Switch Me On

by Jule McBride

  Unlike me. “I’m not Lizzie,” she whispered, her breath fogging the air.

  Just a few weeks ago, for the first time in her life, she had felt like Lizzie, though. For a blissful moment, everything had seemed mapped and on track. “It still is,” she said firmly. She had an agent, and she’d sent off the MP3 for the National Federation of Teachers account. She’d also signed a lease, found tenants, had her house packed, and set a date for movers. Maybe she’d off-roaded a little when she’d met Bruno, but it was just a detour. She was still on the map. And Bruno wasn’t like the other guys she’d known. He was freer. More sophisticated. Not threatened by her ambitions.

  Maybe she just needed a break from it all right now. Time to think. Lizzie’s wedding was in less than a week, and Ari had being seeing Bruno every day. Emotions were confusing her now, the way they always did. She sighed. Titus from the automotive shop had put a pad of paper in the glove box in case she was ever in a wreck and had to take insurance information. Retrieving it, she penned a few lines to Bruno, then put the note into the bag.

  After that, she pulled out. Gavin followed down the narrow, coastal, tree-lined road. She was glad for the company, since the pavement was slippery. When he took a turnoff to his house, his headlights vanished, and the night turned as dark as pitch. Hunkering over the wheel, she peered into the starless, inky sky, periodically tapping the brakes to make sure she still had traction. She was almost there, halfway down Bruno’s driveway, when the back wheels whooshed sideways. Turning into the spin, she fishtailed, suddenly furious at Mom Mad for suggesting she drive all the way out here, the spike of pent-up rage taking her by surprise before she squelched it. By then, the truck had righted itself, but just as a wave of relief washed over her, it continued sliding and slipped off the shoulder, the front tires spinning in a shallow ditch.

  Well, she knew where Bruno kept the extra key, and Titus would tow her onto the road. Getting out, she trudged up the driveway, her heart skipping a beat when she saw the Road Rover and helicopter. He was here? Had he been here all night? Was Mom Mad right? Was he losing interest? Had he lied about his whereabouts? Why hadn’t he called?

  She glanced toward her truck, wishing she could leave. A bad feeling in the pit of her stomach, she knocked on the French door to the kitchen. From inside, she could see a glow from the TV, then he appeared, wearing gray sweatpants and a matching hooded jacket over a long-sleeved, navy cotton shirt. He swung open the door.

  “Ari, what are you doing here?”

  “What are you? I thought you were in Chicago.”

  “I just got home. Seemed too late to come to your parents’. I thought you’d be home by now because of the weather. I was about to call. Look, I’m really sorry. I tried to get there.”

  “No problem.” Except it was. She’d dealt with Mom Mad all night, and from the looks of it, Bruno had been home a while. Dinner dishes were in the sink, and in the living room, a respectable fire was in the grate. He hadn’t called her. Maybe he wasn’t going to. And now her truck was stuck.

  “Come in.”

  “Um...thanks. I’ll just call Titus for a tow off your driveway. I slid.”

  “Get warm. I’ll go look. If you steer, maybe I can push you out. There’s cardboard in the garage we can put under the tires so they’ll get traction.” Suddenly, the lights flickered, and he frowned. “That’s the second time. Three counties are without power. And what’s that?”

  “Leftovers.” Just as his hand reached into the bag, she remembered the note, but it was too late. He read silently, then out loud. “‘Bruno, sorry you couldn’t make dinner, but it’s probably better you didn’t. Mom asked me to bring these leftovers. Lots going on with the wedding, so I hope you’ll understand if I can’t get together until after that. Just too much going on right now.’”

  He stared at her, and it was hard to say what he was feeling. His eyes narrowed, his lips curled in displeasure, then he did his sexy, lean-dip thing, bending at the knees to peer at her. His eyes looked more gray than blue tonight, and very penetrating. After a long moment, he shook his head. “What does she do to you?”

  “Who?”

  “Your mother.”

  “If you’d come for dinner, you could have witnessed, firsthand.”

  “I tried to make it.”

  Taking the shopping bag from him, she started unloading containers into his refrigerator.

