Live Without Regrets Pt. 02

He paid the check while she finished off her crème brulee. She smirked at him, though he didn't look. It was kinda sexy just to watch him pay the check. She'd expected it, of course. It was a first date, after all, but it was more that he'd chosen for her. Made sure she had a good meal and a dessert. And now he was handling the check. It wasn't quite the Daddy-princess vibe, but it wasn't far from it. She liked the way he took care of her.

Over the dinner, she'd learned a lot more about him. He'd had a calm and happy youth for the most part. His college days had been nerdy and reserved, as she'd suspected. The only area where he seemed tight-lipped was about his exes, but she hadn't pushed. It wasn't a conversation she'd wanted to get into herself.

He looked up and noticed her face.

"What?" he asked.

She smiled, "I liked the crème brulee. I usually don't. Why'd you choose that for me?"

"Honestly?" he asked.

"Yeah," she said.

"It seemed fanciest."

She giggled.

"I dunno... French name, all those extra E's. Seems like it's designed for someone special."

She put a hand to her chest, "Oh, and I'm someone special?"

He waved a hand over his own face, "Oh, please. You've known you were special for a long time. I meant it's more..." he trailed off.

"You were trying to impress me. It's okay, you can say it," she said, softening her tone.

"I was trying to impress you," he admitted.

"Nice job," she said, with another grin. She brought the light to her eyes. It was a trick she had learned very early. He blushed, utterly ensorcelled.

"How do you do that?" he asked.

"What?"

"It's a thing you do with your face. It's..."

"Unfair?" she asked.

"I was gonna go with devastating," he said.

Her laugh came back. The best way to beat a Daddy-vibe was to overwhelm it with a princess smile. This wasn't her first rodeo.

"For what it's worth, you're doing better than most," she said, trying to give him a break.

"Oh yeah?" he asked.

"Plenty of guys don't make it through dinner. And of the ones who do, there's plenty who have asked about my chest or made some bad joke about my career," she said.

"Like 'first kiss the hand, then kiss the girl'?" he asked.

Her mouth formed a surprised circle, "Oh, no. Tell me you did not watch that godawful movie," she said.

"It's on streaming. And I like you," he said, mock-defensively. "Do you get paid for that?" he asked.

"About seven cents a pop. Don't change the subject," she said, rapidly.

"Which was?"

"What the heck are you doing watching 'The Forger' on streaming?"

"There again, I like you. I liked your work before we met."

She groaned, "So you were the one person that actually saw that," mixing faux-outrage with some playful thanks. "C'mon, what did you think?"

"I thought you made the best of a bad script," he said.

"Artful dodge," she said.

"Made me jealous of Josh Hutcherson," he said.

"Cute boy," she replied, clucking her tongue and looking away into a memory.

His eyebrow went up, but he didn't ask the question. She answered it anyway.

"No. Just coworkers," she said.

"I didn't ask," he said.

"I'm a girl, I can read your mind," she said.

He smiled and rose from his seat. She did the same. She took his arm. She was starting to like how it felt against hers. He led them out.

"So, what's next?" she asked.

"I dunno. What do most guys do?"

"Hmm... the younger guys usually want to go to the club. I think they think that all the dancing is gonna make me want to sleep with them."

"Does that work?" Brandon asked.

"When I was in my early twenties... sometimes. Though the alcohol did most of the work for them," she admitted.

"I'm not much for clubs anyways. What do the other guys do?"

They exited the front door and walked towards the parking lot as she rattled off the list, "Suits and business types like to try to impress me. They get tickets to a Laker game, or take me to a country club. I like basketball, but I've never been to a country club that wasn't shockingly boring," she said.

"Well, I don't have a country club membership... or, you know... nearly enough money to afford one. What do the rest of the guys try?" he asked.

"They try to take me back to their place and fuck me. Or back to my place and fuck me. And that's usually when I ditch them. No subtlety at all," Hayden said.

"Yeah, I'd imagine that gets old fast," Brandon said.

"Very," she said.

He opened the car door for her and she slid in.

"Well, I do want to be different from the other guys," he said.

"Okay. Where are we going?" she asked.

Twenty minutes later, he parked the car. She looked around the old stone building and the trees and hills and was impressed.

"Well... you're definitely not like the other guys," she said.

