OCTOBER 20, 2015
WE NEVER MADE IT OUT of the house. Not that day or the next.
“I could stare at you all day,” he said.
He picked up a piece of metal in his workshop, and then measured where he needed to make the next cut. The sun was beginning to set, a small bead against the horizon.
I was sitting on a stool, wearing only his shirt, hair messy and lips swollen from his whiskery kisses. My overalls hung carelessly from the hand of the sculpture, an afterthought from the quickie we had earlier that morning up against one of his tables.
I couldn’t have been happier. A feeling I wasn’t used to. It encompassed my entire heart. Made me feel like I could lift off the ground at any moment. I was drunk from it. High. Never wanting to come down.
I smirked at him, heady and tempting. He sat the piece down and crossed the small gap between us, hands digging into my waist as he stole another deep, searing kiss. He tasted like mint and sweat, and I couldn’t get enough.
“If you keep kissing me every two seconds, you’re never going to finish,” I said with a giggle. He pulled away, his gaze swimming with mine. We were somewhere far from there, in a world made of denial and hope.
“If you’d stop looking at me like that, I might be able to resist,” he said, his tongue tracing the outline of my lips.
I felt him in my marrow.
It took every ounce of strength, but I pushed him back with a small laugh. “Go,” I said, waving him off. “I want to see the artist in action.” I reached for my camera and held it up, recording him as he seemed to dance between his tools and the metal structure of me he was putting together.
Hours moved past us, but we didn’t know any different. I was enraptured watching him. Catching him at different angles as he welded and measured and cut. His muscles flexing with a fine sheen of sweat.
I zoomed in.
He did this thing where his tongue stuck just outside the corner of his mouth while he was concentrating. An adorable, humanizing gesture. His hair would fall in his face, out of his loose bun, a dark sliver shielding his eyes from me. I moved behind him, zooming in on the birthmark on the back of his neck, mind spinning with ideas on editing this shot.
I stood back, lowered the camera to the pleasant roundness of his ass. He had a shapely ass. Muscular and tight, and just the right amount of—
He spun around. “Are you recording my ass?”
I lifted the camera to his face, wanting to capture his reaction as I said, “You have the ass of a god. I’d be going against my own principles of art if I didn’t put that ass on film.”
He stepped closer, his face filling the small screen. “Would you like to see more?”
He was taunting me. Playing my own game. He was already shirtless as his fingers found the buttons to his jeans. My heart was banging against my chest. I told my hands to remain steady so I could record the slow falling of his pants. He was a boxer-brief kind of man. Navy-blue material hugged his sculpted thighs as he stared into the camera.
My mouth went dry.
“Keep going,” I instructed, every fiber of my being turned on and ready by the erotic feeling of this moment. I’d never done this before. Never used my art in this way. A slow strum of acoustic music played in the background, his movements synced with the heady pace.
His smile was dark and daring as he dug his thumb into the hem of his underwear, and then slid them down without a flicker of fear. Lord, help me, I thought as I drank him in. How could one person be so painfully beautiful? It wasn’t just his height and his muscle that made him feel large and overpowering; it was his presence. The way he held himself.
I took my time moving around him, camera in hand, recording the beauty of his body. A recording I’d store away for only my eyes. A close up of the corrugation of his stomach. I imagined editing in an overlapping of the desert, my lips pressed together, blowing the sands of time across his belly. Every shot of skin inspired an image in my mind.
“You’re sexy when you’re focused,” he said as I came around and stood in front of him, zooming in on his lips. I wanted to nibble on them. Take my time tasting his mouth. Learning the curves of his lips. “Now, come here.”
I sat the camera down, eyes trained on his.
He grew hard when I pulled off my T-shirt, leaving us both exposed and vulnerable to the camera. I wasn’t sure my heart had ever pounded that hard as he took me right there.
“I WANT A COPY OF that,” he said, a hook of a smirk on his face.
Electricity lived inside me, jolting every time he spoke. The thought of him watching us together made my heart race. Made me feel like I’d marked him in some way. It was our secret. The reason I chose the career I did… to keep moments like those forever, so when we were gray and our bones were brittle, we could remember the time when life was vibrant within us.
“Only if you let me name her when you’re done.” I jutted my chin in the direction of his sculpture.
“What will you call her?”
I thought about it. Chewed on the corner of my lip. “She should be named Fortuna.”
“Fortuna,” he said, testing the name.
“After the goddess of luck and chance. It was luck I met you on the beach that day, and chance I found you in the diner shortly after.”
He grinned. “Deal.”
I slid my overalls on over his borrowed T-shirt, and then took in a deep breath of air. “I don’t know about you, but I could use some fresh air,” I said as I stopped at the door to his shed. “Want to walk with me?”
We strolled through the garden in the back, following a pebbled path that artfully wove in and around the sprawling acres of his backyard. String lights hung from tree to tree, creating a majestic pathway to walk under.
The time put into his garden had to be painstaking, almost as if it were a shrine. There were perfectly placed ponds with Koi fish and small, lit cascading waterfalls. A variety of lush, tropical plants in vibrant greens and yellows with display lights underneath them. It was a hidden paradise that stretched on, and it made me yearn for my camera I left back in the shed.
“If I were religious, this is where I’d want to go to pray. Props to your gardener. “
“My gardener thanks you for your compliment,” he said with a smug smile.
I whipped my head in his direction. “Wait… you keep this up?” Surely this man couldn’t be real. He could cook. He could make art. He was deep and complicated and beyond handsome. And he could kiss like it was no one’s business.
Couldn’t forget that detail.
“It was my mother’s.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I know it’s silly, but… I guess it makes me feel closer to her. Like I’m making her proud.”
It hit me then. How fiercely loyal and giving he was to those he held close to his heart. His house, the garden, his diner, they were his trifecta keeping him glued together. It scared me, because he was good to his core. Always putting others before himself. There wasn’t enough of that type of goodness in the world. Everyone was always looking out for themselves.
My heart softened more for him before I could stop it.
I took his hand in mine, heart diving deep into the bright blue of his eyes. “What do you want, Hudson? Really? Everything I know about you tells me you’re living your life for everyone else. But what about what you want?”
He stared at me for a moment, his eyebrows furrowing as he contemplated my question. His hand lifted, and then he brushed a curl behind my ear. “To have a family and be happy.”
I saw it then, in his eyes that were steadfast on me. Tucking children into bed at night. Cozying up by a bonfire, laughing about that day’s activities. Growing old and turning gray, still madly in love. Things I never wanted. Things that didn’t sound as scary.
Cool it, hormones, I told myself. What the hell was it with women and their biological clocks zapping them where it counted every time a sexy man talked about wanting children? I wouldn’t be another statistic, throwing my dreams aside so I could settle down and ruin some little person’s life.
I cleared my throat and started walking, tucking my thumbs behind the straps of my overalls. “I’m sure you’ll find that one day, Hudson. Any woman would be lucky to share that dream with you.”
My stomach sloshed at the thought, but I shoved the feeling away. I didn’t want a family. Kids needed parents who could put their own selfish needs aside. Mine didn’t. And weren’t we all a product of our upbringing? Cycles repeating themselves over and over until someone came along strong enough to break the bad ones?
I didn’t have faith I could be that someone.
Sad, but true.
He fell back in step with me. Nudged me. “What about you? What would make you happy?”
“Honestly?”
He nodded.
“To feel at peace.”