“Okay with what you see?” I inquired teasingly.
“Always.” His eyes definitely agreed. “You?”
“What makes you think I’m looking?” I asked innocently. He narrowed his eyes before opening the passenger door. A silent moment passed between us as his eyes bore down on me in a sexual manner. They finally diverted to my mouth, his thumb reaching up to sweep across my bottom lip just once, teasing me in a way that was gonna make me scream pretty soon. Damn! I can’t believe he was doing this to me! I shouldn’t be that desperate to kiss him, to feel his arms around me, to need my body pressed against his. “You know, for someone that’s supposed to be giving me time to adjust, you sure look ready to attack.”
That knowing smile was just evil. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to kiss you.”
“No?” I had serious doubts he could hold off much longer. All of his teasing had to be eating away at him as much as it had me.
“Nope.” His eyes met mine as the pad of his thumb tickled my cheek bone now. “The next time we kiss, I want you to really kiss me back.” With a teasing smile, he added, “So I’m sorry if my interest is driving your hormones a little nuts, but I plan to wait until you ask me for it this time.”
Oh. My. God. Seriously? How I kept my jaw from dropping was beyond me. “Don’t think for one second you’re stirring anything up by playing these games. My hormones are in check, bucko.”
He exaggerated clearing his throat and sucked on the inside of his cheek as his hand slowly made its way down my neck and beneath the lapel of my wool jacket, coming to rest on my heart. You’d think I’d gasp with his hand suddenly splayed across the top of my breast, but I didn’t. Actually, I was trying my damnest to calm my heart, which was sputtering erratically, completely ratting out what his physical touch was doing to my body. “You sure about that? Because it’s thirty degrees out here, yet your cheeks are flushed with heat and your forehead’s a little moist. Care to explain that, Princess?”
Lucky for him that endearment was beginning to grow on me.
“Well, that depends,” I answered calmly, proud my voice didn’t crack. My left hand reached around his neck and I inched forward until our right cheeks were flush. My fingers slid into his hair and tugged on a few locks, and I exacted further torment by exhaling a warm, gentle breath over his ear. Don’t think I didn’t notice how his hand twitched over my chest, aching to do more than just feel for a heartbeat. My hand slid slowly down his neck until I felt the quickened pulsations beneath his lightly scented skin. Well lookey there, his throbbing heartbeats rivaled mine. Weakly chuckling my amusement, I whispered, “Is your explanation gonna be any different than mine?”
His head rolled back and I caught the excitement in his face. Busted. His hand retreated and grabbed the hand I had draped around his neck. His eyes locked onto mine, just mere inches away, and sensuously kissed the inside of my wrist. “Oh, I sure hope your answer is the same as mine.”
That brought a curve to my lips. “So what are we doing tonight?”
“Well, if you can keep your hands to yourself,” he said, his eyes rolling my way in an amusing manner, “I thought we could rent a movie and go back to my place.”
“Don’t you live with your parents?”
“Sort of. I live in the guest room above the garage. It was the only way I would agree to come home for the semester.”
“Smart boy.”
His arm motioned for me to get into the truck already, and we drove to the video store. Funny they still called it a video store since it didn’t have any video cassettes in the entire place. We played tug of war with our hands when I tried to lure him to the romantic comedies and he tried to get me into the fantasy/science fiction section.
“All right, all right.” His pull relented so I released mine. “How about we meet half way and get an action flick?”
“So long as there’s a romantic element to it.”
He laughed under his breath but eventually agreed. Something caught his attention over my shoulder and his happiness sorta diminished. “Oh, you have got to be kidding me.”
Curiously, I scanned the area he was glaring at, expecting to see Melissa, or some other ex I wasn’t aware of yet. But it was actually a middle-aged couple that stood out. The woman was robust, with slightly frizzy, wind-blown brown hair that was cut just above the shoulders, and warm brown eyes. The man was several inches taller with green eyes and a receding grey hairline, and seemed to favor his right leg a bit. The woman was highly excited and grinning widely as she hurried towards us in front of the man, who had more of a look of apology on his face than anything.
