his manhood. If I tilted my hips forward while thrusting backward onto him, the motion lit my bud of nerves up with a buzzing billow of pleasure. Oh, wow. This felt really good.

“Oh, hells yeah,” he groaned. “That’s unbelievable… You are so fucking tight, agápi mou…”

For a moment, I was amazed I was pleasuring him. It had always been the other way around, or so I’d thought. I was so taken by my revelation and Christos’ repeated moaning, I almost forgot to enjoy myself.

Almost.

Heat expanded inside my core and poured down my legs. Ecstasy was building, thrust by thrust. I ground my pelvis down harder and harder, my clitoris tingling, sizzling, burning with intense pleasure.

“Oh, Christos,” I moaned.

“Agápi mou…”

I could tell he was lost to the pleasure I was giving him. Knowing this increased my own tenfold. I was so wet, my desire for him was pouring out of me and onto his skin as I slid against his rigid root with every frantic thrust.

My orgasm was building, filling past my belly, up my chest and spine, my throat, up to the top of my head. I was about to launch into space as the energy swelling inside my body expanded to maximum.

He responded by pressing himself repeatedly deeper into my core from below as his hands clamped onto my pelvis.

“I can feel you tightening up around me, Samantha,” he hissed, “Fuck, you’re coming. You’re coming…”

I was. It was so amazingly good. The energy in my body built to a heightened pitch as my orgasm shot upward and quaked my entire body. My knees clamped together as every muscle in my body locked up with intense release. I moaned long and low as he strained into me.

Suddenly, his whole body bowed beneath me, lifting me up off the bed as he came inside me, every muscle of his beautiful body flexing as his face screwed tightly into ecstasy. I felt him jolting inside me, pressed all the way in, his cock spasming with hammering release deep in my core. “Agápi mou! Aaahhh!!! Fuck! Samantha!!!”

I arched my back and bore down with my pelvis, quivering as all my weight pressed down on his thick length.

“Christos!!!!” I screamed.

“Agápi MOU!!!!” he shouted.

His body relaxed finally and he fell back to the bed. I collapsed onto his chest, spent, wet, exhilarated, relaxed, released, at peace.

I sighed heavily. “Oh. My. God. What did you do?”

“What did I do?” he asked. “That was all you, agápi mou.”

It was. I couldn’t believe it.

I smiled silently.

Yay, me!

I didn’t suck in bed!

He wrapped his arms around me and I lifted my head to kiss him affectionately. “Mmmmm,” was all I said.

“Mmmm-hmmm,” he replied.

I lowered my head back to rest against his chest as echoes of our mutual orgasm subsided.

I laid on top of him for a long time, silent, my legs wrapped around him. I didn’t ever want to let go.

“I gotta deal with the condom,” he muttered.

“Okay,” I whispered, afraid he was going to leave.

“You should roll off,” he whispered.

I didn’t want to, but I supposed I had to. I felt him pulling out of me.

He reached down and pressed two fingers against the base of the condom until he was withdrawn. He dropped it in a small waste basket beside his bed.

He laid back next to me and took me in his arms.

Thank goodness he didn’t go.

I draped my knee over his hips as he pulled me to his chest and kissed me passionately. We continued kissing for a long time, softly, quietly, intimately.

SAMANTHA

Eventually Christos gently broke our kiss and stroked a lock of hair behind my ear. He gazed into my heart with his healing blue eyes for a long time before murmuring, “Samantha, you are the most amazing woman in the history of women. Every time I’m with you, whether it’s in bed together, or drawing with crayons on a coffee table, or even just sitting in silence, I marvel at how lucky I am to have found you.”

“I thought I was the lucky one,” I whispered shyly as I ran my fingers through the hair on his chest.

He chuckled. “Yes indeed, you are. But I’m luckier.”

“What are you saying, Christos? Are you saying I’m more awesome than you?” I grinned.

“Yup.”

I gasped. “No way! Can your ego allow such an admission?”

“It can, when it’s the truth. You’re even more awesome than I am.”

“Does that mean you’ll stare at me more than you stare at yourself from now on?”

He frowned while smiling. “I don’t stare at myself.”

“You are such a liar! I’ve seen you in my bathroom. You’re so in love with yourself, I’m surprised you don’t jerk off every time you see yourself in the mirror!” I giggled.

“If I was gay, I’d do me in a second,” he smirked.

I squeezed one of his cheeks, and in mocking baby-talk said, “There’s that ego I so wuv.” I gave him a twinkling smile.

“I don’t know about you,” he smiled back, “but I’m getting pretty hungry.”

“Is it time for dinner?”

