One Perfect Moment

by A. C. Arthur

  “And besides, different people have different reactions,” she said after clearing her throat.

  They were standing in the middle of the walking path and a woman bumped into Ava, mumbling a quick “excuse me” as she moved to another booth.

  “Let’s get out of the way,” Gage said, touching her elbow.

  They walked past the row of tents to an open area where lawn chairs and blankets were spread out around the gazebo.

  “Morgan and Gray are trying to get a babysitter so they can come out tonight. So I was sent down here early with blankets and instructions to get a good spot facing the stage.”

  “I didn’t know there would be music,” Ava said and turned to look at the men setting up instruments in the large gazebo.

  This was a perfect location to view a concert. There were two large screens set up on either side of the gazebo for those in the back to see.

  “Yeah, I hear they do this twice a year,” he told her. “Have a seat.”

  Ava looked at Gage and then down to the blankets before taking him up on his offer and sitting down. He followed, but he leaned back so that he was propped up on one elbow right beside her. If she lowered her hand, she could touch the small mole just beneath his right eye.

  She didn’t, of course. That would have been...intimate.

  “I don’t remember anything like this when I lived here. I was only seven when we left, so most of my memories consist of riding bikes up and down our street and going to the lake for picnics,” he said abruptly.

  Ava waited a beat before following his lead.

  “Did you like living here?” she asked.

  He reached out and touched the tips of the belt knotted at her waist.

  “It was a house in a town,” he replied. “At the time, I didn’t know anything else.”

  “But it must have been fun in that big house, and being celebrities.” The last word was spoken quietly.

  His fingers paused on the material as he slowly looked up at her.

  “It wasn’t a choice,” he said. “We never had a choice in the matter.”

  This time they would, Ava thought. She would lay it all out for them, and she would offer them the opportunity to say what they would like their show to be.

  “I know a few child stars, and they’re ecstatic about being on television. Mostly they’re happy when the workday is over for them and they can play with whatever new and not-yet-on-the-market toy their agent has acquired for them.”

  She chuckled lightly, but Gage did not crack a smile.

  “When you build your tiny house, you should look for a space like this,” he said after a brief pause. “A wide-open area with a killer view.”

  So they were back to her lie...or rather, her omission.

  “A view of a stage?” she asked jokingly.

  “No,” he replied with a shake of his head. “Look beyond the stage, Ava. Look at what nature has for you.”

  She did as he said. She shouldn’t have. The moment she saw the mountaintops pressing into the fading purple and blush sky, she sighed and silently agreed. This was a view she could wake up to each morning. If she were actually moving to Temptation.

  “It’s a great view,” she said. “Do you recall waking up to it when you lived here?”

  “As I said before, I left when I was seven,” he replied. “My mother packed us up and moved us to Florida. We lived in a house on Pensacola Bay, so my view there was of the water. I’ve loved the water ever since.”

  “I don’t know how to swim,” she said absently. “I grew up in Beverly Hills. We had a pool, but I never learned how to swim.”

  It sounded strange. Everybody knew how to swim. Right? It wasn’t her fault that she had piano lessons during summer camp when other children were swimming in lakes and sleeping in tents. And when her parents had pool parties, Ava wasn’t invited. When her parents weren’t having a pool party, the pool was gated off because Eleanor didn’t want Ava to fall in and drown, since she didn’t know how to swim.

  “I can teach you,” Gage stated evenly.

  “What?”

  “I can teach you how to swim,” he repeated.

  Ava looked down at him again, just as the music began. More people had joined them on the grass, some standing, others sitting on their own blankets. Gage pushed himself up to a sitting position and scooted closer to her. After the first few melodic strands were played by the jazz quartet, she replied, “I’d like that.”

  She’d always wanted to learn how to swim, and what better way to learn than in Gage Taylor’s arms?

  * * *

  Gage had reserved the indoor pool at the community center for a few hours. He was going to teach Ava how to swim. And that was all. He could do that.

  What he couldn’t seem to do, to his dismay, was forget how he’d felt seeing her holding hands with Craig Presley. It didn’t matter. Gage had spent the last two days telling himself that. Ava Cannon was not his to feel possessive over. Yet, he’d wanted to snatch her hand away from Craig’s that night. He’d wanted to let Craig and any other guy in this town know that she was with him. But she wasn’t, at least not in that way.

  She was, however, walking toward him wearing a simple yellow bikini that looked like sunshine against her golden brown skin, beneath a sheer white shirt that brushed over her knees. Her hair was piled atop her head in a way that reminded him of how she looked in the moments after they’d both reached their climax. Her face was free of makeup and as lovely as he’d ever seen it.

  “Hi,” she said when they were standing just a few feet away from each other.

  “Hi yourself,” he said over a tongue that had grown thick with lust. “Glad you could join me.”

  Gage was lounging in the hot tub while he’d waited for her to arrive. The way his body instantly reacted to seeing her made him grateful for the warm rolling bubbles around him.

  “Are we swimming or soaking?” she asked after a few seconds of silence.