  “Talk to me.”

  She wasn’t sure she could. When she let Mom Mad get to her, Ari could go to a dark place. Turning around, she shrugged. “Two weeks ago, I was planning my move, then I met you. Lizzie’s getting married, too, which is a big change.” She shook her head, realizing she was being dishonest. “No, wait. It’s the fear. Mom Mad’s right. I’ll never be like Lizzie. Settle down, have a secure career, get married, have a family, blah, blah.”

  “She said all that because I didn’t eat dinner?” Without waiting for an answer, he stepped close, wrapping his arms around her. “The weather sucked, and I flew anyway. It was rough, but I got here just ahead of the snow.”

  A lump in her throat, she swallowed hard. That’s why she didn’t want Mom Mad pressuring her. He’d flown when it would have been safer to wait. “I wish you wouldn’t have.”

  Before he could answer, the lights flickered again, then went out.

  “Do you have a generator?”

  He hesitated. “It’s at the field site.” He lifted the phone on the counter. “Landline’s out.” Picking up his cell, he added, “No signal. My signal booster’s at the site, too. Here, hand me yours.” When she did, he tried it. “Nope.”

  “Then I can’t call Titus.”

  He took a flashlight from the counter. “Get warm by the fire while I round up some candles.”

  Using firelight to guide her, she went to the living room and sat on a micro-suede recliner sofa he’d just had delivered. It was warm from his body heat. He’d tossed a pretty gray afghan blanket aside when he’d answered the door, and he must have built the fire a while ago. Red, yellow, and blue tongues danced, the bottom logs already reduced to glowing embers.

  Ari barely felt the heat. Why hadn’t she fled Mom and Dad Mad’s before she landed in this dark place where she wished she were Lizzie or Bruno, or anybody else who was closer to perfect than she? This awful place, where all her trust evaporated and she was convinced Bruno had been home all night, and equally sure that he’d only now returned home, exactly as he’d said?

  Chapter Nine

  Bruno checked on Ari’s truck, then went to the garage for the cardboard, glancing past the generator he’d lied about having. Nothing was wrong with the phones, either, but he didn’t want Ari going home. He’d call Emily Madden from out here, to explain he’d nearly killed himself trying to make it to dinner, but he might lose his temper, which wouldn’t help the situation. Especially not when he was getting so serious about Ari. Even tonight when she was confused and bummed out, he didn’t mind. Sexually, she was pure dynamite. But his feelings were rooted in more than that. She was so alive. The opposite of Lizzie. She had an energy and charisma that could attract people like a magnet...and that had attracted him. Every day, he’d felt that attraction deepen, too.

  Deciding to let the truck stay stuck until morning, he filled a log carrier and lifted an unopened box of emergency candles in glass jars. Outages like this wouldn’t occur after his installation was running, but that was of little help tonight. Inside the house, the only word to describe the look on Ari’s face was crestfallen. She hadn’t removed her coat and cute little hat, and was perched on the sofa’s edge, staring at the fire like a zombie, her fingertips on the coffee table. She barely seemed to notice him as he set candles on the mantle and tables and lit them.

  “Auditioning for The Walking Dead?” When she didn’t laugh, he added, “I didn’t blow you off. I know that’s what
you’re thinking. I’d be pissed about your lack of trust, too, if I didn’t know how your mom affects you sometimes. Just riding in the car with her from the police station, I got a crash course in the family dynamics.” Glancing away from where he was tending the fire, he said, “C’mon, sweet thing. Take off your boots and get cozy.” Usually so vibrant, she actually looked a little like Lizzie now, tentative and cautious, and he hated how listless she seemed as she untied her boots, slowly loosening the crisscrossed laces.

  “The fire will keep us warm until the heat’s back on,” he said, taking her coat. Slipping off her shoes, he got behind her on the sofa, propping his back against the armrest, spreading his legs and bringing her between them, his body tingling as her backside settled against his crotch. Just that little bit of sweet friction made a nexus of heat explode. An unseen hand tugged his groin, the sensation irresistible. He felt something more, too, something deeper, a corresponding squeeze of his heart as he lifted off the hat, smoothed her hair, then slowly rubbed circles on her belly through the dress. He wanted to be buried inside her, but right now, even that didn’t feel like enough, so he swallowed her in a bear hug, wrapping his arms around her, wanting her to feel how much he cared.

