Sighing at his lack of composure, Will flipped open a storage compartment on the back of the bike and pulled out a black helmet with bright blue and green swirls. He’d bought the colors because they just seemed like her, though he was unsure why he could think of only her wearing it. He had meant to purchase a spare just in case he got asked for a ride in the future—by anyone. Which could still happen, he told himself, looking at the helmet with serious contemplation.
The red-haired enigma in front him was vibrating with excitement about wearing it. She charmed him with nothing more than her enthusiasm, and Will sighed at his thoughts.
“Got a sturdy leather or heavy canvass jacket?” Will asked. “Boots would be best, but good sneakers would be okay.”
Jessica wrinkled her face and hummed in concentration. “I think so. Be right back.”
Will watched her dash off at the same clip she’d run out to him, and it made him laugh. The laughter died when Jessica came back out of the house in less than two minutes wearing well-worn dark brown cowboy boots and a leather jacket that molded to her impressive curves. Her comfort in her clothes and herself had his mouth watering and his hands shaking to get on her. He sighed with longing when she was standing directly in front of him again.
Jessica grinned at Will’s sigh and liked him even more for being the kind of man whose passion was visible.
“I ride a lot of things,” Jessica teased, the lines at her eyes crinkling under his inspection. “This is my horse gear.”
Will stepped up to her with the helmet in his hand. She was even taller in her boots and was meeting his gaze full on. Jessica Daniels was literally the tallest woman he could ever remember going out with, even counting college, which was a hell of a long time ago. He pulled the helmet down on her head, feeling her hands come up to push it back and seat it more comfortably.
“How’s it feel?” he asked, his hands on the straps.
She brought her hands up to Will’s, brushing hers quickly over them to encourage him, trying to pretend not to be thrilled when he froze at her touch.
“Feels good. Adjust the straps. I’m ready for my ride,” she said on a laugh.
Will blinked a couple times, then moved his now slightly shaking hands under her chin to secure the chin strap. She tilted her chin up for greater access and his gaze went directly to her unpainted mouth.
“Just do it,” Jessica told him, her smiling gaze taunting him.
“What?” Will asked, still sliding straps to adjust each side of the helmet.
“Kiss me and get it over with,” Jessica told him. “I’m as curious as you are about it.”
“How do you know I’m curious?” Will demanded, trying to decide if he liked her aggressiveness or not. She was awfully forward, almost too honest. He hadn’t even decided if he was going to kiss her yet, even if he did want to.
“Maybe I’m not as curious as you think,” Will chastised, frowning and trying to convince himself her suggestion was too much too soon. He dropped his hands from the straps and took one step back for breathing room.
“Chicken,” Jessica taunted, laughing as Will all but scowled at her.
“You flirt this hard with all the guys you date?” Will asked, seriously frowning at her as he slipped on his jacket.
“Only the ones I really, really want to kiss in return,” Jessica said, crossing her arms and levelly meeting his gaze.
“Good to know,” Will told her, narrowing his gaze at her and wondering just how many guys that had been, not that he cared. He looked at Jessica’s mouth longingly one last time and pulled his own helmet over his head.
“We’re wasting daylight,” he said to her, using a phrase his dad had used often in his youth to hurry him up. He turned and stepped over the bike. “You coming or not?”
Disappointed he hadn’t taken her up on her dare, Jessica almost replied with a scathing comment, but in the end she decided to play nice. She wanted the bike ride. It had been twenty years and she was genuinely looking forward to it. So she bit her tongue and dropped the subject.
She walked to the bike and swung herself onto the seat behind him. “Do you want me to hang on to you or the bike?” she asked, sliding her long legs intimately beside his hips and along his thighs, putting her crotch practically against his back. Yoga kept a woman very flexible, and as a fairly large woman, Jessica appreciated being loose in her hips. With a little effort and the right motivation, she could have flattened herself against his back but figured she had already worried him enough.
It was all Will could do not to scoot backward into the heat of her. With Jessica wrapped around him, Will suddenly found himself fighting to breath normally. He started the bike before he answered, hoping the idle would cover the huskiness of his voice.
His level of interest in the woman was way too advanced for a first date, Will thought. Hell, it was way too advanced for him period. He wasn’t sure yet what he even felt about dating, much less what he felt about Jessica Daniels, her long legs, or the heat at his back. It was appealing, but damn—he needed time to think about it.
“I haven’t had a passenger on a bike with me since my sons were in high school. I guess just put your arms around me and hang on,” Will said finally, breathing a sigh when she kept her hands above his belt line. If she let them drop, he would wreck them before they got off her street.
Doing as she was told, and feeling the firmness of his chest under her hands, Jessica thought the women of this town needed to have their libidos checked for letting this man run around alone. It was all she could do to keep her hands off the rest of him.
Not that Will seemed to be having the same problem, which was a damn shame. If she’d been younger that disappointment might have ruined her day, but at her age it was not the end of the world.
And as much as she hated to admit it, she’d been down this road with other men before. There could be only one reason, Jessica concluded, for Will not kissing her when she could clearly see he wanted to. It was the same reason he likely had for not dating up to now. Everett Williams was obviously still in love with his ex-wife.
