by Lori Wilde
“A case of ‘I got everything I’ve ever wanted and I’m still not happy’?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t trade the life I’ve had for anything, but it’s not the summit people think it is.”
“See, you have changed. The seventeen-year-old Josh would have said you are out of your freaking mind.”
“Don’t forget that seventeen-year-old Josh drove off and left you in his rearview mirror.”
Her heart filled up her chest, taking every spare inch of room, leaving her a little dizzy. They stared at each other for the length of time it took her swelling heart to beat once, twice, three times.
Josh cleared his throat and drew an envelop from his back pocket. “I got something for you.”
“That’s not a Valentine’s Day card, is it?”
“Absolutely not.”
She felt at once relieved and slightly sick in her stomach. “Oh, good. That’s great. What is it?”
“Open it up.”
A vein at her temple ticked hot as she slid her finger underneath the flap of the envelope and removed the card. It was handmade from black construction paper and decorated with a white upside down heart on the front. The lettering was in red fingernail polish.
Because we both hate all that phenethylamine Valentine’s Day stuff . . .
“It’s stupid. Give it back.” He grabbed for it.
She held it behind her. “No, you gave it to me, it’s mine.”
He reached around her, his body brushing up against hers. Instant tingles poked her nerve endings like cactus spines and she jumped back. “Don’t open it.”
She opened up the card to find a strip of vacuum-sealed bacon had been taped there.
Here’s some meat.
She looked up at Josh. His forehead was wrinkled and he was leaning forward, both hands shoved into his pockets. Aww. He was anxious about her reaction.
“I just realized the line about meat makes me sound like a total tool. I didn’t mean it that way. I was trying to think of something that was the opposite of chocolate, and bacon came to mind, clearly I did not fully think this through.”
“You thought I would be offended by a meat reference?” Slowly, she dropped her gaze to his crotch. The man had a full-on erection. Oh, my. She slung her gaze back to his face.
He hitched his fingers through his belt loops. “You’re not?”
“It’s hysterical. The perfect Valentine’s Day card for Valentine’s haters the world over. Thank you.”
“Glad you like it.” His gaze locked on her lips, and she just knew he was about to kiss her again and she was going to let him.
The lights flickered. Outside, the wind howled. The moment was lost.
“We should be getting home too,” he murmured.
“I can’t. I have to set up for the bachelor auction. It’s—”
“If a tornado hits there will be no bachelor auction. It’s not worth risking your life over.”
“What are the odds it will hit here?”
“When it comes to your safety, any odds are too high.”
“Says the daredevil NASCAR driver.”
He touched her shoulder, and her body lit up like a circuit board. “Ses, I’ll get up early, get the boys back here. We’ll have it decorated in an hour. Stop sweating the small stuff.”
“But that’s my job, Josh, to sweat the small stuff.”
“And mine is to make sure you get home safely.”
“Says who?”
“Says me.”
She was about to argue, but he was right. Why give him grief over it?
“Where’d you park?” he asked.
“I didn’t. I walked.”
“Do you ever take a car?”
“I live half a mile from my office,” she said. “Most all the events I plan are on or around the town square. Walking is good exercise.”
“Not in a winter thunderstorm it’s not.”
“Okay, I’ll give you that.”
“C’mon,” he said, and hooked his arm around her waist. “I’ll drive you home.”
HE WAS IN the car.
Alone.
With Sesty.
He hadn’t been here in ten years. His loss.
The confines of his black classic Chevy Camaro smelled like her—a sweet, womanly scent jettisoning him back in time.
She looked so beautiful in the glow of the dashboard light he almost got choked up. Yesterday she’d made it clear in no uncertain terms that she was not interested in starting anything up again, and she had good points against it.
He didn’t give a damn. He wanted her anyway.
And she wanted him too. The kisses they’d shared in Sweetheart Park didn’t lie. What would it take to convince her he was serious about this? About her?
Wind slammed against the car, demanding and relentless. Rain battered the windshield. It was shaping up to be one helluva storm.
Josh gripped the wheel. Eyes on the road. Head in the game. Get her home safely.
“Oh gosh,” she fretted, and bit down on a thumbnail. “I might not be a big fan of Valentine’s Day, but I didn’t want it to end in a real disaster.”
“Don’t borrow trouble,” he soothed, but switched on the radio in search of a weather report.
A stern-voiced weatherman cautioned, “The counties of Hood, Parker, and Erath are under a tornado warning. Please take shelter.”
“All I can think about is that tornado that hit Twilight last year. I hope those kids all got home okay. I don’t think I could live with myself if something happened to them.” She wrung her hands.
Josh reached across the seat, laid a palm on her shoulder. “Breathe. It will be okay.”
“You don’t know that.”
“It’s not a disaster until it’s a disaster. In the meantime it’s just a learning experience.”
“Wisdom gleamed from the track.”
“Yeah.”
“And if it is a disaster?”