  “She’s wrong about you, baby.”

  As she turned to look at him, she squirmed in his arms, just enough to make pleasure race through his veins. The scent of her hair teased him, all apples and cinnamon and soap, and his hips raised, pressing where the soft fabric of his sweatpants met the harder ridge of her hipbone. Fire and candlelight danced in her strawberry hair. Flickered in her amber eyes, too, speckling them with gold.

  “Maybe Robby Shoemaker’s right,” she said. “Why am I going to Raleigh, anyway? Is it running away? I don’t need to go for work.”

  His lips parted in astonishment. “Don’t let her make you doubt yourself. You want to try something new. That’s all you need to know. You can do anything you want. It’s your life.”

  “She always compares me to Lizzie. She was going on about how great you are, too. It made me hate you a little.”

  “I don’t want you to hate me. I...” Want you to love me, he thought, but he wasn’t ready to say it. It was the wrong time to start feeling so aroused, maybe, but he couldn’t help but respond to her physically, no matter what the circumstance. Always, her voice was like an aphrodisiac, low and throaty. He added, “And I know you love your mom.”

  “I love everybody in my family. I don’t always like them, though. I keep waiting for them to approve of me, and I’m way too old for that.”

  “No matter how old you get, you never stop wanting that. My mom...”

  His voice trailed off.

  After a minute, she said, “I know about your mom. Mom Mad printed articles about you from the internet. She has an inch-thick file.”

  He chuckled softly. “Your mother’s a trip.”

  “Sorry.”

  “I’m...” His voice trailed off again, no word seeming quite right, but he finally settled on saying, “I’m dating you, not your family, Ari.”

  Her expression was impossible to interpret. “Is that what we’re doing? Just dating?”

  It seemed too early to talk about it, but she was engaging his heart, she really was. This was more than dating, way more than fucking. “It’s more than that. Can you handle more?”

  What was he talking about? Marriage? Children? He guessed so. She’d certainly made him start thinking about those things.

  “Everything seems to be moving so fast, Bruno.”

  “We’ll go at your pace.”

  She sucked in a breath, seemingly deciding she felt safer changing the subject. “I read your mom’s obituary.”

  His hand in her hair stilled. She’d been so much like Ari, full of life, always on the run, involved in various clubs, too busy to take care of herself, which is why a regular screening hadn’t caught the breast cancer. Over a year had passed now, and finally, his dad was starting to come out of his shell.

  “Sorry,” she said.

  Realizing he’d gotten lost in his own thoughts, he shook his head. “It’s okay.” Her eyes looked veiled and dark in the dim light of the room, even as they glowed gold because of the fire and candles. Falling through his fingers, tendrils of her hair were like flames. Usually, at just one touch, every switch inside her turned on. Inside him, too.

  “I wish I could say the right thing. My mom always wanted to meet the women I dated, but I never took them home. I would have taken you home, though, Ari. She would have really liked you. She loved to garden, just like you.”

  “I read that in the obituary. It made me feel like a snoop.”

  “It’s not snooping when you do it.” Suddenly, his breath caught at the back of his throat, and he had difficulty swallowing, his heart missing a beat. For a second he didn’t know why. What if she got lost in this funk and didn’t come back, though? What if she decided to take time off, as she’d put it? He didn’t need two PhDs to know that meant he wouldn’t see her again. She really might walk out on him, the way she had on so many other guys. The thought filled him with hard to define emotion. Fear mostly. He didn’t like the power she had to wreck his happiness. “Right now, you seem a million miles away, and all I know is that I want to make you come back to me, Ari.”

  She didn’t seem to hear him. “Maybe Robby was right. You were, too.”

  “About what?”

  “Me pushing men away. I always do. I always have. Just like tonight. Maybe I can’t handle relationships, not the way Lizzie can.”

