Awakened by His Touch

by Nikki Logan

  They busied themselves loading ingredients onto thick wedges of bread. Laney had a few moments of self-consciousness, fumbling with the food in front of Elliott, but he didn’t comment and he didn’t rush in to help her out so she just finished her fumbling and got stuck in to the important job of filling her gnawing stomach.

  ‘So, is your dad still involved with basketball?’

  ‘No idea. I don’t know who he is.’

  She paused with her sandwich halfway to her mouth. No father and no relationship with his mother. What a lonely childhood. ‘Oh...’

  His voice shrugged. ‘You don’t miss what you never had.’

  Wasn’t that exactly what she’d been trying to tell him about her vision? ‘You mean that?’

  ‘When I was little I used to make up complicated fantasies of this famous sportsman coming back for me. Taking me away to be part of his exciting, dynamic life. But the reality is he was just a guy who played basketball well and slept with my mother once. He doesn’t even know I exist. But I guess I needed the fantasy to hang on to, so he served his purpose.’

  The lie resonated through his thick voice. He cared. He cared a lot.

  ‘Well, that’s making my dad look pretty golden, hey?’ she breathed.

  ‘Your father is golden. Astute, driven, family-orientated, committed. What’s not to love?’

  ‘I do love him, of course. But I didn’t always want to.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘All that commitment and drive? It can be hard when you’re a kid and he’s focussing it all on you.’

  Fiercely.

  All the public services he’d challenged and the concessions he’d pressured the district council into for the only blind person in town. All the letters he’d written. All the calls to his local representative. Making sure that his daughter was not denied one single opportunity in life.

  Meaning she’d got a heck of a lot more than the average kid as a result.

  ‘He obviously feels he has a lot to make up to you for.’

  ‘And has done so—many times over. But no kid wants to be the centre of attention like that.’

  ‘Especially not you.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning I’m starting to understand your reticence to own your achievements.’

  ‘I’m not reluctant, Elliott, I’m just a realist. If I thought for a moment that—’

  ‘Don’t move, Laney!’

  The urgency in his voice completely stole her attention. Was the cliff-face crumbling? Had a snake appeared from the grass?

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bee.’

  The seriousness with which he announced the single word was almost comic. ‘Where?’

  ‘On your fringe.’

  ‘Don’t kill it.’

  He puffed his offence out. ‘I’m not going to kill it. And—PS—you’re hardly in a position to lecture me about bee-o-cide.’

  She sat, carefully motionless. ‘This is a fully grown, fully functioning bee. Where is it now?’

  ‘Just clinging there.’

  ‘It’s probably exhausted from fighting the gusts. I’ll let it recover out of the wind and then point it towards home.’

  She leaned forward slightly and felt her way along the remnants of their meal for the honey. It took two seconds to get a fingertip full of instant bee fuel. ‘Left or right?’

  ‘On your left, about five centimetres above your eye.’ He whoahed her as she slowly slid her finger up past her ear. ‘Right there.’

  And then she just...sat there... Feeling absolutely nothing and hearing absolutely nothing except the wind buffeting against her body, but hoping the bee would make its way to the unexpected energy source. Hoping she hadn’t disturbed it into flying off, leaving her sitting here looking like a complete idiot.

  Though surely he’d tell her.

  Surely.

  Opening herself up to ridicule was not something that came naturally to her.

  ‘It’s feeding.’ Amazement saturated Elliott’s voice.

  She made sure not to move during her little laugh. ‘You are such a city kid.’

  ‘I’ll be sure to return the sentiment when you’re in the city and you’re experiencing something for the first time.’

  Thank goodness for the bee or she’d have jerked her head in his direction—sight or no sight. ‘Is that an invitation?’

  Silence...

  Awkward silence.

  ‘It was an assumption. That you’ll be up there one day on business.’

  Survival instinct forced her to keep it light. ‘Are you tired of country runs already? Wanting us to come to you?’

  ‘Not at all. I enjoy the thinking time on the way down and back. But I guess I can’t imagine you never visiting the city.’ He cleared his throat. ‘And I assumed I’d see you if you did. You know—for lunch or something.’

  ‘Maybe you would. I don’t really know anyone else up there.’ Why would she? ‘So I’d probably have no reason to go.’

  ‘You truly aren’t curious at all?’

  ‘Not really. What does the city have that I can’t get here? Things that I could enjoy,’ she added before he could start peppering her with a long list of things she couldn’t see.

  ‘I don’t know...elephants?’

  The unexpectedness of that stirred a chuckle out of her. ‘There are elephants roaming wild in the city?’

  ‘There’s a zoo across the river from Ashmore Coolidge’s offices full of animals you’d never get down here. And concerts... You could go to a concert.’

  ‘We have one of the state’s biggest vineyard concert venues in the next district. They have multiple events every season.’

  ‘You could go to the races...’

  ‘Where do you think all those horses qualify for their city races?’

  ‘Okay, what about the university? You could visit the facial recognition team. I’m sure they’d love to show you their progress in person.’

