“I think you’re a nice man,” she told him, apropos of nothing.
His brows knitted. “Do you?”
“You’ve been very nice to me. And knowing what I do now, about how little you like
people, I think you’re all the nicer, being this courteous.”
The kettle began its low, preliminary moan, and Rob looked grateful for the task.
As he stood stirring the teaspoon in a mug at the table he said, “I couldn’t very
well ignore you. I’m an arsehole, not a monster.”
“I don’t think you’re either. Maybe I might have, if I’d met this alleged former you,
back in your old life. But I think you’re perfectly nice. Just a bit . . . bristly.”
He seemed to blush at that, though it was hard to tell by the jittery glow of the
fire. Still, he held her gaze for a long breath, a willing connection she doubted
he’d have offered the day before. He turned away, thumping the spent leaves into the
plastic tub and adding fresh ones. Stooping, he handed Merry the steaming mug.
“Thanks.”
After getting his own cup started, Rob joined her again, sitting a bit closer, though
still with a couple feet separating their hips. He set his mug between his ankles,
stirring slowly. His expression was calm, perhaps melancholy.
Merry’s heart felt full and swollen, none of this man’s confessions having done a
thing to lessen her attraction. If anything, Rob’s discomfort over his alleged failings
was strangely endearing. If he was indeed an asshole, he wasn’t oblivious or self-righteous
about that fact. Some dark magnetism hid behind those stony eyes, a force that made
Merry yearn to move closer, to get invited deep inside his private thoughts.
To invite him deep inside her in return, in far baser ways.
“Do you miss . . . you know.” She trailed off, wussing out.
“Miss what?”
“Women, I guess? Romance? Or . . .”
Sex.
She couldn’t quite bring herself to drop that boulder between them. “Just that kind
of contact. That connection.”
“I don’t know.” He studied his mug.
“Don’t you?”
“I hadn’t thought much about it. Like I said, my brain’s sort of a blank out here.”
Have you thought about
sex
, in two years?
Surely a man would be going crazy from the deprivation by now. Or perhaps sex was
complicated for Rob, tied up in whatever shame he seemed to feel in regard to that
final relationship.
Then Merry thought about bad things, about Rob in his lonely little cottage, in that
bed where she’d slept and woken. Just Rob, alone, with only his hand for comfort.
Who did he think of? Was there any slim chance he might think of
her
in those moments, after she was gone? Or had Rob shed his lust right alongside the
trappings of a normal life?
Merry sipped her tea, heat slipping inside to warm her belly. She imagined a far less
appropriate sensation, of the heat of a man’s body as it claimed hers.
“I sort of wrote off romance, too,” she told him.
“Oh?”
“I got dumped earlier this year. Well, I wasn’t quite dumped, since we weren’t a couple
or anything.”
“That’s a shame.”
She shrugged. “He was kind of a jerk, and I always knew it, in the back of my mind.
He never introduced me to his friends or asked to meet mine. Just called me up when . . .
you know. And it was so pathetic that I was okay with it, for so long. Except, well . . .
the sex was really great.”
There, good. Introduce sex without overtly demanding to know Rob’s feelings about
it. Smooth.
In truth, the sex hadn’t been all that amazing, but Jason had been out-of-her-league
hot, so she’d rounded it up. “But then I started going through these positive changes,
and I thought, maybe he’ll want to get serious, now that I’m getting my shit together.
Then, out of the blue—nothing but crickets.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I feel like an idiot, looking back. Like, why did I ever waste my time with some
guy who thought I was good enough to hook up with, but not good enough to meet his
friends? Then the second I start having any kind of boundaries or self-esteem, he
cuts me off? Doesn’t even have the balls to come out and say we’re over?” She shook
her head.
“He sounds like a coward.”
“
I
probably sound like a moron.”
Rob’s smile was skittish, telling her he wasn’t used to these sorts of conversations.
“We’ve all done stupid things for sex,” he offered.
Even you? Tell me. Tell me everything.
“I guess. But I always kinda figured you were supposed to be over that by your thirties.”
“Nah. Plenty of people make arses of themselves over sex well into middle age. And
beyond. Just look at every politician ever.”