  “Stop comparing,” he whispered, drawing her closer, her body heat stoking the fires of desire against his will, engendering a longing he couldn’t fight. “You’re handling this relationship with me just fine.” But was she? Bands tightened around his chest, his mind lingering on the stupid note she’d meant to leave. “You only wrote that note because your mom made you worry. And I don’t want you to leave, Ari. Not tonight. Maybe not ever.”

  “Not ever?”

  He shook his head. He couldn’t believe he’d said it, but it was true. Maybe he’d known that from the first moment he’d heard her voice in Boondocks. Definitely when he’d seen her cute little bungalow, and the loving way she tended it. His first thought had been that his mother was never going to get to meet Ari. “My mother would have thought you were great.” He paused. “Don’t go away. And I don’t mean to Raleigh. I mean in your emotions.”

  “I just...”

  “Make love to me, Ari. Do it right now. Kiss me.”

  He could see her throat work as she swallowed. Tentatively, she tilted her face up to his once more. Licking against the dryness of his mouth, he leaned and brushed her lips with his, kissing back. “What say we try a real kiss now?”

  Just before she pressed her lips more firmly to his, she whispered, “I guess I was going along, with my goals and dreams and everything....”

  “Isn’t it time you got off the grid?” he tried to joke, even though he didn’t feel particularly jovial at the moment. He was glad to see her lips part in a smile, though. Opening them further with his tongue, he pressed inside to explore and felt another jolt of pure lust. “Make me one of your dreams, Ari.”

  He hoped she would because she was stoking the fire again, engorging him, arousing him in ways he’d never felt before. He strained inside his clothes, lifting from a mass of curls, seeking. As much as he wanted to overwhelm her, to take her by storm, to play the boss and man and make love to her until she was as pliable as a purring kitten, he knew she needed to regain control tonight. If he made one wrong move, he felt he’d lose her.

  She straddled him. She was still clothed, but he could feel her cleft open, grazing the hard ridge of his sex. Damp heat radiated from inside her panties and stole his breath. He savored every minute as she undid the sweater dress, the gestures so slow that
the opening of each button was sheer torture. Her legs were hugging him, her tights clinging like a second skin. When the dress opened and he was staring at a white lace bra, he sharply inhaled.

  “Oh,” he whispered, taking in how the bra pushed her heavy breasts up, creating deep cleavage. He uttered yet another sound, this one soft and strangled. He’d never wanted anybody with such quiet desperation. Something inside him felt almost as forlorn as she looked. Full of longing. Need. Hope. Something else was crying out for relief only she could give. Swallowing hard, he traced the nipples pebbling against lace, the taut dusky, dark pink tips straining, lickable and begging.

  “Take it off, Ari.”

  He’d only meant the wisp of fabric on her chest, so he grunted a protest when she got up. Only long enough to get a condom from the bathroom, as it turned out. When she returned, putting it on the coffee table, she was standing close enough that his nostrils filled with her scent as she took off tights and panties. Quickly, he pushed his briefs and sweats down on his thighs, then he reached for her, not caring that his clothes were still half on. He only had eyes for where her dress was open as she straddled him once more. He could scarcely bear the touch of her pubic curls, but when her dampened folds opened, drizzling a hot trail where he was so hard, his heart hammered, beating out of control.

  “You’re one of a kind, Ari,” he whispered, as she finally gave him what he wanted and opened the front clasp, letting bra straps slide down her shoulders, the flames in the fire grate reflecting on her skin. The dress protected her back from the room’s chill; her strawberry hair was around her shoulders tangled, disheveled and wild.

  “Let’s get you wetter,” he whispered huskily, glad to hear her soft pants as he probed. Her knees squeezed where they banked his thighs and he pushed a middle finger deep, vibrating it near her womb. Moistening his fingers with his mouth, he tasted her, mixing his saliva with her sweet juices, then he teased her every way he could think to, finally pressing into the opening with the pad of his thumb while splaying fingers over her mound. Drawing tantalizing circles on her clit until she cried out, he twined his fingers in the silken hair and tugged until the flesh of her thighs felt like it would never stop quivering.