by Ranae Rose
When she’d poured two glasses she lifted one of them and promptly pressed it against her forehead. Condensation had already formed in crystalline beads on its smooth surface, and it felt cool and refreshing against her skin. She squeezed her eyes shut and savored the sensation, willing the fire to go out of her cheeks – and a few other less obvious places. She needed to cool down before she made an idiot of herself in front of Derek, who was affecting her like some sort of hunky kryptonite. Maybe it was the good mood his approval of her business plan had put her in, but repaying him with another kiss had begun to seem alarmingly like a reasonable idea. After a few moments of deep-breathing she hastily scrubbed the moisture from her forehead and returned to the living room, a tumbler full of homemade lemonade in each hand.
“Thanks,” he said, accepting his. His fingertips brushed hers as she relinquished the glass and a tingly shiver raced down her spine. So much for cooling off.
She carefully took a seat, putting a couple feet between their bodies as a buffer against the unruly urges that were assaulting her. Was it just her, or did he seem to be a lot more focused on her than the lemonade as he licked his lips? Her wondering was interrupted by the sudden realization that she was doing the same, and she withdrew her tongue hastily from the edge of her lip, all too aware that he’d noticed.
Maybe small talk would ease the tension. “So, how long have you been running the Blue Mills Donut House?”
“About five years,” he said dispassionately, his eyes locked firmly with hers, his lips split by the rim of his glass and slick with lemonade.
“Oh.” It was all she could bring herself to say. His tone made it clear his mind was on something other than his donut business. Mainly her, she suspected, watching his eyes dip momentarily below her collarbones and the neckline of her T-shirt. She turned her glass in her hand, mulling over the tempting revelation as beads of condensation streamed down her fingers to dampen her wrist. Was he really this into her? He looked like he should be in a calendar somewhere, not in Blue Mills. He seemed too hot for such a decidedly lukewarm small town. She, on the other hand, felt perfectly at home here. Was she really the kind of girl he went for? The hunger – yes, she was sure that was what it was – in his eyes seemed to scream ‘yes’.
Too bad she couldn’t let it happen.
“So how about a second date?”
She nearly jumped at the sound of his voice. His eyes were still locked with hers, intense, willing her to say ‘yes’. “The thing is,” she said, stalling with a sip of lemonade and using the time to summon every ounce of her willpower, “I can’t. Sorry.”
He leaned toward her, his gaze tempting and defiant. She realized he hadn’t been willing her to say ‘yes’ – he’d been daring her to say ‘no’. His breath came hot and slow against her face, his mouth only inches from hers, smelling of lemons and sugar. “You seem like you want to.” It was clearly a challenge.
And what a challenge it was. His lips begged for hers, as tempting as forbidden candy. She could taste them in her memory, and her tongue inched rebelliously forward in her mouth, touching the barrier of her teeth. “I do. I don’t. It doesn’t matter, because I can’t.”
“Why not?” His breath mingled with hers, and she could detect faint, smoky traces of the barbeque sandwich he’d had for lunch beneath the sweet tang of lemonade.
Suddenly, she didn’t know why not. Leaning ever so slightly forward, she pressed her lips against his, only to have the reins firmly jerked from her hands as he responded, his mouth leaping into action beneath hers. He wrapped his arms around her, pulling her tight against his chest, squeezing the breath out of her in a sweet-and-tart rush. Her breasts were compressed against his solid surface of his chest and her heart hammered beneath them, beating a fierce rhythm against his muscle. He must have felt how fast it was beating, but she didn’t care – his tongue had found hers and was demanding every bit of her attention. She spared just enough of her mental energy to register the presence a growing firmness that pressed against her belly, so hard against her it sent electric flutters through her core.
Something shifted, and suddenly she was on her back, her head resting against one of the plush decorative pillows that were at either end of the couch. Derek’s arms were beneath her, wrapping her tightly against him. One of her hands was splayed on his chest, caught between their bodies, and his heart beat against her palm.
One of his hands slid out from under her back, tickling her ribs as his fingertips skimmed them. When his palm came to rest on the swell of her breast she moaned into his mouth as her nipple tingled and tightened beneath the cover of her bra and shirt. Suddenly, that cover seemed very thin. His fingertips rested above the cup of her bra, a hairsbreadth away from brushing her nipple. She wriggled beneath him and the motion sent her hips grinding against his erection.
He groaned and flexed his hips against hers in response, sending the tip of his denim-covered cock into the hollow of her belly button. She gasped and he took the opportunity to plunge his tongue deeper into her mouth as he pressed her hard against the couch cushions. With one arm wrapped under her back and the other slowly kneading her breast, he had her thoroughly trapped. The soft cushions rose up to cradle her where he didn’t and she was completely caught between their embrace and his. Her nipple had finally risen above the cup of her bra, and his fingertips massaged it, reducing it to a tiny, rock-hard bud.
Derek’s phone rang. The loud ringtone emanated from his pocket and shattered Kelly’s illusion that her world had been reduced to the space between his hot body and the couch. He flexed his hips again, grinding himself against her belly, as if doing so would banish the musical intrusion. It went on and on, the melody repeating itself, and he matched the beat, moving in perfect time with it against her. The kiss had finally ended and they were breathing hard against each other’s mouths, Kelly gasping as her stomach fluttered and her pussy dampened, sending a message to her brain that made her wonder vaguely why they were still wearing clothes.
