“Was it?” She stopped. “Have forty-two years passed for you? And every day of them April 17ths?’’ The idea made her dizzy.
His hand moved to her waist and he pulled her from a bicycle courier’s path. He leaned against a store window. “I don’t think so, but I don’t experience time the same way any more. I’d guess I’ve lived through a few thousand days since this started. Many days I’m alone in the forest. Some days there are Indian villages. A few times everyone I’ve come across speaks Dutch. I mostly try to survive.”
“It must be horrible.” Her heart pinched, conscious of every twitch of the hand, still at her waist. She leaned forwards.
He shook his head, dropped his hand and pushed off the window away from her. She shivered.
“You must be busy.” His voice was colder than ice. “I don’t want to keep you.”
She reached for his arm. “Keep me from what? I already called in sick for tonight while you were talking to George.”
He looked down. “Kara, there’s no point to this.”
She reached up to touch his face but he pulled his head back and she winced. “You’re such an asshole. Why go to the trouble to make me believe what’s happening to you, if an hour later, it’s buh-bye?”
“You’re right.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m an asshole. I shouldn’t have taken you to see George. I shouldn’t have had breakfast with you. I shouldn’t have waited outside the police station. I am a total shit.”
“I’ll accept your weak-ass apology, if you promise not to leave me.”
“Kara,” he stepped forwards, “you know I can’t promise that.”
She took his hand and held on tight. “I’m not looking for a promise that goes past today, but if this is the only day you’ll live in this year, you have to promise me we’ll spend it together. Don’t you get how long I looked for you the last time? How wanting to find you consumed my life?”
He looked into her eyes with such longing her insides squeezed. Desperate to feel his lips against hers, she leaned forwards.
He wanted to kiss her, she was certain. But something else mingled with the heat in his eyes. Something was holding him back.
The kiss could wait. “Come on, birthday boy. Let’s party.”
Kara sat cross-legged on the floor of her small apartment and sipped her red wine. Jake had eventually relaxed after she’d stopped hitting on him.
Instead, they’d talked all day and into the night, learning they were both dog people, neither liked anchovies on pizza and both preferred vanilla ice cream over chocolate. Fabulous to know they had more in common than dead mothers and dysfunctional relationships with their fathers, but her hold-off-on-the-seduction strategy was growing old. She’d wanted this man for ever and he was right here.
Across from her on the area rug, Jake leaned back and bent one arm up on the sofa at his back. The NYPD T-shirt she’d loaned him stretched across his body accentuating his deliciously solid shape. Tubs of take-out Chinese and a half-eaten chocolate cake stood between them like a shield to deter her from crawling across to explore the planes of his chest, his abdomen, with her fingers, her lips.
Given the chance, she could even learn to live with the sideburns, that suit. She’d had her fair share of men over the years, and while many had been physically handsome by any objective standard, not one had been able to stir her insides with just a look the way Jake could.
“You must be tired,” he said, setting his wine glass down.
She shook her head. “Not a bit.” Staying up through the day was an all-nighter for her and although bed beckoned, sleep was the last thing on her mind.
Time to blast down the shield.
Pushing the picnic remnants to the side, she crossed the few feet between them and pressed her lips against his.
His body stiffened, and her heart sank, fearing he’d push her way, but then a groan rose from deep in his throat and he wrapped an arm around her, pulling her in, tipping her back, intensifying their kiss. Drawing deep breaths, his tongue plunged into her mouth.
For years she’d dreamed of his kiss, but reality far exceeded her fantasies. The perfume of red wine and chocolate lingered as hislips devoured hers and his tongue stroked and suckled with the fervour of a starving man served his first meal.
Lost in Jake’s kiss, the room spun, drifted, and she lost all concept of time, space and where she belonged in either. There existed only his lips, his tongue, his hands and the heat from their bodies mingling to form a white hot inferno.
When they came up for air, she found herself stretched across his lap, his hardness pressing into her hip through those crazy plaid pants she wanted to get off him as quickly as possible.
She moved and he groaned, capturing her lips in another ravenous kiss. Leaning on to his shoulders for support, she shifted to straddle him as his large clever hands continued to explore every inch of her body. She rubbed the seam of her jeans against him, igniting more fires as he pulled her in tighter.
“Jake.” She pressed her lips into the pulsing vein at the side of his neck. “Let’s move into the bedroom.”
She pushed back and rose to her feet, pulling him with her.
