Essence of Time Read Online Free PDF

the beautiful woman across the room, “the fuck away from me.” He remembered nothing else from the night.

Chapter Three
     
    Three Months Later
    The chef did a complex dance around the huge kitchen, while Rob tried hard not to panic. He’d made a leap that spring, sought out and found a job at a popular, upscale restaurant for the summer instead of taking the lab job he’d had lined up. Jack had gone home to Ann Arbor for his usual summer of manual labor with his father’s building company. Bitching to high heaven with every phone call and email, but always returning with a well-padded bank account for his efforts.  He and Suzanne had eased back into their friendship state, and Jack claimed he’d been hands off, and would remain so, for both their sakes.
    The night before Jack had hit the road south they’d shared a joint and a case of beer on their miniscule balcony, tossing empties down onto the crappy, dead lawn. To his credit, Jack hadn’t brought up the cancer since the trip north.  He had all the information he required, Rob supposed. But their easy camaraderie felt changed somehow and he wasn’t willing to explore the reasons why. He had extended the lease on their dump of an apartment and stayed, enjoying the quiet calm of a college town in the summer months.
    That, and Christine.
    He smiled to himself, letting the rawness of his cock remind him of the strange state in which he existed. She’d appeared at his door the day after Jack left, with a suitcase, a laundry basket, and a smile that set his heart on fire. She’d tossed everything down and launched herself into his arms. They had done little but eat and fuck since.
    “You! New boy, get your ass over here,” Rob snapped his attention back, erasing the previous night’s session and the ensuing discussion from his brain. Soon, he was up to his elbows in foie gras and then screwing up batch after batch of a lemon reduction sauce. He loved it.
     
    ****
     
    One night, about halfway into the steamy Michigan summer, it happened.  He sat on the small balcony, listening to the summer-quiet college town sleep, sipping a beer, trying with everything he had not to run back inside and declare his love for the woman who’d fallen into his life. He sensed innately that doing so would get him exactly nowhere with her. She was simultaneously under his skin and a million miles away.
    “Hey,” he jumped when a hand landed on his shoulder. She slid onto his lap, kissing him in that way that made him horny, possessive and terrified all at once.  The night sounds enveloped them, and Rob let his brain slip away from the constant background thoughts of “limited time” and “remission” which haunted him, and just enjoyed her. She sighed and put her head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry.”
    He kissed her hair. “For what? For rocking my world for the last month and a half? For making me cook for you so I can practice?”
                She giggled and snuggled deeper into his arms. Rob had never felt more complete. But he knew, like all the good things in his life, this too was on loan, soon to be taken from him. Still, he couldn't have predicted her next words.
                “I got the call.” She kept her voice low. “I’m leaving in a week.”
                “Of course you are.” Rob tried to eliminate the anger from his tone. She’d been waiting to hear from the modeling agency for weeks. He'd had no doubt the call would come. He cupped the back of her neck, pulled her face close to his. “I love you.”
                “No. You just love what I’ve taught you.”  His cock hardened immediately at the sound of her gravelly, teasing tone. She had been instrumental in showing him the errors of his ways with the female anatomy. Pulling no punches about what he kept doing wrong. Their sessions left him amazed, drained, and on the constant edge of a hair-trigger orgasm. She bit his lower lip, sucked it into