Page 44 of Jagged Line Paradise

My lips curl upward against my will. I don’t want to smile at him. He’s invading my life without my permission. Yet, I can’t stop it—I can’t stop the smile. “It will be safe in here, I promise.” I turn and place his tie over his jacket, then press my eyes shut, taking a slow deep breath to center myself.

My emotions with him are all over the place. Thirty minutes ago, I was furious—the angriest I’ve ever been to see him show up here with no warning. I don’t know what’s happening, but now my heart is racing and my stomach is in knots.

I gasp and my shoulders jump.

His fingertips suddenly brush across the middle of my back and it takes me a few seconds to work out that he’s touching my hair. I’m frozen, still as a statue. I’m caught between the urge to move away and the sudden gravity I feel that wants to drag my heart closer to his.

But then the strange moment passes. His hand falls away and he steps back, moving around to the opposite side of the desk. He digs through the lost and found box as I work to catch my breath. I close the cupboard door and leave my hand on it, leaning against it for support as I try to regain my composure.

What wasthat?

By the time I turn around, he’s pulling on a black hoodie from the box, and I think I could justdie.

“This will do,” he says.

I stare at him, completely taken off-guard at the barrage of emotions. In such a short time, he’s gotten under my skin.

“Were you—” I begin to ask him for verbal confirmation that he was, in fact, just touching my hair…touchingme.But then my students begin to enter the classroom and I let the words fall away.

I never get the chance to ask him and maybe it’s best that I forget it even happened.

Class is over.

Students are leaving.

But Andrés is still sitting at the easel I set up for him at the back, his eyes narrowed in concentration as the paint brush works over the canvas.

He surprised me during class. He didn’t sulk or brood as I expected him to, given how he clearly demonstrated that he doesn’t respect my autonomy. He actually listened as I spoke and followed my directions.

He behaved like the perfect student. And sitting there in that black hoodie he pulled from the lost and found box…I see his youth. It makes me wonder if the Andrés I remember isn’t entirely gone after all.

I don’t dare move closer to him while he regards his canvas that way, with such piercing intensity in his stare. I remember that intensity and my most recent memory of it was our last night together. I recall the look on his face when he touched me in his bed—it was so, so long ago, but every memory is coming back at me full-force and it hurts.

It hurts, but somehow, I don’t hate the pain.

I take a few left behind brushes to the sink at the back of the room behind Andrés and let myself lose time in cleaning them more thoroughly than I normally would. I was hoping it would distract me, but instead, the monotonous task gives my mind space to wander. All the wandering leads to thoughts of Andrés.

I smell him before I feel him, sweet citrus and musk invading my senses, slowly, then all at once. One second I’m alone at the sink and the next, his body is against mine, pressing me forward to the edge of the counter. I gasp and drop the brushes into the sink. My body is completely covered by his as he molds against my curves, his hands landing on the counter on either side of me to box me in.

“What are you doing?” I ask quietly, unable to move, unsure of what’s happening, if maybe I’ve lost my mind completely and I’m dreaming the whole thing.

“I don’t know,” he replies. “I don’t fucking know.”

I breathe deeply, slowly, waiting.

I wonder if I should be fearful. I’m alone in a room at the farthest end of the hall with a man I hardly know.

But don’t I know him?

“I just painted a goddamn sunset,” he says, his voice low and beautifully sinful. “Do you know the last time I watched a fucking sunset, Lonnie?”

I told him not to call me that, but dear God, it twists my insides to hear him say it now. I’ve missed him. I’ve really missed him, though I’ve worked so hard not to. He hugs me, slips his arms around my waist, and pulls me back against him.

I’m supposed to stop him.

I know I am.

I know Ishould.

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