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Chapter 20
If he continued to watch the rearview mirror a second longer, instead of bringing his eyes back to the road, he would have smashed right into the SUV that reversed into the street from one of the houses.
Jordan raised his palm and mouthed, “I’m sorry,” to the man who glared at him from the driver’s window.
He drove on, making his way out of Riviera View and toward Wayford.
The twilight sky turned purple that deepened with every mile that came between him and the town, and the woman, he had left behind.
He couldn’t stop thinking about her. Ironically, his flight tomorrow, at noon, never seemed so enticing. Back in D.C., he could put all this energy into work and hope for the best.
Hope.
Even the word unsettled him now.
Feeling an urge to talk to someone, Jordan shifted his gaze to where his phone was supposed to be, in the holder between the two front seats. It wasn’t there. He patted the warm seat next to him, which brought involuntary thoughts of the backside that had been sitting on it. Fuck, he had been celibate for too long if thoughts like that came to his head.
Noticing a flash of light from beneath the passenger seat, he sent his hand, but it was too far under the seat.
Reaching the only safe spot before the exit to the highway that connected the towns, he stopped at the side of the road, unbuckled, and stretched toward the floor. His phone was the first thing he grabbed, but there was something else there. He picked it up and looked at it. It was the small paper bag with the gifts that Hope had bought for her daughters.
Jordan ran a hand over his mouth and chin. Then, deciding, he shifted the car into gear, turned the left blinkers on, and did a semi-legal U-turn.
He could easily tell why his heart was pounding when he slammed the car door behind him and made his way to her front door. The light on her stoop was on, and he went toward it, holding the little pink gift bag.
Jordan hesitated for a moment then knocked. The lights in the house were on, and he could hear the music that played inside—“Hungry Heart” by Bruce Springsteen. How befitting. He knocked again, louder, when the door opened, revealing the face that was still burned into his retinas.
She had a surprised look on her face.
“Hey,” he said, lifting the bag in front of him. “Thought you’d need this.”
“Oh! I do. Thanks. Sorry.”
“What for?”
“Um … The bother, I guess.”
“It’s no bother,” he said just when she said, “Would you like to come in?”
He could see that her breathing pattern changed by the way her lips remained parted and did his best not to stare at them. Instead, he raised his eyes, and their gazes locked. What was she doing? What was he doing?
“Sure.”
She moved aside, and he stepped forward without them taking their eyes off the other.
Two steps, and he was inside, hearing her close the door behind him.
Turning around, he found her leaning back against the closed door, staring at him. Her throat moved as she swallowed, and her forest-green eyes looked huge. Velvet flowed in his veins at the sight. What he saw in them prepared him for what she did next, but he remained still, as if a movement from him would frighten her away.
Pushing herself off the door and taking a step forward, Hope rose to her toes and placed her hands on his shoulders.
He remained still for a moment when she kissed his lips, but then he did what he had been aching to do almost since the first time he had met her. He melded his mouth to hers, letting her taste permeate every part of him, grabbed her hips, lifted her, and pinned her with his body to the door.
