Page 65 of Free to Believe
“I won’t tell Phil. Lord only knows what he’d say,” her sister promises. “Now, walk.”
I’ve seen dozens of fashion shows. I’ve seen the edgy walks models use to work an outfit. What I’ve never appreciated is the simple seductiveness of a woman’s body accentuated by the fluid grace of her walk. Each step she takes is stripping me of another excuse, another reason, to throw out my caution. I’ve ran. I’ve fought and been fought. I tried to walk away to avoid the messy entanglement I know being involved with her will be.
She’ll leave. She has to. And I have to stay.
We have nowhere to go.
Maybe Emily was right. Maybe there’s nothing to hope for—to believe in.
Except, when I see her laughing at herself as she says goodbye to her sister with her arm slung around my daughter, there’s a tiny impossibility that wishes there is.
34
Emily
Hearing footsteps behind me, I look over my shoulder. Should I be surprised to find him making his way toward me? I guess not. Not after the way he stared at me as I tipped back oysters at dinner. Not after the way his mouth gaped open when he saw my dress. What I am surprised at is the way my heartbeat races at the sight of him. Since I drove back from Jenna’s birthday dinner alone, I’ve done nothing but replay the way his eyes heated when I walked into the restaurant, the way his lips parted in surprise as I slid into the available seat next to him.
The puff of air that passed his lips when I crossed my legs before sliding them under the table.
The rational side of me tells me it’s too soon. For Christ’s sake, I just met him weeks ago. He has a daughter, I have a business to run—and eventually return to. We’re the perfect definition of temporary. This has nowhere to go.
So why do I know it’s about to happen?
Because, when I lie in bed at night, it’s his face I imagine as I slide my hand down to my wetness. It’s his hands I imagine coasting over my skin. I already know his fingers strum a guitar like it’s a lover’s skin. It’s his lips—those fucking lips that play the saxophone better than anyone I’ve ever heard—that make me wonder what he can do to my body as my clit reaches the point of no return.
Right before my body surrenders. Alone.
Jake’s shirt is unbuttoned, untucked, with the sleeves rolled up. Sometime between the time dinner ended and now, he’s lost his shoes and jacket. He’s prowling toward me on bare feet with only a crystal tumbler filled with clear amber liquid in his hands. Trying to regain some semblance of calm, I lift my chin in challenge.
I haven’t felt such an urgency to be with someone in what seems like forever. The lovers I’ve had before have never made me want with the sheer need he does. From Jake, all it takes is him coating his lips with his tongue as he licks off some of the liquid that clings to them as he lifts the tumbler to his lips. Or when I caught his hand clench by his plate as I leaned past him for the bread basket tonight at dinner right before he grabbed it and slammed it into my hand. Or any of the many times when he’s just turned his head and pinned me with those penetrating eyes.
But I’m not alone in what I’m feeling. He wouldn’t be here tonight if I were.
Judging by the glare he’s giving me, it’s as if he’s trying to cast a spell to ward off this inane attraction between us. Instead, all it makes me want to do is ignore him, prodding the beast that I know lives inside him further, and spread my legs wider to see what he’ll do next.
I’m not given a chance to decide as his scent penetrates my space.
Jake traps my body against the railing, one hand placing the tumbler on the smooth teak in my line of sight. His other is pushing my hair off my shoulder. “This fucking dress…” His voice trails off as his lips graze my exposed neck. I can feel him fighting our combustible urge fearlessly and losing. Just as I did.
“What’s wrong with my dress?” I ask breathlessly. Tipping my head back to give him easier access, I acquiesce to the need catching fire inside of me.
“Nothing that taking it off your body won’t fix.” He pushes his hips into mine, and I can feel the evidence of his desire against the thin silk clinging to my skin in the beach air. My nipples pebble hard in reaction.
“I spent a few hours yesterday making it.” My head drops forward as his hand shoves my curls away from my neck.
His lips skimming across my bare skin stop moving. “Seriously?”
I wiggle around until I’m facing him. The position has our bodies straining against each other, every crevice and hollow fitting together from shoulders to knees because of the heels I’m wearing. The breeze flutters his sun-kissed hair. “It wasn’t meant to make you stop.”
Caging me in between his muscular arms, he ducks his head and captures my lower lip between his teeth. Sucking on it for just a moment, he releases it. I feel like he’s warming my body up the way he warms up his sax—for a night of hard play, slow blues, and pounding rhythm. “I wasn’t planning on stopping.”
“Then why did you ask?” I breathe the question as I lean closer into him.
“Because if I rip this dress off of you, it’s good to know you can fix it.” His mouth crashes down onto mine.
I can still taste the Garden of Elyx on his lips that we both drank at the restaurant earlier. The sweet raspberries and apricots mixed with the brandy he just swallowed add another layer of aphrodisiac to my already overwhelmed senses. The wind blowing what hair Jake doesn’t have tangled in his fingers, the tang of the salt air in my nose, combined with the taste on my mouth knock me under like a tsunami.
I’m going under with nothing to cling to except the force of nature in front of me.
