Blue Smoke

“She’ll cut cousin Sal’s price down to the bone. Pull her back when you see tears leaking out of his eyes, but not before.”
    “Check.”
    “You’re handling this so well.”
    “Not much else I can do.”
    “Sure there is. You could rant, rave, put your fist through the wall—”
    “Then I’d have to replaster.”
    Her laugh came easily. “You’re steady, that’s what you are, Bowen. I know under it you’re enraged, but you’ve got the lid on it. You haven’t asked me if there’s been any progress on the whole mess.”
    “I figured you’ll tell me.”
    “I will. I need to talk to someone first, but after, I’ll tell you what I can. You make it easy for me.”
    “I’ve got this whole love thing going on. Why would I make it hard for you?”
    She turned her face into his shoulder for a moment, let the quiet thrill of him pour through her. It was unnerving how much she’d come to love him, how quickly it had lodged in her heart and spread so that there were times, like this, she would’ve sworn she felt that love pulsing in her fingertips.
    “Destiny,” she whispered, and grazed her lips along his jaw. “I think you must be mine, Bo. I think you must be.”
    She shifted around, straddled his lap, linked her hands behind his neck. “It’s a little bit scary,” she told him. “Just enough to add a nice edge. But mostly it’s sweet and it’s smooth. I feel like . . .” She let her head fall back, looked up at that slice of moon, the scatter of stars. “Not like I was waiting,” she continued, coming back up to look at his face. “Not like you stand and wait for a bus to come pick you up, take you where you want to go. But like I was driving myself, destination in mind, doingwhat I wanted. Then I thought, Hey, why don’t I take that road? That’s the one I’d like to travel. And there you were.”
    He bent forward to press his lips to her collarbone. “Did I have my thumb out?”
    “I think you were walking right along, destination in mind, too. We decided to share the wheel.” She cupped his face. “This wouldn’t be working if the only thing you saw when you looked at me was a girl in a pink top, across the room at a party.”
    “I do see her, and who she was. And I see who she is now. I’m crazy about who she is now.”
    She kept her hands on his face as she lowered her lips to his, as they sank into the kiss together. Into the warmth and the wet.
    “You made a pizza,” she murmured dreamily.
    “And it was good, despite Brad’s cracks about indigestion or possible ptomaine.”
    “You made a pizza,” she repeated, brushing her lips over his cheeks, his temples, his lips, his throat. “And you built me a glider.” She caught his bottom lip between her teeth, tugged, then dipped her tongue into his mouth, focusing the world in that long kiss. “I’m about to express my sincere gratitude.”
    “I’m about to accept it.” His voice had gone thick, and his hands were roaming. “Let’s go inside.”
    “Mmm-mmm. I want to see how well this glider is built.” She tugged his shirt over his head, let it fly over her shoulder.
    “Reena, we can’t—”
    Her mouth stopped his. Her hands slid between them to flip open the button of his jeans. “Bet we can.” She bit his shoulder, tugged down his zipper. When she felt him tense, she clamped her hands on the back of the glider to keep him from lifting her up. Her eyes sparkled out of the dark.
    “Relax. It’s just you and me.” She nipped at his jaw, seeped herself in the taste of him as she cruised her lips over his face. “We’re the whole world. Let’s glide,” she whispered, bringing his hands to her breasts. “Touch me. Keep touching me.”

    He couldn’t stop. His hands slid under her shirt, but it wasn’t enough. Not now. He fought with buttons to find more, and take it. He cupped her, tasted her, while the glider gently rocked.
    There was something witchy about it, the heavy air, the motion, the smell of grass and flowers and woman, and the taut ready feel of her under his hands.
    They were the world in that moment, in the star-washed dark and the summer-scented air.
    Her skin, silvered by moonlight, dappled by leaf shadow, seemed to float over his. And his belly quivered—helpless need, when she rose, when she settled. When she surrounded.
    She moaned, long and low. Her eyes were half closed as they watched each other. Watching each other as their mouths met and their sighs mingled. Pleasure