by C. M. Lally
“I don’t want any awkwardness between us since we have to work so closely together. I’ve thought about our kiss and our conversations since last night, and it all boils down to curiosity on top of the forest rescue mission you had to endure to save my friends and me. I think you’re happy I didn’t die, and we’ll call the kiss a delayed ‘happy-to-be-alive impulsive moment’ between us. How does that sound?”
I stand, and she backs up a few steps to give me room, but she doesn’t back down or turn away. “You did all that thinking, and that’s what you concluded?” She nods her head in agreement. Those big green eyes widen as I walk toward her. She rolls her shoulders back and stands taller to face me. “I could lie and say I never wanted to kiss you, but I’m not a liar. Your lips have been on my mind since I heard them whisper my name in a dream. My fingers have traced your spine down to where it met the fabric of your backless red number...and I...”
Her neck elongates as she swallows hard from my words. My fingers reach out and trace the skin of her arms down to her elbows as goosebumps prickle her skin from my touch. I lean in and whisper into her ear, “I’m going for a hot and sweaty run on the beach. Are you coming with me?” She shivers as my hot breath heats her earlobe. I kiss her in that sensitive spot women have just behind their ear, and her knees buckle as she grabs onto my forearms to steady herself. “Hurry up if you’re coming.” I head downstairs to fill my water bottle and wait for her.
It’s already humid, and I know it’s going to keep climbing today. I step outside onto the porch and stretch my legs on the front steps. Sweat is already beading on my forehead. I wonder how far it is to the beach. The screen door swings open and she thunders down the steps in a full run. She turns to me running in place backward, “You coming?” She giggles as she turns back around and runs full throttle down the road. Her long stride is kicking up dust and leaving me behind.
I see how it is. I’m gonna have to chase her. This woman is gonna challenge me— in more ways than one. Game on.
Chapter Twelve - Jade
ON MY WAY BACK FROM the beach, I spot Kol chatting with one of the neighbors, so I slow my run to a walk. She’s an elderly lady, and from the smile on her face, I can tell he’s charmed her already.
Her coffee cup is sitting on the table resting next to her newspaper. The house looks like it’s seen its better days, but the yard is glorious with trimmed grass, planters of brightly-colored flowers, and rose bushes climbing on a trellis. The porch is leaning to the left badly. Any minute now a slight breeze could blow it over. It‘s obviously experienced years of near-misses with a few hurricanes.
She finishes giving him directions to the better market for food supplies instead of the chain grocery store, as I walk by. She nods and smiles at me in a neighborly gesture.
“I’ve got to go now, Miss Crawford. My ride's here.” He throws his thumb in the air pointing backward at me. “I’ll be back in the morning to work on this porch. This isn’t safe for you. I can’t promise much, but I’ll do something to make it better.”
“Boy, she doesn’t look like no ride to me. You have to finesse a lady with your best sweet words to gain her loyalty.” She winks at me. At least someone is on my side here.
“So that’s what I’ve been doing wrong this whole time. Thank you, Miss Crawford.” He bows to her and gives her a smile so big, his dimples appear, and his eyes crinkle.
She laughs and shoos him in my direction. “Be sweet now,” she teases him pointing her index finger sternly at him before she turns and sits. She sips her coffee and waves goodbye to us both.
We both waive in return as we turn down Rose Petal Lane. “Found a friend, huh?” I hold my hand over my eyes to block the sun while I look up at him. His chocolate brown eyes look directly into mine. There’s a hint of something there that I can’t quite name, but that same crinkly-eyed smile spreads across his face.
“Yes. She’s a sweet lady. She was going to get her newspaper when I ran past, and I watched her almost trip on a loose board when stepping off the porch. I ran to help her, and make sure she was okay. That porch is a nightmare. I’m gonna fix it for her,” he says matter-of-factly.
Who is this man outside of the gym? He smiles and laughs. He helps old ladies in distress. He burns my insides to a crisp with hot kisses in the moonlight.
“Are you sure you have time for that in the few days we have here? You’re supposed to be resting and prepping for your fight.”