“Honey, I didn’t know you were going to be here. Hanging out with the guys, you say?” she asked accusingly.
Well, until I commit to a little more physicality, I might as well be just one of the guys.
I tried to keep from overly smiling now that I knew these were his parents, and ‘cause he seemed to be a little horrified over the intrusion. His father continued with the sympathetic looks, but smiled when my glance caught his.
“Mom, Dad,” Evan acknowledged reluctantly. “This is Jenna. Jenna, my parents.”
“Hi,” I said meekly, offering a tiny wave.
Her eyes lit up and her outburst drew weird stares from the people around us. “Oh, Jenna! So nice to meet you!” she exclaimed, taking my hand and shaking it wildly a few times. “I’m sorry we missed you at the hospital.” She hesitated and caught Evan’s gaze before adding with a curious smile, “I guess now I know why Evan rushed us off so quickly that night.” And here I thought his face couldn’t look more distressed. “You’ll have to forgive my son. He’s deathly afraid I’ll embarrass him.”
“No chance of that, Mom,” Evan said sarcastically, scratching the back of his neck nervously.
“Oh, Jenna. I’d love for you to come to dinner sometime next week.”
I wasn’t really sure what to say to that, since Evan and I weren’t a couple. But luckily I didn’t have to say anything, ‘cause Evan cut in with a, “Mom…” the same time her husband let out a, “Diane…”
I just smiled as her hand dramatically shooed at her husband while he lightly pulled on her arm. “Let them be, Diane. Evan will bring her to dinner if he wants to.”
“Oh, pish-posh!”
Even as her husband pulled her off in the opposite direction, Mrs. Gilden faced us, demanding, “Evan, you be good to that girl and bring her to dinner.”
Groaning with his jaw clenched tight, Evan was thankful they finally left the store. No longer able to contain the giggles, I let a few out before asking, “What were the odds of that happening?”
“One in four, actually,” he muttered, still a bit lifeless.
“What?”
“Once a month my parents go on a Saturday date night. Typically, they come by here afterwards to get a movie for Sunday. I hadn’t kept up with their night out since I’m not directly staying in the house anymore.”
“Oh. Huh.”
“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured. He truly looked taken aback.
“Oh, stop,” I said, nudging him in the arm, hoping it would knock that funky, uncomfortable look off his face. “It wasn’t that bad. Your mother’s cute.” A thousand times nicer than Robert’s mother ever was.
“Cute’s not the word flashing through my head right now with bright neon lights.”
“You think that’s bad?” I joked. “I’ve decided I want a romantic comedy after all.” I winked and twirled, quietly laughing over the way he dramatically sighed in defeat. Tease me, will you? With any luck I’ll get a sense of payback if the movie bores him to death tonight.
Fifteen minutes later we were climbing up the wooden stairs to his current home, which tended to complain with each step. His family had a large one story home, but in the dark, all I could tell was the brick was a reddish-brown and the siding was in shades of light and dark browns. Evan unlocked the door, flipped the light switch and closed the door behind us. Gratefully, a black curtain covered the glass, so at least his mother couldn’t sneak a peek. And I had an inkling that was why he locked us in.
Obviously, his mother furnished and decorated the room, and Evan merely brought a few personal items. The first thing I was drawn to was the queen-sized bed pushed against the middle of the wall to the right of us. The bed had an abstract, dark blue and tan duvet cover with tan sheets. The room was bare of furniture other than a brown suede armchair and a chest of drawers with a flat-screen, so I guessed it was just used when relatives came to town. The game console was surely Evan’s. A door on the opposite end had to be the bathroom, possibly even shared with a closet. Evan must’ve been planning on us being here tonight ‘cause the room was immaculately clean for a college guy.
