Dancing Barefoot

by Amber Lea Easton

  “Ava? Checking on our progress?” He dropped a bag of barbeque chips into her lap.

  “Yes.” She opened the bag and laughed. “When I saw you Friday, it was so unexpected I didn’t know what to do or what to say. I’m afraid I said all the wrong things. I think we’ve done much better today.”

  "Did you tell Marc you slept with your ex last Friday night?"

  "Did you tell Simone?"

  "I'm still living so you have your answer to that."

  "She's still mean then?" She leaned the chip bag toward him, eyes alive with a challenge.

  He accepted a handful of chips and watched her indulge. She savored each chip as if it were a special treat and one she would never experience again. Details. He'd missed the details about her, about them.

  With a sigh, he surrendered to the need to know her, to let the past go for a few minutes at least. He wanted to know what she did in that office building, who her friends were, what she did for fun. He wanted new details.

  “So, Jessica, tell me about your work and your fiancé.” He smiled when she glanced at him, mouth frozen in mid-chew.

  "I don't have a fiancée. Did Ava tell you that? She's a tricky one, no doubt." She waved a chip at him, eyes alive with light. “You're the only fiancé I've ever had. As for architecture, I may not be a celebrated artist like you, but I have a steady paycheck.”

  “Are you telling me that you're the smart one, then?”

  “That is exactly what I am saying.” She laughed and handed him the bag of chips. “Not many people know I paint. But…” she shrugged, “not many people know me like you did.”

  He liked that more than he should, liked that he knew her—still—better than most. “Ava tells me that you're celebrating a promotion Wednesday night.”

  “I landed a big project last week. You're looking at the youngest associate partner in the firm's history.” She shrugged, a smile flirting with the corners of her mouth.

  “Really?” His gaze drifted over her yellow dress and his fingers itched for his camera. With her hair caressing her chin, the late afternoon sunlight shadowing her skin and the yellow dress dancing around her knees, she'd make an excellent picture. He'd always ached to photograph her.

  “Ava's coming to the dinner with my friends tomorrow night.” Her gaze drifted over his face. “I know you wouldn’t want to come.”

  “Of course not.” Ask me.

  “When is Simone coming into town?”

  “Are you anxious to see her?” He laughed when her face twisted with disgust. “Friday. She'll be at the exhibit.”

  She nodded, gaze moving over his chest. He liked the way she looked at him, as if appraising her property.

  “I think we're actually getting along,” he said with surprise.

  “Why is that surprising to you? We got along the instant we met, remember?” Once again, she relaxed against the back of the bench.

  “When we first met, you knocked me down a flight of stairs with your luggage because you were too stubborn to take help when it was offered.” He shifted his hips on the bench so that they faced each other. “That was not exactly getting along.”

  “You like bringing that up. It really wasn't that serious. I'm the one who ended up with the bloody nose and you gave me your shirt. As soon as I saw you half-naked, I knew I needed to see the whole package.” She laughed again, the sound soothing to him.

  “I knew we would be together the moment the luggage hit my legs.” Shared memories, unspoken yet vivid, danced in the air between them. “I'm going to the Amazon.” He didn’t know why he said that, a test maybe, to gauge her reaction.

  Her eyes flickered for an instant as if the wheels of her mind had kicked into high gear. “Sounds adventurous. What's the project?"

  “We're filming the so-called lost tribes of the Amazon, those villages that have been untouched by the rest of the world. We need to have permission to visit, health tests to make sure we don't contaminate them with any virus that could threaten their entire population. I leave in a month, don't plan on returning to the States for a long time.” He brushed a crumb from her chin, lingered, locked his gaze on her mouth, remembered the other night with their skin streaked with paint.

  Yes, coming to Boston had been a mistake.

  "Will it be safe for you? They won't hurt you?"

  He dragged his gaze from her mouth to her eyes and shook his head 'no.'

