“I’d like you to.”
“Are you sure?”
I was sure. “As long as you remember that I’m a good girl.”
“One of the many reasons I always liked you, Danica.”
Past tense. It crushed me. We went inside. I invited him to sit down. “Wait there a second.” I went to the kitchen and returned with a tall glass of ice and a can of Pepsi. I popped the top and poured it over the ice. We both watched as the foam rose and then fell. I poured in a little more and then handed it to him. “This is so you can focus.”
“I see.” He accepted it and took a sip. “What would you like me to focus on?”
“This.” I took it from him and placed it on the table. I then knelt on the couch beside his hip and pressed a kiss to Jeremy’s lips.
At first, he didn’t react. At least not like I’d expected or hoped. It was more of a shocked inertia, with a hint of cola taste. “Are you sure?” he asked between our pressed lips.
“Mmm.” I wrapped my arms around his neck and coaxed, teased, and practically begged him to respond. When he did, it was with a roar. The intensity of his kiss came from somewhere with temperatures similar to the center of the earth. Its heat singed my eyebrows. Its tenderness turned my skeletal system to pliant cartilage. His kiss left me limp, molten, and smoldering.
And dying for more. “That was good, Jeremy, but I think you might need a little more practice.”
“Oh?” He pulled my hair back, exposing my ear and neck. “Do you know anyone who would volunteer to be my rehearsal partner?”
As his kiss passed over the spot below my ear, I exhaled with a soft moan—my version of volunteering for the next few minutes. Or it might have been hours. Or a million years. Jeremy’s kiss was a time warp, all things present, past, and future in one. I could see forever in his eyes, and feel eternity as he held me.
“That drink really helped me focus.” He traced a pattern on my forearm as I leaned against him. “I didn’t think about anything besides kissing you that whole hour.”
An hour? Wow. “Time flies when I’m kissing you. Which is what got us in trouble on the golf cart.” I sat up straight. “Wait a second. I remember the golf cart.” I whipped around to face him. “I remembered, Jeremy! I remembered the …” … the passionate make out that almost got us in trouble at the country club. “Wow.” I placed my hand on my heating cheek. “We had a good time there.”
“I see you actually do remember.”
I bit my lips together. “Hmmm.” That had been a good kiss. As good as this one tonight. “Jeremy, I can’t believe I’d forgotten that. It was … yeah. It was.” It had been life-alteringly good kissing him on the golf course. I hadn’t even cared when Rufus called us out. “Oh, my gosh. I remember Rufus, too.” Little bits—particles and chunks—were coming back to me.
I stood up and paced back and forth between the coffee table and the couch.
“You’re getting more memories back?”
Here and there, flashes came. A ride in his truck, singing long and loud to The Aussie Boys. Cooking dinner together. That I’d promised to wash his truck. A fishing trip.
“We didn’t do much fishing on the fishing trip, did we?” A guilty grin tugged one side of my mouth. “But we saw the Perseids.” I’d managed to stop kissing him long enough to appreciate the shooting stars. “Jeremy, we were close. Really close.”
He reached for my hand and pulled me down onto his lap. “Yeah.” He touched his forehead to mine. “You gave me a chance. Thanks.”
“You gave me a chance, too.” I kissed him softly once. “Can we”—I didn’t know. Was it my place to ask this? Can we give us a chance? Now?
Jeremy pulled me into a hug. “It’s been great.”
I pulled out of the hug and looked at him. The verb tense of his statement bothered me. “What do you mean? It’s been great.”
“The past three months have been the best I can remember. At first, I thought I was taking a break from work, and coming to see if you could forgive me, but then everything happened.”
“We happened,” I corrected. “And are you—are you leaving again?”
He blinked once for yes, or so it seemed.
“Hotston Properties?” My voice was dry, dusty-sounding. “You’re needed back there.” All those years, I’d rejected Jeremy for his incompetence and his bumbling dingbattiness. And now, come to find out, he was nothing like that. He helmed a purportedly huge business. “But you left it for three months?”
“I did some distance work, now and then. But I have responsibilities that need to be completed in person.”
He’d stayed in Wilder River that long time.