“I get that.” His words were clipped. “You seem familiar to me too. Maybe we ran into each other before.”
He glanced at me. As we passed under a streetlight, I noted that his brow was creased.
“Is it important that we figure it out?” he asked.
“No. I guess not.”
“It’s been a long time since I was in OB. Even if you saw me back then, I’m not that same person anymore.” He pulled to a stop at the top of the hill and flicked on his blinker.
“What type of person were you?” Worry like ice-cold fingers crept along my spine.
He turned the Harvester onto a two-lane thoroughfare, and we passed through several intersections before he answered. “Just one unrecognizable to the man I am now.”
“How so?”
Journey blew out a breath, folding his arms on the steering wheel at a red light. He glanced at me, holding my gaze. “I’m a man jaded by my circumstances. I’m one who never had a woman like you with him . . . ever. I’m a man who doesn’t want to talk about the past. Or the future, really. I’m accustomed to living in the moment. To working hard for each unencumbered moment I get. I live hard, Lotus. I play little.”
I was digging and asking questions, trying to get to know him better. But this was playtime. Temporary. It wasn’t serious.
Message received.
“I’m sorry I pried. I was just curious. I work hard too and don’t play much at all.” I swallowed the hurt that he wasn’t interested in letting me in deeper, not even just a little. “I understand that your time is valuable, and that you choosing to spend some right now with me is what it is and nothing more. You’re handsome. Confident.” And experienced, for sure, but I didn’t say that part. “Frankly, I’m flattered that you’re interested in me.”
He reached over and took my hand. “I’m honored that such a smart and beautiful woman agreed to come with me.”
The light changed to green. He moved our joined hands to his muscular thigh, keeping them there.
“Thank you.” My lips curved and my cheeks heated. The hurt disappeared like a mist burned away by the sun.
“No. Thank you, baby,” he said in a low and intimate tone that made my skin sizzle and other parts of me throb.
I turned my attention to the scenery, trying not to combust. The wind cooled my skin and carried the briny scent of the nearby Pacific to my nostrils.
The businesses on both sides of the street were dark and somewhat familiar since I’d been in Manhattan Beach before. The Dirt Dogs had played at a coffeehouse in the middle of town. MB was a little like OB, only sleepier, especially in the wee hours of the morning.
“Gonna warn you now, my place isn’t much to look at.” He put on his blinker, turning left just before the outskirts of town.
“I doubt that’s entirely true.”
“One room, dark and dreary. In this case, it is. Trust me.”
He accelerated, and the vehicle lurched a bit before it got traction to take us up the steep hill. Turning my head to look out the window, I noted the condition of the houses deteriorating as we climbed.
“My place isn’t much either. It’s old. But it’s where I grew up.”
It’s what I could afford, though I suspected the landlord gave me a sweet deal. Lately, the rent was a couple hundred less than I expected. I assumed she gave me an under-the-table discount because she’d known and liked my father.
“Here we are.” Slowing, Journey turned and parked the Harvester in a short driveway in front of a multiunit structure several stories tall.
“You have parking?” I asked, my eyes widening.
“Got lucky tonight. Most of the time, I have to park at a spot on the street several blocks up.”
“Parking’s difficult to find in OB too.”
“Hold on,” he said, unlatching his seat belt. “We’re on an incline. I’ll come around and help you get out.”
“Okay,” I murmured, appreciating his care, but he probably didn’t hear me. He was already out and on the move around the hood.
He popped open my door and put both hands on my waist. Even through the denim of my overalls, I felt his heat and the imprint of his fingers as he lifted me out of my seat as if I weighed nothing.
Slowly, he lowered me to the ground, my curvy front sliding along the hard contours of his. I kept my hands on his solid forearms, even when my feet hit the ground, needing him for balance. My legs trembled as I noted a significant part of him was incredibly hard.
“Journey,” I said, licking my lips.
His gaze on my mouth, he didn’t speak for a long moment.
“Your lips are so pretty and full.” His gaze rose, the heat in them incinerating me. “They tilt up at the edges like your sultry eyes do.”
“Thank you.”
“You smell really good too. Like sunshine and salt spiked with citrus.” He groaned, and the vibrations of his pleasure thrummed my clit. “You feel so good in my arms. So right.”
“I like being held by you,” I whispered. “I like your mouth. The color, the shape, the firmness, what you do with it. You’re a really good kisser.” My cheeks heated as his lips curved.
“Another part of me is firm too, darlin’.” He rocked his cock against me. “I can do good things to you with it, I assure you. But let’s get you inside.”
He suddenly lifted me into his arms, sweeping me off my feet.
“Journey.” I gasped his name and twined my arms around his neck, but for some reason, when I made no protest whatsoever, he frowned. Wanting him to smile, I said, “You smell crisp, like the ocean spray when I first place my board on it. Fresh and clean like really good soil before I turn it over and tuck a seed into it.”
“Lotus. Fuck.” He wasn’t smiling when he set me down in front of the last door at the end of the building, but his eyes were darker and intense.
“Did I say something wrong? I guess it was stupid, the soil comparison. But that’s just me,” I said, then forced myself to stop the nervous babbling.
“Not wrong, not stupid. Too good, too right.”
His hand trembling, he fumbled before he managed to insert his key into the lock. He pushed open the door, setting me down and flicking on a light switch on the wall just over my shoulder. The explanation for the highly oxygenated, yet somewhat elusive scent of him became apparent as I moved farther into the space and glanced around.
“You have a lot of plants.”
Succulents grew in colorful pots on built-in bookshelves. Rising from the floor were several parlor palms in basket containers. Macramé planters hung from the ceiling, one with pink orchids, and the other with purple African violets. Not overly fragrant, the flowers lent a romantic, powder-soft scent to the air. I knew from my dad that the ketone compound in the violets temporarily desensitized the receptors in the nose. One whiff gave you their fragrance, but subsequent ones gave you nothing.
Journey’s plant choices were as elusive and intriguing as he was. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know about him.
“I don’t have a view of the ocean, or a backyard, but inside I have the plants to look at.”
He shrugged as if having those plants weren’t a big deal. But it gave me incredible insight into him. No one had plants as healthy as his if they didn’t spend a lot of time taking care of them.