And then my stomach growls.
He breaks the kiss on a laugh and climbs to his feet. Before I can get embarrassed, he reaches down and grabs me, pulls me to my feet. “Come on. Let’s get you some food before you decide Hannibal Lecter had the right idea.”
He grabs his shorts and pulls them on. But when I reach for my clothes, he just tugs his T-shirt over my head with a grin. I’m tall, but he’s so much bigger than me that it hits the bottoms of my thighs.
“Seriously?” I ask him, mock posing with one hand on my hip and the other behind my head. “This is the look that turns you on?”
He shrugs. “It’s a guy thing. Besides, you look good in my clothes.”
I don’t know how good I can possibly look in a shirt that could double for a tent, but I know that I smell absolutely amazing. I turn my head surreptitiously, take a couple sniffs of the dark, musky scent that is part Tom Ford cologne, part sexy man and all Shawn Wilson. Seriously, if he could bottle this scent, he’d make more on it than he does catching a ball.
“I’ll have dinner ready in forty-five minutes,” Shawn says as we hit the kitchen. “In the meantime…” He pulls a plate of grapes and cheese out of the fridge, pops it on the counter near the barstools. “Have a seat.”
“Seriously? You just had that ready for me?”
“I like to be prepared.”
“Oh, yeah. You’re a regular Boy Scout, all right.”
He holds his hand up in the Boy Scout oath. “Got all my merit badges and everything.”
“Did you really?” I ask, fascinated by this new side of him. The press paint him as a wild and crazy guy, always down for one fantastic stunt or another.
He sets a tray of crackers on the counter next to the cheese, follows it with a knife and plate. “I did.”
I steal a grape off the plate, pop it in his mouth. “Which one was your favorite?”
“I don’t know. It was twenty, twenty-five years ago.”
“You do too know. I don’t believe for a second that you forgot.”
He inclines his head in a you got me kind of motion. “Climbing was my favorite. And astronomy.”
The climbing doesn’t surprise me at all…and neither does the astronomy, now that I think about it. Shooting stars and all that.
“What about you?” he asks after grabbing a handful of grapes.
“I don’t have any merit badges.”
“Tell me something fun from when you were a kid.”
“Oooh, that’s a hard one.” Harder than he could possibly imagine. My mom didn’t settle down at Soul Studio until I was in ninth grade. Before that, my childhood was mostly us hopping from place to place, her “homeschooling” me in between yoga communes and months-long road trips.
He turns serious, brushes my hair back from my face so he can get a better look at me. “There must be something that stands out.”
“I had a stuffed aardvark named Bear, after my favorite TV show, Bear in the Big Blue House. He came with me everywhere.”
“An aardvark named Bear.”
“You sound surprised?”
“Not surprised, just…it seems so whimsical.”
“Yeah, well. I was six. What did I know?”
“My guess? A lot.” He holds a grape up to my lips, waits for me to take it. “What happened to Bear?”
“I forgot him when we were sneaking out of one of my ‘uncles’ houses in the middle of the night.” I make air quotes around the word uncles.
Shawn’s face falls. “I didn’t mean to bring up a bad memory.”
“Not bad,” I tell him with a shrug. “Just how it was.”
He seems at a loss for words and since the last thing I want to do is talk about my childhood, I focus his attention back on the task at hand. “What can I do to help?” I nod toward the stove, where the sauce continues to simmer.
He gets the message, and I can see him gingerly backing away from the land mines that surround my childhood as he tries to lighten the mood. “After what you told me about your kitchen skills earlier? Absolutely nothing.”
I pretend to be offended, but the truth is we’re both better off if I stay on this side of the kitchen. Still, “Even I can chop some vegetables. Let me make a salad.”
“I would,” he says, leaning in to steal a kiss. “But I already made one.”
“Guess I was a sure thing, huh?”
He laughs. “You are as far from a sure thing as a person can get, sweetheart. Still, hope springs eternal. Besides, if nothing else, I like salad and I’ve never minded eating alone.”
“And now you don’t have to.”
“Now I don’t have to.” Shawn gives me another kiss. “Turns out, I don’t mind eating with someone else, either.”
He shoots a grin at me over his shoulder as he crosses to the huge pantry on the other side of the kitchen. He comes back out with two bottles of wine.
“Red or white?” he asks, holding each bottle up respectively. “I was afraid to break out the Chianti.”
“Smart move.” I nod toward the pinot noir. “Red, if that’s okay with you?”
“Perfect.” He returns the white to the closet, then drops the pinot on the counter in front of me along with two wineglasses. “Turns out I’ve found something for you to do.”
“Open the wine?”
He reaches into a drawer and pulls out a corkscrew. Slaps it on the counter in front of me. “Open the wine.”
I reach for the bottle and he leaves me to it, setting a large copper pot of water to boil on the stove before pulling a Saran-wrapped block of dough from one of the refrigerated drawers.
“Are you making bread?” I ask as the cork finally pops free from the bottle.
“Pasta,” he answers, crossing to the mixer in the corner which I now notice is fitted with the pasta making attachment.
