Page 94 of Fated

He’s focused on me completely.

It’s as if his hands are stroking over my bare skin, his fingers whispering over my breasts and my thighs, his mouth whispering over my pulse. It’s all there in the thick, humid air perfumed with jasmine and flickering with candlelight.

Robert said Aaron had never looked at me this way before. That he’d never felt this way before.

But the truth is, I’ve never felt this way either.

Before, with Joel, when I thought it was love, I was in a desert and he was the only drop of water. That single drop was a mirage.

But this?

This feeling?

Aaron looks at me then and the feeling expands, a warm wave rolling through me, washing over me like the turquoise sea gently sweeping over golden sand. My body grows heavy as a languid heat engulfs me, heady and dizzying.

The heat, the flowers, the seclusion of this back garden are doing funny things to my heart.

Aaron’s lips tug upward and his dark brown eyes shine in the candlelight. He sets his hand on the table between us, resting it palm-up. When I reach forward and lay my fingers in his, his smile widens and his eyes warm.

I run my fingers through his, tangling our hands together. The whisper of my skin over his sends sparks shivering through me. They lodge deep in my middle, a glow brighter than all the candles combined.

In the tree nearby the blackbirds end their evening song.

Aaron runs his thumb over the sensitive part of my palm. “I can never decide,” he says into the sudden quiet, “what I like better. The blackbirds singing or the moment right after.”

I think about it. There’s the chatter, the song, the piping notes, and then there’s the silence when the music is still echoing but you know it’s gone.

“While they’re singing,” I say.

“After,” he decides at the same time.

His eyes crinkle and he leans forward, coming closer so I catch the fresh scent of the soap he used in the shower. We’re in a little bubble, a private fairy-tale garden.

“Why?” he asks.

“I like being in the moment,” I say, gesturing to the garden and the candlelight. “I like the moment, not the memory.”

He nods, considering my words. Then he says, “I think, for me, the fact that it ends is what makes it ...” He shrugs.

“Ah. You only appreciate something when it’s gone.”

“No. Not exactly. I’ve known too many things that have ended not to appreciate something while it’s here. It’s more ...”

“Like the moment right after we kissed?”

His eyes fly to mine. A buzzy, heady heat arches between us. He rubs his fingers over my palm, tracing the delicate skin of the underside of my wrist. His thumb rests on the galloping of my pulse.

“Right,” he says, his voice low.

Suddenly I know just what he means. It’s the moment when you’re in your love’s arms, limp and falling, right after an earth-shattering orgasm. When you’re mindless and euphoric. Held close and loved.

Above us the sky has turned to a deep plum, speckled with the first golden stars.

“Thank you for the date,” I say, scooting forward in my chair, trying to get as close to him as possible. “I know you worked all day preparing for the storm.”

“Is it wrong to say I wanted to spend an evening alone with you?”

I shake my head. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t. I’m here to ...” I look at his shadowed jaw, the glow of his eyes, and consider how much to tell him. How much can a person in a dream understand? “Love,” I finally say. “I want to love.” And then, in case he doesn’t understand, I add in a quiet voice. “I want to love you.”

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