That was a fair point. And there was way more to the disentanglement of his life from Amber’s than he was prepared to get into with Reeve now. Not when she was already so skittish about being here with him. One more straw from him anytime soon and her little camel’s back would snap right in two.
“Look,” he said. “Your life is complicated. My life is complicated. Everyone’s life is complicated in one way or another. If they don’t have an ex or a kid, they have parents who screwed them up when they were little. What can you do? Live in a cave?”
“No, but I don’t need some guy’s complications to add to my own mess. I can do messy all by myself.”
“So can I,” he told her quietly. “But I’m still here.”
She frowned. Opened her mouth. Closed it.
“Go ahead,” he said flatly. “Ask me.”
“Why did you break up? When you were so close to proposing?”
He hesitated, trying to boil his years with Amber down into a succinct explanation that didn’t make him sound like a complete bastard.
“It’s like...My life was all mapped out on paper. My career is rolling. I was still with my first love. We have a history. Marriage is the logical next step for all kinds of reasons. So, get married, right?”
Reeve, who’d been listening with rapt attention, shrugged.
“But she wasn’t the one. The fact that she and I looked good on paper, and my life would probably be easier if she was the one, and I wanted her to be the one because she’d put in the time with me—all of that doesn’t make her the one.”
Reeve’s unfocused gaze told him she’d drifted somewhere far away from him. He wasn’t sure if he was breaking through or driving the final nail into his coffin. But he needed to tell his story and get it off his chest so she’d never wonder about it.
“All I can say is that, just because something looks like the right path, and other people want it to be your path—none of that makes it your path.”
Reeve blinked, saying nothing while he dangled in the wind and awaited her verdict.
“Reeve? Am I making any sense here?”
Another blink, and then those remarkable brown eyes—judgment-free and intent—were locked with his. “Yeah. Perfect sense.”
His heart rate skipped into overdrive. “You understood all that?”
“Understood it?” She laughed without humor. “I’ve lived it.”
Some combination of surging hope, gratitude and lust grabbed his internal steering wheel, driving him to lean in and attempt a kiss. Big mistake.
At the last possible second, she turned her head.
Disappointment sucker punched him in the gut. “I—sorry,” he said quickly. “I thought—”
But she wasn’t sticking around for any explanations. Looking flustered, she shoved her hair back from her face. Checked her watch. Grabbed her purse and scooted toward the edge of her seat without making eye contact.
“It’s late, Edward. I should really go.”
“Why? Nothing’s changed.”
“Thanks for the drink,” she said, standing and slinging her purse over her shoulder. “Maybe we can get together in a couple months. When your life settles down and I’ve had a chance to find an apartment and get settled back in town. I’ll call you, okay? Bye.”
Screw that.
“Reeve. You’re not even going to look at me?”
Sighing, she warily faced him again.
The words he wanted—something light but persuasive—wouldn’t come. Probably because his chest suddenly had the kind of pre-heart attack tightness that made breathing and thinking straight a real challenge. He didn’t want her to go. Didn’t want to have to wonder if she was serious about calling him and if or when he’d ever see her again. And the irrational ferocity of his feelings toward this woman he’d just met and barely knew scared the crap out of him.
He opened his mouth.
“What, Edward?” she asked, edging toward the door and probably out of his life. “I have to go.”
“I thought we were going to talk about Moby-Dick.”
It was the only thing he could think of, but it worked. After an arrested pause, she burst into a throaty laugh that eased some of the tension in his chest. He couldn’t join in, though. Things were still on the line here, and getting things right between them—whatever those amorphous things were—was far too critical for him to laugh just now. She seemed to know it, her smile fading away while she waited for his next move.
“I have a question for you,” he told her.
Judging by the way her shoulders stiffened, this was the worst possible news he could have given her. “Not another one.”
“Did you think about me after I drove off this morning? And after I kissed you earlier?”
“Edward—”
“Did you?”
“Yes,” she admitted softly, her gaze level.
“Will you think about me when you get home tonight?”
Thinned lips and flinty eyes were the only answers he got this time.
“Do you think walking off now will get me out of your mind?”
A rueful smile turned up one corner of her mouth. “No.”
“Good. Because I know I’ll be thinking about you for a long time. A. Long. Time.”
Bright patches of color bloomed across her cheeks, making her seem even more irresistible and undecided.
He pressed his advantage. “So why don’t you hang out with me for a while? We don’t have to figure all this out tonight, do we?”
“No,” she said, sighing. “But I really do have to go. Sofia’ll be wondering what happened to me. She was going to have people over for margaritas after the fireworks.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to say that 1) she could text Sofia to let her know she’d be late; and 2) he drank margaritas and would be happy to tag along with her, but he’d pushed Reeve pretty far tonight already, and any further pushing would probably put him firmly in stalker territory.
So he impersonated a gracious gentleman by nodding, throwing some money on the table and standing. “Okay.”
She looked startled. “What, no argument?”
“Nah. I know when to pick my battles.”
