by Maisey Yates
Whatever the tension had been in his face, he brought it out with him. She could feel it.
“Is the doctor in?” she asked.
The joke came out weak, and so did her voice.
“I thought you were on a date,” he said, frowning.
“I was.”
He backed away, holding the door open, allowing her to enter. She slipped in past him, and he moved away from her. He stood in the center of the diner, his large frame making the space seem small.
She’d never thought of J’s as small. But Adam was usually contained behind the counter, not just standing there out in the middle of the dining room.
“Aren’t you going to get behind the counter?” she asked.
“Do you need me to be behind the counter?”
“You just usually are.”
“Well, I’m not right now.”
“That’s fine.” It didn’t feel fine. It felt weird.
“So how was your date?” he asked.
“It was good,” she said, holding her hands behind her back. She could feel Adam looking at her, up and down. And even though she had a coat on over the dress, she still felt self-conscious. “We had a perfectly pleasant conversation.”
“You and Mark.”
“Yes.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “About plumbing?”
“No. About our lives.” In fact she officially knew more about Mark’s life than Adam’s.
“Okay. Interesting. And it was good?”
“Yes. Pleasant, even. We covered a range of topics, but nothing controversial. He didn’t ask me about sports. So right there, he exceeds a great many men conversationally.”
“Right. Because you don’t like sports.”
“I do not.”
“So what are you doing here, then?” he asked. “You could be out still making conversation.”
“Well, dinner was over. I was going to go home...”
“But not with him.” The words had bite. And they weren’t a question.
“No,” she said, as if it was the most ridiculous thing in the world. As if she had thought about it, at least in a detached way. “It’s a little bit soon for that, don’t you think?”
“I don’t know. You were out on a date. I don’t presume to know everything about you.”
“Well, I told you it was a just-friends thing.” She looked at her hands. “And, anyway, it’s too soon. For that.”
“But you might go out with him again, and maybe it won’t feel too soon?”
She looked away from her hands and back at him. “I don’t know. I don’t have to know. That’s kind of a cool thing about this...life that I didn’t exactly choose to be in the middle of. I don’t have to know. I don’t have to make a choice about it. Not now. Maybe ever. You know, the time might never be right for me.”
“Right. Of course.”
“How about you?” She crossed her arms, the sleeves on her coat bunching up. “Have you had a date lately?”
He huffed out a laugh. “No. When would I have had a date?”
“Just wondering. We don’t usually talk about dating stuff.”
“Yeah. You were married until a few months ago.”
The words slid under her skin like a barb. And she wondered if he’d meant them to.
Something felt a lot like danger in the air around her. And Hannah’s sneering face swam into her consciousness. She ignored it.
“Yes. But I’m not now.”
“No,” he said, a muscle jumping in his jaw. “You’re not.”
Silence fell between them. The only sound the humming of the heater and the various refrigerators in the back. The music was off, which was a strange thing to notice, but it was something else that made the diner feel unfamiliar.
Adam wasn’t behind the counter. And it was far too quiet.
“Maybe we should talk about sports,” she said. “I feel like that’s maybe what the date was missing.”
“It was missing something?”
“Yes. Something. Because I didn’t want to go home. I wanted to come here. Because it felt like...” She blew out a hard breath. “I don’t know, like the night wasn’t done. Ask me about a stupid sports thing.”
“What if I’m not in the mood to talk about sports?”
“Well, then, what good are you, Adam? You are my go-to for sports conversations that I don’t want to be in.”
“Right now you seem to want to be in the conversation, so that defeats the purpose of me harassing you with it.”
“How’s your sports team?” she asked.
He let out a slow breath and walked out of the center of the dining room, around to the back of the counter. She didn’t know why, but she felt like she had just lost ground. She didn’t even know what ground she was thinking of.
“Which one?” He was in his preferred position now, his usual position. Him on one side and her on the other, but everything still felt wrong.
“I don’t know.” She flung out her arms. “The ones playing right now.”
“I haven’t been watching sports. I haven’t been able to concentrate.”
“Oh.”
He sighed heavily. “What’s going on, Rachel?”
“I don’t know,” she said honestly. “I don’t know. I—I had a nice time on my date. I was nervous to go out, and... You know, I realize that I didn’t care who it was with. Going to dinner with him felt like going to dinner with an old friend, and it was nice. But... I didn’t want to kiss him. And maybe that’s the thing. Maybe I’ll never want to kiss anyone. That’s a relief, actually, because I was afraid I’d have to do this whole thing. And I guess I don’t have to.”
Silence ticked by, seconds that she counted. And suddenly, she felt very aware of her mouth. Suddenly, she became very aware of that he was looking at her mouth.
