The Heart (21 page)

Completely stunned, I stated the obvious, “You just threw a six foot snake over your porch.”

“Well, you aren’t the only one who grew up in the trees,” she snapped as her chest heaved. Completely taken aback, I watched her, both impressed and fascinated.

If nothing scared her, what in the hell was she so afraid of?

We stood motionless, my need to have her growing beyond anything I could control as she returned my gaze with the same intensity. I knew sexual frustration when I saw it, and this beautiful woman was about to snap. A loud crash in the distance had us both whipping our heads back toward the party. A loud roar of laughter followed.

With regret, I turned back to her. “I have to go check on that.”

Rose nodded, disappointment clear in her features. I smiled. “We’ll have to take a rain check on that hate sex you were hoping for.”

“You arrogant ass!” I took two steps and nailed her to the back of her bedroom door with my hips and mouth. There wasn’t an ounce of resistance in her posture as she returned my kiss and pulled me impossibly closer, the way she often did. I slid my tongue along the seam of her lips, and she moaned eagerly into my mouth. With both hands, I cupped her ass and rubbed my hard cock against her. “Feel that?”

She broke from my kiss suddenly, her eyes wide. I stood alarmed as I thought of anything that might have set her off. She wiped her face with her hands. Confused and knowing we’d gone so much further sexually; I took a step back.

“What—”

“You better go check on that party,” she said, failing to hide the shakiness in her voice.

“Okay,” I said as I let my patience filter throughout my body. As much as I’d tried to earn her trust, I knew it had to come from her naturally. I turned to leave and heard her faintly whisper my name as she turned off the porch light and stepped into her bedroom.

“Jack.”

“Yeah?”

“Can I still be your dance partner?”

I hid my smile. “If you want to.”

“I do.”

“Then you are,” I said, forcing my feet away because I had no choice. “Goodnight.”

“Night, Jack.”

I closed my eyes after her whisper because I loved the way she said my name, especially in the dark.

Jack: Good morning, beautiful.

Rose: Morning, handsome. Rap & R&B 101 Toni Braxton, You’re Making me High.

Days after the party and full of jumbled emotions and stress, I decided to hide from the world in my own special place. Between my late hours and Jack’s busy schedule at the center, we’d been unable to connect since our parting on my porch. I’d used the time to focus all my energy on the hospital and last minute details pertaining to the center. My to-do list was endless, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t keep up.

Jack had been right about my need to escape. As much as I fought him on it, our late night talk about his endless adventures had lit a curious fire inside of me. As many dreams as I’d realized in my career and as happy as I was with my progress, the idea of taking off to explore the world outside of the one I’d lived in for so long seemed like an unreachable dream. Instead of doing something rash, I settled for a different kind of escape.

A few acres away from my house behind a row of trees lay a small creek with a tiny clearing of grass big enough for me to stretch lazy-cat style on my favorite quilt. I decided to spend the surprisingly cool day under the warm sun with a paperback, ignoring everyone. I’d left my phone at home along with an unfinished list of things I had to get done but decided to hell with it all. I was head spent and desperately needed a break. Books did that for me. It was my favorite way of ignoring the world and living in someone else’s. No movie, not even my beloved rap music, was as consuming as being locked in the pages of a good romance or thriller. I looked down and my tattered and tarnished copy of
Anne of Green Gables
and smiled at it fondly. It had been my first love affair, and I’ll never forget the emotions that stirred inside of me during my first reading. Over the years, I’d read hundreds if not thousands of books, but that book would forever be my favorite. I must have read my paperback a hundred times, and the wear on it proved as much. There was a jelly stain on page thirty-three, and I had accidentally torn page one hundred and ninety but had taped it back together. Some may just throw out a book as used as my copy and buy a new one, but if there was ever a possession I cherished and couldn’t live without, it was the book I held. Not only was it a reminder of my youth, but a reminder of a more wistful and hopeful version of myself. I’d fallen in love within the pages of this book and each time I closed it, I would spend hours in silence, daydreaming of a future love of my own, wondering who my Gilbert Blythe would be. I figured, if an outspoken girl with red hair and freckles could capture a man’s heart, one day I too could be gifted the same thing.

I lay in the sun, the distant trees gracing me with just enough shade to comfortably see the pages.

It was absolutely perfect September weather, and I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. Not even the excitement of surgery or the feel of the scalpel appealed to me as much as staying exactly where I was at that moment. I spent a few minutes staring at the faded cover, trying to remember the last time I’d read it. After a while, it finally came to me.

I was in my first year of medical school. David had just shredded my heart, and I’d just been told he was going to marry someone else. I’d picked up my book and read without stopping in full-fledged denial until page—I flipped through to see the wrinkled page where an hour or six of tears had accrued and found it—two hundred and six. On page two hundred and six, I’d mourned the five years of life I’d spent with a man I thought was my Gilbert Blythe. I spent hours in my room with the book cradled to my chest, screaming into my pillow about the injustices of love. I’d thought David was the loss of my life.

And then, both figuratively and literally, I turned the page only to suffer another.

I looked up at the cloud-filled sky with my book full of memories clutched to my chest. Suddenly, I felt like I’d lived so much life, tired in young bones, and wary of anything else that could taint the girl I once was.

Was she still in there? The girl full of love’s ambition, full of life, and never-ending hope of a future filled with moments to latch on to and relive? I’d had those moments. I’d
had
them. I’d been so lucky.

Had she fled from me to a place where nothing else could hurt her or was she still in there? I missed her.

“What’s going on in that beautiful head of yours, woman? And why exactly are you hiding?”

I smiled at the clouds.

Cajun.