Eventually the phone stopped ringing, only to be launched immediately back into musical action by a second call. Derek wrenched himself away from Kelly with a wordless, frustrated gasp and dug into his pocket. Doing so pulled his jeans even tighter over his erection, rendering the outline of his cock clearly visible. She could’ve reached out to trace the thick ridge of flesh that marked where the head began. If she’d been capable of rising, that was. At the moment she was distinctly breathless and a little light-headed. On top of that, Derek’s gaze was still fixed firmly on her, his eyes holding hers in a burning, inescapable lock, even as he answered the phone.
“Yeah?”
Silence followed as someone clearly replied on the other end of the connection.
“Shit. Turn it off if you haven’t already and call an electrician. Have the fire extinguisher ready. I’ll be there soon.”
He shoved the phone back into his pocket, never breaking the gaze he held with Kelly. “A fryer is blowing sparks at my assistant manager. I have to go.”
A sudden, fierce stirring struck her core, making her mouth water and the ghost of a protest rise up in the back of her throat. He was clearly experiencing something similar – it was obvious in the way he shifted, tugging at the waistband of his jeans. Doing so failed to loosen what now looked to be a very uncomfortable fit. It was also evident in the way a glimmer passed through the depths of his eyes and in the way his lips, inflamed with hard kissing, twitched slightly at the corners.
“Damn,” she breathed, her voice little more than a whisper.
“I know.”
Of course he did. It was obvious he was just as ready to pick up where they’d left off as she was.
He pulled at the waistband of his jeans again. “When will I see you again? Tonight?”
“I’m working late.”
A third tug did nothing to lessen his apparent discomfort or diminish its cause. “Tomorrow?”
She nodded, the audible reply she’d intended to giv
e having been reduced to a heavy sigh of frustrated longing.
****
Supervising the repair of a fryer that had been emitting sparks like some sort of fire-breathing dragon only minutes ago was not what Derek wanted to be doing. He’d sped to the shop in his truck, his mind so thoroughly occupied with the remembered sight and taste and feel of Kelly that he’d driven by a combination of memorization and instinct, hardly seeing the road. When he’d arrived he’d rushed past a cloud of smoke and into the bathroom, where he’d splashed himself liberally with cold water until he was fit to come out. Even now a tingling ache remained in his balls, making him want to jump back into his truck and speed back to Kelly’s place, both of their work obligations be damned.
He sighed to himself as the electrician, who’d been hastily summoned by a half-panicked Jason, droned on about the nature of the defect and repair. Derek trusted that the others would attribute this small display of chagrin to dismay over the state of his best fryer. After all, neither of them had a clue as to what a mind-blowing encounter he’d just had with Kelly. The memory of it filled him with both a victorious sort of elation and miserable regret. He’d had the sexiest girl in Blue Mills in his arms, gasping beneath him and shimmying her hips against his. He was pretty sure she’d marked his chest with her sharp little fingernails. And he’d left her wanting on her own couch because sparks had been flying elsewhere. Being a small business owner definitely wasn’t the freedom-fest so many people seemed to think it was.
Kelly seemed to have a pretty realistic grasp on the commitments involved though, if her business plan was any indication. Had she invited him in with the sole intent of showing him her little blue binder, or had she hoped, as he had, that things would take off from there? After mulling the matter over for a few more minutes, standing beside the kneeling electrician, he still wasn’t sure what to think. She’d definitely been resisting his advances at first, but it’d been obvious that there’d been more to it than that – an undercurrent of returned attraction he’d sensed even beneath her stalwart efforts to deter his romantic intentions.
God, he wished he could see her again tonight. If only she didn’t have to work late… He’d just have to hit the gym instead. A hard workout was better than sitting at home, thinking about when he’d get to see her next.
“I’ll have to order that part specially,” the electrician said, clearly in the middle of a lengthy monologue and completely unaware that Derek hadn’t been soaking up his every word. “It should arrive in a couple weeks.”
“A couple weeks?” The prospect of his best fryer being out of commission for so long snapped Derek rudely out of his musings.
“Yup.”
Derek sighed again. Two weeks seemed a long time away. Tomorrow seemed even further.
****
Kelly tossed a handful of lavender bath salts into the tub and sighed deeply, plunging her feet into the almost too-hot water. She’d worked a late shift at the restaurant the night before and the morning ‘till lunch shift today – a brutal combination, as far as her feet were concerned. She needed the fragrant salts to calm her whirling mind as much as to ease the ache in her heels. She hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what she’d done with Derek since it’d happened the afternoon before. Despite nearly twenty-four hours of contemplation, she still began to shift into a panic at the memory. What had she done?
Well, she knew what they’d very nearly done, and the thought scared her right down to her aching toes. If it hadn’t been for that phone call she’d have been wriggling out of her jeans in minutes. And loving it. That was the problem – when she was around Derek, she lost her senses. Even now, the thought of being pressed against his hot body sent a sensual shiver down her spine. What was it about him?
