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Fall into passion.
Fall into love.
When we come, it’s together.
I sigh. I’m happy. Too happy for my liking. I can’t help it. His mouth kisses my décolletage as we catch our breaths, glowing and sated, holding on to one another in our postcoital bliss.
“What are you smiling for?” he asks, rubbing my hair off my forehead.
“Can’t a girl smile after good sex?”
He kisses my nose and traces the bow of my mouth with his fingers. “Absolutely. I love your smile.”
Love.The word sends a quiver through my heart.
I rub my teeth over my lip. “I love your smile too.” The sound of my own voice, all mushy and sweet, has me rolling my own eyes. Still, I don’t let it up. “You’re gorgeous—you know that?”
“I believe that’s something I’m supposed to say to you,” he says.
“Then, say it.”
He rubs my cheek and looks up into my eyes. His navy eyes are darkened in the shadows, yet I see that sparkle, the twinkle of gold that radiates through his soul.
His lips part, and he’s about to speak when a cell phone rings. It’s mine, as I know the ringer I use.
We grin in unison as our foreheads fall to each other’s.
I fish my phone out of my purse and look at the phone. I answer because it’s my mother.
“Hello?” I answer.
“Jillian. Jillian? It’s me. There’s something wrong with Ainsley!”
twenty-nine
“AINSLEY!” I BARGE INTOmy parents’ home and rush through the marble foyer, calling out her name.
Luke is behind me, nearly barreling into my back in his urgency to get inside.
“Jillian,” my mother says as she sashays down the staircase. “I’m so glad you’re here. She’s been sick to her stomach something awful for the last hour.”
I meet her at the center of the staircase. “Where is she?”
“Upstairs. She hasn’t stopped. It’s a mess upstairs, and I have no help to clean it up.”
I ignore my mother’s care about the mess that is my daughter’s violent illness. I’m more concerned that she’s forty pounds and she has been vomiting nonstop for the last hour.
When I get to the bathroom that’s connected to one of the guest rooms, I see my small daughter lying flat on the bathroom floor, limp and lethargic. Luke lifts Ainsley into his arms and cradles her. My mother stops in the doorway.
“Jillian, I didn’t know you were on a date. You’re a handsome man. Where are you from?” she asks.
Luke ignores her question. “She’s pale.”
“We should take her to the hospital.”
He checks her airway and heartbeat. “She’s okay. I think she’s dehydrated.” He looks to my mother. “I need ice chips and something for her to drink. Flat soda, apple juice, even a Popsicle.”
Mother places a hand on her chest and looks at us like she has no idea what kind of drinks she has in her refrigerator or how to move in order to obtain them.