  "Good. I want you to come back in one piece." She arched an eyebrow, desire flickering in the depths of her eyes. "I'm a little territorial of that package of yours."

  He squinted. "What makes you think you have the right to be territorial over anything of mine?"

  "You and I both know the answer to that."

  “Walk with me.” She stood, abruptly breaking contact.

  He watched her smooth the creases of her dress over her hips. He swallowed the words that ached to be said. This woman had brought him to his knees once before and he wouldn't allow it again.

  “Simone wasn’t too happy when she found out that I saw you the other night," he said.

  “Were you punished?” She sounded so much like the woman he remembered that he couldn’t resist laughing.

  “Are you flirting with me?” He liked that idea more than he should.

  “If you have to ask, then I must be doing something wrong.”

  He grabbed her arm and stopped her in mid-stride. “Why? Why flirt with me? You have your Marc, I am with Simone. The other night was just us...being caught up in the past. What's happening here? What do you want?”

  After what seemed like minutes, she lifted her eyes to his. “What would you say if I said I wanted you back?”

  He dropped his hand from her arm. “I would say no.”

  “Would you?” She resumed walking and he fell into step beside her. “Well, I had to ask.”

  He smiled and squinted toward the sky. “Was that your intervention?”

  “We’re not done, you and me. If Simone is my competition, then I don’t have much to worry about, do I?”

  A laugh burst from his lips, but not the funny ha-ha kind, definitely the are-you-out–of-your-mind kind. He grabbed her elbow and stopped her.

  “Are you serious? What do you want? An affair?” He was a gambling man. Before she could answer, he pulled her beneath the shade of a nearby tree, pressed her back against the bark, and leaned his forearm above her head. “Maybe I should have stayed the other night, made love with you again and again until we had each other out of our systems."

  She licked her bottom lip. “What makes you think we would have gotten each other out of our systems?”

  All common sense told him to walk away now before he made a mistake. This was Jessica Moriarty, the woman he had tried to forget, failed to forget. And she stood a fraction away, blue eyes full of dares, and body warm against his.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” she said, arms firmly at her sides. “History repeating itself, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Let's go on a date. Right now, you and me. No history, just two people on a first date. You can charm me. I dare you.”

  "A date?" He leaned against her, wanting to be inside her. "We're with other people, we can't date."

  "I am with no one. You have the wrong idea." She slid her fingertips beneath the hem of his t-shirt and skimmed his lower abdomen.

  "Is that how you ask for a date? You dare a man to charm you? Is that usually effective?"

  "It is with you." She stood on her tiptoes and dipped her fingers into the front of his jeans. "You have never turned down a dare."

  "I've changed. Dares do not phase me at all." He pressed his hips into hers, willing to see how far she would go in broad daylight only blocks from her office. "I am committed to Simone."

  "Like hell you are." The tip of her tongue flicked over his mouth.

  "I." He kissed her lightly. "Will." He slid his mouth from her lips to the line of her jaw. "Never." His tongue flicked ov
er her earlobe. "Date you."

  Somehow she'd kicked off the high heel and now her barefoot slid up the side of his lower leg. "Yes, you will."

  He laughed at her audacity, relieved to see that fire in her eyes. "It is good to know you have big dreams, Jess."

  "Ava said you'd make Boston your home base if only I asked." She moved her hand over the tip of his erection and grinned with satisfaction. "I know there's a lot of heartache here, that you don't trust me, but the way I see it, you're worth me making a fool of myself over."

  He couldn't believe her, even though he wanted to very much. He'd given back the ring, said all he had to say, had vowed to erase her from his heart. The gallery idea with Miranda had slipped from his lips without conscious intent. Looking at her now, he knew it would be too risky to let her close.

  "And then what? I leave for South America, you have a fit about me wandering off, we break up again? Is that how this will play out?"

  "Technically, we never broke up," she whispered, gaze intent on his. "We never had a fight, I still wore the ring, so did you."

  "You're confusing me and I don't like it." His dropped his forehead against hers and tried desperately to reign in his desire.

