by Kait Nolan
“For dinner?”
“We’re adults. We can have ice cream for dinner.”
She couldn’t argue with that. And she’d get to spend time with Berg. “You’re sure you’ve forgotten what I said?”
“Completely.”
She nodded. “I’ll just set my stuff inside and change into shoes that aren’t as punishing.” She went to walk by him, but he stopped her with a hand wrapped around her upper arm. “What?” she asked as he turned her to face him.
Leaning down, he pressed his mouth against hers. She’d had expectations—about their first kiss, about how it would feel, how it would happen. Nothing about Berg could be anticipated like that. Roxie froze, stiffening in surprise.
He waited. His lips pressed against hers, claiming but not intruding.
Sighing softly, she leaned into the kiss.
Tilting his head, his mouth grasped hers as he took sipping kisses that sent her pulse rocketing. Sliding her arms around his neck, she opened her mouth and his tongue nudged hers. She arched up onto her tiptoes to deepen the kiss. Finally, the stupid heels were good for something besides pinching her feet. Their noses bumped as she lost her balance and their kiss turned into two smiles tasting each other.
His palm pressed against the small of her back, holding her steady and pushing her flat against him.
“Okay?” he murmured.
“Very okay.”
She dove into another kiss, sucking his lower lip after biting it. Berg made a low sound of approval in the back of his throat, and he nudged her lips open into a wide kiss where their tongues danced and mated. After several long, deep kisses, she dropped back onto her heels, breathlessly panting. Roxie opened her eyes to find his gaze already locked on her face, watchful.
He wasn’t smiling, not her Berg. He was gathering information, analyzing.
“I thought you’d completely forgotten,” she said, narrowing her eyes. Not that she minded him finally being the one to put his pride on the line.
One side of his mouth slid up. “For a moment there, I’d completely forgotten my own name.”
She went still. “Did you remember it? Your full name?”
Now he was grinning. “I sure did. Thank you for your concern.”
She waited. Nothing. It’d been worth a shot. Dropping her arms from around his neck, she took a shaky step back. “Are we still going out for ice cream?”
“Yes, ma’am. You’re talking to a Marine. We don’t make promises we can’t deliver on.”
“I’m going to go change my shoes,” she said, edging up the stairs.
“You should put on those sandals you were wearing last night.” She didn’t trust that amused tone in his voice.
“We’ll see.”
~*~
“So, what’s the big deal about rocky road? Why’d you laugh when I ordered it?” Berg asked.
She ate ice cream like she ate pizza—slowly—with the added twist of flipping her spoon and dragging it across her tongue on the way out. He’d never seen anything like it, or been more aroused by what equated to frozen milk. She swallowed, the muscles in her throat moving and drawing his attention. Oo-rah, baby. That kiss. Her mouth had been in its own classification of sin, and he wanted to taste it again.
“My coworker keeps bringing rocky road up as being the ultimate breakup sign,” she said. “When I quit dating, I tried to get closer to the people at work—which is partly what started this mess with William. Anyway, the woman in the next office has had crappier luck with men than I have.” She blushed and wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Present company excluded, of course.”
Little did she know, he wasn’t necessarily part of her improved taste in men. Chris might be, but him? He wasn’t ready to give up, though. “I’m surprised you hadn’t made friends with the entire office before now.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I was grumpy and barely spoke two words to you and you still tried to make friends with me.”
“Oh. Right. Well, I’ve only been where I work a year. I used to work for a nonprofit that helped burn victims. I got down-sized out. I loved it there. They still invite me to all the company parties, and I’ve conned my current employer into hefty donations to them. I’d been in HR prior to that, so it was easy to get another job in the field.”
Just when he thought he might be good enough for her, she threw out some other reason she was out of his league. Working with burn victims might be the reason she’d never batted an eye at his injuries.
“Can I ask you something weird?”
He froze. That was a loaded question. “Like weird in a kinky way or weird in a freaky way?”
Covering her mouth, she laughed with a soft snort. “Nothing like either of those.”
“Oh.” Too bad. He would have loved to answer a kinky question.
Berg glanced around. Well, maybe not. There were a few families within earshot. He knew that because he’d gotten some stares and pointing when they’d walked in.
“Where did you hear about Virtual Match?”
The ice cream hit the bottom of his stomach like a lead weight, and he stabbed his spoon in and out of his bowl rather than eat. He should go for some form of the truth. “A friend of mine works for them. Actually two of them do.” Technically the paychecks were going to Chris. He was only doing him a favor.
“And they’re normal?”
He snorted. “Normal might be pushing it, but they’re good guys.” He continued jabbing his ice cream and hoped she wouldn’t ask for names. “Why do you ask?”
“Oh, I decided to use them to get William off my back.”
“Did it work?”
“He hasn’t been stopping by my office anymore. It might be a coincidence.” He could feel the heat of her stare. “It’d be a weird job, wouldn’t it? Emailing and texting strangers.”
She didn’t mention the phone call, but he wasn’t sure if that was significant. Berg cleared his throat. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s probably not much different from other customer service careers. They’re just providing a service.”