She took a deep breath and finally found the balls to ask, “Do you miss it? Sex?”
His eyes widened, meeting hers, fleeing, meeting them again, escaping to stare at
the thumbs tracing the lip of his mug. “I suppose. The way I miss a hot bath or ice
cream. As a luxury, perhaps.”
She shot him a sad smile. “That’s all?” Maybe he was just downplaying it so she wouldn’t
feel threatened, trapped here with him.
“It’s not as though I came out here expecting to keep it in my life,” he said. “I
lost it in the trade. And willingly, yeah.”
“Wow.” She studied him for a long time, well after his gaze had returned to the fire.
“That’s very sad.”
“I’m sure it is. I do my best not to think too much about it all.” He looked to his
mug or the floor and laughed softly. The sound made Merry’s neck flush. “You’re very
nosy, you know.”
“I know. It’s just that you’re probably the most interesting person I’ve ever met.
Plus you can’t kick me out, so I may as well interrogate you for as long as I’ve got
you captive.”
Something shifted in his expression, a hint of alarm passing over his features.
“Just kidding,” she added quickly.
“It’s fine. Pry all you want, just don’t expect to get too far. I came here so I could
forget all the things that drove me out of my old life. I’m not eager to rehash them
now.”
“Sorry. I’ll drop it.”
“Though it’s sort of nice to be asked,” he added, catching her gaze.
“Yeah?”
“Sure.” His brow furrowed, chin dipping. “I can’t remember the last time anyone seemed
eager to know me.”
A pang of heartache passed through her, chased by something softer. Affection, perhaps.
Longing. “Maybe because you never answer when they knock.”
He looked up again.
Kiss me,
she wanted to say. Was this how men felt, she wondered, constantly angling for a
sexual segue and struggling to manifest one? Rob wasn’t taking any of her bait. If
she was going to get anywhere, she’d have to be blunt.
“May I hold your hand?”
He blinked at her, a hundred perfectly valid questions tensing his face, starting
with
Why?
But when he spoke, all that came out was, “Okay.”
He unlinked his fingers and offered his hand. Merry took it in her own, on the edge
of the cushion. She let her body’s awareness swim in the warm, strong weight of him,
the softness of his palm, the roughness of his knuckles, the heat where his fingertips
had touched his mug.
They watched the flames behind the grate and she gave his hand a faint squeeze. When
she felt him squeeze in return, the sensation lit a fire in her toes that crackled
through her legs and belly, spreading a fever all the way to her cheeks and ears.
“This is nice,” she told the flames.
“It is.”
“No one’s held my hand in ages.” Not even her erstwhile fuck buddy. Probably no one
since her dad, standing beside her as they watched her mom’s ashes dissolving into
the Pacific tide. Yet this contact felt nothing like consolation.
“They ought to,” Rob mumbled. “It’s so soft.”
Merry had lost much of her old softness in the past year, though not in her hands,
not in her heart, not her mouth or her sex. She rubbed Rob’s knuckles with her thumb,
noting how the space between their palms had grown damp. Like chemistry, the way their
two bodies could come together in even this most negligible way and alter that tiny
climate.
Soft,
she thought. Like Rob’s bed and sheets. As his spent body might feel against hers,
after she reminded him of certain luxuries he’d sacrificed in exchange for solitude.
She turned to him, freeing her fingers, edging them along his wrist. Struck still
as a statue, he let her roam up his arm and discover the lean muscle there. He watched
the caress, lips parting. Merry took a deep breath, tugged gently. He edged closer.
She’d seen confusion on that face, alarm, disbelief. But this was new—a more hesitant
breed of uncertainty, like he’d never been invited to kiss a woman before. His eyes
darted between hers, lips pursing and relaxing, but drawing no closer. Maybe he was
trying to be a gentleman, not registering which of them was attempting to seduce the
other. His eyes shut, and he swallowed. His hands were on his shin, clutching it like
a roller coaster’s safety bar.
Merry touched his neck, then his jaw, with its overgrown stubble. She wanted to trace
every feature—those dark brows, strong nose, the faint lines around his eyes. His
mouth, so sensual at rest, but tensed now, a tight, hard line. He was handsome when
he smiled, sexy when he scowled; beguiling when he hesitated this way, unreadable
and fascinating.
