Shoe Strings

staying?”
    “I don’t want to impose.”
    “Don’t be stupid, Jesse.   Not only is it almost midnight, as you
pointed out, but I want you to stay.”   She reached out for his hand.   “Please stay.”
    He led her to a luxury sedan parked along a side street and
opened the trunk.  
    “Whose car is this?” she asked.
    “Mine.”   He
retrieved a small bag from the otherwise barren space and gently closed the
back.   He tried to take her hand and
walk back to her condo, but she didn’t move.  
    “Yours.   This is
your car?”
    “Yes.”
    “You made me ride all over creation in that windowless,
doorless thing you drive when all the while you had this beautiful…” She walked
alongside and looked in the windows. “…leather upholstered, wood-grained luxury
car?”
    He shrugged and grabbed her hand, pulled her toward her
condo.   “You don’t like the
Scout?   I’m hurt.”
    She slapped his chest as he pulled her tight.   “Just what the hell did you do in
Atlanta to afford all this?”
    He stopped at looked at her confused.
    “Your house?   Your business?   A luxury
car?   I can barely afford my
mortgage and the SUV was a big splurge, but you seem to have it all figured
out.”
    “I had a friend with a start-up company.   I invested a few thousand and it paid
off big time.”   He laughed at her
befuddled expression.   “You look so
cute when you’re mad.”  
    She wasn’t mad, not by a long shot.   It felt so right, him being with her,
and yet so surreal.   She had to work
at keeping her grasp light, as she wanted to clutch at him and make him need
her the way she needed him.   She led
him to her bedroom and slipped inside the bathroom, unexpectedly nervous as she
closed the door behind her.
    She emerged from the bathroom to find candles lit, the small
ones she’d placed on her nightstand and the mantle of her bedroom
fireplace.   The smells of vanilla
and cinnamon lent an almost balmy feel to the dim room.   Her head felt dizzy with sensation.  
    Jesse stood with his back to her, a framed photograph of her
and Sophie at Sophie’s wedding in his hand.   Light danced over every curve of muscle,
every angle of his profile.   When
she cleared her throat he turned.
    “Are you tired?” he asked.
    She walked to him.   The silky nightgown she’d chosen shimmied over her skin as she moved,
arousing and teasing them both.   “No.”
    He put the picture down and watched her.   She felt every flick of his eyes as if
they were his hands.   He touched a
finger to her shoulder, ran it down her arm causing chills to rise on her
skin.   “I was too rough with you
this afternoon.”
    She shook her head.   “You’ve never hurt me, Jesse.   You wouldn’t.”   But he could,
if he chose to walk away, chose to turn his back on what they’d begun.  
    “I would never want to.”   His lips followed the trail of his
finger and she felt her knees wobble.   “You’re fragile, Angelita.   You’ve got such tender skin.”
    “I won’t break, but I won’t be able to stand much longer if
you keep touching me that way.”
    He smiled as he lifted her off her feet, carried her in his
arms to the bed.   “Then let’s get
you off your feet.”
    How could he draw her so far out of herself with just a
look, a touch?   Every time they were
together, it felt different and every time she inched closer to the edge of
something dangerous.   There were no
thoughts of fear when he cradled her, sent feathery kisses along her neck and
shoulders, the warmth from his breath searing through to her soul.   There was something more here than lust,
more than desire, more than longing.  
    Her fingers drew his boxers away to reveal skin as soft and
alluring as the underside of a rock in the forest.   His skin, the heat from his body against
the silk of her gown, created friction that drove them both to the brink.   He murmured soft words she couldn’t
understand, but felt deep within her heart.   It opened, quivered, and spilled into
him with a force she couldn’t stop.   Her eyes flew open at the discovery and were met by his, watching,
seeking some answer to the only question that would ever matter.  
    He slipped inside of her and slowly, meticulously eased
their hunger.   When she fell asleep,
she didn’t know where she ended and he began.

 

 
    Chapter 32
    Jesse brewed coffee in the fancy maker Angelita had perched
on the creamy tiles of her counter.   The sun had