“I know you don’t. You didn’t remember when you came to work the next day either. When you patted me on the head and made out with Ivy in storage.”
I shook my head, half to argue, half to shake the cobwebs out. “No.” I pulled her closer, closer still, my eyes bouncing between hers. “I’d never forget you.”
“Except that you did. Because that’s what you do. I didn’t mean anything to you—nothing seemed to—so excuse me for assuming things hadn’t changed.”
“Tess,” I said, the word bouncing off her lips and into mine.
“What?”
“I owe you a real kiss.”
“No, you don’t.” The words trembled, her tone belying their meaning.
I let her arm go, my hand sliding up the line of her jaw, the shape fitting in my palm neatly. “Yes, I do. All I need is five minutes.”
“F-for what?” she breathed.
“To change your mind.”
A shift of permission—the simultaneous intake of breath, fluttering of lashes, tilting of her face, parting of lips. For a protracted heartbeat, I gazed into the face of submission, held it in my palm.
And then I took it for mine.
Lips, a hot crush of lips, soft and eager, willing and earnest. A noisy breath, the scent of earth and life and loam filling my lungs, filling my mind.
I was slammed back in time with a jolt.
The moonlight in the greenhouse, the sigh from her lips, the sweetness of her, the fire in me. Tess. Whiskey on her breath. Her mouth, her tongue had been timid, inexperienced. She’d had to go home—I didn’t want her to. I’d wanted her to stay. I’d wanted her to stay forever, and I’d asked her to, first with my kiss, then with my words.
My grip on her tightened, and I pulled her closer—this Tess, my Tess—as if the taste of her, the feel of her against me could prolong the memory. There was nothing timid about her roaming hands now, nothing inexperienced in the way she wound around me. We went up like a torch in a twist, a tangle of arms, our bodies locked and seeking the other. There was no space—the flame had devoured the distance, the air, her and me.
Consumed.
Her arms tightened around my neck, my hand hitching her thigh, my tongue sweeping the depth of her mouth and hers dancing against it.
I didn’t know who slowed, who came to their senses, who remembered the earth existed and tethered us. But the kiss broke. And I looked into the lust-drunk, blinking face of Tess.
“You had to go,” I said, my voice gravelly and raw. “I didn’t want you to go home that night, and I told you so.”
“You did,” she whispered.
“I remember,” I breathed. “I kissed you. I wanted you, thought I had you.”
“But then you forgot.”
“Then I forgot. And you hated me … I thought it was your mom, everything you were going through. I thought you needed space, so I never tried, not knowing I’d pushed you away myself.”
She swallowed, looking up at me with uncertainty.
“I owe you more than a kiss, Tess. Let me make it up to you,” I begged, her face in my palm, my fingertips in her hair.
A flicker of a smile. “You can try.”
And with a smile of my own, I kissed her again with the intention of doing just that.
TESS
Beyond all logic and with all the rightness in the world, Luke Bennet kissed me.
Slower, deeper was this kiss, without the frantic frenzy of the first. He breathed in my fire, stoking it until it raged. But his lips moved with intention, a savoring, sampling game of catch and release. He tasted me like it was the first time so many years ago, like he wanted to memorize the details he’d once forgotten.
Disarmed. He disarmed me, stole my grenades, took down the wall brick by brick, left me defenseless. I was helpless to fight, and my desire to was gone, replaced by another desire entirely.
This was a moment I’d thought about too many times over too many years, one that had found its way into my dreams, unbidden, unwanted. I’d written him off, but then he had come back and did everything right, said everything I wanted to hear without knowing I wanted to hear it.
It was a rewriting of history, that kiss. And I chose to lose myself in the moment.
I should have stopped. I should have refused. I should have stepped back and run out of that shop like it was on fire. Part of my brain screamed for me to, but I pushed her into the cellar and locked the door. This time, I wouldn’t stop. This time, he wouldn’t forget. Tonight, I would be selfish and make a new memory to replace the old one.
I couldn’t ask him for more than that.
Because in the end, I was still me, and he was still him. He would move on again, and I would stay here. I’d be brushed aside the minute Judy called in an order or Wendy blew back in town. He wouldn’t want me for more than this, so I should never let myself want him. Not for more than tonight. Right now.
Letting him in for more than that would be naive. A cavalier risk, not a calculated one. Because the data told me one thing: Luke Bennet would hurt me if I let him.
So I wouldn’t.
A shocked hiss left him when my hand slipped up his shirt, breaking the kiss.
“I’ve wanted to touch you for days,” I whispered my truth, my lips closing over the soft skin beneath his chin. “You’ve been so … shirtless.”
A quiet laugh, his hand still holding my face with tender care as I kissed his neck, his fingertips in my hair. The other hand cupped my ass, squeezing it as if to test the weight.
“So you’ve forgiven me for the grope?” he asked, his hand shifting to the seam of my jeans.
My body clenched when his finger stroked the line. “You made me a swing,” I muttered, lids heavy. “So, yes.”
“And you’ve forgiven me for forgetting?” The question was softer, less sure, more repentant.
“Depends,” I said, tugging at the hem of his shirt.
“On what?” He let me go to reach behind him, pulling it off and tossing it away.
My teeth pinned my bottom lip, my thirsty eyes on his chest, hungry hands on his abs. “On how well you plan on making it up to me.”
He bent to kiss me, grabbing me by the thighs to hoist me up and wrap me around him. His narrow waist in the circle of my legs. My fingers in the silky depth of his hair. My lips pressing his, demanding and submitting all in the same motion.
He walked us to one of the tables, setting my ass on the edge, spreading my thighs to nestle his hips between them. The length of him fitted against me—his basketball shorts masked nothing, and I praised their creator once more—and with the arch of my back, I stroked him, stroked myself.
A deep rumble in his chest, past his lips, across my tongue.
A flash of lightning in my heart.
It was fear, white-hot and electric. Because I’d never had a fling, never had a one-night stand. I’d never separated sex and feelings—I’d never had to. And with Luke, that separation was imperative.
Let her be wild. Tonight. Only tonight.
And so I let go.
Luke didn’t break the kiss, but his hands had their own agenda. The line of my jaw, the column of my neck. Collarbone, the tender flesh in the dip, the hard bone of the ridge. My T-shirt bunched in his hands, rising up my torso—this was what paused the kiss. Over my head, behind him somewhere into the void.