“Yeah, I would need a building permit to knock the whole damn thing down, which is what it needs, but I can nail or replace the boards that lead to the front walk. It’s not a big deal.” His hand waves in the air dismissing the size of the task.
“You’re a Prince to her, charging in and saving a damsel in distress. Correct me if I am wrong, but is there a nice guy under all that quiet, stern exterior?”
“I’m not a Prince, far from it.” He kicks a rock down the road a few feet in front of him, and then bends over and picks it up as we pass. “I know what it’s like to have needs and wants and no one to take care of them for you.” He tosses the rock to the edge of the road as we step onto the sidewalk.
He stands to the side and lets me walk up the narrow steps first. I take a step, and without thinking, I turn and hug him tightly. I wrap my arms around his neck and squeeze him. His hands grab my hips in a firm hold. “I’m not letting go until you hug me back.” Slowly his arms snake around my waist while his hot hands scorch the skin on my back. His thumbs gently glide back and forth across the bare skin of my sides, tickling me.
A deep laugh rumbles up from my belly. I try to wiggle out of his hold, but he clenches me tighter to him. “What was that for?” The teasing tone in his voice is undeniable. “Or I’m not letting you go until you tell me why you hugged me...or until you break free from my hold. Your choice.”
His fingers dig deep into my armpits and start tickling me harder. He reverses back into the yard as I gyrate in his arms trying desperately to break free.
I soft kick at him leveraging my foothold on his thighs to twist sideways, but he has way too tight of a hold on me. My bladder is telling me to break loose and run, but I’m laughing so hard, tears are falling from my face onto his chest. My breath comes in heavy gasps of air, causing my lungs to burn as I laugh uncontrollably. “C’mon, Wiggle Worm. Break free.” He jostles me for a better grip but trips over something in the yard, and we both fall to the ground.
“Oh shit, that hurt.” I roll onto my side and sit up, cupping my elbow. There’s a nice-sized dent in the earth where we landed sideways on my elbow. I pull bits and pieces of caked dirt from the scrape on it.
“Are you alright?” He takes my elbow in his hands and gently wipes the remaining dirt from it. “I’m so sorry about that.” He brings my elbow to his lips and kisses it. His brown eyes catch mine watching him, and he smiles softly. Heat from the inside burns through my body setting me on fire.
His hand slides through my falling ponytail and cups the back of my neck, pulling me into him. Our lips touch and a shiver races through me to my sex. I lean back, taking him with me, kissing him as we fall back to lie on the grass. My lips open further to him, coaxing his tongue deeper into a dance with mine. I need to taste him.
My hands glide up his arms and grip his biceps, holding him to me. His lips break from mine when a horn honks on the main road. We lie flat on our backs watching birds soar overhead when both of our stomachs growl. “Are you as hungry as I am?”
“Possibly, but you’re the one that got a full run in today, so maybe not.”
My stomach gurgles and makes a long, drawn-out whining noise.
“Yeah, let’s go eat. I can’t have you wasting away. We’ll finish this later.” A rush of heat turns my cheeks pink with that thought. He jumps up and holds his hand out to pull me up by my non-injured arm. I start to walk up the porch steps when he stops me.
“Hey, wait. You’ve got something on you.” My whole body goes rigid praying it’s not a b
ug, but I won’t scream like a child in front of him. Instead, I mentally chant, ’Get it off, get it off, get it off’ while dried leaves fall to the ground from him brushing off my butt.
“Thank you.” I turn and walk to the door as graceful as possible, chewing my lip and melting into a puddle of bones with each step. I can still feel his hands on my ass.
HE’S MAKING ME DINNER. I come out of the bathroom from a long bath to a note stuck on the door that dinner would be ready in thirty minutes and I was to enjoy something that a big fat arrow was pointing to. My eyes follow the arrow to the vanity that holds a glass of red wine. I know I just got out of a warm bath, but the thought of him making me dinner and bringing me a glass of wine to enjoy warms my heart.