  "If you don't want a date, then let's go back to my place, lock the door and see what happens."

  "You know what would happen." He grabbed her wrists and made her stop touching him. "What are you really asking me, Jess?"

  "I want..."

  "What do you want?"

  "Us."

  “No.”

  “Yes.”

  “You're ashamed of me, of what we were to one another. Didn’t you say that last week? Yes, you said you don’t talk about Italy to anyone here.” He knew it was the truth when her eyes darted away from him. “You don’t want anyone here to know about our affair. You don’t want your lover to get upset—”

  “You have the wrong idea about Marc. He—”

  “Stop lying. Is it even possible for you to stop?” He pressed his thigh between hers, pushing her tighter against the bark of the tree. “You two are lovers. Deny it.”

  She dropped her head against tree trunk and stared at him. “It’s complicated.”

  “Of course it is. Nothing with you is simple. Come back to my hotel with me. Right now. Intervene.”

  "You think I won't, but I will." Her lips trembled, eyes searched his.

  His gaze locked on her mouth. “Is that your plan? Seduce me away from Simone? How would Marc feel about that?”

  “Stop throwing him in my face.”

  “You want me back in your bed, Jess? Is that all you want? Sex and nothing more?”

  Blue eyes darkened to indigo. Body shifted toward him. Teeth bit into her bottom lip. He knew she wanted him, but he wanted more than that.

  “Do you want me to beg?” Her hands settled on his hips.

  “Yes, I do. Beg me.”

  The war in her eyes was evident.

  “Jacques, please—”

  “No more.” He closed his eyes. “We aren't capable of a casual affair and you know it. We'll get sucked in and then what?”

  “It could be different this time. We'll make it work.”

  "Why the change of mind? Ava? Last Friday night? What? Why? If you hadn't seen me last week, I wouldn't be on your mind at all. If I hadn't come to Boston for the exhibit, we would not be standing here. If I am the great love of your life, then you would have tried to contact me and explain. According to Kevin, I have a huge social media following. Not too hard to catch up to me. I don't trust you. I don't trust this, not at all. Are you using me again? Is this promotion scaring you and I happened along at the right time?"

  "I never used you, never. I thought about contacting you so many times, but what would I say? Then what? I waited too long, was too messed up—maybe still am, I don't know—I didn't know how to say what I felt. Think of all the places you've been in the past five years, all you would have given up for me."

  When she stopped speaking, he started thinking. Without opening his eyes, he moved his hands over her arms, felt the softness of her dress beneath his fingertips, heard her sharp intake of breath, felt her lips caress his chin.

  He shook his head, reality waking him up like a cold shower. “We no longer fit.”

  Her hands fisted in his shirt when he tried to step away. “What does that mean?”

  “It means I think you and Marc will have a nice life together.”

  “Marc and I are not a couple. He does his thing and I do mine, that's it.” Her hold on him intensified.

  He looked at her—really looked—and saw a woman who was as far removed from his lifestyle as he was from a corporate boardroom.

  “I haven’t been fair to you. I came back here hoping to see you, that’s true. All of it was designed to open that door for me.” Confusion twisted his thoughts into meaningless meanderings going nowhere. “We were what we were and had what we had. I gave you back the ring, meant what I said. We've had our closure, bellazza mia. The end.”

  “The end?” Fire returned to her eyes.

  “I look forward to seeing you at the gallery on Friday. I hope you'll change your mind about showing your art.” A hole opened up where his heart once existed. “You should be there with me, like Ava says. You were there in the beginning—”

  “The beginning.” Her eyes flickered with pain. “There are other reasons that I keep Italy to myself, Jacques.”

  “What other reasons?”

