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“Mini, I’m not an entertainment magazine reporter. You can’t bullshit the guy who knew you when.”
She sighs like it pains her to tell me, but something about the way she meets my eyes tells me she likes being able to drop the façade around me.
“The attention, the paparazzi both come with the job. I’m used to it, as weird as it sounds. You learn to shut them out when you want to be alone, and learn how to grab their attention when you need it. You seem uncomfortable.”
I purposefully loosen my shoulders and realize I probably resemble an undercover agent who’s been wired by the FBI to investigate the mob. This is a few levels down from that.
“I’m fine,” I say a little defensively.
“Sure you are.” She giggles. “Your job, your only job is to pretend to be enamored with me. And, if the mood strikes, lean over and touch me or kiss me. That’s it.”
“If the mood strikes?” Is she kidding? “Like it’s been striking? Like it did on your bed the other night?”
“Yes.” Her cheekbones warm to a pretty shade of pink, likely from her remembering how close we came to stripping each other bare for old times’ sake. I’m still surprised I walked out. “Only we’re in public at the moment, so we shouldn’t get that carried away.”
She pulls out her cellphone, tweets a photo of the sign at the entrance of the park she snapped when we walked in, and sets out our meal. Or snack, as I like to think of it.
She arranges everything on plates like works of art. The smoked salmon rolled just so, the cheese arranged in wheels or cubes. Even the grapes are in perfect triangle-shaped clusters.
“Can we go out for real food after this?”
“This is real food.” A cute little dent bisects her eyebrows. I put my finger there and smooth it out. I can’t see her eyes, but her tongue darts out and wets her bottom lip in the most tempting way possible. She likes when I touch her.
It’s weird to be here with her, to watch her respond to me and feel myself respond to her. This time around it’s primal and physical. The first time around it was all about firsts and first steps and learning how the other person worked. Learning how life worked.
“I thought being around you would feel the same as it did when we were teenagers,” she says, echoing my thoughts. “But it’s not the same.”
“Meaning?” Knee up, I rest my elbow on it while my other hand has rerouted from that cute dent to her hair. I wind a strand around my finger.
“I know we were…you know…” Her head tilts back then forth as she decides on a word. “intimate before, but when you kissed me the other night it was…” She whispers the next word, “…electric.”
I cradle her head in my hand, her long, silky hair tickling the back of my hand. “I know. I was there.”
“I’ve thought a lot about what you asked me that night, you know. When you asked why we couldn’t…continue what we were doing?”
She has my undivided attention. I’ve turned it over in my head, oh, about a million times since then.
“Truth?”
“You have to ask?” I’m tense with curiosity.
“I can’t think of a single reason why not.” She shakes her head like she’s at a loss. I sure as hell am. Hearing that she’s onboard for getting naked together is the best news I’ve heard in days. “Not one.”
She pulls off her sunglasses, dips her long lashes and then peers up at me. I’m transfixed. There was a time when she was innocent and I was single-minded. Now we’re neither of those. The experience of being with her now, even with the murky water under the bridge, would be nothing short of incredible. How could it not be?
“Jackson.” A whisper.
“Yeah?” I gulp, pushing my hand deeper into her hair, my gaze lost in hers. Then she gives me the permission I was dying for.
“You should kiss me.”
Entranced, I obey. I feather a kiss onto her lips and she leans into me, her hand on my chest, her tongue sneaking out for a taste of mine. The kiss isn’t chaste, but it’s not raunchy, either. We land somewhere in between. My brain ignites at the idea of new possibilities, and the fly of my shorts becomes uncomfortably tight.
She can’t think of a reason why we shouldn’t be together, and I can’t think of anything else. She swipes my bottom lip with the pad of her index finger and hits me so hard with bedroom eyes I have to remind myself we’re in a park and that I can’t drag her on top of me, one hand cupping her ass, the other nested in her hair, and make out long and slow.
Shame.
“Nicely done.” Her tone is a seductive purr. Mine’s gravelly when I respond.