He walked around to the trunk and opened it, "Have you ever been here before?" he asked.

"Sure. Just, not on a date," she said.

"It's one of my favorite spots," he said.

"Makes sense. You're a space guy."

"Griffith Observatory is the best place in the city for amateur astronomy," he said, taking a telescope and tripod out of his trunk.

Now it was her turn to raise an eyebrow, "So, we aren't going inside?"

He shook his head, "Can't see the stars from in there. I thought I'd give you another tour. You seemed to like the last one." His grin was infectious. She got caught.

"Another tour? What are you showing me this time?" she asked.

"The neighborhood," he said.

Brandon grabbed a blanket from the trunk and handed it to her. "Here. You're gonna freeze if you don't put that on."

She smiled and wrapped the blue blanket over her shoulders and let it drape her.

"You know, most guys are trying to get me out of clothes at this point in the date. Here you are making me put more on."

He sighed, "Again, not trying to be like the other guys."

She followed him over to a grassy spot and watched him set up his tripod and the telescope. The night air was cool, but not too cold. The blanket made her feel safe as much as warm. It was a nice touch. She leaned against a railing and watched him work. His hands moved with practiced precision.

This wasn't for show and it wasn't his first time. She marveled that there was no veneer to him. She just knew that he would have done this for any girl. Her celebrity status counted for nothing right now. She basked in the normality of it all. He didn't want Hayden the celebrity. He just wanted Hayden the girl. She wanted to oblige.

She watched as he swung the scope around, fiddled with a dial and then waved her over.

"Okay," he said, "We'll start with your favorite."

"Saturn?" she said, suddenly much more eager.

"Take a look," he said, gesturing to the eyepiece.

She hurried up and peered inside. Saturn was a white ball with perfect little ears. It looked like a child's drawing of Saturn on a stark, black background. She half thought he'd taped something to the top of the scope.

"Oh, very cool," she said, with an authentic honesty.

"So yeah. Obviously the most beautiful of the planets. Good place to start. It's got the most moons of any of the planets," Brandon said.

"I thought that was Jupiter, the big one," Hayden said.

"It was, at one point, but we keep finding new ones. Little rocks. It's a running tab," Brandon said.

"It's really pretty," Hayden said. She felt Brandon's hand on her back as she peered through the scope.

"Galileo thought so too," he said.

"It's kinda slipping off, here," Hayden said.

"Oh, I can fix that, hang on," Brandon said. She pulled back to let him in. He looked through the scope and adjusted a dial again. "There you go."

She looked again and Saturn was back in the center. "Why did it move?" she asked.

"It's actually the Earth rotating. Saturn is moving in its orbit, but comparatively, we're rotating pretty fast. So as the Earth turns, Saturn, and everything else, slides around in the sky. The big scopes have motors to track it, but this is just my little reflector, so I have to do it manually," he said.

"Wow, so, that's really us moving, isn't it?" she said, watching the image slide again.

"Slow but steady. It's everything right there, isn't it? The Earth, the stars, time. It's all kind of right there. You can feel it turning under your feet."

She stood back and nodded, "That's really cool. Show me another one."

He smiled and went back to the telescope. She watched as he swung it to another part of the sky and then stood back. She took her spot at the eyepiece and peered in.

"What am I looking at now?" she asked.

"This is Uranus," he said.

She pulled back, looked at him and smirked, "Uranus? Really?"

"You're an adult. You don't have to make the joke," he said, nodding back to the scope.

"Okay, okay, what am I looking at?" she said.

"Okay, do you see that whitish-gray dot near the bottom left edge?" he asked.

"Yeah, it's hard to make out, but I can see something," she said.

"That's Miranda," he said.

"What's Miranda's story?" she asked, still looking into the scope.

"Oh, it's the most interesting place in the whole solar system," he said. His tone made it sound like he was talking about an old friend, "Miranda started out like most of the other moons. A rock with some ice around it. But something happened. It got hit by a bigger rock. Something absolutely shattered it into a million pieces. And for eons, those pieces formed a ring. Just a trail of rock and ice and dust that seemed doomed to be nothing but gravel. But, over time, the moon started to put itself together again. Only this time, instead of a nice, smooth icy surface under a ball of rock, it formed something far more interesting. Bits of rock jutted out at weird angles. Ice stuck in the middle tried to get back out. You got left with huge canyons, upside down mountains. Geology like nowhere else in the universe. Unique and beautiful and stark."

