by Abby Brooks
Ahhh. And here we come to the heart of the matter. At twenty-eight, Chelsea is feeling her singleness with a passion. “Chels, this is just a date. I’m not even in the market for a boyfriend.”
“You’re going on a date?” And now she’s supersonic again. “I thought you were just flirting!”
“Well, we were just flirting. But then I lost a bet and now I have to go one a date with him. It’s on YouTube.”
“YouTube?” Chelsea is genuinely baffled and I can’t help the wide smile that stretches across my face.
“Yeah. And Instagram. It was a wild night.” I know I’m not helping. I know I’m only freaking her out all the more. And I know that the minute we get off the phone she’ll be Googling my name to find out just exactly what happened. “I gotta go, Chels. I promise I’m okay. You’ll see.”
I hang up before she can protest and finish getting ready. Pull my hair back in a ponytail. Touch up the lip gloss. Skip downstairs and grab a drink of water.
Despite the fact that the date was part of a bet, despite the fact that it’s in the middle of the day and I’m wearing sensible shoes, I’m very excited. I like Dominic. I’ve liked him for as long as I’ve been following him on Instagram, which is years now. I liked watching him take control of the crowd at The Bad Apple. I liked the way it felt to be sharing the spotlight with him.
And hot damn did I like the way it felt to have his lips pressed against mine. His body pressed against mine. His hands on me. My hands on him. I shiver and close my eyes. I could most definitely go for some more kissing today. Maybe some rough petting. Hell, maybe I’ll just go right on ahead and make another bad decision and sleep with him. How many times in my life will I have the chance to make a bad decision with a mildly famous internet celebrity?
I check the time. Ten ‘til one. I am not the best waiter in the world. I’m not even the best waiter in Townsbury. Whenever someone jokes around that patience isn’t one of their virtues, they just haven’t met me yet. If they had, they would consider themselves next to Gandhi on the patience scale. My foot is tapping and my fingernails clink on the glass of water as they drum a strange pattern.
I have ten minutes and zero ability to focus on anything. I turn on the TV, but it’s just noise. I open a game on my phone, but it can’t pull my attention away from the clock. I open up Instagram and see Dominic’s face smiling back at me. That man takes a shit ton of selfies. But, since it was his wide grin that caught my attention back when I first started following him, I can’t really judge. I’m sure that’s how he catches a lot of his followers.
I scroll and see a picture of an older couple. Hands clasped. Backlit by the sun angling through the window behind them. It catches my attention and I stop scrolling. Study these people with the happiness shining in their eyes. I read the description Dominic wrote up in his patented abbreviations.
Wow. These people were on their fiftieth wedding anniversary when Dominic found them and, according to him, are still madly in love. That’s rare nowadays. Even my parents, who have managed to whether the storm of divorces that swept through my friend’s lives when we were younger, don’t have love shining in their eyes like these people do.
Dominic is one hell of a photographer.
He’s also late. By a good fifteen minutes now. And believe me, I’ve felt each minute as if it was an eternity as it ticked by on my clock. If I was jittery before, I am a ball of nerves now. It’s not like I’m one of those always early people. If we get right down to it, I’m late more than I’m early. But still, that doesn’t excuse Dominic. You should never be late on a first date. That’s just the way of it.
Fifteen minutes stretches into twenty which stretches into twenty-two and I give up pretending that I’m even paying a sliver of attention to my TV. I check Instagram for the seventeenth time, just in case he sent me a message and really regret the fact that neither of us thought to exchange phone numbers. I just blissfully gave him my address and he gave me a time and that had been that.
Or maybe I was the one who hadn’t thought to exchange numbers. Maybe Dominic never intended to show up and very purposefully didn’t give me another way to get a hold of him. Well, if that’s the case, this guy has another thing coming to him. What’s the best way to get to an internet celebrity? Through the internet.
If I was nothing more than a stunt to get him more followers, well, he’s got another thing coming to him. I’m busy trying to figure out just how stood up I need to be before I start making a scene on Instagram when there’s a knock at my door. A surge of excitement obliterates all the nervous anger that had been tightening my jaw just moments before and I spring from my perch on the armrest of my couch and sprint towards the door.