  “Swimming, of course.” He resisted the urge to frown as he turned his back to her and walked up the three steps to exit the hot tub. His black swim trunks were baggy enough—he hoped—so that when he turned to face her, he didn’t embarrass himself and possibly her at the same time.

  “I did tell you that I’ve never had a swim lesson before,” she was saying as she moved to one of the lounge chairs and dropped the large bag she’d been carrying. “Right?”

  “You did. So we’ll take this slow.”

  But the moment she grabbed the hem of that shirt and pulled it up over her head, all thoughts of slow vanished from his mind. He wanted to take her, hard and fast, right there on the lounge chair, or in the pool.

  “Great,” she said as she turned to him. “I appreciate you taking the time to do this.”

  Yeah, he was doing a great deed here. Teaching her how to swim. And thinking of how quickly he could get her out of that skimpy bikini and on top of him.

  “It’s no problem. Everyone should know how to swim.”

  Gage cleared his throat and mentally kicked himself for being a horny cad. She was serious about learning, so he needed to get serious about teaching. Which would probably involve touching.

  With a shake of his head, he led them to the side of the pool that was five feet deep.

  “Come on in,” he told her after stepping into the chilly water. He immediately bent his knees so that he was submerged up to his neck, acclimating himself to the new temperature.

  “Oh!” she said with a shiver after sitting on the side of the pool and putting her feet in first. “Cold.”

  “Yeah,” he replied with a nod and a smile.

  Gage walked over to where she sat, touching her ankles and then smoothing his hands up and down her legs, introducing the cold water to her skin.

  “You have beautiful eyes,” he said while his
hands continued to move. “That’s one of the first things I noticed about you.”

  “They’re just brown,” she said and tilted her head while staring at him.

  “They’re expressive,” he replied. “Whatever you don’t say with words is mirrored in your eyes.”

  She looked away, and Gage moved in closer until his shoulders were between her knees. He moved a hand from her leg and cupped her cheek, turning her gently until she faced him again.

  “That’s how I knew you wanted the same thing I did. In the studio, each time we looked at each other, I knew,” he said, his voice gruff with growing arousal, and just a hint of something more.

  “There’s a professional code of conduct,” she replied before her tongue snaked out to lick her bottom lip quickly. “I like to follow my own rules. Especially on set. And sleeping with my consultant wasn’t a good idea.”

  His hand slipped down to the smooth column of her neck. “The idea may not have been good, at first,” he said. “But damn if we weren’t great together, Ava. Both times.”

  Gage watched as she tried to deny it. She opened her mouth, snapped her lips closed and thought about what to say. But her eyes were already telling him—and his body—what he wanted to know.

  “I don’t know how to explain it either,” he said. “I’m not usually so taken by one woman.”

  She nodded. “Right. You’re like the rolling stone,” she said.

  Gage froze, the lyrics to The Temptations’ famous song playing in his mind. “No. That was my father.”

  “I—” Ava began, but Gage touched a finger to her lips.

  “I can’t think of anyone but you. Since the first day on set, it’s been you in my mind day and night. I’ve given up trying to explain it,” he told her.

  In fact, he’d decided that maybe it was best not to overanalyze this. They were attracted to each other, and that was that.

  “Besides,” he said, bringing his other arm up to wrap around her waist, pulling her closer to the edge of the pool, “we’re not technically working together right now. The second season doesn’t start taping until next year.”

  The slight tilt of her lips had his chest tightening.

  “You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you?”

  “No,” Gage said. “I’ve only thought of you, Ava. Only you.”

  In the next instant Gage was pulling her into the water with him, wrapping her legs around his waist as his lips met hers. Her arms were twined around his neck, and their tongues joined together in a delicious duel.

  That tightening in Gage’s chest simmered to a warm glow that spread throughout his body, even as they stood in the cold pool water. Her breasts pressed into his bare chest as she licked hungrily over his lips. His fingers splayed over her back before moving down to grip the plump globes of her bottom. She tightened her legs around him, pressing her center into him. Gage groaned with the deep pangs of sexual hunger that pierced through him.

  He moved his fingers down farther, beneath the rim of her bikini bottom until he could feel the crease of her backside. Farther, Gage thought. He needed to go farther, to touch more, to feel... The second he pushed through the warm folds of her center, the pounding of his heart grew louder, echoing in his ears.

  Ava arched her back, her hands moving to his shoulders, blunt-tipped nails digging into his skin. Through partially opened eyes, Gage watched as passion played over the delicate features of her face with his touch. Tracing his fingers back and forth through her arousal-coated folds had her eyes closing, lips parting as she moaned.

  She felt like heaven, like the finest silk beneath his fingers. When she whispered his name and Gage pressed one finger deep inside her entrance, Ava bucked over him, and Gage eased in another finger. Her hips began to move, pumping against his fingers as he thrust them in and out of her. Water sloshed around them, creating a cool reprieve from the fiery passion rolling over them at this moment. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, in a look that was as enticing as any Playboy centerfold Gage had ever seen. Her head was tilted back, breasts cupped in the yellow material jutting forward. Her nipples were hard, and Gage ran his tongue over his bottom lip as he imagined taking them in his mouth.

