Page 103 of His Wounded Heart

I listen. It’s Ella singing.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered.

He turns off the overhead light, so that only the light above the stove is shining. I give him a funny look, until he puts his right hand on my waist and holds up his left hand. I put my hand into Simon’s and he smiles down at me.

He steps forward, and I step back in perfect harmony. Suddenly I’m transported back to Granny Laughton’s parlor, but with Simon. This is not the kind of dancing I’ve seen when I’ve volunteered as a chaperone at the high school dances, this is proper ballroom dancing, where he twirls me out and I grin, and then he pulls me back in close and we’re breast to chest. Now that was never done at Granny’s.

As he’s bewitching me around my kitchen in the semi-darkness I admit to myself that even though I told Chloe I don’t have any expectations, I sure have wants and dreams. I’ve fallen for this man, and this dance has clenched it.

He spins me out, and we whirl around. My linoleum floor becomes a marble ballroom, the moonlight from the kitchen window tints his face in magic. Another revolution around the room and I’m bewitched. We are pressed against one another so my head rests against his heart and I’m beguiled. Every move he makes has me shivering like a child again. When he dips me over his arm as the song finishes and smiles down at me, I can barely breathe.

“I want nothing to shatter this moment. Nothing will ever be better than this.”

“Yes, it will, Baby.”

Simon pulls me up and kisses me and once again I’m floating on clouds. He gives me no choice but to follow him wherever he wants to take me. He lifts me up. “Are you sure about this?” he asks me.

“If you don’t,” I kiss him on his chin.

“Intend to make,” I kiss him under his ear.

“A homerun after all this,” I kiss him on the side of his mouth.

“Then get the hell out of my house,” I kiss him on his mouth and linger.

I taste his laughter.

I swiftly look around her bedroom. She’d left the bedside lamp on. I would bet my bottom dollar that’s the only light she wants on tonight. She blew me away tonight when she opened the door and was wearing a dress. Trenda has the curves to carry off a sweater dress more than any woman I have ever met.

Am I biased?

Maybe.

Do I give a damn?

Hell no!

She’s in front of me and she starts toward the bed. That’s another hell no. Two strides and I’m in front of her.

“I forgot something,” I say.

She looks up at me, confused.

“At the end of the dance, the guy gets a kiss. It’s a rule.”

Her lips twitch. “I chaperone high school dances. That is not a rule, trust me.”

“Ahhh,” I pull both of her arms up and wrap them around my neck. “That’s the problem. You’re basing your rules on the wrong sources. You need to be basing them off of some of the dance clubs in Paris, then you’d know they end in a kiss.”

“Paris?” Her voice is breathless.

“Paris.” I nod. I put my knuckles under her chin and start with a soft and fleeting kiss. Then lift my head back up to look at her beautiful face. She opens her eyes and frowns. I wait. She smiles, then drives her fingers through my hair, and I even feel the sting of her nails in my scalp. She thinks she’s forcing me to kiss her, when in actuality she’s fallen into my trap.

Kissing Trenda is like a journey. There is the physical pleasure of feeling her plump lips against mine, tangling my tongue with hers, the euphoria I get when I feel her melt into my arms. And then I can feel her breasts, soft and full, pillowed against my chest. My hand roams upwards and encircles her neck so that I can feel the hummingbird flutter of her pulse.

But there’s more than that. I am no longer part of the here and now; I’m in the past where she and I have met before, and in the future where Trenda and I will live again.

When she moans, I gather her even closer, and then she shudders. I feel her knees give out as her weight shifts to me.