“You’re late,” I point out, putting on my best stern face as I pull open the door. It’s all I can do not to smile when I see him.
“Very.” Dominic nods and holds out a bouquet of flowers. “But I come baring a peace offering and one hell of a good story.”
I’m a sucker for flowers. Especially when they come to me via smoking hot guys named Dominic Kane. I step aside and invite him in. “I’m all ears.” As much as I’m trying to pull off stern and irritated, my eyes are shining with excitement. I can feel it. And I can see it mirrored in his.
“Well. It’s not really that good of a story. I stopped for flowers and the line ended up being really long and I don’t have your phone number.” He holds the bouquet out for me and I take it with a smile.
“Hmm,” I say as I wander into the kitchen, searching for a vase, leaving Dominic in the living room studying the place like he might find the answer to our existence in the décor. “I’m not sure if that story counts or not. I may not be ready to forgive you.”
“I guess I’ll just have to find other ways to make you forgive me,” he says. Anticipation zings through my body and I’m glad he can’t see me because I visibly shiver and press my thighs together against the little surge of desire that pools between my legs.
“Okay.” I try to make it sound like I haven’t already forgiven him as I come out of the kitchen, vase in hand. I’m sure he can hear the truth in my voice. See it in my eyes. I’m not exactly known for my poker face. “But you’re going to have to really try.”
Dominic smiles widely, his gaze hot and heavy and burning so deeply into my eyes I kind of stutter to a stop in the middle of the living room.
“What?” I ask, uncomfortable.
“You,” he replies.
“What about me?” I find the ability to move again, but it’s all shorted out and I don’t exactly feel graceful as I finish crossing the living room to put the vase on the coffee table.
“Everything,” he says in a voice so sexy my insides clench deliciously. “Are you ready?”
“As I’ll ever be.” I swipe my jacket up off the couch and grab my keys. Dominic puts his hand on my lower back as we head out the door, uses it to guide me towards a gleaming Mustang
“Okay. So maybe it wasn’t just the flowers that made me late,” he says when I turn to him, eyes wide. “I had to turn in the Sentra I rented when I first got here for this baby.”
“Wow.” I run a finger across the hood, shaking my head. “Why?” I’m genuinely curious, although I’m pretty sure the answer is obvious. Why drive a Sentra when you can get a Mustang?
“Because,” says Dominic as he opens the passenger door for me. “You are not the kind of girl someone drives around in a Sentra.”
Chapter Eight
We zoom through the familiar streets of my hometown in this hot ass car, Dominic exclaiming over what he sees and pointing out the details of all the things I’ve taken for granted over the years. By the time we’re heading out of town, nothing about the place feels familiar anymore. He’s got his phone on his thigh, Google Maps open and navigating him out into the boonies. We pass cornfields and cows, the Mustang devouring the road, hugging the curves, the sun warm in the wide blue sky.
Dominic has been all secretive about w
here we’re going, but I’m a pretty smart cookie. Judging by his request that I wear sensible shoes and the route he’s taking, I’m pretty sure we’re going to go hiking on one of the nature reserves nearby. While, again, this is nothing like what I had in mind—I’m more of a let’s hang out and get rowdy kind of gal—I do love to walk in the woods. We chat about the places he’s been to in the car ride over and I start to feel more and more like a country bumpkin. I grew up here and I never left here and how in the world am I going to be able to keep the interest of someone who’s been hiking in the Himalayas? Someone who’s been face to face with a lion and lived to share the picture? Someone who told me it was easier to tell me where he hasn’t been than to list the places he has been.
“I always wanted to travel,” I say as Dominic pulls into a parking spot near one of the few national parks I haven’t explored.
He pops the trunk and pulls out a huge ass backpack, his camera and gear, a monstrous water bottle. “Why didn’t you?”