I didn’t even hear him climb the loft steps. He’s stealth like that, and very surprising. I thought I was beginning to figure out the mystery of him, but he goes and makes this sweet gesture. Maybe I should dress nicely for dinner instead of the cut-off shorts and tank top I was planning on wearing.
Hmmm. I throw open my suitcase and see that I didn’t bring anything nice to wear. The only dress I bought is an orange T-shirt dress, but I usually sleep in it. Ha, not tonight. It’s finally going to be worn like it was meant to be.
I unroll it and shake it, hand-smoothing the wrinkles out of it as I flatten it across the bed.
I pull out my brown sandals, makeup bag, and other girlish delights to make me feel pretty, sipping my red wine as I get ready for dinner. More than half-way through my wine, I start to feel silly. I’m standing in my ivory-lace bra with matching high-waisted panties, staring at myself in the long, Cheval mirror.
I turn a few times taking in the scars on my body. The long, white jagged gash running down my right thigh to my knee is from trying to show David Williams that I could hang with the boys by attempting my first ‘shuvit’ on a skateboard. Needless to say, that didn’t go my way. The round, puckered scar on my foot is from trying to go down the slicky-slide at Burger Chef on my knees showing off in front of Jayson Stubbs. My fingers run over the strawberry rash I got today falling as he tickled me and we fell. It’s scabbed over and starting to harden, but it still burns like a bitch when my elbow flexes and pulls on it.
Males...when am I ever going to learn my lessons come with a scar? Exactly what am I getting all dolled up for?
I take a long, final drink of my wine savoring its sweetness on my tongue.
The thought of tonight's dinner in a one-room rustic cabin with a man that kisses like the heat of a thousand candles burning through me makes the butterflies dance in my belly.
‘We’ll finish this later.’ His earlier statement has run a few laps inside my brain today. Just thinking about him now makes me shiver with anticipation.
Yeah, that’s precisely what I’m getting all dolled up for.
I add a little vanilla and cinnamon color to my eyelids to match my dress and plump my lashes with some maximum volume mascara. A light touch of clear lip gloss finishes off my ‘desperately trying but not trying’ look. I twist my towel-dried hair into a messy fishtail braid and let it hang over my shoulder.
I pause and take a long look at my finished self in the mirror.
Alright, girl. Keep it real. No faking it— Be open. Be honest. Be confident.
I open the bedroom door to the smell of chocolate, onions, garlic and lemons wafting up the stairs. I peek over the banister into the kitchen to see pasta boiling in a pan. Brownies are cooling on the counter. He bends over and pulls a pan of bread from the oven, sliding it onto the cooling rack next to the brownies. Wow. He’s gone to a lot of trouble for dinner. He turns around, removing the oven mitts from his hands, and notices me descending the final steps.
“Please take a seat. It’s ready. I need to strain the pasta.” He takes my empty wine glass from my hand and refills it, placing it on the table in front of me. He pours himself a glass and takes a sip before going back into the kitchen. “Mmm, that’s good.”
I watch the muscles of his back bunch and move under this shirt as he strains the pasta from the water. He moves over to the cooling rack and grabs the bread, slicing it into thick chunks before placing it on a plate. He walks toward me sliding it onto the side of the table between our chairs.
“I hope you’re hungry,” he smiles and takes my plate from me, ladling a heaping serving of noodles onto the plate and covering it with the sauce from the pan. He looks relaxed and at home in the kitchen. No wonder he and his brother own a restaurant. I follow him around the kitchen as he grabs the butter and the cheese from the fridge. This is his secret hobby; another insight into the world of The Enigma.
“I wasn’t hungry until I read your note and now I’m famished after smelling it. You’ve outdone yourself.”
“Nah, this is an easy recipe. It’s Shawn’s favorite to cook, and so I’ve watched him make it a few hundred times. I’ve picked up a few culinary skills over the years, out of necessity. A broke, single man has to eat.”
“Yeah, well, don’t sell yourself short on those skills. The proverb ‘...Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for a lifetime’ is a good saying and all, but what if that man, or woman, doesn’t know how to prepare or cook the fish and doesn’t like sushi. He’s just got a dead fish and a grumbling belly.”
