by Gina Conkle
Her shoulders hunched around her ears when I touched her arm. “I should never have come.”
“But you did,” I said quietly. “Why?”
She held onto the knob. “I don’t know.”
“Come on. You can do better than that.”
Was it the money? Me? Or did she come here to satisfy some morbid curiosity about me and Lacey after she researched me? It was laughable how hard I pushed for the truth from her, yet I refrained from giving the same.
Abbie was the one with a vice grip on my door knob, but I hung onto what she’d say next. I wanted honesty, the same generous, easy conversation she gave last night. I stuffed the check in my back pocket over the foil package of a waiting condom. I’m no saint. I knew what I wanted. Cold water dripped from drenched hair down my bare back, but I’d wait. My arms were awkward at my side, unmoving when I wanted to soothe her. We both had our needs.
She turned around, scraping messy bangs off her face. “As of right now, we’ve known each other for about twenty-four hours.”
“So?” My voice was rough.
“So, we went deeper than most people do in months.” Her hollow laugh echoed in my empty living room. “You want to know why I showed up when I had every reason not to?”
Abbie’s blue-green eyes glazed like dark pieces of glass, making me forget about my water-logged jeans and bare feet on cold tile.
“It was you. When I weighed all the pros and cons, it all came down to you. All my senses come alive when I’m near you. I love your smell. Your voice. Your caustic way with words…how you look at me.” She groaned a deep primal sound at the back of her throat. “For all your bark and bite you have this other side. It’s like you read me and understand exactly how I need you to see me.” Her chest heaved and she clutched the row of buttons resting on her breast bone. “I feel you.”
With rain-drenched hair and mascara-ringed eyes, this Abbie had more in common with pagan warrior women than the docile, tea-sipping bookstore clerk. She was a wild thing, beautiful and unscathed. She got my heart thumping.
“And you’re not here for the check?”
Her brows furrowed. “A little.”
Sighing, I fisted my hand to keep from touching her. “It’s okay.”
Rain pounded the roof. Abbie bit the corner of her bottom lip, glancing at the mantle. “What about your fiancée?”
“I don’t have one.”
“But, I thought you were engaged to Lacey Boudreaux, CIO of Nor Star.”
I chuckled harshly. “Come with me.”
She followed me to my kitchen where I flipped a light switch. Three frosted pendant lamps cast soft light on my silver laptop sitting on the center island. Modern white cabinets and stainless steel appliances didn’t mesh with the rest of my neglected seventies style tract home. Out of necessity, I’d renoed the kitchen and master bath four years ago with my dad and a few friends. Working with my hands and with my dad was a joy, but our schedules didn’t always coincide when it came to future projects. I was content to put off the rest for later. Lacey never understood. She’d never liked my old style home with its crab grass and cracked concrete.
At the kitchen island, I pulled out a barstool for Abbie and planted myself on the other.
Abbie’s jaw dropped. “Is that dinner?”
She gaped at the spread on my dining room table beyond the kitchen. My house smelled of toasted sesame and coconut shrimp. I was surprised she didn’t say something when she came in —a clear sign she was pissed at me. Women loved my cooking.
Fingers typing fast, I nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“Can I…” She jerked her thumb at my dining room.
“Sure. It’s cold.”
Abbie set her purse on the island and padded to the dining room as my screen rendered the image I sought.
“This is incredible.” Abbie circled the table, plate in hand.
With her back to me, she spooned plum sauce beside spring rolls piled onto her plate. She oohed and ahhed over the food, scooping it onto her plate and eating while standing. She had to be starved. The bagel was likely the last time she ate.
She flashed a smile, chewing fast and swallowing. “This is incredible.”
Her delight shot an arrow through my self-serving heart. Abbie circled the table, raving about my cooking. I was about to make a crack about knowing a sieve from a sifter when the check crinkled in my back pocket. It was the quietest condemnation, the sound cracking pieces of the wall around my heart.
