by Chant, Zoe
They reached the top of the road, and Kesley glanced at him in concern. Despite that nasty hit and equally nasty fall earlier, he wasn’t gasping, or clutching at his shoulder. The breeze toyed with his hair, which was a couple of shades darker than hers, and the low light over the ocean caught in his eyes, bringing out the sea green. “Go on,” he said.
So she started up the steep path, noticing that he kept pace with her without any apparent difficulty.
“There isn’t much more. Money got tighter when my grandmother came to live with us, and my great-aunt was already with us, and then my uncle got a divorce and lost his job working for his wife’s family, so he moved in, along with my cousin. So I figured I had to find some way to earn my own art supplies.”
She paused, expecting him to be bored. With Nick she hadn’t even gotten that far.
“And so?” he asked.
“Well, I was always hanging around Flying Cranes. Grandma Zhao used to tend the counter a lot more, before David took over the front, and she noticed me mooning over the acrylics. They were pretty sparse with art supplies at school. She asked about my art—I showed her a sketchpad with my comics, done in crayon—she asked if I wanted to learn, and, well, here I am.”
“So you developed your own style. It’s distinctive as well as . . .” He made a gesture outward. “Appealing. I think I might have known the right terms for art appreciation, but I can’t reach them now. All I know is, yours is different, and I like it.”
“Well, I don’t know how original it is. I suspect my style is pretty much a combination of Richard Scarry and Brueghel, but painting my fantasy fairy tales makes me happy.”
“I should think they would make anyone happy.”
He sounded sincere. She smiled. “Thanks.” And she led the way off the trail onto a bluff well above the town.
“There are higher points that people can drive to, but I like this one because it’s isolated,” she said. “See, you can watch the sun setting over the water. In that direction are the mountains. Over there, when it’s really clear, like after a rain, sometimes you can see the lights of Carmel. It looks like a magic kingdom. And south, below the curve of that promontory, you can see the breakers along the shore.”
She indicated a grassy spot three or four yards from the edge. “This is where I sometimes sit and paint. I try to catch the exact color of sunset. But it changes so fast!”
“Shall we sit?” he asked, one hand absently running up to his shoulder.
So he did feel the effects of that horrible fall. “Sure,” she said, and they each sat down on the grass.
He sat within easy distance, like he was trying not to crowd her. She snuck a peek at how the low, ruddy sunset light caught in tiny pinpoints on his stubble, and lit the tips of his eyelashes. Her breath stuttered in her chest. He was so . . . gorgeous. Compelling. Mysterious.
Sexy.
Especially sexy.
“What about you? What do you do?” she asked. “You said you weren’t interested in what Marlo Evans is doing. Why are you here, then?”
“It’s supposed to be therapeutic,” he said, looking out at sea.
Kesley longed to draw his profile, and capture the sunset colors highlighting his strong cheekbones and the clean angle of his jaw. The strands of fine dark hair that fell over his forehead. She flexed her fingers. She wanted more than to draw them, she wanted to touch them.
She was so involved in looking at him that she was only aware that the pause had lengthened into a silence when he spoke again. “Call me Jameson,” he said, his voice rising slightly at the end—almost a plea. One hand lifted briefly—the arm with the shoulder bruise stayed still, she noted. “I don’t like to lie to you.”
“Having a nickname isn’t a lie,” she said, her curiosity flaring up again: why would he have a fake name? Did it have to do with the amnesia? Who was he?
His head dropped a little, his long eyelashes shuttering his eyes. “No. Well, yes, in the sense that no one ever called me that. I don’t think. My brother called me Jay, that much I remember . . . ”
“Can I ask what happened? Don’t answer if you don’t want to.”
“I can’t answer—I don’t remember. All I know is that I was in a bad crash.” His voice roughened.
“So ‘therapeutic’ is literal,” she said slowly.
He turned to look at her. “I do want to tell you the truth. But what is the truth? I’ve got almost as many questions as you do. In a different sense, maybe more.” He frowned.