Sighing heavily at the knowledge, Jessica hugged Will tighter. Her suspicions were depressing and sucked most of the excitement away from the ride. They were halfway to Berea before Jessica could finally quiet her disappointment enough to enjoy the air whizzing past her and the rumble under her rear.
How old had she been when she dated the last guy with a motorcycle? She had probably been twenty-something—twenty-something and still happily naïve about men. They had ridden the bike everywhere and made love on it several times. She had fond, fond memories of those previous bike rides. Riding with Will now, years later, was certainly no hardship either, even if a bike ride was all she was going to get from him today.
Sad, but feeling better about her motives, Jessica decided to just focus on being a good companion to Will. When they cruised into the parking lot of the arts center, she climbed off first without being asked, knowing it was what she needed to do. She could tell she had surprised. It brought a smile to her face.
Will didn’t comment on Jessica’s actions as he set the kickstand and climbed off himself. It was obvious he wasn’t her first bike ride, and he couldn’t help wondering who she’d ridden with before him.
“Great ride,” she exclaimed, removing her helmet on her own. “I like how you drive, Larson. Bike is smooth as glass, too. It’s been twenty years since I’ve been on a bike. Yours is great.”
“Yes, it is,” Will replied, basking in her praise, even as he wondered about her change in attitude.
Gone was the seducing siren who had climbed on his bike. It was like they had left her behind in Lexington. Instead of feeling relieved, Will found he was sorely disappointed. He looked at Jessica’s softly smiling mouth, wondering what would happen if he kissed her now. She looked away from him, pretending not to notice his study, but Will knew she was aware of everything he did.
Damn it, he thought. The woman was unde
r his skin already. How and when had that happened?
“So where’s your work?” Jessica asked, taking a few steps and stretching her legs.
Will unlocked the compartments on each side of the bike. “You can store your gear in here if you want. Hang the helmet off the handle bar.”
Jessica did as he asked and bent to check her hair in the bike mirror. “Oh God,” she said, running fingers through her wildly curling hair trying to tame the worst of the helmet hair problems. “I forgot about that little side effect.”
She laughed as she straightened. “Got an ink pen?”
Will pulled his leather jacket back out of the side compartment and retrieved a pen from the pocket before handing it to her. He couldn’t imagine what surface the woman intended to write on or what piece of knowledge was so critical she had to write it down.
“Oh, that’s the perfect kind,” Jessica said sweetly, taking the straight stick ink pen from Will.
Will watched, mesmerized, as Jessica twisted and wound her hair with her fingers, finally using the ink pen to secure it in place at the back of her head. When she was finished, her hair was as tame as her conversation had been since she’d climbed off the bike. It brought yet another frown to Will’s face, making him wonder what kind of reaction he was having to her.
The woman was being nothing but pleasant, yet he found her sweetness irritating as hell for some reason. The urge to kiss her was strong. His regret for not doing it earlier was even stronger. Whether he wanted to or not, Will sincerely missed the aggressive woman who had flirted so hard with him before. He wanted that woman back.
“Okay, I’m ready now,” she said brightly, smiling at Will without any heat, without revealing anything more than polite interest in his art. “Let’s see your work.”
“Sure. Fine,” Will answered, wondering what else he was expecting.
Whatever it was, he wasn’t getting to the bottom of it in the parking lot.
He led her to the side of the center and to a paved garden area filled with budding trees. They stopped at a white alabaster piece consisting of five large interconnected circles, each round ring looking like it grew out of the last one.
“This piece is abstract. I don’t do many of these, but now and again the idea for one comes and I usually indulge it,” Will said quietly.
“Wow, this is all one piece,” Jessica said reverently, amazed at the smooth precision of it, the intricate, graceful design. “Will, this is amazing.”
Jessica ran her hand over the piece alternatively looking between him and his art. She couldn’t help wondering how Will visualized a piece like this as he was working on it.
“You definitely have a gift,” she said, meaning it more than she had imagined she would.
Will watched her running fingertips over the piece, her experience of it as much in her touch as it was in her gaze traveling over it. She used her hands for tactile exploration, a touch meant to learn secrets, but still reverent and full of admiration. She was touching his art exactly how he’d imagined her touching him.
Interested parts of his body started to harden at the enticing idea that it could be next. There was shock followed closely by a deep acceptance of his desire for her, but he didn’t have a clue how to tell Jessica what was going on. With erotic thoughts robbing him of the ability to speak, Will said nothing much in reply to her comments about his art, just motioned Jessica deeper into the area when she was done with the first piece.
Set in a paver circle, the seven-foot marble man Will called ‘David 13’ was a little too realistic to greet modest guests at the center, but he certainly had an impact on those willing to venture deeper.
Naming his work after the statue he considered the greatest of all body sculpting work, Will considered his attempts to create art were only emulation. The numbers were self-explanatory for the attempt. So caught up was he in seeing his earlier work again himself, Will hadn’t realized Jessica was still moving forward until she had walked completely past him.