Maybe the way out of this past year wasn’t sex, wasn’t honesty, or another woman. Maybe…just maybe it was stepping outside of my wants and needs to be the bigger man for someone else. Someone like Abbie.
While she poked around each dish with a fork, I pulled the check from my pocket. Carefully, I opened her purse and what I saw put a lump in my throat. Two books. Physics for Dummies and Heisenberg Explained. A red-tasseled bookmark stuck out a quarter of the way into Heisenberg Explained. I traced the spine. Did she read this while waiting for the replacement manager?
I sucked in a deep breath, savoring the moment. Lightness inside me was foreign. I hadn’t had this in a long time, this freedom and goodness. The world centered on Abbie praising my cooking, her curved ass bent as she scooped up limp bok choy. She was genuine. Forget labels like girl-next-door. Whatever she had ran deeper than wholesome and sweet. The powerful urge to protect Abbie welled up. I wanted to spare her from the seedier side of life from the sugar daddies who didn’t deserve her and the Mrs. Smith’s of the world who’d take advantage of her. Tucking the check in with the bookmark, I’d do right by Abbie.
She walked into the kitchen, balancing a plate in one hand and a half-eaten coconut shrimp in the other. “This is not from a box,” she announced in awe. “You hand-breaded this.”
“I said I’d feed you.”
Her eyes sparkled with sheer joy as she finished the coconut shrimp. She took a seat beside me and dipped a spring roll in plum sauce. She took a bite, dark red sauce squishing at the corner of her mouth. Abbie’s chewing slowed when she saw my laptop. The image reflected a glamorous pair, a far cry from the two of us in jeans hunkered down in my kitchen. The tip of Abbie’s tongue swiped her bottom lip. Her blue-green eyes were big and sad. For me. That look was a softer punch to my gut. I didn’t deserve her tender emotions.
“Signora Lacey Arcuri and her husband, Signor Lorenzo Arcuri,” I said without ceremony. “Married eleven months ago.”
Abbie’s eyes rounded. Did she remember me saying last night how long it’d been since I had sex? Her gaze traveled from the laptop screen to me. Like all women, she was curious about details. I could see questions parade across her face, but to her credit she stifled them. Dredging up the past was nails on a chalkboard for me.
She fiddled with one of the buttons on her shirt, concentrating on the short write up. “So he’s Italian.”
“Yep. Italian, a millionaire, and ready to fulfill Lacey’s every desire.” I hooked my heel on the stool’s bottom rung. “Three things I’m not.”
Her eyes slanted my way when I’d said Arcuri was ready to fulfill Lacey’s every desire. She fixed on me, but my attention riveted on the screen.
Lacey’s black slip dress clung just above her nipples. Three strategic cut-out ovals exposed skin from her diaphragm to her navel. A year ago she wouldn’t have worn the dress, deeming it slutty. On the arm of her new rich husband, Lacey oozed sophistication. Diamonds ringed her neck, chunks of them sparkling big and cold as ice. But, something was off. Hollow eyes stared out from the screen. I had a pretty good idea why.
It was the reason why I’d send Abbie home.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Talk about a backfire. The contempt line angled hard at the side of his mouth. Shoulder tendons twitched under burnished skin. Mark gave me what I wanted: information about his fiancé —former fi
ancée. It may have been close to a year since they’d severed ties, but he smarted from the wound like it was yesterday. By digging into his past, I’d pushed him into memories of another woman rather than nurturing present happiness with me.
I tried for levity. “So you’re not an Italian millionaire. Hot surfer millionaires are the next big thing.”
“I’m not a millionaire.”
“You’re not?” I feigned horror, but Mark ignored my lame humor, his mouth flat-lining.
The two people on the screen made a photogenic power couple. Yet, Lacey seemed brittle and not nearly as happy as she was in the picture where Mark kissed her ear. I’d never been in love but the emptiness in Mark’s kitchen was palpable. He’d wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. I couldn’t wrap my arms around that kind of commitment…to choose one person for a lifetime. It was all I could do to get from one month to the next.
Had living my life in increments stunted me?
