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“Good. Now you are,” he said. “We’re going to have our dinner.”
“Sounds perfect. Where should we meet?”
“Actually, I thought I would pick you up, if that’s okay with you,” he said, making my heart flutter even more. “I want to bring you to my family’s vineyard for dinner.”
I grinned. “I would love that.”
“Good.”
I thought that was going to be the extent of the conversation, but his focus shifted from just us having dinner there at the vineyard to telling me about it. It wasn’t a surprise to me that his brothers owned a vineyard all together and that they had been working to restore it.
A few of the teachers at the high school had mentioned it to me, and during our text conversations, Alex had said something about “the vineyard” a couple of times. It had always been in passing, so he hadn’t given me a lot of details, but even with the brief mentions, I could tell it was something that meant a lot to him.
From there the conversation drifted into other aspects of our lives and our families, and when we finally hung up, I realized we had been talking for more than two hours. I hadn’t had a conversation that long with anybody other than Fiona in as long as I could remember. I probably hadn’t even come close to that since the very beginning of my relationship with Doug when things were still good.
There was something else going on that I hadn’t experienced in a long time, since Doug and I were on good terms. When I hung up with Alex, I realized I was incredibly turned on. That surprised me. I thought that element of my life was over. Or at least that it was buried deep and was going to stay dormant for a long time now that Doug was out of the picture and I was focused on rebuilding my life and myself.
Now I was feeling not just attracted to Alex, not just very aware of how sexy he was, but physically desiring him. My thighs were tingling, and my heart was racing just a little faster thinking about him. I relished the sensation, loving the feeling of being alive and awake. It was coming back from the darkness and staking claim to my own body and mind again, and I was enjoying every second of it.
There was a long time when I thought maybe Doug had broken me. I thought I’d given myself over to a man who ripped me apart and made it impossible for me to ever want any kind of connection with a man again. So many nights I believed I would never want to feel close to another man and that I would never be able to trust one with my heart, my mind, or my body. Because of him, I would have to live out the rest of my life alone.
Now I knew that wasn’t true. I did still have it in me to connect and to want a man. It turned out I wasn’t broken. I was just waiting for a good man with a delicious voice.
I was trying to spend my evening trying to catch up on everything I missed at the high school the week before and getting ahead on the virtual work for the temp agency. That was one of the best things about the assignment they gave me. I wasn’t beholden to a specific schedule, and I could do as much or as little as I wanted on any given day as long as I hit the particular milestones set up by the client. That meant I could stuff a ton into one evening and be more relaxed in another.
My goal was to fill up my Monday with as much of that work as I could possibly get done so I would be well ahead throughout the week and not have anything to think or worry about come Friday. I wanted to give myself the ability to be totally focused on my date with Alex and not have to think about getting home to do any finishing touches.
But the more I tried to concentrate on the work, the more my mind was wandering back to Alex and the long phone call. He was flirty and fun, making me smile and bringing a bit of a flush to my cheeks. It had been so long since someone had made me feel that way, like they were just as excited to talk to me as I was to talk to them. I could hear it in his voice. I knew he wanted to stay on the phone with me, that he was looking forward to seeing me on Friday.
It was exhilarating. And the more I thought about it, the more my body tingled and heated up. Soon I was squirming in my chair, not able to think about anything but how turned on I was. Finally, I gave up on the work and headed into the bathroom for a shower.