It was everything. She liked everything about him, from his perfect body to his gorgeous eyes, to the way he’d sat on her couch for almost an hour and poured over her business plan with real interest, to the way he’d kissed her. Among other things.
And that was what made him so dangerous – she couldn’t resist him. She knew that now, just like she knew what she had to do. When he came to pick her up tonight, she’d tell him she wouldn’t be seeing him again.
****
Derek arrived perfectly on time. Kelly watched his truck pull into the small apartment complex’s parking lot from her living room window. The vehicle’s silver-blue reflection passed across her field of vision like a shadow, causing her stomach to clench. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d dreaded something so badly.
When he stepped out of his truck she dropped the curtain and drifted out of view. He knocked twice and she hesitated a moment before opening the door, savoring the last few seconds of silence. She knew what she was about say to him would leave the quiet of her solitary apartment ringing in her ears like a gunshot after he left without her.
“Kelly.” He used her name as a greeting, and the smile that broke across his face when he said it made her stomach seize up again.
“Derek. I have something I’ve got to say to you.” There was no sense in dragging it out.
A shadow seemed to cross his face, and his smile faded a little as his eyes searched hers. “Yeah?”
One last deep breath. “I can’t go to dinner with you tonight, and I can’t see you again.”
His smile evaporated like a drop of water dashed against a hot frying pan.
“I’m sorry.”
For a few moments he didn’t say anything, just stood there on her front steps looking like he’d been hit. When he regained his composure it was obvious he didn’t intend to just walk away. At least not yet. “Alright then. I’ll leave and I won’t bother you anymore, but you’ve got to tell me why first.”
She opened her mouth to protest, and he raised an eyebrow. The memory of yesterday lay between them, unmentioned. Still, she knew he was thinking of it too. And she supposed that after initiating that, she did owe him an explanation. A quick one, and nothing more.
“Come in for a minute then.”
They headed by unspoken consent to the kitchen table, neither of them making any move toward the couch, which seemed to have acquired a sudden forbidden air, like the scene of some really hot crime, minus the yellow tape. Pulling out chairs and sitting across the little wooden tabletop from each other seemed oddly formal after yesterday, but that was for the best.
Derek was silent, apparently waiting for her to offer an explanation without further prodding. “It’s not you,” she began. “I am attracted to you. Well, that’s obvious, isn’t it?” She laughed nervously, and the ghost of a smile touched Derek’s mouth. Were his lips tingling like hers were? “But I can’t get involved with anyone right now. I promised myself I wouldn’t until I got my café up and running.”
Did that sound as lame to him as it did to her? Said out loud, it seemed like a hollow excuse. How could she explain her need to isolate herself for a while and the mess of an explanation that lay behind it?
He was staring across the table at her, an unreadable expression on his face. His silence encouraged her to elaborate, perhaps more effectively than asking would have. With a small sigh of frustration, she plunged on. “The café is my dream. It’s so important to me that I don’t want to risk getting involved with anyone because I’m afraid they won’t support me, that I’ll let the relationship get in the way of actually starting my business. I need to focus on seeing my plans through.”
He arched a dark brow, much like he’d done in the doorway. “You don’t think I’d support your business ambitions?”
Her insides gave a guilty squirm. It was hard to imagine anything negative about Derek when she was sitting across from him, looking right into his gorgeous eyes. “Like I said, it’s not you specifically. I’m not willing to take the risk on anyone. I promised myself.”
His expression had changed. What was it she saw in his eyes now – a knowing look? Yeah, that was it. Something almost imperceptible had passed over his face, and now h
e looked strangely as if he knew something she hadn’t said out loud.
“Tell me, is that because someone disappointed you before?”
The knots in her stomach tightened. Was he reading her mind, or just her face? Or was the baggage from her last relationship just that obvious? “Yeah.”
He pushed a hand across the table and spread it over one of hers. His touch was solid and reassuring. She hadn’t known he was capable of touching her in a way that didn’t instantly jump-start her sex drive. He was still appealing – there was no question about that – but there was more friendliness in his touch than sexual appetite. The realization made her eyes feel tight and dangerously damp.
“He made me feel terrible.” She was talking again before she realized it. “About wanting to open my own café – about myself.” That was a serious candidate for understatement of the century. “He was OK with it when we first started dating, but when I started really laying down my plans and trying to get things started about a year ago, everything blew up in my face.” There was another good one. She could still hear Peter’s voice echoing through the back of her mind, so casually harsh. He’d known how to deliver a tongue-lashing, how to make her feel like she’d been stripped down to her bones with just a few words. She could still remember the moment she’d realized he was never going to support any effort she ever made to better her life. All he’d cared about was his own career – he’d never understood why she needed to do something that she could take some measure of satisfaction in too. “One day he asked me why I’d ever want to start my own restaurant when I could work at one that already existed. At the time I wasn’t even waiting tables – I’d just started out as a dish washer at the steak house.” She tried to laugh, but it came out half sob. God, was she really crying in front of Derek? She hastily tried to wipe the moisture from her eyes and look casual about it.
