It wasn’t because the car that she had dreamed up alongside her father so long ago and waited so long to bring to life was already gone, its life even shorter than the amount of time that she had spent as her father’s pride and joy, all of its beauty and flair stripped and gone with just a shell left behind.
She did not look over when Jag crouched beside her, could not look away from the wreckage even as she sensed the heat and nearness of his presence and could catch the sandalwood scent of his skin on the wind.
He was fully naked now, she knew it without looking, but being unsettled by his nudity seemed suddenly childish and unimportant when faced with the wreck of the car.
Her tears fell just as Jag’s arm came around her shoulders.
The feeling of warm pressure of his bare skin through the thin material of her suit unleashed the floodgates.
Great racking sobs coursed through Rita’s body as she leaned into him. And he just let her cry—for the pain of having to choose between family and future, for the loss of the magnificent car, and for the complications that kept them from being everything to each other that they could.
When finally her tears had subsided, Jag’s voice was low and gentle when he said, “We should go. We’re not far from the place I wanted to show you. We can walk there and call for assistance where it’s warmer.”
Gently, he drew her to her feet, and the movement, coupled with the reminder of his nudity, inevitably drew her eyes downward toward the apex of his thighs, where a great mystery of the world lay revealed to her.
As if powerless to the thrall of her hormones and force of her curiosity, Rita could not look away as he stood before her riveted gaze.
Fiery heat flamed her cheeks, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away.
Free from the cover of his clothing, the trail of hair that began beneath his belly button could be seen leading in a straight line to the dark hair at the base of his shaft.
She took note of the details of him as if she had never before seen a human body.
And perhaps she never had.
She certainly had never seen a body like Jag’s.
Swallowing once more, her arm reached toward him without her say-so or permission, as if driven by a need all of its own. And, as if the small, unintended motion were enough to break the heavy spell that had entrapped them, Jag cleared his throat loudly and stepped back, severing the connection that held their gazes.
“We should get to the ruins,” Jag said thickly, adding, “The desert cold catches one quicker than you’d imagine. Just give me a second to shake these out.” The last was said as he rummaged through the pile of clothes that she had been certain only moments before that he was going to leave beside the wreck to retrieve the small black cloth of his boxers.
Looking away as he pulled them on, not cold in the least, Rita said, her voice viscous and heavy, knotting and tangling in her throat in the jumble of all of the erotic details her eyes had taken in, “Absolutely. Certainly. Take your time, it’s fine. Being comfortable is the most important.” She had to force herself to stop talking, realizing the stream of repetitive assertions would only continue if she let it.
Stepping away as if even a little more space would magically render her unaware of the powerfully attractive man she was with, she asked with determined casualness, “Which direction?”
Eyeing her for a moment before answering, Jag lifted an arm, pointed in a direction that looked the same as every other direction in Rita’s eyes, and said, “That way.”
Nodding decidedly, uncomfortably aware of every private feminine place that the sight of her naked husband had activated, her new sensual alertness only further exacerbated by the intimate hug of her catsuit, Rita took a determined step in the direction Jag had pointed, angling her body and face so that his was just outside her line of vision. Even now, clad in boxers, he was too much stimulation. “Great. Let’s go.”
Behind her, Jag laughed. “Don’t forget your jacket. We’re going to need it.”
Stopping in her tracks, Rita returned to the car to retrieve the jacket.
The walk was short, thankfully for Rita, who soon followed behind Jag trying to look at the stars, and the miles of dunes all around them, and her shoeless feet sinking in the sand, and anything but the rear end of the man who led the way.
Dragging her eyes back up to the round and full moon overhead once more, Rita asked, “Where are we going again?”
“You’ll see soon,” Jag answered enigmatically.
“I had no idea there was a destination out this way,” she noted.
“It’s something not many people know about. I wanted to show you,” he said.
Shortly thereafter, Rita wondered no more.
Appearing almost out of nowhere was a small ruin mound, its ancient stone walls crumbling into the dune that had built up around it, filling and burying parts of it, furthering the erosive process of the structure and the sand becoming one and the same.
In the bright moonlight, the ruin’s arched doorways and crumbling pillars cast long dark shadows, only enhancing the sense that magic and mystery lurked all around.