Those lips parted, and his deep voice was as soft as she’d ever heard it.
“You smell nice,” he murmured. “Like the tropics.”
“Thanks. It’s gardenia and jasmine and—”
Quit babbling.
“Anyway. I felt silly even bothering to pack it. But now I’m glad I did.”
His eyes opened, playing a game of tag with hers, meeting and dodging, meeting again.
His lips pursed and parted half a dozen times.
“I want to, if you do,” she whispered.
His lids lowered, hiding all but a sliver of steely blue, and he turned, bent knee
resting atop her thigh. The fingers that touched her jaw were warm and coarse, but
his lips felt smooth when they met hers. This contact, hot and sweet as a gulp of
tea, and her body dissolved like sugar.
The kiss lasted only a second before Rob pulled back, studying her face.
“Has it been a long time?” she whispered.
His gaze captured hers, pinning it in place. “It’s been a very long time.”
His uncertainty was gone. She saw a darkening in his cheeks and nose, his ears. His
pupils had dilated and a sheen had come to his forehead. Never had a man’s arousal
shown itself to her so viscerally, yet the shift didn’t scare her. Her intuition rang
no warning bells. This man was a stranger, but her body wanted to know his—what it
felt like, how it reacted, what it wanted from hers. Those were the secrets she wanted
to uncover, not the ones that had driven him from his old life. She touched his neck,
feeling the thump of his pulse, the heat of his skin.
Her own pulse raced, breath drawing short. Rob was the first man she’d ever gotten
close to with her new body, and the mingled insecurities and pride that came with
it. The possibility was terrifying. And thrilling. And
right
.
She watched him swallow a moment before his mouth returned to hers. Just a soft, shy
press of his lips, then her name in a low whisper. “Merry.”
She shivered, excitement deepening. It tingled in her sex and breasts as curiosity
sharpened to want. Rob kissed her again and she stroked his shoulder, hard muscle
hiding under soft flannel. His beard didn’t feel as she’d expected—not scratchy at
all. It underlined the differences between them, made the contrast of masculine and
feminine all the more stunning. He angled his face, and his hand rose to cup her ear,
bumping her sore temple.
“Ooh.” She clamped a palm reflexively to the spot.
He snatched his hand away, horrified. “Shit, sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
Don’t stop, for the love the God.
“You can keep . . .”
He nodded. “Okay.”
She shifted and they fumbled to get their legs arranged—hers arched over Rob’s, their
middles edging closer. He kissed her gently at first, slowly taking her cues and beginning
to explore her mouth. After a cautious start, he found his rhythm, the contact feeling
more confident with each hot slide of his tongue. The hesitance left his fingers and
a hunger rose in him, so tangible Merry swore she could taste it. The shift left her
dizzy. He held her jaw firmly, making her imagine that same assured hold on her hip
as he drove his body into hers.
Who are you?
Had this man been hiding inside him all along? Darting eyes and all those tight words,
and yet this mouth—sure and sensual. And these hands, not shaking anymore. Cradling.
She clutched his hair, letting her grip tell him what she liked, clasping possessively
with each thrilling stroke of his tongue. She was light-headed, but nothing like yesterday.
Pure and desperate longing, now. He felt it, too. He told her with his hands and mouth,
Let me be this way.
She broke away, needing air, and the sensation was mutual. Rob’s chest rose and fell
with hurried breaths. Those lips weren’t tense anymore. They looked full and flushed,
parted with awe or disbelief.
She ran her thumb across the patch of silver below his lip, then traced the softer
grays at his temples. It was wondrous, suddenly being allowed to explore him. His
gaze caught hers, and there was heat where before she’d seen only ice and stone. All
at once shy, she spoke to his chest. “This is nice.”
“It is.”
Thump, thump, thump
went her heart, every beat bursting with hope and nerves. “We could . . . Would you
like to go to your room?”
He licked his swollen lips, eyes gleaming hot behind heavy lids. “Would you?”
“Yeah.”
Rob’s brows drew together, his focus drifting beyond her shoulder.
“I know this is kind of . . . unexpected,” she offered. “And weird because I’m—you
know. Injured. And stranded. And female.”