I didn’t bother looking his way as he made himself comfortable on my quilt, his head next to mine.

“I was thinking about how much life I have left to live and how old I feel.”

“That deep, huh?”

God, I loved the way he spoke. It was as intoxicating as his smell. Though I resisted looking at him, I saw the tip of his black boots out of the corner of my eye and assumed he was in his typical uniform of a perfectly fitted t-shirt and jeans. Though I’d come out to my spot in hopes of staying hidden, I loved the fact that he found me.

“Yeah, that deep,” I whispered as I kept my eyes glued to the sky. “I can’t stop thinking about how the future might swallow me if I’m not careful. I’ve already spent so much time on my career, my whole life, actually. I need to have days like this to remind me to just live, you know?”

“I do,” he said, taking my hand in his. “And I think this might be my fault. I’m sorry.”

“You are so agreeable,” I said with a smile.

“I am,” he said in amusement.

“It would be hell to try to start an argument with you,” I noted.

“You can give it your best shot,” he fired back. “But, yeah, I’d have to agree with that, too.”

Finally unable to resist his pull, I turned on my side and propped myself on an elbow. He looked over at me, his smile devastating. His eyes more blue than gray today, matching his dark blue t-shirt. I instantly wanted to press my lips to his.

“Why are you so easy going? I mean, not that there’s anything wrong with it, but is there anything that gets you riled up?”

He cocked his brow suggestively, and I rolled my eyes. “Anything other than sex?”

“I wasn’t always so laid back. I’ve had my moments, lots of them. I used to get into a lot of fights when I was younger. I was small so I lost a lot of them.”

“Oh,” I said as he grabbed my free hand and laid it on his chest. Comfortable and moved by the gesture, I stroked him lightly over his t-shirt, and he leaned in close.

“Kids can be assholes,” he said, giving me a quick smile. I walked my fingers up to his lip and stroked it gently, knowing it was the cause of a few of those fights.

“They can,” I said as he lightly kissed my finger and I continued to trace his scar.

“You’d be amazed at what they came up with,” he said without prejudice. It didn’t seem to bother him at all now, but I was sure at one point in time, the beautiful man lying beside me went home heartbroken because of a birth defect he couldn’t help. My heart cracked for him at that moment, and I leaned down without thought and kissed it with reverence.

“How old were you?”

“Too old. And it took too many surgeries to correct. When I was old enough, I started fighting having them, which delayed them even longer. My parents felt guilty, but I wasn’t strong enough health wise as a baby to start young. I was born premature, and they had to get other things under control before they could worry about it. It wasn’t their fault. No one is to blame. It’s just the way it happened.”

He lay still and let me trace the faint scar with my lips, and as I pulled away, I told him what I truly thought of it. “I think it’s beautiful, though I’m sorry for the pain it’s caused you.”

The look in his eyes was a mix of need and gratitude as he reached up and cupped my face, keeping me from fully retreating away from him.

“Those lips and the words that come out of them,” he rasped out. Gently stroking my face, he pulled me close with his next confession. “I get riled up thinking about you, Rose. Wanting to be with you, waiting to see you. I get more than riled up. I get restless.”

This time, I cocked a brow. “You look pretty damn calm to me.”

He took my hand again, placing it over his heart and recognition of its faster beat had a flattered smile play on my lips.

“I’m curious.” He reached out and placed his large hand on my chest, confirming with a pause what I already knew. With a deep breath, my eyes wandered over his face as he gave me a wink. I knew he could feel it racing erratically. It always did when he was close.

“And then when I got a little older,” he continued, tracing the line of my t-shirt collar with his finger, “and I hit a growth spurt, I put on a pair of gloves and hammered the shit out of some of them in revenge.”

“Seems fair,” I breathed out as my voice gave away my budding arousal. “So let me get this straight,” I countered, trying my best to keep myself from ripping his shirt off. He was pure temptation for me, had been since the moment I laid eyes on him. “You’re educated, you’ve done everything from run a business to erect a building, and you can cook, sing, and dance. You are literally
the
Jack
of all trades.”

He chuckled as his finger moved over my shoulder and down my arm.

“Is there anything you can’t do?”

“Yes,” he replied with a sudden move, pushing me on my back and pinning my wrists next to me. My chest heaved as I looked up at him in question.

“I can’t stay away from you. I can’t stop thinking about you. I can’t stop wanting to touch you. I can’t stop wondering if you’re thinking about me. I can’t stop needing to be around you. I can’t stop wanting to be inside you, tasting you, touching you, feeling you. I can’t stop waking up without you being the first thing on my mind, and I haven’t even had you in one of the thousands of ways I want to.”

Completely blown away by his confession, I began rambling. “I think if we try really hard we can get at least a few hundred out of the way, in let’s say... oh, a month—”

Cut off by his kiss, all thoughts vanished as I was drawn into him one delicious tongue sweep at a time. Gone, spiraling, and completely invested, I wrapped myself inside of him as he tasted me. He wouldn’t refuse me again, of this I was sure, but I still found myself asking. “Jack, touch me,” I pleaded. “You feel so good and it’s been so long.”

“I never had a choice,” he whispered as he slipped his aggressive tongue into my mouth again, forcing me to open and accept him. We were fluid and in perfect sync. He moved then I moved in complement. His hands roamed my body as he filled me deep with his kiss. Breathless and suddenly aware my shirt was off, he took my breast in his ready mouth and sucked hard, drawing a gasp from me. I bucked and reacted to his gentle touch and urgent kiss. It was heaven, and I knew at that moment there was no stopping either of us from making the connection we both so desperately wanted. My jeans now unbuttoned, his hand found its way beneath my panties.