Page 25 of Butterflies and Hazel Eyes
I laughed softly and held up my hands. “I’m guilty there, but I was worried about your safety and nothing else. I don’t want you to get hurt, which I think means nothing more than I care about you.”
“I care about you too. I wish there weren’t such an age gap between us.”
“There’s an age gap?” I asked, surprised. “How old are you?”
“Thirty-four.” His resulting sigh was heavy and deep. I felt all thirty-four years in that sigh. The weight of who Gulliver Winsome was sat on my shoulders like the weight of one thousand men. The pain of his childhood surgeries. The pain of growing up next to a brother who was his mirror image but could do everything he couldn’t. The pain of rejection over and over again for years until finally his psyche couldn’t take it anymore and shut down. I wanted to open him up again. I wanted to show him how one person, the right person, could start to change his life, regardless of his age.
I made the mind-blown motion near my head. “Wow, seven whole years. That’s almost unheard of in this day and age. Scandalous even. What will my father think if I date a man with so much more worldly knowledge than me?” I asked in a fake Southern-belle accent.
Gulliver grasped my shoulders and hauled me into his chest. My eyes fluttered closed, giving him permission to kiss me, and he took it. He laid his lips on mine tenderly, sliding his hands into my hair and tipping my head to the left. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him back, parting my lips when his tongue skimmed across the top of them. He didn’t take the kiss any farther, though, and when I gave a low whimper, he pulled back and leaned his forehead against mine.
Our eyes locked together in wonderment and awe of the moment we’d just shared. I could read his intentions in those eyes of caramel, and I understood that he wasn’t going to take advantage of the situation we were in. He wanted to explore the feelings growing between us but wouldn’t ruin it by moving too fast.
“Your father’s dead,” he whispered, running his thumb along the ridge of my upper lip, still dewy from the kiss. “And just so you know, I wanted that kiss to be so much more, but I don’t want to scare you and risk pushing you away.”
“Since my father is dead, that gives me permission to do whatever the hell I want to,” I said emphatically. “If I want to hang out with a guy who’s seven years older than me, I will. If I want to kiss you until my lips are singed off and my tongue is raw, I will. If I want to date a guy who uses crutches or sits in a wheelchair, I will. I don’t give a damn what other people think. I’m a minuscule woman who drives an old motor home around the country with nothing but a mashed-up mutt for company. That lifestyle alone should tell you I don’t care what anyone thinks about my life choices. They’re my choices, no one else’s.” I caressed his face while I spoke, his beard soft against my palm. “I love your beard, Gulliver. It’s so soft, and I love the way it tickles my palm. I’m sorry if I touch it too much, but I can’t help myself.”
He captured my hand to his cheek and held it there. “You never have to apologize for touching me. I yearn for the moments that your sweet, tiny hand caresses my face. You always make me feel like I’m the only person in your world when you do it. You’re an unusual woman, Charity Puck,” he whispered, “in an excellent way. I’ve smiled, laughed, and felt more in the last week than I have in the last decade.”
I frowned at the idea he was so alone in the world. “It saddens me to think you’ve spent years being lonely, but I’m content to know you’ve found a little happiness with me. Well, other than this,” I said, motioning around the darkened beach.
He wrapped me in his arms, resting my head on his shoulder. “I don’t know. This isn’t so bad. If we’d gone back to shore, I would have told you good night and gone home to an empty apartment. Here, I have a fire, a beautiful woman in my arms, and the stars to watch.”
I patted his chest absently. “I didn’t think of it that way, but since you mentioned it, I’m all about this.”
He chuckled, and the sound made his chest rattle under my cheek. It was comforting, and the heat of his chest made me sleepy. I yawned and he rubbed my arm in a way that said he knew I was tired. “It’s late. Why don’t you sleep for a bit? I have to stay awake and watch the boat.”
I gazed up at him. “Where is it going to go?”
One of those bright hazel eyes winked at me. “Nowhere, hopefully. But I have to be sure it doesn’t float out into open water while we sleep.”
I sat up and forced my backbone straight. “I’ll stay awake too. You’ll need the company.”
He pointed up at the sky. “I have the stars to count, a fire to stoke, and a book to read. I’ll be fine.”
I yawned again, covering my mouth with my hand. “My goodness, you’re right, the long day is catching up to me. You carry a book around with you?”
Gulliver grabbed my sleeping bag from the sand and spread it out in front of the fire. “No, I found it on the boat while I was grabbing the supplies out of the back. It was once waterlogged, but it dried out, and I think it’s still readable.”
He motioned me into the sleeping bag, and I reluctantly climbed inside it as Mojo lumbered over to get closer to me like he always does. “What book is it?”
“Gulliver’s Travels.”
“Seriously?” I asked, unable to control the giggle that escaped. He held it up, and indeed it wasGulliver’s Travels.“And here we are, stranded on a deserted island. Wait,” I said, my head tipped to the side. “Didn’t Jonathan Swift writeGulliver’s Travels?”
Gulliver threw his head back and laughed with abandon, the sound traveling all the way to the stars to dance with them there. “Now you see why I said he lucked out in the name department.” His lid came down over one sexy orb and left me more than a little hot and bothered.
“That’s hilarious,” I said, shaking my head. “I’ve never readGulliver’s Travels.Would you read it to me? No one has ever read to me before.” I snuggled deeper into the bag, surprised by how chilled I had become in the night air.
“No one? Ever?” he asked, a brow dipped down in question.
“Not unless it was when I was a baby. My parents weren’t exactly about the bedtime stories.”
He zipped the bag a little bit more and patted my hip. “Okay, but only if you stay in the bag and snooze,” he ordered. I promised with a head nod and a yawn, so he cracked the book open and aimed a penlight at the page. “‘Part one, a voyage to Lilliput,’” he began.
His voice filled the night with an air of comfort and normalcy. Listening to him read helped me relax, but it also made me wonder if this was how a child felt when snuggled warmly in bed with someone who loved them reading aloud. I mean, not that he loved me, but it was the idea of being cared about by another human in this world. I had to admit to myself as he turned the page that if there was one man in the world I’d want to care about me, it would be Gulliver Winsome. When he kissed me, little shards of my crystal heart found their way back together. No one had ever done that for me before. Gulliver was different. He was exciting in the simplicity of who he was. He didn’t pretend to be someone he wasn’t. He wore his heart on his sleeve, even if he didn’t know it. He showed the people he cared about that they were important to him, and he did it in a way that came across as genuine. He was sincere in everything he did, and that was how I knew he wasn’t forcing anything between us.
What was going on with me? Why was I feeling this way about someone I’d just met? What was this feeling? My brain was too tired to puzzle it out tonight. I would have to be content to know that something inside me was changing because Gulliver had come into my life.
