After Dinner

[Existentially Odd]

(Continued from \'Dinner Date\')
 
Kerr was at Jenna\'s door to open it for her when she pulled into the space he\'d directed her into, smiling and doing his best to touch her gently but not too intrusively. When they got into the lift and she slouched against the back wall, however, he couldn\'t help but wind an arm about her waist and tease her about falling asleep before she saw anything worthwhile. Part of him wondered if she\'d even have the wherewithal to drive herself home, but he put that conversation aside for a while later.
 
He did his best to keep it interesting once they were inside his suite, allowing her to exclaim over the view, giving her a tour of every room before the spare room holding the majority of his antiques - even his bedroom, where he tossed his jacket and tie off before removing his socks, undoing three buttons on his shirt and rolling the sleeves up. He invited Jenna to feel free to take anything she wished off, grinning as she obliged with her shoes alone.
 
His study and the spare room were where they ended the tour and he did his best to keep his repartée snappy, but it didn\'t help. Eventually, the poor mortal was stifling a yawn even as she nodded her agreement and blinked back the ensuant tears in an effort to question him on his purchasing methods. His heart went out to her and he snapped the lid of the box holding the corroded brass knife he held closed, and put it down, giving her a sympathetic expression.
 
"You\'re exhausted," he told her with a slight pout of sympathy. "We\'ve seen everything here, I really should let you go," he murmured, stepping behind her and placing his hands on her shoulders, giving them a firm squeeze and massaging them gently. "I\'m worried you won\'t be awake enough to drive home, though - assuming you live out of the city. Is there anything I can do to wake you up first?" he enquired, still gently kneading the muscles of her shoulders. A massage was likely to relax her, he knew, but he simply couldn\'t seem to keep his hands to himself. Again.

[Trillian]

"Mmmmmmmn," she murmured her pleasure, moving her head this way or that to give him further access to her shoulders near her neck as his thumb or fingers headed in that direction.  "A strong cup of coffee might do the trick," she said after a very long moment, stalling her answer because she was enjoying the massage.  She was very aware of his cool hands, very aware of how they made her feel (even innocently on her shoulders a small thrill tingled its way throughout her body), and disregarding her own advice to not get caught up in his charm.

[Existentially Odd]

He chuckled close to her ear, encouraged by her response enough to not even think about stopping. "I don\'t have any coffee, unfortunately," he murmured, running his thumbs from the bottom of her hairline to the top of her dress, along her spine, while his fingertips squeezed her shoulders rhythmically. "I can order some to be brought here, though. Or you could just sleep here," he added and then blinked at the back of her head, wondering what had taken him over.
 
Certainly, he\'d thought about the fact that her just staying would be easier than getting coffee here - but so would him just driving her home in her car, and walking back (or getting a cab, if she lived a long way away)! He\'d not given himself permission to throw that gem out, so he had no idea why the sleeping notion - which had been lurking even farther back in the recesses of his mind - had got through! "Uh, alone, I meant - sorry, that sounded very rude," he laughed, embarrassed to have blurted out something so potentially offensive. He could ruin the whole night by confessing that he didn\'t want it to end like that!

[Trillian]

He continued the massage, which pleased her, and the confession of having no coffee made sense - for why would a vampire who couldn\'t drink it, have it? - but his offer to have some brought up for her sounded very kind indeed.  Before she could respond to his offer (which she was about to in the affirmative), he continued on with his other, very forthright, suggestion.

She tensed, and no doubt he would feel that under his fingers in her shoulders, and her eyes were fully open, looking sideways (when before they\'d been mostly closed while she\'d enjoyed his touch).  There was a moment of silence that was very short but seemed to extend quite far before he blurted out his justification.  She wasn\'t sure if it was the result of his feeling her tension and backpedalling, or if he\'d meant it innocently enough in the first place.  Either way, things had to be clarified, and soon.

She turned around, the massage forgotten, and looked at him frankly, without anger or anything negative passing over her face.  She was preparing herself to say what she needed to say before she lost the courage, or rethought herself.

"Kerr, I really like you," she said, lifting her hands and placing them gently on his chest, "but sleeping here, even alone, isn\'t the way I wish this night to end."