She looked away. “Maybe that’s the thing. I wanted to rush this, to see if I was going to be the kind of person who needed it, or if I would be happy alone forever. It was the suspense I couldn’t take. And now I know. It was nothing. And I was fine with it.”
“There you go,” he said. “I guess you had the answers all along.”
He was dismissing her. And she felt flat and strange. And very silly. She wished she could go back and decide not to come here. Or even just go back and say about half the words she’d said tonight, because she’d just said too many things, and not enough of them had made sense.
“Yeah. I guess so.” She didn’t have answers. Not even one. She felt hollowed out and awful and like she wanted to cry.
But it was clear that he wanted her to go, and she wasn’t going to stay if he was ready to leave. If he wanted her gone.
“Good night, Adam,” she said. “I... I’ll see you. I’ll see you...soon.”
“The door locked behind you when you came in, I’m going to have to let you out.”
“Oh,” she said.
She lingered where she stood for a moment while Adam came out from behind the counter and pressed a code that she assumed disarmed something. Then he pushed his key into the lock and turned it, releasing the door. And he stood and wedged it open, his arm pressed across the door and his body positioned right at the entryway, like an imposing sentry.
She took a breath, and consciously realized she was holding it to avoid breathing in his aftershave again. Because it made her stomach feel funny.
She started to move past him, and suddenly, he caught her arm, holding her there between his body and the door. His blue eyes were intense, and she felt it then. All the way through. The danger. And she wondered how she had ever thought that he was anything quite as bland as safe.
“Just a second,” he said, his voice rough.
And he leaned in and captured her mouth with his.
Heat flooded her entire body, heat
and desire and intense, undeniable need.
It was like being caught up in a wave, being pushed under the surface so far she couldn’t tell which end was up. Couldn’t seem to find her way to air. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Because as it went on, she started to wonder if he was air.
He pulled away from her and she whimpered. She wanted to cry because it was over. Because she had to think again, and she didn’t want to.
“I just wanted to be the first one,” he said, his voice rough. “Because you’re going to be ready, someday. And somebody already got in and asked you out before I did, and it doesn’t matter if it was nothing with him—it won’t be nothing with everyone. You won’t be alone forever.”
Sometimes truths came together slow and easy. Like looking through a soft-focus lens slowly being narrowed in, bringing detail into focus and making all things clear.
This was a soft focus. It was not a gentle truth. This truth fell from the sky fully formed and hit her on the head.
Sharp. Hard.
Adam.
She wanted him.
Wanted.
Not a dinner date. Not a nice conversation.
But to kiss him. Touch him. Taste him.
And it wasn’t fresh, or new. There was a reason she sought him out when she needed someone to talk to. A reason she wanted to be near him.
It was a great and terrible realization. It had been an easy thing to go on a date with Mark because she didn’t want him. Because he wasn’t dangerous. Not like this.
This was the great and terrible truth that had vibrated beneath the surface of her skin all night. She wanted to date because she didn’t know what else to call it. She didn’t want to date because she wasn’t ready for a relationship, and she didn’t want to insert another man into her life.
She wanted something much more direct. Something raw and naked.
Something that was about her. Not about anyone else.
It wouldn’t heal anything or anyone.
It wouldn’t bring Jacob back or make her relationship with Emma better.
It wouldn’t repair the relationship with her mother.
Wouldn’t help Anna with her present plight.
It wasn’t about being a caregiver, or a fixer. A mother, a sister or a wife.
It was about being a woman. A woman who wanted a man.
And...she was going to do it. Before she could lose her nerve, before she could think more about it.
She wrapped her arms around his neck, and she kissed him deeply. She had only ever kissed one man in her life, and it was the strangest thing in all the world to have a different mouth beneath hers.
To learn a different flavor, a different texture. The way that he held her was different. So was the way her body fit against his.
And he was... He was hard, and he was strong, his arms like a steel band around her, his chest a wall, his heart thundering beneath.
She wasn’t hiding from his scent now—she was letting it envelop her, letting it overtake her senses completely.
She had forgotten what it was like to be kissed like this, and then again, she had never been kissed quite like this, because she had never been kissed by him.
“Maybe we shouldn’t stand in the doorway?” he whispered against her mouth.
“Right,” she said. “Upstairs?”
He paused for a moment, his blue eyes hot and sharp with need.
“Are we clear on what you’re asking for?” He took a step back. “Because I don’t want to go upstairs and have a talk.”
“Neither do I,” she said.
He pulled her inside, pulled the door shut behind her and turned all the locks again. Then he quickly turned off the lights in the diner.
“I figure we don’t need to advertise it to half the town.”
“Thank you,” she said.
She was trembling. She felt like a virgin.
Well, she practically was.
It had been so long since she’d had a first time.