“We deal with it when and if it happens. If we spend all our time worrying about what may never come, we don’t ever live fully in the moment.”
“This moment is scary enough,” she said. “I don’t really want to live fully in it.”
He returned his hand to the wheel and pulled into her driveway. “We’re here.”
Just as they stepped from the car, everything stopped.
No wind. No rain. The eerie stillness raised the hairs on the back of his neck.
“Uh-oh,” Sesty whispered at the same time the civil defense sirens went off.
“We’ve got to get into the house.” He grabbed her hand, dragged her toward the front door.
“Wait.” She balked.
“Don’t make me pick you up and carry you, woman,” he growled. “You don’t always have to be in control.”
“Listen to me. I have a storm cellar,” she said. “This way.”
He followed her into the backyard. The streetlights were still on but the sky was completely black. Sesty led the way through her backyard gate and to the underground storm shelter.
The snap of the cellar door cut off the ear-bruising shriek of alarm sirens and splashed them in total darkness. Sesty descended the steps ahead of him, leaving Josh to duck his head to keep from whacking into the low-ceilinged entrance. He ran a hand along the wall, feeling his way down.
The blackness was complete. Not a glimmer of light anywhere.
He heard her stumble, grunt. “You okay?”
“Tripped,” she said.
“You got flashlights or candles stored in here?”
Her voice came back to him, tinny and high. “I was supposed to. I meant to, but I never got around to it.”
“You? Little Miss Organized?” He feigned sounding scanda
lized.
“I’ve only been living here four months,” she said defensively.
“No judgment. Do you have your cell phone on you? We can use that for light. I left mine in my car.”
“Mine’s in my purse. In your car.”
“No worries,” he said. “Tornadoes don’t last long.”
His foot contacted with the bench and his knee brushed against hers. She sucked in her breath and quickly moved her knee. He sank down onto the seat beside her, heard her shifting around in the darkness.
The room was tiny, designed for six people max, and that was only if they were smashed in tight. It was pretty damn cozy with just the two of them, and he couldn’t say he really minded being down here with her, concerns about the storm aside.
The siren’s scream was muffled; it seemed far away, in another land, another time. The roar of the wind rushing above them was far away too. They were in here together. They couldn’t be harmed.
Her hand touched his in the dark; a small, delicate hand; the first hand he’d ever held as a lover, and her warm fingers curled around his palm. He closed his hand around hers, squeezed it gently.
She sighed lightly and rested her head against his shoulder.
Josh felt the moment deep inside him, not just physically, but emotionally and, yeah, damn, he was just going to admit it, spiritually. The expanding energy flooded his body, heated his pores, whooshed through his bloodstream. It fueled his cells, glands, sinew, and bones, zipping and zooming, gathering speed until it crashed with a halting shudder squarely in the middle of his chest.
She was his first love, and he wanted her to be his last, and there was no one else he’d rather be hunkered in a storm shelter with on Valentine’s Day than Sesty.
HIS LIPS FOUND hers, sonar in the darkness.
Hard. His kiss was hard and so was his body.
Their breaths mingled. Warm plus warm equaled blistering. His hands came up to cup her face. Rough calluses stroked the soft skin of her cheeks, and he tilted her head, giving him deeper access.
She inhaled sharply, drawing in his scent, enriching the taste of him on her tongue and spurring a rash of goose bumps breaking out across her chest.
He made a gruff male noise, half grunt, half groan, causing her pulse to dash so fast she grew dizzy. Good thing he was wrapping those muscular biceps around her. Or maybe it wasn’t such a good thing because now any resistance she might have been able to muster was crushed.
All she wanted to do was let go and feel.
This moment. This man. This magnificence.
He drew her into his lap and she didn’t even whimper a protest. What was there to protest? Being here together seemed fated, and she wanted him. Wanted him more than she wanted to breathe.
So let him know.
She raised her hands. She couldn’t see a thing, but she didn’t need to. His body was familiar territory and she’d explored it before.
But as she ran her hands around the back of his neck, searching the provocative terrain, her seeking fingers discovered fresh landmarks—a ridge of a scar at the base of his nape, bulkier muscles bunching beneath her touch, shoulder blades once thin and sharp, now thicker, more solid.
He was changed and the familiar was suddenly foreign.
Her butt was planted across hard, broad thighs and she could feel the strain of denim over his erection. Her fingers played in his hair, ah, something that hadn’t changed, the shape of his head. Here, she knew him.
Lightly, he bit her bottom lip with the nip of his teeth and her whole body went pliant, hot and wet with perspiration and need. Everywhere his fingers touched, her skin burst into little flames.
Her eyes were open but the blackness in the cellar was absolute. She might as well have had her eyes squeezed tightly closed.
He was panting, but so was she. Even so, he kept kissing her, his tongue invading her—hallelujah—aggressively masculine and fully in control. If he drove like he kissed, look out Dale Earnhardt, Jr.