She\'d meant to say something quite different; about how she wasn\'t interested in him romantically, that he should realise they were only ever going to be friends alone, that she didn\'t want to send him any crossed signals.  None of it came out, and what she\'d said hadn\'t been a rejection in the slightest.  She believed she knew why, and it worried her.  She was interested in him romantically, there was a chance for him to be more than just a friend to her, and she was already sending him such signals.

She lifted herself up on her tiptoes in order to peck him on the lips, and continued talking right after so he had no chance to reply to her first statement.

"I\'ll be fine driving home, I don\'t live too far," she said, for it took her half an hour to reach the museum in peak hour, and half that time if there was little traffic on the roads (such as this time in the wee hours of the morning).  "Thank you for a lovely night."  She beamed at him, her hands still on his chest.

[Existentially Odd]

He cringed, his hands lifting to her waist to stay her without requesting it - if only to hear him apologise.  "I\'m sorry," he told her sincerely.  "I\'m very embarrassed, I... don\'t know what came over me, I think you just... " but he broke off again, deliberately stopping himself from continuing along that track.

"I\'m glad you enjoyed yourself," he said, sounding more formal and precise.  "I had a wonderful night," he smiled into her eyes, attempting to focus on positives, "and I very much look forward to the opera in... a couple of weeks?"  The hint was obvious, his expression a little bit cheeky, his mortification not evident.  He half expected she\'d make an excuse now, however.

[Trillian]

Still beaming, she gave him a slight nod and a brief closing of her eyes in order to acknowledge his invitation.

"A couple of weeks it is," she confirmed, not minding that there wasn\'t yet an official night (seeing as he had yet to purchase the tickets) and dropped her hands from his chest, making his hold on her waist awkward and therefore forcing him to drop it, though subtly.  "I\'ll go get my shoes," she said, and made to move past him.

[Existentially Odd]

He nodded and followed mutely after her, making it his business to escort her out of the apartment and back down to her car.  After he opened her door for her, he took the opportunity to lean forward and kiss her cheek - just the one cheek this time, for he wasn\'t interested in being fashionable, just affectionate - and reiterate his pleasure at the evening\'s events.

He waved as she drove away and berated himself endlessly as he rode back up in the elevator.  For the rest of the dark hours, he sat on the balcony off his bedroom, staring at the city and coming to a few decisions.  The facts were simple and he hoped that all he needed to remember them was a little reinforcement; no-one in his life was like Jenna.  She was intelligent, witty and fascinating, the perfect companion and partner for him to attend the functions he either wanted or had to attend, with.

It wouldn\'t do to fuck things up with her, by allowing his attraction to her to get in the way.  He was recovering from relationships gone wrong, he wasn\'t fit for emotional consumption, he didn\'t trust anyone to care for his heart any more.  It didn\'t matter how wonderful she was, he realistically didn\'t see that everything would turn out rosily between two career people with utterly different supernatural foundations, he was better keeping his distance in the respect with her, than he was with anyone else.

Jenna was to be his friend; a beautiful, alluring, intoxicating one certainly, but a friend and companion nevertheless.  For everything else there was Ash and Carly and none of these little \'arrangements\' he was accruing would affect him negatively, so long as he kept his focus straight and his mind on enjoying himself... what could possibly go wrong, then?

~*~

Kerr found himself on the phone more and more with Jenna over the next month; at first, to decide on the night they would go to the opera together but also (and especially after that starry night had been and gone) just to talk and find out how her days had gone.  He found he really enjoyed being the last person she talked to before she went to sleep and the notion of her chatting to him as she curled up in bed warmed him in places he couldn\'t talk about - though it did make him a little flirty and cheeky, asking what she wore to bed and if she missed having someone beside her as much as he did.

After the opera (and a few phone calls), he took her to an art gallery exhibit and to the ballet the week after.  He found himself thinking of her numerous times each night and surprised himself when he sacrificed a night with Ash and Carly to take Jenna to a baseball game.  Only at the end of the night, when he saw her to her door and farewelled her with a chaste kiss did he think about what sort of action he could have been getting at that moment.  Oddly, it didn\'t upset him and he found he rather liked the comfort of their friendship over the emptier sex he had with his other companions, for it had more meaning.