  "You're mine, my memory, mine alone. I don't share you, us, with anyone who wasn't there because no one would understand the magnitude of it. I don't tell anyone because it's sacred to me, you, Ava, our life together that summer...sacred to me." She shook her head, disbelief and sadness transforming her eyes into the color of the deep ocean. “Even when I boarded the plane home, I thought somehow, someway we'd be together. That's why I didn't leave a note, I was trying to figure it out. I didn't want it to end, but I needed to come home. I returned too late, I know I screwed up, but I never intended to end us, can't you see that? Now we have a chance to begin again. Brand new. Jessica and Jacques the sequel. Think about how amazing it could be.”

  She made him doubt himself. The look in her eyes, the way her hands fisted in the material of his shirt at his waist, the longing that emanated from her. It was as if he had been caught beneath a wave and didn’t know which way was up.

  Without answering, he disengaged from her and strode across the park. He had to give up the idea of her, surrender the notion that they'd once had a great love affair. Memory had a way of glossing over reality. He broke his stride and looked over his shoulder. She leaned against the trunk of the tree, a vision in yellow surrounded by green.

  And he wondered why walking away felt so damn wrong.

  * * *

  Chapter Eight

  She ran harder than she had in a long time, ran until her legs shook and her lungs screamed in protest. Ask him, Ava had insisted and she'd been foolish enough to do it. He'd looked at her like she'd lost her mind. And she'd thought blurting out the words 'do over' had been bad. Well, they paled in comparison to the joke she'd made of herself today.

  Twilight set upon the city as she rounded the corner toward her apartment. Running usually soothed her tormented mind but not tonight. Miranda had left more messages about showing her art. Julie had called saying she couldn't wait to be at the celebration dinner tomorrow, something she would curse Sela out for later. The image of Jacques walking away from her—rejecting her offer—branded in her vision. Marc's words about making a fool of herself echoed in her head. All the images and words clashed in her brain like crossed radio signals.

  She stumbled onto her front steps, mind no quieter than it had been when she'd set out, and fumbled with the lock.

  "What do you have in mind for our date?"

  Her hands froze on the door.

  Jacques stood behind her. "Your neighbor told me you went jogging after I kept holding down the security button, certain yo
u were hiding. I thought he was going to call the police."

  "That was Sam, he's a graduate student. Good to know he's protective of me."

  Without facing him, she pushed open the door, stood aside, and waited for him to pass. Still trying to catch her breath and sort out her thoughts, she followed him up the stairs and tried not to notice how well his jeans cupped his ass or how sexy his beat up leather jacket still looked all these years later.

  She unlocked the door to her apartment without saying a word. Walking to the kitchen, she pulled off her iPod and tossed it onto the counter before reaching for a bottle of water.

  He tossed his jacket onto the oversized leather chair and started his infuriating habit of pacing around the room looking at every little detail. "Are you going to speak or is this a silent date?"

  She slammed the bottle onto the counter and stared at him. Everything she'd ever repressed threatened to break free. He looked too similar, hair a mess, leather bracelets wrapped on his wrist, green eyes seeing too much, black t-shirt stretching across muscles she remembered too well, black jeans. He didn't fit into her world. He belonged with beautiful people and irreverent artists. He had been right to walk away in the park. She needed to let go of that fantasy of them as a couple.

  What would he think of her mother, of the way she'd grown up?

  He and Ava had grown up with privilege, had traveled the world with their diplomat father and famous violinist mother. She'd met them once when they'd visited Florence. His mother had loved her art, had even taken a canvas back to Belgium with her.

  But she'd been living a lie over there. She hadn't been one of them, but it had felt nice pretending.

  Images filtered through her mind—her mom throwing her up against the wall when she'd found her painting instead of studying, her mother ripping up the acceptance to art school screaming that she wouldn't tolerate a lazy dreamer who might as well strap a mattress to her back to make a living, her sneering in contempt while lecturing her on the importance of money, and Marc saying she'd make a fool of herself and ruin her reputation as a serious architect by agreeing to show her work at Miranda's gallery.

  Yet here stood Jacques Sinclair of all people looking almost the same and staring at her with those eyes that had always seen into her soul.