I try not to stare as he heaves the backpack over his shoulder and fail miserably. What kind of hike is he planning? “Eh.” I shrug and drag my eyes up to his face. “All the same old excuses I’m sure you’ve heard a million times. Money. Commitments. Procrastination.”
Dominic shakes his head. “Those things are all very real reasons and they’re also very much excuses. If you want to see the world, I say see it. Don’t wait. Life is for living, not for planning.” He ducks his head into his camera strap and hooks the water bottle to his backpack with a carabiner.
“So. Uh. You’re very prepared,” I say, unable to hold in my curiosity any longer.
“You only need to spend one night lost in the woods to never want to do that again.”
“Lost in the woods?” I widen my eyes. “Did you have to spend the night?”
“I had to spend a couple nights. And it rained. I was cold. Hungry. So tired. Got some great pictures.” Dominic shrugs as if to blow off the immensity of the experience. “It was one of my first trips into the Rocky Mountains. I was young and what I lacked in experience, I made up for in bravado. I made every mistake in the book.” He readjusted the heavy pack. “But, I also learned that I have what it takes to survive a bonus week in the woods without any supplies.”
“How very burly of you.”
“Oh yes. I’m very rugged.”
I can’t help but take a look at him, his hands clasped on the straps of his pack, his jaw set, his eyes glinting, that carefully cultivated five o’clock shadow outlining his strong jaw. “I’m not sure rugged is the word I’d use,” I say before I have a chance to think through what I’m going to follow up with. Because the words I have in my head aren’t exactly first date kind of material.
His jaw drops. “I have slept under the stars in a Namibian desert. I have climbed Mount Khuiten in Mongolia. I’ve endured the bitter cold of the Antarctic. You’re saying I’m not rugged?”
Hot damn this guy is so cool and I am so out of my league. “Maybe you need a hat.”
“A hat?”
“Yeah. Like Indiana Jones. Now that guy’s rugged.”
Dominic looks at me, this crazy, kind of incredulous look on his face. “You’re a little weird, you know that?”
I shrug. “Hey, I’m not the one making a woman wear sensible shoes on a first date and then showing up with a huge ass mountain man backpack strapped to my back.”
Dominic throws his head back and laughs, stopping in his tracks and closing his eyes. “See,” he finally says when he catches his breath. “You do think I’m rugged. There’s no way you can be a mountain man and not be rugged.” He puts a hand to my back and guides us onto one of the many available trails. “And, for the record, I didn’t show up with the backpack strapped to my back. I put it on later.” There’s humor in his voice. A tiny laugh joining his words.
“As if that makes all the difference,” I say, every nerve in my body singing about the tiny points of contact that are his fingertips. His palm.
We wander in silence for a few steps, our feet falling lightly on the dirt path. Wind rustling in the trees. Sunlight filtering down, casting lace shadows at our feet. All around us is green. Luscious and rich.
“First date, huh?” Dominic doesn’t look at me, but the corners of his mouth are twitching up into another one of those smiles I love so much. “You planning on having more than one?”
“Wow. You’re not?”
“Well, let’s see.” Dominic stops and studies me from head to toe and then back again. He makes a little swirling motion with his finger. “Turn.”
My jaw drops, but I’m smiling. I pivot slowly, keeping my eyes on him and ducking my chin towards my shoulder, all flirty eyelashes and shy eye contact. When I finish one revolution, I bite my bottom lip and wait for his response.
“I mean,” he says, and I can tell by the way his eyes are lighting up that I’m not going to like what he has to say. “I might have considered it, but those shoes are just way too sensible. What kind of woman wears shoes like that on a first date?”
I resist the urge to slap his arm. If I’ve heard it once, I’ve heard it a million times. I get way too handsy. “The kind of woman who’s busy doing what she was told.” The wind makes the trees whisper, the leaves dancing above us.
Dominic’s eyes go all hooded and lustful. This immensely serious look wipes away all traces of good humor. “Do you like it when men tell you what to do?”
