Shoe Strings

  If I had a baby…”
    “Maybe she was doing all she could to get back to you.   You can’t assume she’d just written you
off.”
    “I guess I’ll never know.”   She let out a big breath.   “How do you do this?   How do you get me talking about things I
don’t ever talk about?”
    “You share things with people you care about.   It’s how you show you care, and know
you’re cared for.”
    Something passed across her face, but she closed it off
carefully, purposefully.   “Jesse,”
she said.   “I have to go back home.”
    He knew she had to go back, was planning on it,
eventually.   But something about the
way she’d said it made him feel panicked.   “Not tonight, you don’t.”
    He kissed her then, a gentle brush of his lips over hers,
felt her shudder in his arms before he backed her against the door and ran his
lips down her throat.   She’d taken
off her sweater at dinner and he nudged the twisted straps of her dress from
her shoulders and savored her golden skin.   She tasted like glory, like sin and innocence and something else,
something just beyond his reach.   He
tightened his grip and drew her farther into his spell.
    Here, he could control her, hold her captive with soft
murmurs and slow brushes of lips and teeth.   Here, she was helpless but to surrender
to him, to give him everything she couldn’t say with words.   Her body, the soft curves and gilded
skin, felt like sunshine in his hands, felt like…fate.   With one dip of his shoulder, he scooped
her into his arms.
    “Jesse, put me down.”
    “No.   Hang on to
me, Angelita.   It’s not far.”   He climbed the stairs and watched her
face as he slipped her onto his bed.   “Take your dress off.”
    As he watched, she came up to her knees and slowly
unfastened the row of buttons that ran down the thin cotton.   When she finished, he moved to stand
before her, nudged the dress from her shoulders and looked his fill.   “You’re so beautiful, Angelita.”   When she opened her mouth to protest, he
could see by the look on her face she would, he stopped her with a touch of his
finger to her lips.   “Shhh.   Let me tell you what I see, what you do
to me.”   His hands drifted to the
clasp on her bra and, with one quick flick, let her breasts free.   She was like nothing he’d ever seen
before, so wary and yet so willing.   “You could ask anything of me now and I’d do it.   You could destroy me by walking away.”
    “Step closer.”   Her voice and the softly muttered command floated like a spark over
kindling.   “Let me show you what you
do to me, Jesse.   Let me touch
you.”   When she reached for him, he
went willingly.   There wasn’t a
force strong enough to keep his hands from her, his body from merging with
hers.   Every time they came
together, every caress, kiss, moan felt like a link.   He wanted to do things to her, touch her
in ways that would make her leaving seem incomprehensible.  
    With the scrape of his teeth along her neck, she brought him
down to the bed with her, where they stayed until daybreak.   Or at least he did.   When he woke, she was gone.

 

 
    Chapter 27
    Kerri Ann stood up from behind the bar and knocked her head
against the old-fashioned cash register that sat open above her.   “Damn it,” she cried with a quick rub to
her temple.   “Emilio?   Frank?”   When she got no answer, she swung
through the kitchen door and looked around for anyone to yell at.   It didn’t matter who, she just needed to
yell.
    “Who left the drawer open again?”
    Both men looked up, one from the oven and the other peeked
his head out of the freezer.   “Huh?”
they both said.  
    Shit.   She
realized as soon as she saw their faces that they hadn’t stepped foot outside
the kitchen all morning, hadn’t stepped anywhere near her in the last two
days.   The damn drawer popped open
every now and again and obviously had done so today, like a giant tongue
blowing a raspberry in her face.  
    “Never mind.”   She stalked back into the restaurant.   It probably wasn’t the best idea to be
around customers, but she needed the distraction.   Whenever she sat down at her desk or got
behind the wheel of her car, her mind popped back to Bryce and all the hate
she’d seen in his eyes, all the goodness she’d walked away from.   “For his own damn good,” she muttered to
herself and then stuck her chin in the air when two college kids gave her