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His shoulders dropped with a deep exhale. “My wife, actually. That’s how I know what it feels like.”
“Your…your wife?” My eyes widened.
He nodded slowly. “Three years ago. She was taken from us. Car accident.”
“Derek,” I whispered, reaching for his hand. “I had no idea. You never said….”
“It’s still hard to talk about.” His voice tightened. “The smallest things still send me to pieces over her sometimes. Until you, I had never…There haven’t been any other women since her.”
My heart ached for him, and I felt horrible for being so hard on him before. Sure, it was a crappy thing to do to lie about the renovations. But I had been taken back by the spark between us too. It came out of nowhere the moment we met and had been crackling ever since. It had me all out of sorts. I could only imagine what it was doing to him, considering what he had been through and that he hadn’t been with another woman since then.
“I’m so sorry.” My hand brushed up and down against the warm, rough skin of his arm. “I wish I knew how to make it stop hurting. For the both of us.”
His deep blue eyes looked up to mine with a frightening intensity. “We can. At least for a little while.”
His hand ran across my cheek, brushing away my hair. I leaned in and kissed him before I had a chance to second guess myself. His hand swept up the back of my hair, meeting me with a deep rush of his tongue into the back of my mouth. I could taste the hint of whiskey on his tongue, hinting that he had snuck a few drinks from a flask or something as he finished up his work.
I reluctantly pulled back. “I don’t want you to regret this, like last time.”
He shook his head. “I didn’t regret a damn thing. I told you. I’m just an idiot.” His lips drifted across mine again. “I can’t make any promises except to make you feel good for a little while.”
My eyes closed as I fell into him again. He kissed me harder but not with the lusty hunger he devoured me with the first time this happened. No, this time, it was a force of passion. His lips trailed across my cheek, along the edge of my ear, and down the length of my neck. I felt his hand slide down to the small of my back as he reclined me backward, settling his knee between my thighs to tease and push into my burning need.
We tore off each other’s clothes with his tongue rolling across mine, not breaking the kiss a second longer than we absolutely had to at any point. When there were no more clothes left in his way, he took his time in kissing every inch of my body. When he was finished, his hand snaked between my legs, his fingers teased around my folds. But I had waited too long for this, without knowing if it would ever really happen again.
“I can’t wait,” I hissed, wrapping my hand around his wrist. “Please. I want to feel you inside of me.”
The cracking urgency in my own voice and the look it sparked in his eyes turned me on even more. He moaned into my mouth and laid me down, slowly pushing inside of me. I wrapped my legs around him, pulling him in deeper. He rocked back and forth slowly until a wave of warmth had spread across my entire body from the inside out. I begged for more, urging him to go faster.
The feeling of his hot breath gave me chills as his lips grazed against my ear. “We might have rushed through this before, but now, I’m going to take my time with you.”
My eyes burned into him. Those words sparked an even stronger need, but I was not about to complain. As promised, he took his time; it was slow and sweet. A ferocious orgasm built up inside slowly, and by the time he was ready to push me over the edge, it had built up to tidal wave proportions. I swore the whole house shook as we were swallowed up together in deep pleasure.
We laid there with him still inside of me for a long time, our eyes closed. We didn’t move an inch until our breathing had slowed, and in the absence of such strong pleasure, the hardwood floor beneath us started to hurt against our bodies. Though I was hardly in a state to care, we slowly sat up and started getting dressed.
I sat with my legs curled up against my chest, wrapped in his red flannel button-up shirt. Maybe part of me thought as long as I had it on, he couldn’t leave. And I could enjoy the sight of his tan, bare muscles a while longer.
“Won’t you stay this time?” I asked after a while.
He flashed an apologetic smile, running his palm along the side of my face. God, I loved the feeling of his skin against mine. Almost enough not to notice that he was obviously about to disappoint me again.
“I really can’t. I have to get home for dinner,” he replied in his deep sexy rasp.
I nodded and let him go. He didn’t leave without kissing me again, just as long and soft and deep as he had kissed me all night. I didn’t understand why getting home for dinner would be such a big deal. He said he was single. That I was the first woman he had been with his wife, so I knew he wasn’t seeing anyone else, not even casually.
I didn’t know what other secrets he might have buried inside. But he was honest that time. He said he couldn’t promise me anything. And with as good as he felt, I was willing to forgo promises of every kind if he’d just keep giving me more of him. Making each other feel good was enough for me. Or at least I’d tell myself it was until it became true. It’s not like I planned on sticking around Silver Point anyway. The workwouldbe finished eventually, and I could finally go home.
21
MELODY
I was starting to forget what the rush of the city felt like, and it made me a little sad. Long gone were the morning rushes of busy sidewalks, crowded bakeries, and cell phone calls on a brisk walk into the office. I didn’t walk around with my phone pressed to my ears anymore. For one thing, the reception was too spotty. And another, there were too many things you might miss. Rabbits scurrying off into the bushes, cows chewing grass and watching you as you walked by. One day I even saw a fox slinking by in the distance.
And in town, there were the people who were starting to get to know me better. I still didn’t quite fit in, but now I was like everyone else in the sense that I couldn’t walk a single block without running into someone I knew by their first name. We’d stop and chit-chat, then carry on about our days. Everyone was always curious about mom’s lake house and how things were coming along. People were starting to ask if I planned on sticking around when it was finished.
Of course, I didn’t. But I sure was growing accustomed to long, slow walks. My morning routine of coffee and cooking. Breakfast on the deck, by the lake. One morning I sat out there and didn’t get up after I finished eating. I just closed my eyes and leaned back in their chair, realizing it was one of the first times in my life where I had gone so long without having anywhere to rush off to. It was getting easier to sit still, to take it easy and just breathe.
After a while, I sat up, noting how it was quieter now that the ducks had flown off for winter. I laughed out loud at the thought, but I really did miss them.