With anyone else, the warning bells would be going off in my head and I would be in serious stranger danger mode, but Dominic puts me at ease. My eyes stray to his lips. Would they feel as good as they did last night if I kissed him right now? Would he pull me in close? Would he run his hands up my back, under my shirt? Skin against skin?
I realize he’s just standing there, watching me stare at him. Waiting for me to answer his question. I blush and swallow hard. Shrug and turn away. “Depends on the man,” I say over my shoulder.
“Stop.” Dominic’s voice is husky. Almost harsh. There’s an edge that sets my blood on fire.
I do what he says. Freeze in my tracks but don’t turn back around.
“Don’t move,” he says, his voice still thick and warm, so sensuous it sends goosebumps racing across my flesh. The jingling and jangling of his backpack tells me he’s moving and then there’s the sweetest rush of contact as he traces his fingers ever so lightly up my arms. I shiver and my lips part. Dominic’s breath is warm on the back of my neck, his hands resting on my shoulders.
“Turn around,” he whispers, his lips brushing my ear.
I hesitate. If I turn around, I’ll be so close to him. Face to face. Chest to chest. Will he kiss me? Or better yet, will I kiss him? Impulse control has never been one of my strongest qualities.
“Turn around, Dakota.”
My name in his voice is a siren’s call to my libido. I do as I’m told. Spin slowly, carefully. Ever so aware of the tiny sliver of space between our bodies, charged with heat and desire. Dominic is smiling down at me. Without a word, he leans in. Craning his neck to bring his mouth to mine. My lips part. My chest is heaving. My body thrumming and throbbing with excitement. I close my eyes.
His lips never touch mine but I can feel how close they are. Our breath mingles. It’s like electricity racing against the delicate flesh of my lips. I open my eyes. Consider reaching up, closing the distance, forcing the kiss. He turns his face and I turn mine. He brings his hands to my hips, again, a touch that’s just barely a touch. The tiniest bit of contact that is somehow more powerful than if he had grabbed me and crushed my body to his, his mouth to mine. These delicate whispers create a need in me, a flame I won’t be able to ignore until I have more of him.
“Am I that man?” he asks, his lips moving against mine, fanning the flames. “That man you’ll give control to?”
I want to answer, but I’m struck dumb by this man. For the first time in my life, I’m speechless. I lean in, almost without knowing, needing to feel the warmth of h
is mouth on mine.
“Answer me, Dakota.”
“Yes.” I don’t hesitate. I give him the answer that should embarrass me. The answer that is so unlike me but so very true because I’m sure that as soon as I do, he’ll end this delicious torture and kiss me.
Dominic pulls away and if disappointment had a face, it would be mine. “Good,” he says and takes off walking, leaving me in a big heap of lustful, wet-pantied confusion. “Come on,” he says with a little jerk of his head and damn if I don’t scamper after him.
We walk for a bit in silence, pausing every now and then for Dominic to take a picture. At first the pictures are of the trees. A flower. A close up of a moss covered rock on the bank of a small creek. But more and more often, he takes pictures of me.
“Put your hands in your hair,” he says when he has me leaning on a tree.
“Look down,” he says when he has me seated near the water. “Now smile a little like you have a dirty secret.”
He mutters words like beautiful and exquisite. He watches me through the lens of his camera and as we wander the woods, I start to feel like I am both of those things.
“Did you always want to be a photographer?” I ask as he pauses to arrange me on a fallen log.
“Pretty much. Although I didn’t know it at first.” He steps back and studies me through his camera. Takes a picture. Drops the camera so it dangles from the strap around his neck. “I used to get lost in those National Geographic magazines. I didn’t know how I’d get to see all those places, just that I needed to. As soon as I figured out that the best way to get there was to be the one behind the camera, it was a done deal.” He sits beside me, close enough that our thighs are touching. “What about you. Is that how you felt about bartending?”
The question takes me off guard and for a second I’m not sure if he’s making fun of me or not. But one look at his face makes me think not. I laugh. “No. Not at all. I wanted to be a writer. The bartender thing was just a quick and easy way to get out of my parents’ house.”