Page 18 of Butterflies and Hazel Eyes
“Good point,” he agreed, nodding. “Your desk will have to be close to me since you’ll have constant questions about the website, I’m sure.”
I raised one brow in indignation. “Are you questioning my ability to write sensical information about bugs?” He raised both brows in response, and I broke into a fit of giggles. “You’re right. What I know about bugs involves how to get them off the bottom of my shoe.” I gasped and slapped my hand over my mouth. “Sorry,” I croaked from behind it.
He laughed and waved it away. “Don’t worry. I’m not so naive that I think people rescue flies and put them outside to live another day. I do request you save the honeybees and the butterflies, though.”
I made the cross-my-heart sign. “Done. Now, what do you want me to do?”
He pointed at a desk against the wall. “That desk will be yours until we’re done with the site. When it’s time to work, you can set up one of your fancy-dancy computers, and we can rock and roll.”
“Fancy-dancy computers, you say?” I laughed because he wasn’t wrong. My computers weren’t something the average person was going to understand how to use. “I like the L-shape setup. Since you’re going to have to show me things constantly, it keeps me from having to get up every time. As long as it won’t cramp your style to have me so close.”
“You don’t cramp my style, Charity, not even a little bit. I like being with you,” he promised as I approached his desk. His hand snaked toward me, but he stopped it at the last moment before he touched my hand.
I didn’t let his fall back to the desk before I grabbed it and held on tight. “I like being with you too. You make me laugh, and I genuinely can’t wait to spend time with you. I’d like to do more things outside the office together. I mean, if you’d like to,” I lamely added when I realized I’d just asked him out on a date.
His free hand slipped up along the side of my face, and his thumb ran across my cheekbone. “I’d like to spend more time with you, but I don’t want to hold you back.”
I tipped my head into his hand, the warmth of his skin grounding me and exciting me at the same time. When he touched me, my skin came alive with little zaps of pleasure that traveled through every part of me. “Hold me back? What do you mean?”
“Physically,” he answered. Anxiety, fear, sadness, and pain rolled across the movie screen of his eyes, but the only thing that stayed was pain. “I don’t want you to hang out with me because you feel sorry for me.”
I swung my head from side to side. “I have no reason to feel sorry for you, Gulliver. My God, you’re far more successful than I could ever be, not to mention smart, funny, cute, and a great conversationalist. I want to spend more time with you for those reasons and nothing else.”
He blinked several times, and finally a smile curved his lips. “No one has ever said I’m cute before,” he said on a breath. “I like being cute.”
“Keep it up, and I’ll rescind the cute part of the sentence,” I said, poking him in the ribs.
He let out a bark of laughter and bent over to protect his side. When he ducked his head, our eyes met, and he leaned in, his lips seeking mine in a hesitant kiss. I relaxed into him slightly to tell him I wanted this as much as he did. He kept the kiss light, but the unexpected emotion that filled me was heavy. Headiness, anticipation, joy. All those emotions soared inside me to have his lips on mine. Warmth spread through me, and I wanted more. In that moment I wanted it all. His warm hands tenderly gripped my waist, and the warmth of his kiss spread lower now, pooling in places long forgotten after years alone on the road. God, how wonderful it felt to connect with someone like this again. His tongue traced the lines of my lips, and I moaned low in my throat.
Correction. The word I was looking for wasfinally.It felt wonderful to connect with someone like this finally.
The electricity that bounced between us was in shared commonality of our differences. I wanted him and he wanted me, which meant none of them mattered. The sound I made low in my throat then was plaintive, but it acknowledged the desire coursing through the both of us as though we were one.
He let the kiss end naturally, but never drew his gaze away. What reflected back at me was wonderment at such a beautiful moment shared between us. There was also a tinge of fear. Had he crossed a line he shouldn’t have? Uncertainty about the way I was going to react. I squeezed his hand I was still holding and offered up a smile. “The kiss was unexpected and wonderful,” I whispered.
The sigh he released had his chin lowering to his chest. “I was worried I shouldn’t have done it about halfway through.”
“I could tell,” I said, tipping his chin up. “I wouldn’t have allowed it if I didn’t want you to kiss me. We’ve been building up to the kiss since we met, and I’m glad we shared it. It was short but sweet and told me I want to get to know you better.”
“I’d like the same, Charity. Maybe we could start today? We could go for a drive or share a campfire by Myrtle?”
I tapped his chest with my finger. “I was thinking of something a lot more fun. I saw Laverne this morning, and she offered to let us borrow the campground’s boat. She knows I’ve been dying to see the island!”
“The island? Which one? There are twenty-one of them,” he said, his laughter teasing.
“Laverne said something about Oak Island?”
He nodded once and grasped my slight shoulder in his hand. “Oak Island is the perfect choice. There’s a nice place to tie up the boat, and Mojo will love all the new smells. With any luck, we’ll even see a butterfly or two.”
I gave him a fist bump and a grin because I was all about new adventures, especially if he was part of them.
♥
“Do you need a boostin?” Gulliver asked, motioning to his truck. It sat at about the same height as my motor home but didn’t have a step to help me get in.
“Sure, if you could,” I agreed. Gulliver’s crutches fell to the ground, and I propped my left leg on the edge of the door. He boosted me in, leaving tingles of anticipation along my thigh, which made me look forward to the next time I’d need a boost up into this gorgeous truck by this gorgeous man. Once I was inside, he shut the door, grabbed his crutches, and cruised around to his side. I buckled in while little tingles of happiness zipped through my body to be spending the day with him. “You never said you drove a fully restored 1959 Dodge pickup truck,” I said, rubbing the gleaming wood dash.
A smile tipped his lips as he buckled his seat belt. “You have to let a dude have a little bit of mystery about him, Miss Puck. Besides, most women aren’t interested in old trucks.”
