Jackson took a slow glance over his shoulder. “Why would he have someone follow you?”
“Because he’s a psycho,” she whispered in his ear then chuckled. “If he gets within a football field of me, he’ll be arrested. Sometimes I feel like someone is following me, but I can never detect who. It’s just an unsettling feeling.”
“So it was physical abuse?”
Ryn twisted her lips. “Hmm … yeah, I’d say seven trips to various hospitals in less than a year would qualify as physical abuse.”
Jackson didn’t flinch or even blink. Most people had some sort of involuntary reaction if she confessed her past.
“It started years ago when Maddie was a baby.” Ryn rested her elbow on the table then her chin on her hand. “I think you should take me home.” She yawned. “We’ve been here less than an hour, and I’ve consumed way too much alcohol in that short amount of time. I’m off kilter around you.”
He grinned behind the mouth of his beer bottle as he took the last swig. “Why is that?”
There was the lack of sex with something or someone other than an inanimate vibrating object, the age difference flashing in neon, and the nervous vibe that someone set everything up as a joke. At any given moment it seemed possible that her friends and family could jump out and yell surprise or gotcha—a fortieth birthday prank of sorts. Ha ha. Ryn actually thought this guy was interested in her.
“Why is that … good question. Let me see, you kinda came out of nowhere. You have this Magic Mike stripper’s body—”
“Who’s Magic Mike?”
Her laugh came out as a cough. “It doesn’t matter. My point is you’re unexpected … too unexpected. I’m trying to make sense of this little game we’re playing. I’m on the cusp of losing my youth, truthfully I’ve already lost it, but I enjoy the warm comfort of denial. Then you swoop in just before I turn forty and kiss me like we’re teenagers, joke about marrying me, and the way you look at me … well, there are no words.” Closing her eyes she shook her head. The alcohol was no match for how dizzy she felt under the intensity of his gaze.
“These little muscles in your jaw twitch when I look at you. I like to imagine they’re the gatekeepers to the words you’re dying to say … the ones that I’m certain will land you naked in my bed.” Jackson rolled his lips between his teeth and studied her, always with a look of intrigue. “Then you swallow hard about every ten seconds. Need I tell you what image that conjures in my head? But then I feel your heavy breaths, even though I know you’re trying to control them, and swear I can actually hear your heart beating in your chest. I know you say we can’t have sex, but I say it’s too late. These little things you do fuck me in ways I never imagined possible. No matter what I say, you never look away. Your eyes can’t hide what your body tries to deny.”
Pantyliner. Ryn needed a pantyliner to absorb whatever trickled down her sex. In a desperate prayer she hoped it was her melting libido and not the untimely arrival of her unpredictable “friend.” Did he see that in her eyes? Fear. Embarrassment. Anguish.
“You should go pull the car up front.”
He narrowed his eyes, but only for a second. “Okay.”
Her living dream disappeared out the door. His car was twenty yards from the entrance to the bar. It wasn’t raining, and she gave no explanation for her odd request. Yet, he did it—no questions asked. The undefinable connection between them began taking on a life of its own. It was a lucid dream, and anyone who tried to wake her would be murdered—unless she herself died of embarrassment first.
“Please don’t let Bloody Mary be the theme for the night,” she whispered to herself, making a quick dash to the restroom.
No blood.
Ryn sighed as she dealt with the juice fest in her nether region with the most unpredictable terrain. One day sex felt like trying to start a fire with flint and metal, the next day just the thought of sex brought on a tsunami of secretions. Jackson was the earthquake that triggered that tsunami. Her cotton panties were drenched and sadly, she had a wet spot on the backside of her skirt to prove it.
“Lovely,” she murmured, looking over her shoulder with her back to the mirror.
A quick air-dry later, she wormed her way through the growing bar crowd to the wood-paneled chariot.
“Ryn?”
She turned before opening the car door.
“I thought that was you.”
Eyes wide like the dots to two big question marks, she smiled. “Hi … uh…”
“Brad. We had coffee about a year ago.”
Ryn nodded but her brain shook its head at the complete lack of recognition.