She stood back and looked at him, "And it would never have been so interesting if it hadn't been broken first."

He nodded.

Without quite knowing that she was doing it, she squared herself and took three steps towards him. Her eyes were level with his chin, so she had to reach up to the back of his head. In a slow flash, she pulled him in for a kiss.

Like the boy, it was deep and full of promise. It had power and tenderness and she drunk him in like an oasis. She felt his hands grip her and hold on tight, eager to make the moment last. She tasted his tongue and breathed in his scent. The faint scruff of his stubble that he'd tried so hard to contain. The softness of his lips. The firmness of his fingers. It lasted forever and just for a moment.

She pulled her mouth back and watched his eyes dance in the starlight. No regrets. Absolutely no regrets.

She held his hand and watched as he pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it. She got the meaning without him needing to say a thing.

She matched his smile with one of her own and took the question out of the space between them, "I think I'd like to go to your place."

The apologies he'd made on the way over had been more than was necessary. She'd expected a bit of a mess. He was a boy, after all. But the apartment wasn't really dirty or messy, just a little cluttered. And that was mostly piles of books. There seemed to be a stack next to every table and chair. Nothing that clogged up the walkways, just a pile here and a pile there.

The scent of old books was really what she got when she took a deep breath. She looked around. Like most boy-places it was utilitarian. A big TV like every guy seemed to prefer. Some video game systems she didn't really know. The kitchen was Spartan, but serviceable. He clearly could cook, but usually didn't. She spotted a dog dish and water bowl in the corner of the kitchen and got curious.

"You didn't tell me you have a dog," she said, looking around, waiting for a four-legged companion to come rushing in.

"Oh, um... I don't exactly. Not entirely at least. Tom, down the hall, he has a golden retriever. Tom's pretty old and lately he's been back and forth in the hospital. When he's there, Rusty comes over here. And I take Rusty to the park on the weekends. But Rusty is really Tom's dog. I just help out when I can."

She nodded and tried not to get emotional about this boy helping an old man and his dog. She tried to imagine an answer that could have hit her harder, but came up empty.

"Would you want the dime tour?" he asked.

She nodded, looking around this living room. She spotted a beachscape on one wall and remembered his Carolina origins. There were a couple of photographs that she assumed were of him and his mother. Before she could get into that, he led her into a room that, in any other apartment would have been a proper bedroom. But this one was lined with bookshelves.

He stood in the center, gesturing to the walls, "Library. I used to keep DVDs in here too, but the books kind of drove them out. That shelf is history, that one there are science fiction. I keep books on engineering over here. Classics are on that shelf."

She looked around, pulled a tome off his classics shelf and held it up, "Big fan of the Odyssey?"

"I like that Odysseus took the time to think things through," Brandon said.

She smirked, "Didn't he also fuck like half of Greece on his way back home?"

"Nobody's perfect," he shrugged, not taking the bait.

She smiled and put the book down. "Can you show me the bathroom?"

He nodded and gestured for her to follow. The next room was the master bedroom. She noted that it was clean. A painting of a bridge, blue sheets, nothing too crazy. What you'd expect from a guy with his head on his shoulders who was past his college years. He pointed her to the bathroom door and she stepped through and shut it behind her.

The bathroom was clean-ish. He probably wasn't expecting a visitor tonight, but he wasn't messy. She looked around and didn't see anything that would be a dealbreaker. She started the water to put some noise in the air, then went straight for the medicine cabinet.

It was almost disappointing. She'd been looking for something that would break this little crush that was forming. She could sense feelings starting to creep in and she would have preferred to keep a little distance. Brandon was stable, kind, even-tempered, and a little kinky. He kept checking boxes. She needed a flaw. Beyond the weight and the glasses and the general nerdy demeanor. On anyone else, that would have been enough, but for some reason it wasn't a problem on this guy.

The medicine cabinet was as generic as the rest of the bathroom. No AXE body spray. No douchey colognes. No STD meds. She was running out of excuses.

She checked her hair in the mirror and ran through a gauntlet of expressions. She found the face that she was looking for and nodded.

