Page 50 of Melt With You

Rowan skated his fingertips in a rapid motion over her clit, and she shut her eyes and let the climax take over. Let those sparking shooting stars of pleasure appear behind her tightly-shut lids. Her climax brought Rowan to his own limits, and he called out her name as he came, saying the word over and over, ‘Dori, Dori. Dori.’

She thought she would die if this turned out to be a dream. If she woke up alone in a hotel room, surrounded by beige walls and a beige life. She would jump off a ledge if this wasn’t her new reality.

If Rowan hadn’t just managed to make all her dreams come true.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Gael’s little red-haired nymphet served them coffee in the classic white porcelain cups. Dori waited until the girl had moved back behind the counter before she begged, ‘Explain everything again. You know, like when you used to help me in Trig. Because I swear, Rowan, I’m not getting this.’

Rowan smiled at her, but not as if he thought she was dense, simply because he seemed glad that she was at his side. Still his words grated on her. ‘You’re not really trying.’

‘Believe me, I am. For the past three weeks, I’ve been trying my best to figure this all out.’

‘In between fucking that delivery boy and shopping for sex toys?’ There was the slightest edge to his comment, an undercurrent of anger beneath the sarcasm.

She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘What did you expect me to do? Sit on my hands and wait for some knight in battered denim to come save me? I was trying to figure out what was going on, and I simply went with what life offered me.’

‘And what did you come up with?’

No, he wasn’t angry. He was teasing her, clearly enjoying himself. But she understood why. She had the same just-been-fucked feeling that he did. A pleasure that still echoed deliciously within her. For the first time since she’d slipped back in time, her predicament seemed almost comical rather than borderline tragic. Like the punch line to a joke: What’s worse than being stood up at your own reunion?

Waking up in the fucking 80s.

‘Not much,’ she said honestly. ‘I watched a bunch of movies. And I tried to remember the plot lines of the ones that weren’t out yet. But basically I was just operating under the assumption that I’d been in some kind of horrific accident. Or that this was all a hallucinogenic dream. And I’d wake up at some point and be me again.’

‘You’re you,’ he grinned. ‘You’re just you in 1988.’

‘Right. And that’s the part I don’t understand.’

He went to the counter to snag a pen from the waitress, and then returned to the table and began to draw an intricate diagram on a paper napkin. Dori watched for a minute. When she saw all of the mathematical equations he was penning, numbers tripping over each other in his hurry to explain, she reached over for the napkin and crumpled it up in her fist. ‘You know I’ve never been great with the science stuff.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I was just trying to give you the background details. I’ve been working on this for ages,’ he said, ‘ever since high school. You remember when I won the science award senior year?’

‘Yeah.’ She hadn’t understood what he’d made then, and didn’t understand any better now.

‘Well, it was a prototype for this. My first attempt at a time –’

‘Machine?’ she interrupted.

‘A time-travel device. Like a phone.’ He hit the last word with extra emphasis.

A phone. Her phone. The one that Violet had given her for her birthday. The one that Chelsea had taken by mistake. Did Violet know? Had she been in touch with Rowan? Had he told her exactly what type of phone to buy? She remembered walking out of the B&B, the phone ringing, the series of beeps like a fax machine trying to connect. That’s when the change had taken place, wasn’t it? Her thoughts were whirring, and she didn’t immediately hear what he had to say next. ‘Excuse me?’

‘I tested it over and over to make sure that it worked. And I’ve perfected the different glitches. Most of them anyway. The problem is the wear and tear on the body. You need about twenty-four hours of recovery time after each journey back.’

‘Journey?’

‘Through time. Didn’t you have a headache the next day? Weren’t you dizzy?’

‘Yeah. But I was also seriously hungover. I chalked up the way my head throbbed to the drinks I’d had the night before.’

‘The night Chelsea sent me that picture.’

She tilted her head at him, understanding immediately what he meant, and waiting for his response.

‘I looked for you at the B&B,’ he said. ‘I must have missed you by moments.’

‘Did you mean to send me back when you did?’ Her voice shook as she asked the question. She remembered passing out on the sidewalk, right outside where they were seated now, remembered Gael rushing to her rescue.

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