Maybe for all my courage, I’d never been fearless when it came to love, never gave the emotion the time it deserved.
Signora Lacey Arcuri appeared to have moved on. The man beside her would set Jill aflutter. He was one hundred percent tall, dark, and handsome. The caption under the picture announced Lorenzo Arcuri as head of an Italian venture capital firm which invested heavily in software, semiconductors, and healthcare technology. He was taller and broader in the shoulders than Mark, his black hair slicked back from a face strongly Roman. This man was ready to conquer worlds, but if Mark leaned toward contempt, Signor Arcuri leaned toward cruel. His mouth verged on sneering.
Could he read women with the same consummate skill as Mark? I doubted it. He was too busy squashing people with his polished designer shoes.
Great sex with a hot man was one thing. A man understanding a woman? Pure gold.
“Okay. So she went for the millionaire.”
Mark closed his laptop with a quiet click. “Her leaving me wasn’t about money. It was about sex.”
My jaw dropped. I tried to process what he said but my brain short-circuited. Mark chuckled, the sound humble and endearing. Silence flowed between us more potent than words. I’d swear the tender light in Mark’s eyes was him giving me the beautiful, broken pieces of his heart.
“You’ve got plum sauce here,” he said gruffly, his thumb brushing the corner of my mouth. Mark wiped his thumb on my napkin and proceeded to fold and refold the paper into a small square on the counter.
“You know, we only had one night together, but I’m pretty sure you’re the Michelangelo of sex.”
Mark ducked his head, scrubbing his nape, laughing his low sexy laugh, getting my girl parts going.
I leaned in and touched his knee. “And let’s face it. No man wears jeans like you do.”
His blue eyes glimmered, creasing at the outer corners. Smiling back, I meant what I’d said. Words sprang from me the way they usually do, but his beaming face reinforced an inevitable truth. Even hot guys needed sincere strokes, maybe more so for Mark since his ego took a beating when his fiancée left him for another man. Over sex of all things.
Greedy for details, I wanted him to spill details. Something. Anything. He’d dropped a bomb, but we were the same as last night, when Mark was Surfer Man not giving a conversational inch.
“Intimacy is so much more than sex,” I said, trying to fill the void. “And sex is much more than the mechanics.”
That was bad. How awkward could I be? Mark braced an elbow on the counter, his pointed look saying, you’re going to lecture me on sex?
Cheeks heating up, I flopped back in my seat, a giggle easing from me. “Okay. That was…dumb. But you have to admit there’s a lot more to intimacy, a meeting of the minds that transcends sex.”
“Like Abelard and Heloise.”
“You know about them?”
Mark laughed —this time full laughter— at my shock. “Yeah. I do.”
His smile curved white across his dark whiskered face. Wet tips of hair brushed his surf god shoulders. I rubbed both palms over my thighs to stop from caressing him. A brief touch to his knee was one thing, randomly stroking his bare chest was another. He wasn’t mine to boldly touch, but my antsy hands didn’t get the message.
Was it possible we headed toward something bigger?
“It’s their love for each other,” I said, my heart thudding. “The passion and denial, the meeting of their minds…”
“I know,” he said slowly. “They had a good thing going.”
Like us.
Our gazes linked and Mark sucked in a deep breath. Conversation with him affected me as powerfully as skin to skin contact. The bond. The layers of awareness. Being with Mark changed me, and it was a safe bet he felt the same about me. Still, I couldn’t bring myself to say dangerous two letter words like we or us.
He averted his eyes and picked up a half-eaten spring roll off my plate. “When you have a good thing going with someone, it’s like this spring roll.”
“A spring roll.” Now it was my turn to laugh. When I did, my knee wedged between his legs and stayed there.
His smile wooed me. “Stay with me.”
“Oh, believe me, I am. I’m here as long as you want me.”
His eyes widened on my blatant offer. Mark was the professor of good food and great sex, and I was his willing student. I couldn’t remember the last time I enjoyed just being with a man. My laughter fading, I’d done it again —I put myself out there with another off the cuff remark.