About three months after their first dinner and museum date, Kerr took Jenna out again - not to Echelon this time, but to an Italian restaurant that had next to no reputation but it did boast cosy tables and Jenna approved of the menu once she\'d eaten.  After dinner, he again took her back to his place, to show off some antiques he\'d procured recently - an unusual Burr Walnut kidney shaped desk, a pair of nineteenth century slipper chairs on ceramic castors and four William IV mahogany hall chairs - but this time there was a difference.  They weren\'t at his apartment, they would be delivered to his Scottish castle in a few nights\' time, and he was showing her them on his computer.

Sitting beside her, at his desk in his study, her chair flush against his as she dutifully peered at his laptop screen and listened to him describe the process by which he\'d procured them, he finished with a question she likely hadn\'t expected - and one that had his own body filled with an unusual amount of trepidation and excitement.

"I was wondering," he said airily, sitting back slightly from the screen and swivelling to face her, his knee pressing against hers, "if you\'d be interested in coming to see them with me in reality, when I go to take possession of them - and place them, of course - in three nights\' time?"  She knew about his castle, about most of his properties, but they hadn\'t been involved discussions between them.  Goodness knew how, but they hardly ever seemed to run out of things to talk about, yet it always felt like they hadn\'t touched any topic in depth (except, perhaps, the time around him being a new vampire and how her training was going).

[Trillian]

Everything had been a whirlwind of romantic nights out and cosy phone calls in.  In spite of her not wanting to fall for him, she had, and hard.  Even though he seemed interested in her, he had yet to indicate to her that her feelings were shared.  True, she hadn\'t let him know that she was likely going to be putty in his hands, and she wasn\'t going to let him know because it was hardly how she went about things, but she\'d expected him to make a move on her before now.  Still, their friendship had grown, his words and hands would hint to her that he wanted more, and she found herself daydreaming about him more than she had any other man who\'d been close to her in her life.  She felt school-girlish around him (though was too sensible to act it) every time a lingering look passed between them, or if his arm wrapped around her waist, or when he took her hand to lead her somewhere.

The phone conversations had made her far more candid with him, knowing when he was flirting with her and responding in kind, though never crossing into the extremity of being obvious or vulgar.  Theirs wasn\'t the heated kind of flirting, though she felt warmed by it and more often than not those conversations would lead into dreams where she was a great deal less tethered to her values and he would always realise it and act on it.  Such dreams had only heightened her awareness of him, but she also kept them to herself, and likely would only divulge their existence if ever a sexual scenario become reality between them.

When he turned to her, she had a smile for him, which froze on her face while her eyes widened ever so slightly as she realised the true meaning behind his words.  She knew those pieces were going to Scotland, to be placed in his castle estate there, and he was asking her to make the trip with him.  She doubted (well, she hoped) that they wouldn\'t only stay one night and fly back the next, and her stomach flip-flopped with excitement (not that her outward appearance gave too much away, though she could feel her smile broadening) as she gave her answer.

"That would be lovely."  A pause, and then, "How much time off should I request from work?"  She studied his face even as she asked, wondering if he\'d been planning asking her for a week away, to see if she could recognise any prepared responses or if it was a spontaneous decision to take her.

[Existentially Odd]

He grinned mischievously at her and gave a little laugh, his eyes twinkling at the thought she\'d agreed to fly away with him.  "How much time do you think they\'d give you?" he asked playfully - but he was completely serious.  He didn\'t know what he could get off but he didn\'t plan on asking, he planned on telling and letting the cards fall where they would.

Surely the place wouldn\'t fall apart without him? It wasn\'t like they\'d fire him, either.

[Trillian]

She laughed softly.

"They\'ve been hinting that I should take holidays all year now, considering I haven\'t bothered for the past two.  I think they\'d be happy to throw many weeks my way.  There\'s no exhibitions coming up, and the curator can extend duties throughout the staff to look after my department - but there\'s not much to do this time of year.  It\'s all quiet."

Her hand had lowered to her knee at the start of her dialogue, and somehow it had finished on his at the end of it.  She gave his leg a pat once she was aware of her hand, and then pulled away.

[Existentially Odd]

"Then we should make it worth our while," he told her decisively, his hand instinctively chasing after hers when it left his knee and grasping it, resting between their legs now.

"A fortnight?  I can show you everything of the castle in Scotland and maybe even do a little touring through the U.K. in that time - I assume you\'ve been there before?" he enquired, raising his eyebrows.  His flippant plans would alter if she hadn\'t.