“You make your own pasta?” I demand, shocked at the trouble he’s going through for this meal. Before him, the most a guy ever made me was coffee and toast. And that was only if I slept over and he was making it for himself, too.
“When I have time. So that pretty much means during the off-season.” He gets out a huge wooden cutting board, sprinkles it with flour and then places the unwrapped dough in the middle of the board.
I watch, fascinated, as he divides the dough into four pieces, then flours a rolling pin and rolls through the first piece. When it’s about half as thick as it originally was, he peels it off the board and starts feeding it through the machine.
He feeds it through five times, pausing to fold it over each time before rolling it through again. After the fifth time, he fiddles with the machine somehow and then rolls it through again. Fiddles with the machine. Rolls it through again.
This time it comes out one long, narrow sheet and he places it back on the floured cutting board. “I can use the attachment to cut it, too,” he tells me even as he pulls out a knife. “But I kind of like the rustic look of hand-cut pasta.”
And then he runs through it with the knife, cutting the dough into long, thin strips. “Linguine’s the easiest to make,” he says when he catches me watching him carefully. “Even a beginner can do it.”
“Not this beginner.” I pour two glasses of wine, then hold one up to his mouth so he can take a sip.
“Bet you can,” he says after he’s swallowed. He doesn’t say anything else about it, though, until after he’s finished rolling out the second sheet of dough.
“Come here,” he says, laying the dough on the cutting board.
“No.” I take a long sip of wine, and keep my ass planted squarely on the barstool. I know my strengths and I’m pretty damn positive homemade pasta is not going to be one of them.
But I underestimated Shawn’s determination, because he crosses the kitchen and latches onto my wrist with his flour-cover
ed fingers. Then he tugs until, laughing, I finally relent.
“When you end up eating pasta that looks like it’s been hacked to death by Norman Bates, I don’t want to hear about it,” I warn him as he hands me the knife.
“I’m not sure what it is with you and fictional serial killers, but I gotta say I kind of dig it.”
“I love old movies.”
“Yeah?” He looks pleased. “Me, too.”
Then he wraps his arms around me from behind, placing his hand over my right one, which is currently holding the knife. “What you want to do is—” He breaks off when I start laughing, shoots me a confused look. “Why are you laughing?”
“Are you Ghost-ing me?”
If possible, he looks even more confused. “I’m making you dinner and hope to talk you into spending the night. I pretty much thought that was the opposite of ghosting.”
“Not that kind of ghosting. Ghost-ing, like in the Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore movie. You know, when she’s making the pot and he does the thing…” I hold my arms out, like they’re wrapping around another person.
“Oh.” His eyes start to smolder. “Then yes. I’m definitely doing the Ghost thing. In fact, if I remember correctly, I’m pretty sure it goes something like this.” He takes my hands in his, holds them up as he kisses his way down my neck.
I’m half-laughing and half-aroused as I turn my head to look at him. He takes instant advantage, swooping in for a kiss that has my hand shaking and my knees going weak all over again.
He pulls back first, and I lean forward with a whimper to follow the kiss. And the pleasure. He laughs, low and wicked, but kisses me a second time before he twirls me around to face him.
“Then it goes something like this, right?” He grabs on to my ass with flour-covered hands, then lifts me up. He holds tight as I let out a startled laugh before wrapping my arms and legs around him. He twirls us around the kitchen a few times, mouth moving sexily on mine.
By the time he lets me down, we’re both laughing. And turned on. And covered in flour.
I couldn’t find a better metaphor for spending time with Shawn if I tried.
Chapter 17
Shawn
I like watching Sage eat.
Then again, I like watching her do a lot of things. Laugh. Sleep. Breathe.
But there’s something incredible about watching her eat food that I’ve made for her, all sex-tousled and wine-tipsy and beautiful, so beautiful it makes my brain melt and my heart ache just a little.
“More wine?” I ask, picking up the bottle as she takes the last sip from her glass.
“I shouldn’t.” She puts a hand over the top of the glass. “I’ve got to drive home.”
“You’re spending the night.” It’s not a question, but still I watch her carefully to see what her reaction is to my proclamation.
For long seconds, she doesn’t say anything. She just stares at me with eyes gone a soft, golden brown—a little sleepy, a little wary, all sexy. The silence stretches into a minute, and still she gives me no hint as to what she’s thinking, what she’s feeling. I’m about to plead my case, to fucking beg her to stay with me if that’s what it takes, when she does the unexpected and removes her hand from the top of her glass.
Everything inside of me relaxes. I have more time with her, and right now that’s all that matters. The fact that it is should send me running in the other direction, but it doesn’t. Then again, I’ve already realized that I’m falling for this girl.
Leaning forward, I pour her a third glass of wine, then top off my glass as well because why not? Then watch as she forks up the last bite of pasta on her plate. She closes her eyes for just a moment, makes a little sound deep in her throat. Then swallows and licks her lips.
Hell, yeah, I like watching her eat what I made for her. Any sane man would.