Was it too much saying I’d stay as long as he wanted me? Or too desperate? I could put my big girl pants on and admit I was out of my depth with the experienced Mark Green.
“I, I meant I’m following your point. With the spring roll.” I paused before adding lamely, “Not that I’d stay a long time at your house or anything.” Exasperated, I blew my messy bangs off my forehead. “Feel free to stop me at any time.”
“No, this is good.”
His pupils expanded. The gold flare around the black circle became a thin ring in rich blue. Air stuck high in my chest. You’d think my heart doubled in size. Mark soaked me up, willing me to say whatever because it made him feel good. With the house quiet, I understood why a person could believe in hearing someone’s thoughts when surrounded by stillness.
I planted my elbow on the counter, mirroring him. Our arms were close, the heat palpable as it bounced off his body to mine. I nearly burst wanting to know everything about him. About his family smiling from the mantle frames. How he became a great cook. How often he surfed and why he liked it so much. Or when did he know he loved lasers and physics? And most definitely I wanted to know about his black nylon bag with dust in the creases.
Instead I settled on the safe, “You like it when I start spouting whatever, don’t you?”
“I do. You tell the unvarnished truth.”
His friendly, blue-eyed concentration was heady, similar to the fathomless, discerning attention he gave me at Coffee Barn today. How was it this perceptive man couldn’t see his way out of his own mess?
Whatever happened between Mark and Lacey Boudreaux Arcuri, he needed to know his impact on me. He needed to know the rare man he was. Not his sensual talents. Not his looks. Him.
“Mark.” My heart stuttered. “You’re the best Friday night. Ever.”
Skin around his eyes softened. “What am I going to do about you?”
Mark grazed his finger on my bottom lip and chin. Arousal flooded my breasts. We sat in those inevitable seconds before a kiss, drawn to each other by an unstoppable force. Mark leaned in, his lashes dark crescents on his cheeks. Breathing got harder. I shuddered, impatient for connection. I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to touch him.
Tanned skin pebbled under my hand sliding over his heart. Chest hair like coarse silk tickled my palm the split-second before Mark kissed me. His warmth and
nearness peeled back time, suspending me. Tender. Unhurried. The gentle caress of his mouth on mine was better than a hot, carnal lip lock. I couldn’t move from the power of it.
Mark sat back, his ribs expanding and contracting. He tried for a cool grin. “Do you think Abelard and Heloise kissed like that?”
I saw the single kiss for what it was —a thoughtful lover’s kiss— a gift bigger and better than lust.
“I hope they did,” I whispered.
His grin spread wider as if we shared a secret. With my elbow on the counter, my head rested on my hand. I willed my heart to stop the stampede in my chest. We both needed to come back to planet Earth.
The spring roll was still in Mark’s hand. I nudged my chin at it. “You never finished your spring roll theory.”
His chuckle rusty, Mark shifted on his seat, adjusting his fly. Was he more affected by the kiss than me? Feminine wisdom cautioned me to tread with care. I was falling for him and was fairly certain he nursed affection for me.
“The spring roll theory.” He held up my half eaten roll, his voice rough. “You asked if intimacy has to involve sex. No. It doesn’t.”
Mutely I played with a button on my shirt. Mark’s eyes flared like a blue flame when he said sex. We were dancing around a minefield between his past hurt, and my weak-kneed inability to admit aloud bigger things were happening. It would all come in good time, but sometimes a girl has to wave a white flag and let her body do the talking.
With one hand, I slipped the first red button free.
Mark’s attention locked on my hand working the next button. “But if you don’t have it, it’s like eating the spring roll with nothing tasty inside. Crunchy on the outside is good but only because of the flavors inside.”
“What do you count as the inside?” I freed another button on my shirt.
Mark dipped the spring roll in plum sauce, his hawkish stare on my breasts. “Understanding. Friendship—” a smile curled the corners of his mouth “—Fearless honesty. Complete trust.”