“That biker today? You think that guy was trying to run you down on purpose?” she asked.
“Not sure. Of anything,” he murmured, once again gazing out to sea. His good hand flexed.
She surrendered to an almost overwhelming impulse. “Look, say no if this sounds awful, but I’m considered pretty good at massage. Not professional,” she hastened to say. “But if you’d like me to rub that shoulder . . .”
“God, that sounds awesome,” he responded with unmistakable sincerity. “It feels like a load of cement got packed in there.”
She rubbed her fingertips as she shifted behind him. Raccoons, she had discovered when she was little, are all about touch. Once she’d learned that, she began to understand why even as a tiny kid she’d always had her fingers into everything. Texture and feel were all-important, at least as much as sight and hearing.
“I’ll start gently, because I know you’ve got to have a big-ass bruise.” She laid her hands on the breadth of his shoulders at either side of his neck. She pressed the sides of her thumbs into the muscles there, and listened to his breath hiss in. But he didn’t stiffen under her fingers, so she knew it was good hissing, not pain hissing.
She began to knead in slow circles, smoothing out the muscle. On the hurt side it was rock hard, but not swollen. So she began to dig her fingers in a little more as she worked outward in broader circles.
“That feels insanely good,” he sighed, his voice rough and deep in his chest.
Heat flared inside Kesley. She began kneading with her palms, caressing the contours of his muscles as she worked his knots ribbon-smooth. Whatever he did, he stayed in shape, she thought, light-headed with desire.
His head dropped back, and she concentrated with both hands on his bad shoulder. It didn’t seem to hurt him at all, so she dug in deeper, wishing she could follow all his beautiful musculature all the way down, and then work around to the front . . .
He growled softly deep in his chest, as she shifted her weight to his side so she could knead his shoulders on both sides. He turned his head, and lifted his arm, and she glanced down into his face—
And their lips met.
Soft, tentative, questing, he nibbled her lips, which parted eagerly. His tongue swept inside her mouth, sending sheets of lightning through every nerve, and she kissed him back, hot, hungry kisses. Breath shaking, they gasped and kissed again, and his hands slid up her sides, over her shoulders to cup her face.
She slid her fingers inside his shirt, groaning at the softness of those little hairs in the dip between his collarbones. Her fingers twitched at the buttons of his shirt and then stiffened as his hands drifted down to cup her breasts.
Heat flowered in her core as he thumbed her nipples through her shirt and bra. Her nipples tightened into throbbing nubs. When his hands slid up her ribs under her loose shirt, she swayed with urgency.
Her eyes met his, and saw the question there—and the want.
He wanted her. Pleasure and delight flowered in her as they kissed again, until they were both breathless. Then he smiled as he eased her back on the grass, unbuttoning her shirt and bending down to press a kiss at each inch of exposed skin. She held onto his shoulders as he skimmed his thumbs under the cups of her bra, and lifted them. Then one hand caressed her breast as his lips brushed over the nipple of the other. Then he opened his warm lips and closed them around the tip of her breast. He took his time in swirling his tongue around as her nipple hardened into a peak of urgency,
sending tiny pulses down deep into her, and then he sucked.
She groaned, arching her back. He switched to the other breast, leaving the first to tighten even more in the cool air. His fingers smoothed and caressed down her belly to the top of her pants as he teased and nipped and sucked her second breast.
When he raised his head, she became aware of cool air below: he had unzipped her pants, his fingers brushing gently along the edge of her panties. Once again he glanced at her in question. She could not believe her luck as Jameson ran his fingers inside her panties, stroking the curls there before cupping gently over her mound.
His breath hissed in as she widened her legs. He stroked softly, insistently, then worked a finger deep into her. She groaned, her hips rising. He grinned at her and slid her pants easily down to her knees, then away—for once she was glad she wore loose clothes. Then he eased her panties down with teasing slowness as he bent to kiss her lower belly, and when the fabric slid over her knees, he ran his fingers inside her thighs, stroking slowly. “You,” he whispered, “are so beautiful.”