  ‘Ooh...’ That could be quite interesting. Wait... When had this stopped being hypothetical and started being something she was actually thinking about? ‘Or I could just email them.’

  ‘Just admit it, Laney. You won’t know what’s interesting until you find yourself being interested by it. Who knows? You might share my passion for parasailing or something equally random.’

  She shifted her other hand to support the elbow holding up the finger that was feeding the bee. She wished it would eat faster so she could feel a tiny bit less dopey.

  ‘You parasail?’

  ‘Yeah. I co-own a speedboat with a mate of mine and we go out whenever we can, take turns going up. Why?’ His voice grew keen. ‘Is that something that interests you?’

  If it involved flying, it sure did. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Have you ever done any water sports?’

  ‘Owen taught me to surf a little bit.’

  ‘Were you any good?’

  ‘Not really, but I liked the sensation of just...floating on the swell. Being supported by the waves. I’ve always wondered if flying would be the same.’

  Speaking of flight... In the silence between her words and his answer, she heard the bee give a test buzz of its wings.

  ‘I’ll take you parasailing,’ he offered.

  ‘Down here?’

  ‘No... On my boat. If we do it then you need to come up to the city.’

  Need to. Which meant he wanted her to. ‘Why can’t you just motor down the coast?’

  ‘I work for Ashmore Coolidge, Laney, not for you. If you want to come out with me on my boat on my weekend off then you need to come up to my turf.’

  Firm. Uncompromising. And totally reasonable under the circumstances. Her heart pumped out res
entment. She’d fought all her life to get people to treat her like anyone else and now that someone was, was she getting snotty about it? Had she grown up feeling more entitled than she’d realised?

  Elliott’s challenge hung out there, live and real.

  ‘Okay. Maybe I will,’ she said. Never one to back down.

  ‘Good. When?’

  Sudden pressure—and something else—fisted in her belly. ‘When are you going out next?’

  ‘We were going to try for next weekend. Weather permitting.’

  So soon? But she wasn’t about to admit how much that freaked her out. ‘Okay. Next weekend, then.’

  Yikes...

  ‘How about I collect you from the train Saturday morning and drive you back down here Saturday night? Or you could stay over.’

  Owen had once described the flashing lights of an ambulance that had passed and she saw them now, vivid in her imagination. She definitely heard them.

  Or you could stay over.

  You know, just like that...

  She ignored that part of his comment completely. Very grown-up of her. ‘I’m sure you’ve got better things to do with your Saturday night than chauffeur me around.’

  ‘Not really. Plus then I can finish up my review of your facilities and we’ll have something to decide.’

  ‘Um...okay, then?’

  ‘Is that a question or a statement?’

  What was she doing? She was twenty-five years old, for crying out loud. Why was she letting him get to her like this? She wanted to flick her hair back defiantly but didn’t out of respect for the bee. Instead she just sat up straighter.

  ‘It’s a statement. Yes. I’ll take the train up next Saturday.’

  ‘Great. I’ll schedule it in.’

  Elliott’s carefully moderated tone was pretty slick, but she’d been mining people’s voices for subtext her whole life. She could hear enthusiasm under all the nonchalance. The question was, was he pleased she was coming out on his boat next week or was he just pleased he’d got his way?

  Yeah, well, good luck with that. Hopefully, his super corporate training had prepared him for disappointment. Because squiring her around the city wasn’t going to change her mind one bit about taking Morgan’s global.

  The tiny buzz past her ear was her only evidence that the bee had finished its pitstop and headed off back towards its hive.

  ‘At last!’ she groaned, lowering her aching arm and slipping her still honeyed finger between her lips.

  ‘You have honey in your hair.’

  And before she could do much more than wince about how undignified that particular image was the slight rattle of the food containers on the picnic blanket told her that Elliott had braced a hand amongst them so that his other hand could brush against her forehead gently, plucking the offending lock away from her skin.

  He lingered in that position, his knuckles gently brushing against her forehead. ‘Want me to pour some water on it?’

  ‘No. I’ll have a shower when we get home. Wash it out.’

  Obviously. Heck—you’d think she’d never been touched by a man before.

  A few slight tugs on her hair told her he was removing the worst of it, but then he let his knuckles brush the rest of her hair back away from her face.

  ‘Your eyes look very blue up here,’ he murmured. All close and breathy.

  All the better not to see you with. ‘What do they usually look like?’

  ‘Grey. Bottomless.’

  Even shrugging felt almost beyond her as his knuckles curled and turned into fingers instead. Blue, grey... It was meaningless at the best of times, and this definitely wasn’t her brain at its best. It was completely fixated on Elliott’s fingers as they brushed—as light and soft as they had been for such a short moment the first time he’d come here—down her jaw.

  ‘Stay still...’

  He took her clean fingers in his, raised them to his face, and placed them gently on his own cheek.

  ‘Knock yourself out,’ he breathed. Low, intimate. Just a hint of gravel.

  Every part of her tightened up. She didn’t move her hand a single millimetre. But she didn’t take it off, either.

  ‘When I said learning someone’s face was something very personal I didn’t mean just for you.’