Her nipples turned to pebbles inside her bra and a moan leaked from her lungs.
His arm tightened around her waist, holding her captive, but she was no prisoner, and she wasn’t going anywhere, storm or no storm.
A deep, overwhelming ache lodged between her legs, and she wanted him, oh how she wanted him. But this wasn’t how she’d pictured their reunion. Okay, yes, dammit, ever since he’d rocketed back into town, she’d been fantasizing about this happening in a soft bed with pillows, fresh sheets, and mood music.
She wrenched her mouth from his, broke the kiss.
“What is it?” he gasped.
“Josh, I—”
“I want you, Sesty, and I thought you wanted me too, even though you said you didn’t, the looks you gave, the way you kissed me . . . did I read the messages wrong? Please don’t tell me I read misread the signals, because—”
“You didn’t misread the signals,” she admitted. “I want you too.”
“Okay.” His breath was raspy. “What’s the problem?”
“I wanted it to be perfect. Not some tornado-fueled lust-fest in a storm cellar.”
“There you go with perfection again. Life isn’t perfect, Ses. It’s messy and complicated and sprawling. If you’re gonna take the ride, you’ve got to expect some potholes and sharp curves and loose stuff on the apron.”
“What?”
“Race term, means debris on the unpaved portion of the track, but never mind that. The point I’m trying to make is that smooth rides are boring as hell. If everything is perfect and you know what’s up ahead, then where’s the excitement, where’s the adventure?”
She plucked at the collar of his shirt, feeling the tension in his body. “I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“That I won’t be very good. I’m not . . . I haven’t had a lot of lovers.”
“I thought you had scads.”
“I lied. You’re used to sophisticated women who know things.”
“You know things.”
“Not bedroom things.”
“You know more than you think.” He nuzzled her neck. “You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine together.”
“And if we’re not?”
“Practice makes perfect.” He chuckled. “So we’ll just have to keep trying.”
“But—”
“Hush,” he said gently. “What else are you afraid of?”
“Who says I’m afraid of anything else?”
“Your tight muscles.”
She took a deep breath of this hair. It smelled so good.
“Sesty . . .”
“I’m afraid . . .” She cleared her throat. “. . . we’ll flame out.”
“Whenever you take a chance on something there’s always the risk it won’t work out.” He sounded so matter of fact, as if it were easy to clean up the mess after a spill.
“Like you and Miley?”
“And you and Chad.”
“Not like me and Chad, we were barely a thing. Just getting started. He made me mad more than anything else.”
He didn’t say anything about how much Miley had hurt him. That probably meant his ex had scarred him deeply. They had been engaged, after all. Sesty swallowed and tried not to think about that.
“You and me, we got started from our first date, remember?” Josh said.
“How could I forget? Picnic on the old suspension bridge. You brought my favorite snack cake.”
“They were my favorite too.”
She sighed.
“What is it?” he wheedled softly.
“I just keep thinking that if I’d done things differently, been better, worked harder, then you and I, we . . .”
“What? That we would have lasted?”
“Yes,” she admitted in a small voice.
; “Don’t put that on yourself. We were young. Still kids.”
“But I loved you so much back then.”
He squeezed her tighter. “It was a tough time, yeah. But you had college and I had a dream. Our parents were against getting together. I was reckless, and as my grandfather liked to say, full of piss and vinegar, and when it all came to a head and you told me it was over, my heart shattered like glass. But you know, I learned a lot and grew up and now I’m back and we want each other as much now as we did then. Hell, even more. I want you more.”
“Your heart shattered?”
“Like a windshield hitting a wall at ninety miles an hour.”
“Aren’t you afraid that I’ll break it again?”
“Absolutely, but you gotta risk failure to reap the rewards.”
“So you keep saying.”
“You think too much,” he said, and burned a kiss along her jaw. “Always have.”
“But I want to do this right. I don’t want to screw it up this time. I want to be—”
“If you say perfect, I’m calling the whole thing off,” he threatened.
“Really?”
“Really.”
Seconds ticked by, but he never loosened his grip on her.
“You’re not going to say it?” he asked.
She shook her head, even though she knew he couldn’t see her.
“Do you want to do this? Here? Now? You’ve got to say it.”
“I want you,” she whispered, “but we don’t have any protection. And that’s one part of perfect I can’t let go of.”
“Honey,” he said, “there’s a condom in my wallet in my back pocket. Sex is one place where you should leave the perfection to me.”
“That sounds kind of braggy.”
“Just stating the facts.” He was touching her in places that instantly set her ablaze. His fingertips were hot as bottled lightning. Lust fired between her legs and she surrendered. Gave up perfection. Let go of control. Let him take the wheel.
When his hands slipped between her thighs, she parted her legs and allowed him in. Their joining was sweet reunion, a fierce homecoming, vibrant sex more wonderful than ever the second time around.
He whispered her name. Once. Twice. A dozen times.