"Okay, final exam, buddy boy. Best of luck."

She shrugged off the shoulder straps of her dress and let it pool at her feet. She looked at herself in the mirror, twisted a bit, checking for flaws. She found none. The black bra and panty set was a special from Fredericks. It was her go-to first date lingerie. The lace trim took it from sexy to glamorous. The contrast to her skin made the whole thing pop. And with the three-inch stillettos, she was basically a deadly weapon. She made a point not to wear it with any guy over forty on the off chance she caused a heart attack.

This little nerd wouldn't know what hit him.

She opened the door and put a hand on the doorframe, lengthening her taut frame. Brandon stood at the side of the bed. She watched his jaw drop.

"I forgot to pack pajamas for this little sleepover. You okay if I wear this to bed?" she asked.

He nodded, which was a testament to his ability to still think. She could sense him taking a moment to drink it all in. Then he moved.

His hands were strong. She hadn't noticed that before. He gripped her cheeks and pulled her in for a deep kiss. He kissed her with a fiery passion. She felt him lift her up, taking away his height advantage. She giggled, gleefully, as her feet came off the floor. Her stillettos dangled a few inches in the air before he tossed her, like a ragdoll, onto the bed.

She landed with a joyful squeal and a grin and remembered how much she liked being manhandled. She wasn't sure what his next move was. He surprised her by sinking to his knees between her thighs.

She felt his fingers run up her legs and she stared at the ceiling for a second. He was taking care of her now. This wasn't even sex, it was payment. She'd blown him and now he was returning the favor. She had offered him everything, but he wanted to be even before he took anything more. A good man pays his debts and if she knew nothing else about him, she knew he was a good man.

She felt the black silk rolling off her thighs and let her body relax. This was the good part. He was gentle. She'd dated men who would have pawed at her before trying to get theirs, or who would have tried to rip her clothes off just to show their power. Brandon didn't need to. Men who are truly strong never have to demonstrate it.

His hands were slow and his tongue was warm. The combination made her very happy as she opened her thighs to him. She felt him take a tour of her labia and mons. He kissed and licked and she felt herself start to swirl. That ball of energy inside her began to gather, collecting electric bits of sex and sensation as she felt him explore her folds with his tongue.

She gave a contented purr and unhooked her bra. It wasn't the most comfortable thing and he wasn't really looking now anyway. She tossed it over his back and heard it hit the floor behind him. She rubbed her chest and sighed as he found a lovely little spot and licked it like a pro. She sank into the warm sheets of his bed and let him take care of her.

Her hips rose to meet his mouth when he put his tongue inside her. This was no bumbling amateur. He worked her pussy with the skill of a seasoned player. She'd had plenty of college boys who thought they knew their way around a woman's core, but it took time and experience to do this right. Brandon had plenty of both.

Her first orgasm came more suddenly than she'd expected. It hit her like a wave, crashing over her body as he put two fingers inside her. The sudden jolt to her g-spot put her into a hard arch and she felt her toes curl. Her left stilletto fell off and landed with a dull thud on the carpet. She couldn't have cared less in that moment. She felt him pushing past her clench and starting in on her next orgasm.

The starry-eyed bliss of his mouth put her into a divine state. She lost track of things. Things like where her panties ended up, or how many orgasms she'd had, or how much time had passed. Those were details that no longer mattered. What mattered were smaller things. The blade of his tongue in just the right spot. The way his hair felt crispy under her fingers. The way she could tug and pull it to get his mouth in the perfect position. The way his bare back felt when she ran her ankles over his skin. She didn't remember his shirt coming off, but misdirection was the key to magic.

His tongue was soft, but so was her clit. She wanted more. His debt was long paid and she needed a new sensation. She needed that connection that could only be had in one way.

With all her strength she pulled his hair and he came up for air. She felt her body crave his tongue again, but fought the urge to drive him back into her center. She needed him spiritually now. It was time.

"I want you inside of me," she said, through a breathy haze of pleasure.

She felt him shift above her and soon his eyes were in line with hers. Strong arms cupped her back, bringing her off the bed a bit. She reached down and felt him swell. He was wrapped and she raised an eyebrow in surprise. She was glad she hadn't had to ask. It was a pleasant surprise, but in line with his accommodating manner.