“That’s actually a good point. I never thought of that.” He carries two steaming plates of hot angel hair pasta tossed in a lemon, garlic sauce with clams to the table and places one in front of me while he seats himself with the other. It looks and smells fantastic.
“Before you judge me on presentation and taste, I’d like to first point out that I know red wine doesn’t go with a cream sauce pasta dish, but I don’t like white wine, and so I always go with red. This is an Italian Chianti. I hope you like it.” He picks up his wine glass and holds it in the air for a toast.
“May you swear, steal, lie and drink.
When you swear, swear to be faithful to your lover.
When you steal, steal away my heart.
When you lie, lie in the arms of the one you love.
And when you drink, always drink with me.”
We clink glasses, and each takes a sip. His laughing eyes burn into me over the rim of his drink.
“I’ve never heard that toast before. I like it,” I admit.
I start twirling the pasta around my fork, releasing the smell of garlic into the air around us. He waits with a curious, raised eyebrow and bated breath while I take my first bite. My eyelids flutter closed when the cream sauce hits my taste buds.
“It’s delicious,” I say with a mouthful of noodles. My tongue reaches out and swipes up the little bit of sauce from my lips the fork left. If pasta is supposed to taste like this, I’ll eat carbs every damn day.
“Thank you. I don’t have much in my skill set, but I’m proud of this.” He butters a chunk of bread and tears into it, looking down proudly at his meal in front of him.
“That’s not true. You have strength and passion, an intelligent mind, a quiet temper, and a kind heart. That’s all humans need.”
He tilts his head and sits back in this chair, chewing his food quietly while staring at me. Those chocolate brown eyes take in every aspect of my face. He smiles and shakes his head before digging back in for another bite. I’d love to know what he’s thinking right now.
And here sits a humble man in front of me. Do his layers never end?
Chapter Thirteen - Kol
I LEAN MY CHAIR BACK on its hind two legs and rake my eyes up the backside of her long, fucking legs while she washes the dishes. Her calves are long, lean and flawless. She’s got this heart-shaped mole that is hiding on the other side of the hem of her dress. When she moves side-to-side rinsing off a plate and setting it in the dish rack, it peeps out and teases me to touch it. It’s begging me to make a move. All in good time, Mr. Mole, all in good time.
We’re both on our third glass of wine, and I know I’m feeling it because there’s nothing more I want at the moment tha
n to run my tongue up her leg to what’s under that hem. I want to kiss every inch of her skin, starting and ending at that mole.
She’s had me twisted sideways since she came to dinner in that red, backless outfit. My dick’s been in perpetual state of hard since I first saw her tanned bare skin and noticed she wasn’t wearing a bra. I spent the rest of the night wondering if the lace on the front was hiding hard nipples that were begging to be touched and sucked.
I’m still wondering.
I finish off my wine in one long drink watching her wash the dinner plates. At some point, she removed her sandals when she saw that I was barefoot, and now I’m mesmerized by the high arch in her left foot. It leads to a well-pedicured, purple toenail that I want to run my hands over. She bends and leans forward to grab the sprayer, and I can’t wait anymore. I have to touch her.
Fuck it. It’s time.
I walk into the kitchen and stand behind her, placing my hands on the counter on each side of her, locking her in place. I watch her shiver when her ass bumps my thigh.
She stands motionless while I lean into her ear, “Jade, may I touch you?”
After a long stretch of excruciating silence, her braid bobs up and down giving me permission, but I want more.
“Jade, may I touch you wherever I want?”
She swallows hard and drops the plate she was washing back into the soapy water. I move her braid to her left shoulder exposing her neck and earlobe. My lips find that soft spot behind her ear again, knowing it makes her squirm. She nods her head, finally giving me the full permission I seek.
I lean my whole body into her backside, pressing her hips into the farm sink. Her wet hands reach out and grip the counter edging, steadying her. I squat low and tease the back of her legs with my fingers— slowly, softly, and steadily tracing her skin with my fingertips. She shifts her weight back and forth from one leg to another, squirming under my touch. “I told you we would finish what we started later. Now is later.”