“That’s very evolved of you,” she said.
“I’m full of surprises. Living with four brothers taught me all about surprises. Did you walk or drive?”
“I walked. It’s not far.”
“I’ll walk you. I feel a responsibility to make sure you get places you’re supposed to be after this morning.”
“What a gracious gentleman you are,” she said, laughing.
They headed out the front door and emerged into cool night air scented with oncoming rain, cut grass, wet earth, and the unmistakable sulphur that seemed to be the only remnant of the fireworks show. DeGroot Street, though still lined with cars, had quieted down a lot from this afternoon. All that would change when people packed up their coolers and blankets and made their way back from the park and Emerald Lake, but for now Edward was glad they had the sidewalk to themselves.
“This way,” she said, pointing. “Her house is a couple of blocks down, around the corner.”
He nodded, shoving his hands in his pockets to keep them from reaching for her, which he was sorely tempted to do. Chitchat, he told himself. He needed to make small talk and keep this light and easy.
“Look,” he said. “Full moon.”
There was no missing it. It was at the end of the street, sitting just above the horizon and demanding to be admired in all its glowing white glory.
“We talked about full moons in med school. All the studies say there’s no connection between a full moon and crazy behavior, but one of my professors swore they were related.”
“I should keep track of whether I get more emergencies when the moon’s full,” he said. “Maybe more cats demand to go outside and get hit by cars, or something.”
“You should do that,” she said. “You’ll have to report back. Scientific min
ds want to know.”
“Report back? The record will reflect you just gave me permission to call you.”
She laughed. “The record will reflect no such thing. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? It looks like we could reach out and touch it.”
She was staring at the moon. He was staring at her.
“It’s incredible.”
The husky note in his voice prompted her to shoot him a sidelong glance and duck her head.
Hands in pockets, man, he told himself sternly.
Keep your freaking hands in your freaking pockets.
But that was getting harder to do, especially when they were walking slowly and so closely together that their shoulders and bare arms brushed, and the rose fragrance of her skin was saturating his nostrils in the best possible way, seeping into his brain and making him high.
Up ahead, somewhere in the distance, lightning flashed.
“Uh-oh,” she said.
“You don’t like storms?”
“I’m okay with them. But my cat’ll be climbing the walls and yowling.”
“Ah,” he said.
They kept walking.
“We turn right at the stop sign,” she said. “The house is a few doors down.”
“That’s my street.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Another auspicious point, but he decided not to mention it.
Hands in pockets.
“You’re staying with Sofia?” he asked.
“Just for a few days. So we don’t have a chance to get on each other’s nerves.”
“Wise plan.”
“I’m going to check out some apartments in the next couple days. See what I can find.”
“Good,” he said absently.
He kept his gaze focused on the sidewalk ahead of them, trying not to notice the way the distant flashes of lightning were picking up, catching the blue-black streaks in her hair, the satiny gleam of her shoulders and the glitter of her dark eyes. The night was cool, but she was warm at his side, or maybe it was just that his body was so acutely attuned to hers at the moment that it attracted her heat the way a magnet attracts iron shavings.
They walked a little farther.
“You’re very quiet,” she observed.
He nodded, fisting his hands inside his pockets. “I’m trying to be a gentleman. It’s taking a lot of effort.”
“Oh,” she said, and he could hear the laughter in her voice. “Is that why you’re not holding my hand?”
“Holding your hand?” he echoed stupidly as they turned the corner.
“Well, I know you’re not shy. You kissed me in front of the whole lunch crowd at Java Nectar. You touched my hair and my face and held my hand back at the pub. And now we’re walking alone together on a moonlit night and you don’t take my hand? You must have a fever.”
Smiling, she stopped to face him.
And, reaching up, pressed her palm to his forehead.
That was all the catalyst he needed.
He went rigid, his breath hissing with the pleasure of Reeve’s voluntary touch on his body, even if it was only on a non-erogenous zone like his forehead. Reflexes and hot instinct made him reach for her wrist and take her hand. He watched her as he lowered her arm and held her at a tiny distance, giving her the chance to say no while his brain was still nominally in charge of his body.
She stepped toward him, a sign that all her earlier reservations had gone out the window, at least for now. Her chin came up. Her lids lowered. Her lips parted.
The word no did not come out of her mouth.
“Edward.”
It was a whisper of assent, a breathless promise of things to come.
Reaching out, he swept her into his arms and pulled her, hard, up against the length of his body. Only her eager responsiveness to be exactly there prevented it from being a yank.
“Jesus,” he muttered, because the fit was exquisite and unprecedented.
Desperate to anchor her close and incapable of worrying about what any passing neighbors might think, he cupped her ass, which was a perfectly round handful of toned flesh, and slid his fingers through the thick satin of the hair at the back of her head.
An approving croon vibrated in her throat as he lowered his head, and then they were kissing, and kissing and kissing. Her lips were velvety sweet, her tongue eager. She opened for him, sucking him hard into her mouth, and the floodgates opened on both sides.
