His tongue slips between my lips, and every part of me heats and aches and melts into the familiarity of the kiss. Into the sense that he gives me that everything is going to be all right.
“Wait a minute!” I say, ending the kiss and pushing against him playfully. “Do you think your lips are going to distract me enough that I’ll get on the other side of the lens?”
His laugh rumbles through his chest as he rests his forehead against mine. “Tate.” He sighs my name so that the warmth of his breath feathers over my lips. “I’m about to distract you a whole lot more than that.”
I AWAKE WITH A START. My heart is in my throat, and my hand drifts to my lips as I take a minute to allow my brain to catch up and my pulse to calm down.
Real.
It seemed so damn real.
Real and peaceful and normal.
How is that possible when everything about Jack Sutton riles me up? He’s strong-armed his way into my life, my ranch, and my business, and now he’s invading my damn dreams.
“Fiona.” I groan her name, knowing her comments were what got my imagination going and caused this dream.
That has to be it.
Still, I dreamed about photography. I dreamed about it when my muses haven’t been seen or heard from in years. Sure, I’ve picked up the camera and headed out to the pond, begging to be inspired, needing to get lost in something other than the ranch’s day-to-day routine, but I’ve always put the camera down after taking one or two photos. After each of those impulsive outings, I was left feeling emptier than I was before because the one thing I used to count on, getting lost in my art, was no more.
Of course, it doesn’t help that I feel as if my subconscious is betraying me by suggesting that Jack could be my new muse. Nothing like a dream like that to whack me over the head and tell me to stop resisting Jack’s help. That deep down my mind was telling me that letting him in might be a good thing for the ranch’s success and for me to learn to trust others again.
I’d rather focus on that revelation than the kiss that lit every single part of my body so brightly the ache still burns . . . even if it was a figment of my imagination.
It was a dream.
A kiss in a dream.
That’s it.
Plus, I only dreamed it. My subconscious chose to speak to me that way because it’s been over a year since a man has touched me.
It knew I would wake up and hear it.
Too bad I still feel it.
Needing to shake it from my thoughts, I sit up in bed, prop my pillow behind me, and grab my book from the nightstand.
But after staring at the page for way too long and never seeing the words, I realize what’s bugging me so much. It’s that everything I’ve ever loved began with my seeing it in snapshots like art playing out before me: the first time I saw Fletcher, the first time on the Mediterranean, the first time I laid eyes on Ruby.
And how does Jack play into all of this?
Click.
“Christ,” I mutter before giving up on the hope of reading, sliding back down under my blankets, and forcing myself to fall back asleep. The last thing I need is for my brain to start suggesting that the dream could really happen.
Or, worse, for more snapshots to fill my mind.
Only I can’t fall asleep. Every time I close my eyes, it’s as if I can feel the heat of his body against mine and taste the flavor of his kiss on my tongue.
It’s maddening and arousing, and as much as my previously dormant libido flutters to life, I need to stop thinking about this.
About him.
I shove up out of bed and out of my bedroom.
The house is quiet as I walk through it, the pad of my feet the only sound, but I welcome its silence and darkness. It feels as if muting any kind of outside distraction is my only goal these days. It’s a sad thought since I used to have so many goals, so many dreams and desires.
Photography. It used to be my life, my passion, and a way to show others the beauty they could see if only they knew where to look.
And now, as I run my hand over the door that leads to the room that used to be my studio, I feel the hum beneath my skin for the first time in years.
Fletcher robbed me of that. First with his anger at how I pissed off the citizens of Lone Star when I wrote that article and made life harder for him. Then it was because money was tight and he needed me to help out more on the ranch even though he barely let me do anything. When I could find a moment to sneak away to shoot, he would become enraged. Back then, I didn’t know it was because he didn’t want me talking to anyone in town. I didn’t realize he was afraid that if I did, someone would confront me and tell me about the overdue accounts and mounting debt.
The anger and rage he’d fly into every time I grabbed my camera became too devastating.
The fights became not worth it.
So I gave up.
And like everything else I had previously cherished in my life, I gave up photography to keep Fletcher happy.
Twisting the knob, I push open the door and steel myself against the onslaught of emotions I know will come when I see the space again.
And they come. The tsunami fueled by rage, betrayal, loss, and pain hits me the minute the room comes into view.
The photos of things I loved about Fletcher that had been hanging on my mock clothesline across the far wall are torn into pieces and thrown around the room. Images that depicted a life of happiness and honesty but unbeknownst to me covered up a marriage based on deception and lies. The ones I ripped from their frames and hangers that I tore up in dramatic flair to try to do anything I could to relieve the hurt I felt when I’d learned what he’d done, what he’d hidden, and what he’d cost me.
Photo after photo and memory after memory of a life I thought we shared.
The desk is a mess of unedited prints that I was amassing for a future photobook project. A ceramic figure he’d bought me still lies shattered where I’d thrown it to the floor. The small satisfaction in its crunch was fleeting and only left me with a mess I haven’t cared to clean up.
Our wedding photo still sits beneath the splintered glass of the frame. A day I thought held so much promise despite the absence of my parents or anyone else for that matter.
Just the two of us.
The two of us in a shotgun wedding at city hall.
That was all I thought we’d needed.
I glance around again, and the destruction tells me how very wrong I was.
How had I missed the deception before the day I lost my mind in here?
A brand new camera sits on the workbench. It’s the only thing not broken. It was Fletcher’s apology for smashing my other one “on accident” in a fit of rage after a major sale fell through.
I’d let him talk me into believing he was crushed over the long-term loss it would bring and had forgiven him for his outburst.
It’s the only thing untouched because it was the only thing I still gave a shit about.
My destruction is visual evidence of what happened when I found that not only did my husband max out every credit card we had but that he’d also squandered away what I’d still had of my savings account from before my father cut me off. The small stash that I kept on the side for just in case was gone, and I hadn’t even known.
This is the devastation I wrought after I found out my parents were right.
This is the realization that I was used. Sure, the love I felt might have been real, but the trust and security were nothing more than a smoke screen.