[Trillian]

"Yes, I have," she said, her heart rate rising slightly at his touch.  Every time such a thing happened, she wondered if he could sense it or not.  If so, he seemed to ignore it; perhaps he was being gentlemanly, perhaps he wasn\'t going to advance on her further. Scotland would let her know either way, she was sure.

She was keeping her responses to a minimum, feeling like he was about to tell her something.  She\'d learned to read him quite well in all the time they\'d spent together.  When he had something to say, there was a look about him, and she knew his face well - growing quite fond of it.  She thought he would tell her about where he would take her in Scotland.

[Existentially Odd]

"Good," he breathed the word through a smile, unaware that he was so transparent to her that she knew he was going to tell her something - he wasn\'t even sure he was going to tell her until she\'d agreed, and even then he felt it was a bad idea.  But it was something he\'d been dancing around for a while now and it was likely some of his staff might say something when he turned up with Jenna, rather than Ben.

At the thought of his fledgling, he glanced automatically at his desk, where there was still a photo of the two of them, faces pressed cheek to cheek and smiles broad as they posed for their obligatory tourist shot in front of the night-lit Eiffel Tower.  Unfortunately, the Frenchman they\'d asked to take the shot had zoomed in on their faces and only one light and a bit of steel was visible over Ben\'s left shoulder - he\'d probably thought he was funny, stuffing up a tourist shot like that, because he was asked to do it so often.  Thing was, it was still Kerr\'s absolute favourite photograph of he and Ben, their eyes alight with love and adventure, smiles wide and happy - it didn\'t really matter that you couldn\'t see their bodies entwined or the Parisian background.

A slight frown created a line between his brows as he looked back at her and concentrated on phrasing himself correctly.  "It\'s highly unlikely anyone will say anything, but I just wanted to let you know that the last time I was there was about a year ago, when I was still with Ben.  Does... does it bother you that I like men and women?" he queried worriedly, hoping she didn\'t think him disgusting for such a thing but he knew her parents were religious and there was a nagging fear that she might share some views along those lines.

He thought it was about time he addressed such things, since she\'d never asked about his previous relationship but he anticipated that theirs might change when they spent two weeks holidaying together.  Best to get all the cards on the table right now.

[Trillian]

Because Kerr had glanced at the photo before talking about Ben, when he mentioned that his previous relationship had been with someone named Ben she knew that the Ben in question was the young man in the photograph on his desk.  She\'d seen that photo (and others), but hadn\'t known exactly what the relationship between the two of them had been, nor how long ago the photo had been taken.  Now she knew exactly.

"Your being bisexual doesn\'t bother me," she said frankly, looking at him directly so that he wouldn\'t think she was just saying that, or hiding her true feelings.  "You\'ve had a relationship before me, and I\'ve had them before you, it doesn\'t really matter now who they were with."

After the words were out of her mouth and the sentence uttered, she realised that the phrasing implied they were in a relationship now.  There was no point trying to justify herself or try and take it back because Kerr might not even interpret her words that way, merely taking them as she\'d meant them, though she couldn\'t help but feel as though Freud was having the last laugh with her.

[Existentially Odd]

His shoulders slumped as the tension ran out of them at her words and his smile was grateful.  "I\'m very relieved to hear you say that," he told her with a wry laugh, wanting to kiss her but forcing his gaze away from her mouth and back to her eyes.  "Admittedly, there are many worse things I\'ve done in my life that would have you running screaming from me, but that\'s the one I\'ve been avoiding because I just... didn\'t know how to tell you."

He finished with a little laugh, feeling he was rambling because he didn\'t really know where to go from here.  The urge to lean forward and capture her mouth in his was just about overpowering and the hand not holding hers was balled with the effort of resisting.  A flash of how it would be when they went to Europe - of them spending nights together and sleeping separately - came to him and he realised quite suddenly what a stupid position he\'d put himself in.

Certainly, he respected her and had schooled himself into thinking of the two of them as very close friends, but the more she accepted him and spent time with him, the more he was drawn to her.  Everything about her was alluring and they\'d be together non-stop, with no convenient distractions like work to force them apart, he\'d get hungry, she\'d be the closest being to him with her warm skin and tripping heart and beautiful face... God, he\'d go insane!  What the fuck was he thinking?!