He tilted her head, kissing her from another angle. She scratched her nails across his back, up his nape and over his scalp. He squeezed her ass. She thrust her hips against his raging erection. He gasped, trying to breathe. She whispered his name between kisses, her breath feathering his lips.
Their perfectly choreographed mating dance might have gone on forever, right there on the sidewalk in front of his house, but something happened.
The sky opened up, showering them with sudden rain.
The cool drops were relentless, turning her dress into a wet film beneath his hands and her hair into ropy strands like it’d been earlier. He licked the water off her lips and her face, certain that nothing in his life would or could ever be as delicious as Reeve’s wet skin.
She kissed him back harder, pressing closer and holding him tighter until, suddenly, they both eased back, too surprised and breathless to continue.
Panting and wide-eyed, she clung to his neck and stared into his face, and he stared into hers.
“Come inside with me,” he said urgently, raising his voice over the splattering rain.
Her lids lowered as she leaned in again, nuzzling his mouth and nipping his bottom lip as she pulled back and smiled. “Maybe just until the rain stops.”
Or forever, he thought, grabbing her hand and pulling her through his front gate and up the walk.
* * *
Chapter 10
At the door, he reached into his shorts pocket for the key. She’d already realized, in those short few seconds, that the absence of his body pressed tight against hers was a serious problem, so she stepped closer and wrapped her arms around his lean waist, intending just to rest her head on his chest.
His breath stuttered when she did. The keys, meanwhile, jangled as he worked with the lock with his right hand while anchoring her hips against his with his left.
But the lock seemed to be giving him trouble, and she discovered, by sliding her nose along his neck, that he smelled even better than she’d thought. Warm man and night air, sandalwood and rain, clean musk, summer and Edward.
Adam didn’t smell like this, whispered that insidious part of her brain, which was sounding more distant, as though it’d moved one block over and its voice was harder to hear over the rain.
Adam didn’t feel like this.
She didn’t give a damn what it said right now. Edward wasn’t giving her any time to think or listen and, anyway, tasting Edward’s neck was much more important than wallowing in her painful past.
So, no more Adam. Not tonight.
Tipping up her chin, she gave the velvety column of his throat—she could feel the driving thump of his pulse—a lingering kiss, and the kiss became a swirl with her tongue, and the swirl became a lick, and then, suddenly, his entire body solidified into a wall of tense muscle.
“Mmm.” She gently scraped her teeth across the hard tendons in his neck and felt him shiver in her arms. “You’re delicious,” she whispered in his ear, because he was.
He cursed with mounting frustration, his movements now so jerky that she feared he’d break the key off in the lock. But then, just as her overheated body reached the point of implosion, the bolt turned with a click.
He got the door open at last and they tumbled through it, out of the rain and into the air-conditioned darkness of his house. Kicking the door shut, he swung her around and backed her against it. Her Chatty Cathy mouth, which didn’t seem to be operating on her orders anymore, whispered out another of her hidden thoughts: “God, I want you.”
“Jes
us, Reeve,” he muttered, yanking her into his arms for another frantic kiss. They came together with a bruising force, and even though she had her mouth wide open for him, because he wanted nothing less and she gave it all, happily, she stood on her tiptoes to get more of him.
“Edward,” she whispered every time he changed the angle of his mouth or let her up for air. “Edward.”
He kissed her endlessly, his hands in relentless motion over her body, gripping her with hard fingers as though he wanted to figure out how solid she was and imprint her every curve and hollow on his palms. Down her back. Around her waist and hips. Up her sides, to her breasts, which he squeezed, and squeezed again, more insistently, when she moaned in response the first time.
When his thumbs rubbed over her nipples, she jumped, crying out with the electrical shots of pleasure that streaked straight to her sex, and then she was talking again, the words beyond her control or choosing.
“I don’t know what you’re doing to me, Edward. I’m so hot for you. So. Hot.”
He eased back enough to stare into her face, his eyes a diamond glitter of determination and lust. Then he bent at the knees, stooping just enough to get his hands under the wet film of her skirt. Gasping, already in full meltdown mode, she wriggled her hips so he could peel her panties—damp both from the rain and her desire—down past her thighs and out of his way. She toed off her sandals, kicked off the panties and reached for his belt, but he had other plans.
He stooped lower, dropping to his knees even as he gripped one of her thighs just above her knee and hooked it over his shoulder. And then, before she could work up an alarmed don’t or I’m not ready, give me a minute before I make a fool of myself, he was kissing her there, circling his hot tongue around the most exquisitely sensitive part of her body, and all the points of her pleasure—her overheated skin, swollen lips, tingling breasts, aching sex—coalesced and settled in that hard bud that was now the center of her existence.
She tried to breathe. Tried to quiet down so every neighbor up and down the street didn’t hear her cries. Tried to get her boneless hands to do something other than dangle uselessly at the ends of her arms or fumble at his shoulders.
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