  ‘I know. But I’m hoping since I just played with your hair I’ve broken the ice sufficiently.’

  ‘Sufficiently for what?’

  ‘That you might be comfortable enough, now, to let your fingers see what I look like.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I’d like you to know.’

  ‘Why?’

  His puff of breath tickled her wrist. ‘I have no idea.’

  The raw, confused honesty of that disarmed her enough to spread the fingers of her right hand slightly and spider them gently up his face. The rasp of a half-day’s stubble teased her sensitive pads and resonated deep down inside her. Incentive enough to move away from the strong angles of his jawline across towards his nose. She kept her trajectory upward so that she bypassed his lips.

  Pure survival instinct.

  Nose: pretty much where you’d expect to find it, and with the slight kink he’d told her about. Strong wide brow with eyebrows a heck of a lot tamer than her father’s.

  ‘Did you cut your hair?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘You said your hair fell down over your brow.’

  His fingers came up to guide hers further upward, to where his hair sat neatly corralled against the buffeting winds.

  ‘Is that...?’ She frowned at the very thought. ‘Is that bee wax?’

  ‘It’s a hard styling wax. Commercial.’

  She hadn’t pegged him for a manscaper. ‘Styling wax doesn’t get any manlier just because you put the word “hard” in front of it.’

  ‘Surely Owen and his mates use product in their hair before a big night out?’

  Her fingers paused on his forehead and she wondered that he’d consider a few hours with her on the farm as worthy of grooming. ‘We’d be lucky if they combed their hair before a big night out.’

  ‘Why are you frowning?’

  ‘Just thinking of a potential market. Hair wax.’

  The shift of facial muscles under her fingers suggested he was smiling, but his voice confirmed it. ‘Can’t keep a good businesswoman down.’

  She raised her other hand and put both sets of fingers to work exploring the texture of his hair, rubbing the waxy residue between her thumb and forefinger. Getting a sense of it.

  ‘Interesting.’

  ‘My hair or my face?’

  Right. His face... That was what she was supposed to be doing. Not playing with his thick hair.

  She fluttered her right hand back down past his eye and along his cheekbone, and then—when she couldn’t delay the moment of truth a moment longer—quickly traced her middle fingers across his ‘I’m told I have kissable’ lips. They parted just slightly before she could leave them and breath heated her finger-pads for half a heartbeat.

  ‘So there you go,’ Elliott rumbled, then cleared his throat. ‘Now you’ve really seen me.’

  A nervous smile broke free. ‘And played with your hair for longer than is polite. Though what do you mean, really seen you?’

  ‘You know how I sound, how I smell and how I feel. That’s pretty much all your available senses taken care of.’

  ‘Well,’ she began, ‘I haven’t—’

  Stop!

  At the very, very last moment her brain kicked into gear and slammed her throat shut on what had been about to come tumbling out.

  I haven’t tasted you yet.

  She was thinking about her four senses. That was all. But there was no way she could even jo
ke about it without it sounding like the lamest come-on ever. Not after she’d just had her fingers in his hair, all over his mouth. Not after she’d spent a relaxed afternoon testing out the waters of flirtation and had had the honey equivalent of foreplay down in the extraction sheds.

  ‘You haven’t what?’

  His voice, his breath, seemed impossibly closer, yet he hadn’t moved the rest of his body one inch.

  ‘Nothing. Never mind.’

  ‘Were you going to say tasted?’

  ‘No.’ The denial sounded false even to her. And it came way too fast.

  ‘Really?’ His soft voice was full of smile. ‘Because it sounded like you were.’

  ‘No. That would be an inappropriate comment to make in the workplace.’

  Yes. Work. Good.

  ‘Luckily, we’re on our lunch break.’

  She clung to her only salvation. ‘It’s still inappropriate.’

  ‘I agree,’ Elliott murmured. ‘Then again, that ship sailed when I asked you to touch my face, so what else do I have to lose?’

  Her brain was dallying dangerously over his ‘touch my face’ and so it missed the meaning in his words until it was too late.

  His lips—the ones she’d gone to so much trouble to avoid touching—pressed lightly onto Laney’s—half open, soft and damp and warm—before moulding more snugly against her. Sealing up the gaps. It took her a moment to acclimatise to the feeling of someone else’s breath on her lips and he took full advantage of her frozen surprise to open further and gently swipe the tip of his tongue over her hyper-sensitive and suddenly oxygen-deprived lips.

  Elliott Garvey was kissing her.

  Not that it was her first kiss, but it had certainly been long enough between drinks that she’d virtually forgotten what it felt like to have a man’s mouth on hers. How it felt and how it smelled and—her whole body just about melted—how he tasted. Her senses were flooded with the lime spritzer they’d just been drinking, and fine cheese, and a whole under-palate of oh, my freaking goodness!

  Elliott Garvey was kissing her.

  Instinct made her stretch her neck to fit against him better just as he might have pulled back—before she could think better of it, before she could let him go. She lapped at the heavy weight of his bottom lip, adding her breath to his and letting her tongue slip against his teeth. His hand speared in amongst her thick hair and curled warm and strong around her skull.