Five minutes later we were camped out on the bed on our stomachs, watching Sweet Home Alabama. Yeah, I knew…cruel. We’d barely gotten past Melanie’s engagement before he started shifting a lot. I tilted my head to better see him, a devilish smile breaking through. His smile matched mine for a long minute, then we both calmed to a sweeter, softer expression. My eyes scanned the features of his face. I imagined my hand caressing his cheek, my finger tracing the jaw line down, my thumb moving to trace the lips I was dying to kiss. Like he knew exactly what I was thinking, Evan wet his lips. For once my heart was calm, the jitters missing in action. I felt at peace right now, the warmth from our sides and shoulders pressed firmly against one another seeping underneath my skin.
“You can’t look at me like that,” he said gently, his face turning sadder. My eyes lifted to his and met that heartfelt sadness dead on. “It makes me want to kiss you.”
“And you’re waiting for me to make the first move?”
His eyes were distracted to my lips, as I took my turn to hydrate them, and he looked like he wanted to do that for me as much as I did for him. “I want to make you mine. Really mine this time. So if you don’t see that happening on your end, you can’t be looking at me like that.”
The intensity I felt radiating off his eyes was overwhelming, suffocating almost, but I welcomed the heavy sensation as a sigh rippled through my body. What was I waiting for exactly? Sure, I lost a guy I loved. But here I had another great guy patiently waiting beside me, waiting to fill the void.
Okay…maybe not patiently.
But he was sweet, and loving. And he looked at me like I was his everything. So why was I trying to convince myself to wait awhile before letting him in? We’d been lovers before, and I was as sure as the sky was blue that he’d never be a rebound.
So to hell with my earlier ramblings on waiting.
I pushed up and rolled my body back up on my knees. His forehead dipped to the bed, probably thinking I was leaving, indefinitely. I maneuvered my body over his, and lightly sat on his bum as I stretched out over his back, my hands tracing his arms all the way down to his hands, where I threaded my fingers with his. I was right about the tunic fitting him in all the right places. His head turned to the side, giving me perfect access to his neck, which I softly nibbled on when he elongated it. I felt his body weight succumb to the bed, sinking deeper beneath me. He closed his eyes and moaned as my love bites advanced to his ear lobe.
Speaking softly, I said with all honestly, “Evan, my heart’s not completely healed yet, but I know I want you. And I think being with you can get me there faster, but I don’t wanna put you in that position unless you’re willing. ‘Cause in a way, it means I only have a shared heart to offer right now. But I think I’d be happy if it was yours wholeheartedly. So just tell me. Do you want out until I’m completely healed, or are you willing to take a mildly damaged heart?”
He quietly debated for a moment, and my breath caught in my throat the moment he spoke. “I want to be the one to heal your heart, Princess.”
“Then will you kiss me?” I whispered.
His movement was like a slow-motion viewing of a magician yanking out the cloth beneath a table spread, in which I was now on my back being straddled and he was on top. His lips hovered just out of reach, our eyes doing all the talking, barely visible as the colors on the television dimmed. Still, I could read those eyes. I remembered every tiny glint of gold around the iris that always seemed to twinkle, and the savory shade of green that warmed my heart and seduced me body and soul. And I could see the hunger as much as the love, so much my body let out a tiny whimper.
His lips finally swept against mine, and a surge of intoxicating numbness rushed my senses head to toe. My tongue slid into his mouth, eager to engage, but he kept our kisses soft and slow. He left my lips too quickly, his scent mind-numbingly delicious, and the deep kisses at the base of my ear made me moan, made my insides explode into a fury of warm tingles.
Endorphins surged through my system, and it felt so good to give in to Evan’s advances, and by his rapid increase in roughness, he agreed. My hands stroked his back and my legs locked tight around his waist, squeezing our lower halves tightly together, and I felt exactly how stiff my kisses had made him. I wanted him, more than I’d ever wanted him before. But too soon, he pulled back, far enough to lock his arms and brace himself away from me.
“What?” I said breathlessly, my heart feeling the burn after picking up speed.
“I already don’t want to stop. You take me any further and I’ll have to stand outside in the cold for a bit.”
“What makes you think I want you stop?” I asked seductively, biting the corner of my lower lip.