“Later?” I’d had my back to him and when I turned, I forgot everything. My name. My reason for pushing him away.
He had his arms bent, hands behind his head, and his arousal, thick and large—and now I knew how good he tasted—was tenting his briefs. Unashamedly ready and spread out for me.
And dear God—that smirk twisting his lips. I wanted to take back my words just so I could kiss that look off him.
Instead, I bent down and grabbed his shirt and flung it at his face. I could focus better with it hidden.
“I’m using the restroom.”
“Later then?” he called out.
“Obviously yes,” I replied, and closed the door to the bathroom, such as it was.
His laugh reverberated through the van.
That man. Sex with him might just end up being the death of me. But what a perfect way to go, with all that passion, all that thickness, and all that smile and body being the last thing I’d see.
“Would you like me to take your picture?”
I smiled at the woman, close to my mom’s age, and then held out my phone. I’d been trying to take a decent selfie of Joey and I and the canyons in the background and we’d failed.
“Thank you, that’d be wonderful.”
Joey kissed my temple, wrapped me in his arms.
The woman, with her thick, blonde hair piled on her head and wearing army green khaki shorts and a cream tank top, smiled as she took several pictures, telling us to smile each time. Behind her, a handsome man gazed at her in that way he knew everything about her but couldn’t stand to stop discovering more. He looked like he spent his time in an office with that slicked to the side hair, only a hint of gray at his temples. His green eyes crinkled at the edges as he rolled his eyes at his wife, possibly her over willingness to help, like it annoyed him and he thought it was the cutest thing at the same time.
Wow. Their love was tangible, and I’d only seen the way he looked at her with her back turned.
My heart pinched as she handed me back my phone. “Thank you,” I told her.
“No problem. I’m Andrea and this is my husband, Corey.” She shoved her thumb behind her and started walking, like she knew we’d follow. Like she was used to people following her lead.
I did, because there was something about her sweet smile and the fine lines at the corners of her eyes that made her so approachable. “Are you two newlyweds?”
Had I fallen into a time warp where everyone could read my thoughts?
“We are,” Joey said behind me, and like me, he’d simply followed Andrea like there was no choice to refuse. He and Corey introduced themselves. “This is actually our honeymoon.”
“I thought so,” Andrea said and turned to him. “And you are…?”
“Joey Taylor. This is my wife, Gabby.”
“Lovely to meet you. Corey and I are out here celebrating our twentieth anniversary, aren’t we dear?”
She barely glanced at him. But I looked harder. His lips curled and that same glimmer in his eyes sparkled. “Best twenty years of my life.”
She didn’t scoff, like he’d said it teasingly. Instead, her hand went to his heart and she grinned at me. “Best man I ever met, knew it the moment I saw him on our college campus.”
He kicked a stone out of the path. “Please don’t tell them this story…”
It was too late. Andrea was already starting. “See, I was in a sorority, and we were having a house party. I saw this guy” —she nodded her head in his direction— “on the main quad on campus. He was talking to some friends, laughing, had a frisbee in his hands like they were getting ready to waste time on a Friday afternoon instead of heading to class.”
“That’s because it was Friday and we were skipping class to hang out.”
She shook her head playfully. “Anyway, I had a few invites left, and I wasn’t quite so sure what it was about him—”
“Besides the fact I was the sexiest man you’d ever seen.”
“There was that.” She nudged me with her hip playfully. “So hot. Best looking man I ever saw, but I think it was the smile that made me go to him. It was so… open. Not cocky like other college guys, you know?”
“I do.” I hadn’t gone to college, but I knew the look. The bars were full of guys with that look, like the world owed them something just because they’d been fortunate enough to be born with a decent strand of DNA.
“So, I walked right up to him—”
“In front of my group of friends.”
“Because I had no shame and he was that good looking,” she finished, shooting him a playful glare. “So I held out the invitation and told him I wanted him to come to the party, and do you know what that jerk did?”
Behind me, Corey chuckled, shaking his head as if he was remembering that moment, and was still embarrassed.
Joey’s brows rose. “What?”
Andrea settled her hand on my arm and gave me a quick squeeze before letting go. “He told me that he hated the Greeks and wouldn’t step foot into a house if his life depended on it.”
“You did?” I turned, asked Corey.
He shrugged. “Just wait. It gets better.”
“What’d you say?” I asked her. Why I was so invested in their story, I had no idea, except Andrea had an aura about her that pulled you in. And I was hooked.
“I held out the invitation and told him then it was a good thing I was French and English, and if he didn’t come to see me, it’d be his biggest regret and I didn’t think he looked like a fool, but if he didn’t want to get to know me, he was one. He made no move to reach for the invite, so I dropped it, let it fall to the ground and I left.”
Wow. The confidence in this woman. I barked out a laugh. “Did you go?” I asked him.
“No he did not,” Andrea answered for him. “And I didn’t see him again for weeks on campus which really fired me up because I had the perfect speech planned for him if I ever saw him again.”
Based on the fire in her eyes, I had no doubt. We reached a narrow path on the trail, where we had to go single-file again and as we moved into a line, Andrea reached behind her and took my hand.
“So how’d you two get together?”
Behind us, Corey bringing up the rear as Andrea and I squinted at the bright sky filtering down the narrow canyon, red rock walls so high they seemed to go on forever, said, “I went up to her in the student union a few weeks later. First time I’d seen her in two and I couldn’t resist.”
“Really?” I asked.
“This fool,” Andrea started. “Sat right down across from me, tossed his bag on the seat next to him. He leaned forward like he had a right to be in my space after he blew me off, and said, without a single hesitation, ‘I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. You’re right, I’m a fool and I regret not going. So how about you let me walk you to your next class and take you out to dinner tonight?’”
My eyes widened with surprise. “And that worked?”
She shrugged, like it was nothing, like they weren’t still living their happily ever after all these years later. “I’d told him he’d be a fool not to get to know me, and I figured I’d be one too. So yeah I went. Never regretted it for a single moment after.”