And he bent to kiss her as he widened her knees. His tongue lingered over her slick, wet folds, then probed deeper, deeper, before coming to rest over her throbbing clit. Each flick of his tongue fired ever-hotter pulses deep within her and she met every lick with a thrust of her hips.
His lips and tongue took utter possession of her core, causing her to pant in rising desire. Her fingers dug deep into the pungent grass, her hips rising as he grazed her clit with his teeth—sending her plunging into an abyss of shattering pleasure, intensified as he sucked in time with each throb.
“As sweet as honey,” he murmured, as she came down slowly from the most intense crescendo of her entire life. She lay there boneless, catching her breath, then sat up to catch his smile. Gently she pushed his shirt over his shoulders.
“Your turn,” she said—and spread her fingers over his chest as she pushed him flat.
As she scored her nails gently over the hard bumps of his ribs and the ripples of his abs—despite that hospital stay, he was in incredible shape—she lowered her eyes to his pants, and the bulge there.
“Oh, yes,” she said, unzipping his pants with one hand, and sliding her other hand under the warm silk of his boxers.
His cock sprang free and she paused to admire it before running her fingers over it. It wasn’t so much its size, though that was magnificent. She kind of expected that in a big guy. It was the fact that he was already hard as a rock—for her. For her. She was very good at this—in her relationships, too often it had taken a lot of work on her part before her various ex-boyfriends showed enough enthusiasm for bed play.
But Jameson’s princely erection had happened before she touched him.
And so it was time for payback, with all the skill she possessed. She bent to nip his head, causing his breath to give a most satisfying hiss, and she stroked him lingeringly from tip to the base of his balls before using teeth, lips, and tongue up and down his length until he was breathing fast, his hips bucking.
She was ready to take him down her throat to finish him off when he touched the sides of her face and said in a deep, guttural voice, “I never thought I’d ever interrupt what feels like heaven, but Kesley, as far as I know now this is my first time, and I want it to be in you. Together.”
She’d thought, after that amazing high he’d given her, that she was done, but his words shot heat straight to her core, and she laughed, pulling her top off and tossing it and her dangling bra to the side. With an abandon she had never thought to feel in her life she straddled his hips—and lowered herself onto him, an inch at a time. At once his hips began to buck. She reveled in the silk of his skin, the hardness of his cock that filled her so exquisitely—and began to rock as she worked him deeper into her.
His hands came up to caress her breasts. She leaned into his grip, riding him with a deeper roll of her hips. Her clit rubbed against his length sliding in and out, building the heat of friction, and she shot to even higher heights, teetering on the brink as he gave a long hissing sigh, coming so hard that she crested again, so strong and hard and sweet that stars flickered in her vision.
She collapsed onto his chest and his arms closed around her, fingers burying in her hair as they pulsed in rhythm together. Kesley slowly became aware of the grass tickling her back, and the fast-cooling air of evening. She didn’t want to move.
And that’s when the theme from Cats began to play on her cell phone.
“That’s my sister,” she said with a sigh.
“Maybe you’d better get it,” he murmured into her hair.
Reluctantly they untangled their limbs. Her ribs hollowed at the way he caressed her over her shoulder and down her arm as she sat up.
“I hope nothing is wrong,” she muttered, and got up on her knees to reach for her purse.
As she did, she glanced at Jameson, admiring his beautiful chest as he sat up and began to sort through the clothes they had thrown off with abandon. As he turned his back to reach for his shirt, her gaze slid over his shoulder. And stopped.
Instead of the black and blue mess she’d expected to see after that hideous encounter earlier, she looked down on the multi-colored blotches of a half-healed bruise.