She leaned forward and touched his hand at the wrist. “I didn’t mean to imply that your friends are weird.”
Now he felt like a total ass. She thought she’d offended him.
“Nah, my friends are weird—it’s why we’re friends.”
Her eyes took on a far-off dreamy look. “That picture of you with your friends…”
He swallowed thickly. Chris was in that picture. Rod was too, but even covered in dirt, there was no hiding that Chris was there.
“You look so happy. You never smile like that around me.”
He released a relieved exhale. “That was before.” He gestured down at his legs.
Her lips puckered in a frown as her forehead wrinkled up. “You’re not as good of friends now?”
“No, we are. I just think we all smile a little less.” Even Chris. And when he did smile sometimes, it looked forced. The closest he’d been to his old self was when he was talking earlier about Roxie. “Guys sometimes think they’re unbeatable…until life beats them down and breaks them.”
“That is a lie, Berg Cyrano,” she said, pointing at him with a spoon.
“What?”
“You are not beaten down or broken. You’ve got steel inside you. I refuse to believe that when it all went south, a part of you didn’t get all cocky and belligerent and yell, ‘Is that all you’ve got? Quit wasting my time!’”
He grinned. “Is that how you see me?”
She rolled her eyes. “That’s how you are. My uncle used to say that you never knew how much strength you had until you bent but didn’t break. And he would know. He was a firefighter who had an entire second story fall on him while he was trying to rescue an elderly woman. He had second and third degree burns on sixty percent of his body. He was in so much pain at first that he kept asking the same question every time he woke up and he’d immediately forget the answer.” She bit her lip and blinked. “He kep
t asking if he’d gotten the woman out.”
“Had he?”
She shook her head. “I wanted to lie. When I went to visit him. I wanted to tell him that he’d gotten her and her cats and her photo albums out. She’d ran back in for those. It might have all seemed worth it to him if she’d lived. But he was a hero either way because he never gave up—on himself, on other people.”
That’s how he saw Chris. Chris had been there for Rod and him, despite suffering his own mental issues. He’d been stuck keeping pressure on all their wounds until help could arrive. He’d been coated in their blood for hours. He hadn’t slept for three days after it happened. “Your uncle sounds like a great guy.”
Nodding, she licked her lips. “He was. He died four years ago. I don’t have as much family as you. I’ve always thought it would be cool to have a lot of family.”
He wanted to make her smile, to see her happy again. “I don’t know. It’s not always how you’d think. I’ve got some freaky relatives. My great uncle Terrance—crazy old loon. When he heard I was going to boot camp, he decided to drag me into the desert for some survivalist training of his own. He figured all you needed to survive for four days was a live chicken. Everything else you could gather or make or get from the chicken. All you needed was this chicken. So, we’re in the middle of nowhere, and we’ve both got a chicken under our arms, and he’s disabled his truck.”
Roxie leaned forward with wide eyes. “What did you do?”
“He said to me, ‘Son,’—he called everyone that. He said, ‘Son, if you’re a real man, you’ll walk out of this desert in four days and know you can take anything the world throws at you.’ I said, ‘Terrance, you old coot, I’ll do you one better: I’ll walk out of here with a live chicken.’”
Sliding her ice cream to the side, she set her elbows on the table. “Did you?” Her voice was breathy with anticipation. He liked it. He also liked having all her focus on him.
He took the time to spoon some ice cream in his mouth and swallow it.
She reached out and pinched his arm.
“Ow!”
“Did you walk out of there with a live chicken?”
He raised two fingers.
Her eyes got impossibly big. “Two chickens!”
He nodded. “Around day two, I figured it was him, me, or the chickens. And I’d already named the chickens.”
Her mouth dropped open.
He winked at her.
“Berg!” She slugged his arm.
~*~
The butterflies in her stomach started up again when he crossed around the truck to open the door for her. She couldn’t get a read on Berg. Other than the bizarre chicken story—which he’d refused to elaborate on saying, “Maybe I’ll tell you in a year or so,” he’d let her carry the conversation again.
Opening her door, he grabbed her around the waist to help her down, swinging her slightly as if she weighed nothing.
“Your truck is too tall,” she complained…and then sucked in a breath when he didn’t step back, but let her body brush his on the way down.
He held her with a smug smile when she stumbled against him. “You got it?”
She nodded, steadying herself with her hands on his chest.
He let her go and leaned past her to shut the door.
Reaching down, he grabbed her hand in a firm grip and started walking toward their shared front stoop.
This was like the moment of truth. So, naturally, she had to fill it with words—lots of words.
“This is awkward, isn’t it? The fact that we live side-by-side? I mean, if this had been a regular date where we didn’t live right by each other, you could keep it casual at the front door and tell me you’d call me later and then decide whether or not you ever wanted to see me again.” She stepped onto the first step and turned to face him. He still had about six inches on her…and all six foot of him was looking at her quizzically. “Not that I’m saying it was a date. It was just ice cream.”
He kissed her forehead. “I thought it was a date,” he murmured against her skin.