Since she’d been afraid of what it would mean to be naked in front of a man. It had become casual to be naked in front of Jacob.
There was an ease that they had with each other, and with each other’s bodies. And even when they’d been unable to have a sexual relationship, that ease had remained. She didn’t worry about stretch marks, she didn’t worry about cellulite on her butt and her thighs.
She knew that he wasn’t comparing her to other women, because he hadn’t been with any other women.
She knew that he remembered when her breasts had been fuller, and when they been a little bit perkier, but she also knew that he loved them the way that they were. He remembered when her stomach was tighter, but he loved to run his hands over it when it was just a little bit softer all the same.
She didn’t know anything about how many women Adam had been with. What he was used to. What he liked.
She didn’t know what he would think of her body, and she kind of wasn’t sure what she thought about her body. Because she hadn’t thought about it all that much.
Her body had been faithful to her all these years. She wasn’t ill, or in pain, and so she didn’t much mind the stretch marks and cellulite, in light of everything else.
She minded it all a little bit right now.
“Come here,” he said, grabbing her hand and leading her behind the counter.
“Well, we’re on the same side of the counter,” she said.
“It would be a little bit difficult if the counter was between us,” he said.
That was true. Maybe that was why they’d kept it between them quite so resolutely.
He took her into the kitchen, and she looked around, a little bit disoriented seeing the diner from a whole different perspective. But they moved quickly, to a door in the back, which opened to reveal a narrow, dark staircase.
“I promise the staircase is worse than the apartment.”
“It would have to be,” she said, laughing nervously.
She ignored the staircase, anyway, and she enjoyed the way that it felt to have him hold her hand. His hands were big, and they were calloused.
Warm.
She liked the feel of it.
She remembered when their fingertips had been so close to touching, only a couple of days ago, and she wondered... If they had brushed then, would they have ended up here even faster. She had a feeling they would have. That if they would have touched, this electricity would have been there.
Maybe it had been all along.
Waiting.
Waiting for the moment when they could touch.
That thought settled strange in the pit of her stomach.
He was right. The apartment was better than the staircase. It was homey, and cozy, with battered wood flooring, a small kitchen area, a seating area and a bed.
A large bed.
The blanket on top was a blue-and-white quilt, something that had to be either an heirloom or a thrift-store find because she couldn’t imagine Adam choosing something like that with great thought.
He closed the door behind them and went over to a heating-and-cooling unit on the wall, then pressed the button a few times. “It’ll get warm in here pretty quick,” he said.
“You do understand women,” she said, shivering slightly, though it wasn’t from the cold.
“Yeah, I remember some things.”
He closed the distance between them, and he cupped her chin, holding her steady as he leaned in to kiss her again. He took it slow this time, achingly so.
And with each pass of his mouth over hers, the kisses went deeper. Until she was utterly and completely lost in them.
In him.
And it was like freedom. Because for a moment she just felt good. Aroused in a way she hadn’t been in longer than she could remember. The excitement o
f his hands roaming over her body, even with her coat and dress on, was so intense she could hardly stand it.
It was bright, and it was new, and during this long, gray season, it was a gift.
He pushed her coat from her shoulders, and let it drop to the ground. He moved his hands down her back, to her bottom, pulling her up against him.
He touched her cheeks when she came into contact with the evidence of his arousal.
He wanted her.
And maybe he hadn’t seen the stretch marks, and maybe he hadn’t borne witness to the cellulite, but he wanted her as she was now, and that was truly something.
He took a step away from her, and he grabbed hold of the back of his shirt collar, pulling it forward over his head in that way that men did that was both mystifying and glorious all at once.
His body was...well, it was shocking.
If she had been hoping for him to maybe meet her at her insecurities, she knew that she was out of luck.
Because he was stunning.
A man, mature and in his prime, with muscles that were much more well-defined than she’d imagined beneath his typical uniform of a black T-shirt and jeans. She wasn’t sure if it excited her or terrified her to know that they were so unevenly matched on this score.
He wasn’t normal.
Mark’s body would have been way less intimidating than all of this—this perfection that nobody would have expected out of a diner owner in his forties. There should have at least been rumors going around about his abs, and yet, there were none. At least none that she had heard.
“What?” he asked.
She had probably been standing there staring like an idiot.
“I feel like you should probably warn people that you’re this hot.”
Half of his mouth rose upward, and a laugh that sounded somewhat helpless escaped his lips. “I’m sorry, what?”
“It’s really not fair. I had no idea.”
“You had no idea I was...hot?”
“I knew you were handsome. Very handsome. And in decent shape. But, I feel like you should warn a woman that you’re quite so...you know—” she waved her hand “—this, before she commits to coming upstairs and getting naked with you.”
“Why is that? Is there something repellent about me being hot?”