Chapter Six
Kesley, Jameson quickly discovered, was a genius at massage. It was like she had some kind of telepathy—she knew exactly where to press, and how hard. It felt miraculously good. So good that the residual ache from his shoulder all the way down his arm and to the back of his spine began to fade, leaving him with the world’s worst case of pants rocket.
The weird thing was, though he didn’t think he was all that sensitive a guy or he’d be a lot farther along in his recovery than he was, he’d been pretty sure she was turned on as well. He thought he could feel it in the touch of her palms—a caress—but mostly in her compellingly wonderful bouquet of scents.
He guessed that he’d always had a sensitive nose. He remembered how sickening he found Beth’s perfume, though it was apparently expensive. A couple times he’d smelled sharp anger or fear sweat on some of the other patients at Tranquil Breezes, before husky nurses calmly escorted the guys away to somewhere else in the facility.
With Kesley that close, he could smell the subtleties of her acrylic paints, and the soap she’d washed her hands with, and the faint remains of her shampoo, but over them all lay the sweet and salty smell of her as she moved, and he looked up at her softly parted lips, and heard her breathing. And before his mind could react, his entire body caught fire.
And damn if she didn’t catch fire just as hot, with passion and sweetness and a blaze that ignited a bombshell of happiness inside him that he couldn’t remember ever feeling. Her rounded, soft curves fitted him as if she had been made for him.
He could have lain there with her all night, making love again and again, but her phone rang, blasting them back into the world.
Reality closed in, bringing memory of danger, and all the questions.
As he sat up, some of the earlier pain echoed, blissfully forgotten while the two of them had rocked together in matched heat. He heard her breath hitch when she moved behind him to get her purse. He stayed where he was, grimacing down at his shaking hands as his brain caught up with what they’d done. Hell.
The glory of what had to have been the best sex of his life was doused by the cold thought: What if I already have a girlfriend? Though his memory was still largely Swiss cheese, he knew he despised cheaters.
“ . . . no, I’ll be right home. Sorry.”
Kesley turned away, scrambling frantically for her scattered clothes. “We should go. I forgot to tell my family I wasn’t coming home for dinner, and there seems to be—well.” She talked with difficulty as she yanked and tugged hastily. “Anyhow, though I loved . . . every second of what we just did . . . it’s late. It’s going to be pitch dark up here in half an hour . . . and no streetlights.”
He paused in easing his shirt over his ach
ing shoulder, dizzy with conflicting emotions: adoring her simple honesty, worry over what making love to her meant, why he’d been nearly run down, and beyond those the questions he still couldn’t answer.
He reached, and touched her arms. She stilled, and leaned into his grip as he said, “Thank you for the most wonderful experience of my life. What I can remember of my life,” he said. “Even if you don’t want to do that again, I’m grateful for your gift.”
Her smile bloomed. “It was awesome. But . . .” She looked away, and made a little gesture with her hands that could have meant anything. He read it as appeal.
“Yeah, we just met. I for one would like very much to remedy that,” he said as he quickly rebuttoned his shirt. “Though I should warn you that my end of the information exchange is going to be kind of spotty.”
“Oh yeah, the amnesia.” Her brow puckered as she finished tugging and patting her clothes into place. Then she gave him that bright smile. “I’d better go. Would you like to . . . Um . . .” She looked at her phone.
“I don’t have a phone,” he said. “Or, if I did, it’s somewhere else.”
“Part of the memory issue?” She cast him a worried glance as they started back down the trail.
“I guess. Since I can’t remember, I’m not certain how to answer that. But I will say this: until now I never felt the need for one.” He hesitated, wanting badly to ask if they could meet after she returned to her family, but he restrained himself. Don’t rush things, he thought, feeling guilty again about having followed her to her home. So he compromised. “Will you be working tomorrow?”
“No. I only work there part-time, except right before the holidays, or the occasional times a really big order comes in. Though I sometimes go there to paint my own stuff. The skylight lets in more light than my place, and the artificial lighting is way better.”