“Yeah, I need to clean you up first,” he said. “Would you like the shower or my tongue?”

“I’m pretty sure if you use your tongue, we’ll never get out of your bedroom.”

“Shower it is.” He stood and picked me up and carried me into the bathroom attached to his bedroom.

Nope, getting carried never got old. “If you keep carrying me everywhere, my muscles are going to atrophy and I won’t be able to walk,” I joked.

“Then you’ll be stuck in bed and I’ll be forced to ravish you all day long.”

“Do I get time off for sleeping?”

“No, but I will fuck you until you’re unconscious.”

I blurted a laugh. Because I believed he could.

Christos set me down on the bathroom floor while he filled the round jacuzzi bathtub and added bubble-bath soap. When it was full, he picked me up, stepped into the tub, then set me on my feet in the water. He gently washed me from top to bottom while I stood in foamy suds up to my waist. He caressed my body with a sopping natural sponge then rinsed me with the ceramic pitcher kept on the edge of the tub.

I felt like Cleopatra or some other high queen who was bathed by handmaidens, except Christos was much better than a handmaiden. I had a moment to wonder what sort of funny business Cleopatra must have gotten up to with her hot handmaidens. It seemed a likely outcome. I imagined most empresses did whatever the hell they wanted.

When Christos slid his soapy fingers between this empress’s legs, I quivered and moaned. “Bathtub sex, my king?”

He chuckled mischievously and kissed me on the cheek. “Dinner first.”

He finished bathing me and toweled me dry.

“So, was that my present?” I asked.

“What, the hot sex or the bathing?”

“Yeah,” I smiled.

“Nope. I’ve got a couple more downstairs. One is dinner.”

“Awesome!” I couldn’t wait to eat.

While getting dressed in the bedroom, I finally noticed the decor.

Not the man-cave I’d expected.

I had imagined Christos either lived in an actual subterranean cave surround by the bones and antlers of the animals he’d hunted and killed with his bare hands, or maybe some kind of mechanic’s race garage with motorcycles and muscle cars surrounding a red satin bed with a chromed tread-plate bedframe.

Instead, the room was stylish in an art-deco sort of way. Lines and abstract shapes in the form of inset bookcases and earth tones led the eye to a massive abstract painting over the straight-edged king-sized bed stand. A bizarrely delicate light fixture with dozens of tiny white bulbs that resembled a starburst hung from the recessed ceiling.

“I was beginning to wonder if you actually lived here with your grandfather,” I said as I took in the decor.

“Yeah, he likes having me around. He says it keeps the energy in the house young.”

“I’ll say,” I smiled and winked at Christos.

My eyes were drawn to the huge abstract painting hanging over Christos’ bed.

“Tell me about this beautiful painting,” I said. “It doesn’t look like one of Spiridon’s.”

“It’s my dad’s. Well, mostly. I helped him paint it.”

“Really? When?”

“When I was like seven or eight.”

“Wow, Christos, it’s really nice. And that’s so cool that you did a painting with your dad!” I envied that he had, or used to have, such a close relationship with his father.

All I could imagine doing with my own dad was drawing up a balance sheet. Even then, he’d be controlling everything, correcting me and telling me how I was doing everything wrong.

“Yeah,” Christos continued, “my parents were still together at the time. I used to love hanging around in my dad’s studio. I’d be in the corner drawing or painting on an easel he’d bought for me. He’d set up fruit or stacks of books or whatever for me to practice still lifes. He’d always be checking in to see what I was doing. Looking back, I think he was getting bored with his abstract work and loved having me as a distraction. It was only another couple years before my mom took off.

“Anyway, the day me and my dad did this painting,” he motioned at the big painting on the wall, “he came over to watch me work for awhile. I remember I was working on a still life of a vase of flowers and a little tin box and a tea kettle. It’s still hanging in my grandpa’s bedroom, by the way. My dad told me to give it to Grandpa for a birthday present.

“Anyway, my dad’s watching me work, and he says, ‘Agoráki mou, help me fix my painting. It’s no good. Yours is so much better.’ I told him I couldn’t fix it, I didn’t know how.”

Christos paused from his memory to look at me directly. “You gotta remember, I’d seen all of my dad’s paintings at this point. Not just the abstract stuff he sold for crazy money, but also his realistic work. He was and is so amazingly talented, it would blow you away if you saw his realistic work in person. So, when he tells me to fix his painting? I’m ready to crap my pants. In my eyes, my dad was the greatest painter on the planet, and all I would do was fuck it up. I mean, I’m working on my own little still life, sweating bullets, trying to get it right—”