  Pumping furiously in and out of her now, he felt his arousal stretching to painful proportions behind the material of his trunks. Her arms had begun to shake; hair that had been pulled up into a messy bun had escaped and now flowed freely down her back. She moaned again, this time long and loud as her legs tightened around him and her nails pressed hard into the skin of his shoulders. Gage moved his fingers faster inside her, feeling her muscles tighten in an attempt to constrict the motion. Her release came strong and hot over his fingers as she moaned his name before leaning forward and dropping her forehead to his chest.

  Seconds later and with his fingers still inside her, Gage heard her whisper, “If I’d known this was what a swim lesson consisted of, I may have signed up sooner.”

  Gage chuckled. He pulled his fingers from her and gripped her hips, letting her legs fall from his waist. When he was sure her feet touched the bottom of the pool, he looked down at her and then hugged her close on impulse.

  “I would have offered sooner,” he told her.

  Much sooner. If he’d known what it would feel like to be with a woman more than once, Gage was certain he would have tried it.

  But something told him that it wasn’t the number of times that was making the difference. It was Ava.

  Chapter 6

  Ava felt both at home and out of place at the same time. Morgan’s kitchen was homey and welcoming. The soft white cabinets and sage-green paint accented the stainless steel appliances. The countertop full of baby bottles, some empty and some full, a Batman thermos and four covered containers of different sizes kept the country chic design from looking staged.

  “My granny loves to cook,” Morgan said as she sat across the island from Ava. “The entire time I was pregnant, she talked about all the things she was going to make so that Gray and the kids would have good home-cooked meals while I was recuperating. Whereas my sister Wendy was all set to hit every fast-food and delivery spot in the vicinity to make sure we were fed. The babies are a month old now, and Granny’s still sending food over here as if I’m bedridden.”

  She laughed and Ava smiled. Morgan Taylor was friendly and easy to talk to. She was also observant, Ava thought while finishing the last bite of the fresh-sliced country ham sandwich she’d had for lunch. The invitation from Morgan had come three days after her swim lesson with Gage, and the morning after her second run-in with Millie. The older woman had been with her girlfriends this time, coming out of the library as Morgan walked by. As Otis had already heard about the scene by the time she’d returned to the B and B, Ava figured the lunch invitation was for Morgan to find out firsthand what had happened.

  “I never knew my grandparents,” Ava replied and used a napkin to wipe her mouth and fingers. “My father’s parents did not care for my mother, and by relation, never wanted to see me. And my mother’s parents were deceased before I was born.”

  “Oh, that’s sad. I’m sorry,” Morgan said. She reached a hand across the table to touch Ava’s.

  The diamond ring on Morgan’s left hand was more like a blinding rock of ice glittering up at her. It should have been too opulent for Morgan’s small hand and wholesome personality, but it wasn’t. Instead, Ava looked down at the ring and then up to Morgan and saw the love this woman had for her family. In turn, Gray Taylor had shown his love for his wife with this extravagant ring and the loving renovations to this house. It was sweet and on a level of emotion that Ava couldn’t really understand.

  “Thank you, but it worked out. I kind of liked being an only child, as well, and not having to attend any of the family functions my classmates always complained about,” Ava told her.

  There’d always been a fear of mor
e people sharing her mother’s thoughts and narrow-minded nature. With that in mind, Ava had been totally fine with not having any relatives to deal with.

  “Well, we’re all about functions here in Temptation. And everyone around town is just like family. Or they like to think they are,” Morgan said.

  “You’re talking about what happened with me and Millie,” Ava said when Morgan had pulled her hand away and settled back on the stool. “I’m not sure how all that came about.”

  Morgan waved a hand. “Millie planned it, that’s how. That’s what she does. You’ve been in town for two weeks and everyone’s been buzzing about the TV producer who knows the Taylors. It’s a wonder she hadn’t gotten to you before now.”

  That made sense. When Millie had approached Ava at her car, it had been with a sugary sweet smile and wintry cool eyes.

  “I did get the impression that she’d been waiting to speak to me again,” Ava added. “The first words out of her mouth were ‘So you’re the one who works with Gage Taylor. What else are you two cooking up?’ If I wasn’t already used to dealing with the press on occasion, I might not have been prepared for the unannounced verbal assault.”

  Morgan chuckled. “I’m sure that’s exactly what it was, a verbal assault. Millie has a mouth on her, and she doesn’t care what anyone else has to say, she’s going to speak her piece every time.”

  “That’s fine, but I hope she hears as well as she talks. I made it clear to her once more that Gage and I worked on Doctor’s Orders together and that I was just here on a writing retreat.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you did,” Morgan said. “That’s just not what Millie wants to hear. But it seems like you have the right attitude where Millie’s concerned.”

  “She can think what she wants,” Ava told her. “People always do.”

  “That is certainly true.”

  Water boiled on the stove, and Morgan slipped off the stool to tend to it. Ava watched as she poured the boiled water into a plastic jug and then put those lidded containers into a shopping bag. Probably to go back to her Granny.