She appeared to be in some sort of trance, Will decided, a small smile tugging at his mouth. His amusement didn’t last long. Jessica walked up to ‘David 13’, reached out, and put her entire right palm flat over the all-too-realistic penis, covering the majority of it with her sizable hand.
Will couldn’t stop the shiver that shook him as he watched Jessica’s hand travel down and back up skimming and cupping the marble, taking its measure, gauging its proportions. He was suddenly dizzy with a soul-deep longing for her hands on him, and right behind that some unnamed fear rose up that engulfed what remained of his sanity.
He couldn’t make himself look away from what Jessica was doing to the statue as she explored it. At the same time, he continued to shake in apprehension of what she was concluding.
“You carve this part first,” Jessica said roughly, her throat constricted by her awe of the work. “You start here and that’s why the proportions are perfect. This is the most perfectly proportioned statue I have ever seen.”
Keeping her right hand covering the marble male organ, she reached her left arm up to its head, out to his shoulder, across to the statue’s arm and down to its wrist. She switched hands, and repeated the measurements on the other side.
“I could teach a math class with these measurements. You’re incredibly precise and incredibly talented—I can’t believe…”
Her comments were halted by Will spinning her around hard to face him.
“Stop,” he commanded. “Just stop touching…” His words drifted off as he gazed into her awestruck face.
Jessica had one moment to register the fear and physical pain on his face, then Will totally robbed her of breath when his mouth met hers in a hard, devastating kiss. His mouth on hers could have been glorious, could have been the stuff of dreams in fact, but his anxiety provoked too fierce a response in her. She fought to free herself from his mouth’s invasion of hers, but couldn’t get through the anger to coax him to soften his lips.
Jessica felt the evidence of his desire for her pushing against her legs, but what should have been thrilling simply wasn’t under the circumstances. In fact, it wasn’t even pleasant. It was intimidating, and it hurt her to think that Will likely meant the experience to be as scary as it was. He was purposely silencing her comments, and it was working.
Passion—true passion—seemed totally gone from her as she made herself cease struggling. She let herself grieve the loss and for a few moments just absorbed all the anger Will poured into her through his mouth. And when she acknowledged his anger fully, her heart and soul—the part of her that mattered—retreated as far as possible from him.
Jessica once again exerted some force to pull her mouth from his, but Will only pressed harder, held her tighter. His tongue continuously seeking advantage and taking it, whether she was willing to grant access or not. She pushed the panic away as she’d taught herself to do with aggressive men. It had been a very long time since she had allowed herself to be powerless in the arms of any man.
Then it hit her suddenly, the realization, the understanding of where the art came from inside Will. His embarrassment, his pain, his punishment of her for seeing it were all suddenly clear to her.
Jessica struggled against Will with more force as she renewed her efforts to pull away, her rising angst finally giving her enough strength to fight against his hold on her. She was seconds from doing something to physically hurt him when Will finally let her go.
Free of his demanding mouth at last, and more mad and hurt than she’d been in a couple decades, Jessica couldn’t have stopped the truth from pouring out if her life had depended on it. She was never, never again going to let her experience of life be silenced or controlled by any man, especially not one she might have liked under better circumstances.
“Self-portrait in stone,” Jessica said stiffly, swallowing tightly, upset to have to push remnants of her reluctant arousal down, deep down inside her. “The statue is you, Will. The proportions are yours. The pe
rfect statue of David. The perfect form. It’s like I already know your body from touching your work. I’m right, aren’t I?”
Will tightened his hold on her upper arms, gripping hard enough to bruise her, but he couldn’t seem to help himself. Jessica had stripped away the artistic secrets of several decades from him in under ten minutes. He was suddenly very afraid of the other damage she could cause. It was too late to stop himself from hearing her conclusions, too late to wish she hadn’t seen and understood.
“How?” he demanded harshly. “How do you know these things? I’ve been doing this work for thirty-two years. You’re the only person who ever just saw.”
“What does it matter?” Jessica asked sadly. “Why does it bother you so much?”
She stood in his arms with his hands gripping her painfully, stood there and reeled from understanding. Intuitive knowing poured into her like someone filling a bucket up with water until it overflowed. Looking into the artistic soul of this man was like looking into a mirror and seeing herself. Already she was deeply regretting her insights, and Will’s bruising grip was making her sorry for speaking the truth out loud to a man so unready to hear it.
And intentional or not, Will’s artistic pride was completely destroying the wonderfully sweet attraction simmering between them. Regardless of how much it grieved her, there had been nothing even remotely affectionate in Will’s punishing kiss, even if it had still weakened her legs and cemented her feet to the ground.
Even now the man still looked at her with loathing, and Jessica could feel Will’s panic all the way to her bones. Empathy for him assailed her, but she also cursed him to hell and back for making her care. Despite the number of men she had dated and bedded, she was standing by the man’s art with her heart breaking for him and for what they could have had if he had been ready for it—for her.
But she wasn’t seventeen this time, though the attraction and the capacity to love Everett Williams had come just as hard and just as fast as it had with Nathan Daniels. Older and much wiser, Jessica could and would run, she vowed. This time she would not have to have the pain of loving and losing.
Carved in Stone Page 3