Still, there’s more to Sage than her beautiful face and seriously bendy body. More to her than her sly wit and obvious intelligence. It’s there in her eyes—quiet, serious, tough. In the way she holds herself, like she’s always poised to fight or flee. In the way she answers questions with questions and never says too much about herself, no matter how hard I try to draw her out.
There are a million things I want to know about her, a million things I want to ask her right now, but I’m pretty sure she won’t answer any of my questions. Still I’ve got to try and I might as well start with the one that’s been circling my brain for most of the day.
“Why are you a yoga teacher if you don’t like doing it?”
She stiffens, those gorgeous eyes of hers going a swirling, mysterious mix of brown and green that’s as frustrating as it is intriguing.
She reaches for her wine, takes a slow, careful sip. “What makes you think I don’t like doing it?”
And there it is—yet another answer that’s really just a question. I can tell from the look on her face that she expects me to back down, but I’m not going to. Normally I couldn’t care less if a woman doesn’t want to share too much—in fact, I like it better that way. But if we’re going to have any chance of making this work, she needs to talk to me sometime. About something.
It’s my turn to reach for my wine, my turn to watch her over the rim as I take a long, slow sip. “You said so earlier,” I tell her after putting the glass back on the table. “In the workout room. You told me you might hate being a yoga instructor but you’re damn good at it. But after spending time with you, I’m pretty sure you’re good at a lot of things. So why spend time teaching yoga if you don’t like it?”
She sighs, reaches for her drink. Then seems to think better of it because she drops her hands, leans back in her chair. “It’s complicated.”
“Okay.” I want to push, but she’s putting up NO TRESPASSING signs faster than I can even think about ripping them down. “No pressure, but just so you know. I can do complicated.”
“And here I thought simple was more your style.” The words are low, teasing, and I know she’s using them to get us back to where she feels safe. I think about fighting her on it, but the look on her face tells me there’s no way I’m getting anything more out of her.
But that doesn’t mean I’m just going to let her direct everything—especially when it means pushing me into a role I don’t want to play.
I don’t say that, though. Instead, I settle for giving her my trademark smirk and saying, “Styles change.”
Her eyes widen a little, and it’s obvious she doesn’t have an answer for that. Part of me wants to let her stew in the shifting dynamics of this thing I hope will turn into a relationship, but at the same time I can’t stand the idea of her being uncomfortable with me. I put her on notice and that’s going to have to be good enough for now, no matter how impatient I suddenly find myself.
Reaching forward, I push her hair out of her face so I can see both her eyes. And say what I’m pretty sure is the last thing she’s expecting. “Want to go for a swim?”
“A swim?” She sounds disoriented, a little off balance—which is exactly how I want her for now. It’s so much better than watching her try to relegate this thing between us into a box marked ONLY FUN AND GAMES.
“Yeah.” I push back from the table, take her hand and pull her to her feet. “I was in earlier. The water’s beautiful.”
“I don’t have a suit.”
I grin at her. “That’s pretty much the point.”
“Oh.” Her eyes are huge now, her skin flushed.
She doesn’t say anything else as I tug her through the kitchen to the family room and the French doors that lead to the vanishing-edge pool that’s the focal point of this half of the backyard. I strip off the shorts I pulled on after our last round in the kitchen then reach for her and yank my too-big shirt over her head.
If possible her eyes get even bigger…and darker.
“Nev
er skinny-dipped before?” I ask, pulling her close.
She shakes her head mutely, even as her body melts against mine.
“Better hold your breath, then.” I press my mouth to hers, wait for the moment when her lips open to mine and her whole body yields to mine. Then I pick her up, wrap her legs around my waist. And jump straight into the pool.
She comes up sputtering and laughing and spends the next ten minutes chasing me around the pool, trying to dunk me. She’s a good swimmer, strong and fast, but the water’s always been my favorite place besides the football field and she’s not quite quick enough to catch me.
Until I let her, because really, what’s the fun of getting away if it means I don’t get to feel her long, lithe body pressed against mine? If it means I don’t get to run my hands over her slight curves, don’t get to press my lips to her cool, wet skin?
I reel her in at the far end of the pool, near the diving board, pretending to run out of breath just long enough for her to launch herself onto my back and try to dunk me.
I let her push me under, but pull her with me and kiss her just as the water closes over our heads. I expect her to struggle a little, like she did when we first jumped in. Instead, she just wraps herself around me and gives herself up to the kiss. Gives herself up to me.
Suddenly it doesn’t matter so much that she’s a closed book whenever I try to ask anything too personal. Because when she kisses me, I feel all the things she isn’t saying in the way her lips move under mine. In the way she gives herself up so totally, so completely, to the fire that rages between us.
Eventually we surface, gasping for air and laughing a little despite the need arcing between us. I reach for her, but Sage slips behind me, wraps her arms around my waist and pulls me close.
I sink into her, loving the feel of her skin against mine. Loving the feel of her against me. I can feel her smile in the lips she presses against my back, and it makes me smile. Makes me happy to know that being with me makes her feel as good as it makes me feel.