She climbed up another step, still facing him. Their hands stretched between them as he remained on the walkway. “You did? Well, it’s still okay if you wanted to stay friends or just leave it as this for right now. Nothing more than two people who live next to each other—who share a bedroom wall and can sometimes hear each other get ready for bed.” Shut-up, Roxie! Shut-up!
Berg raised his eyebrows.
She gestured with her free hand…the one he wasn’t holding in his warm, firm grip. He even had sexy hands. “It’s not that I listen to you. I mean, I can hear you, but you can probably hear me, so that makes us even. And I can’t tell what you’re doing. Other than getting in and out of bed. And showering. I can hear the water running. And sometimes I time my showers to be at the same time as you. Not for a weird reason. I figure if both of us are taking showers, we can’t hear the other person taking a shower.”
“You shower at the same time as me?”
“Not for a weird reason.” Though it was sort of…intimate, regardless, that they were both showering and naked with only tile, sheetrock, and insulation between them. But that’s not why she did it.
“Hm.”
She shook her head to clear it. “But you can still say that you’ll see me around and if you don’t really want to, you don’t have to hide in your side of the duplex…I won’t push you. You don’t have to pretend to not be home or to be busy if you don’t want to see more of me. You haven’t created…expectations.”
He climbed a step and stopped. Leaning in, he pressed a kiss on her cheek. “I want to see more of you.”
“Like literally or time-wise?”
He smiled and shrugged.
She took the last step onto the stoop and reached into her pocket, dragging out her keys. She jingled them around in her free hand. “But maybe not right now. You don’t have to feel like just because you kissed me earlier that I expect you to kiss me again. And I don’t have to feel like I should have to invite you in because it’s strange when two people, who live in adjoining places, sit and make-out on their front steps. We can be cool and adult about this and not rush into it because I’m not sure if I’m just an odd curiosity to you and that’s it or…”
He stepped up and brushed a kiss against her mouth and then licked his lips. “Damn, is that what the chocolate fudge tasted like? I should have gone for that.”
“I would have let you have a taste.”
Letting her hand loose, he wrapped his arms around her. “Well, it’s not too late for that.” He dipped his head and kissed her again. This time, his lips nudged hers open so his tongue could glide across hers. Mm. He tasted amazing. He pulled back and she stood there, her lips slightly parted, dragging in shuddery breaths, with her vision all fuzzy from arousal.
Roxie swallowed, licking her lips, and straightened her spine. “I don’t want you to think I’ve made any assumptions or that you have to accept if I invite you in…or even that things have to happen if you do accept. I’m not going to attack you and even if I did, you could tell me no. You could say stop and I would stop.”
Berg squinted and tilted his head. “Are you inviting me in?”
“Yes.”
“If I do come in, will you attack me?”
“Probably.”
He stepped up on the stoop and dropped another kiss on her mouth while taking her keys from her hands. Leaning past her, he unlocked the door and pushed it open. Then, he tossed her keys inside. Cupping her face in his hands, Berg ducked to meet her gaze. “Roxie, I am totally okay with that.”
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
“Are you saying that because you’re interested or because I’m easy and convenient?”
Berg sighed and shook his head. “Sweetheart, you’re gorgeous. You’re intelligent. You make me smile even when I don’t want to. You’re everything, and I’m an old tired Marine with metal legs and too many darks tho
ughts in my head. I would give anything to share an hour in your sunshine.”
He took her breath away. Literally. She sucked in a lungful of air before exhaling noisily. He’d said that. A smile built on her lips. He’d said that. “Anything?”
Berg nodded.
“Like you’d tell me your full name and how you ended up with two chickens?”
“Baby, we gotta save something for the second date.”
~*~
The very idea that the woman in front of him thought she wasn’t a dream come true was staggering. What idiots had she dated in the past? Why had he waited so long to kiss her? He should have snatched her up on day one before anyone else had a chance at her. He’d just complicated things by waiting.
Speaking of which…he should really tell her…
She slid her arms around his neck.
He’d tell her about the emails and texts. Later. She might be more willing to forgive him then.
Biting her smiling lips, she glanced down at their legs.
“What?” he asked. Was she changing her mind?
“You! We’ve got a major problem here!” She was still smiling though. “You’re like a foot taller than me. Nothing…uhh…matches up.” She tipped up onto her toes. “I feel like I need a stepladder.”
He reached down and hooked his hands under her butt, dragging her up against him until they were nose-to-nose. “Better?”
She wrapped her legs around his waist. “It could work.”
He carried her inside, nudging the door closed behind him, and made his way toward her couch. As much as he loved this, he didn’t want to injure them both by losing his balance. Plus, the friction between them was making him crazy. Dropping onto the couch, he adjusted her on his lap. This felt good and normal—something he hadn’t had for far too long.
“Do you like my sunflowers?”
He glanced around. “They’re very…you.” Her whole place was like wrapping himself in her. He felt free when he was here. The ghosts in his brain were silent and the shadows were brighter.
When his gaze returned to hers, it was to see her regarding him steadily and somberly. “This isn’t a mistake, is it?”
What could he tell her? It might be…for her. “It doesn’t feel like one.” He shook her lightly. “Don’t move.”
