One title catches me completely off guard. On his little bookshelf is a copy of Like Water for Chocolate. I slip it off the shelf and thumb through the ragged volume.
“You have this book?”
He nods solemnly as he fills two plates with food.
“Why do you have this?”
He shrugs. “I read it in prison and liked it so much I kept re-reading it. When I was released, the prison librarian let me keep it.”
I shake it at him. “No, but why, specifically, did you read it and keep rereading it?”
He looks like a deer in headlights. “You said it was your favorite book. At first I just wanted to read it because I hoped it would make me feel closer to you. But then I genuinely enjoyed it, and…”
He doesn’t finish because he sees I’ve covered my mouth and my eyes are leaking.
“Laney. What is it? Why are you crying?” I hear him setting down plates and coming close to me.
I can barely get out the words. “I can’t believe you remembered.”
“Of course I remembered. I haven’t forgotten a single thing about you. Do you see these flowers?” He points to a tiny bud vase with a red flower in it right next to his bed, which sits across from the stove. “I keep this on my table, always, because it reminds me of the dress you wore that night.”
I cover my eyes. It’s too much. “No, you do not.”
“How are you surprised by this? I thought about you every single day I was in prison. I thought I made that clear.”
I shake my head but he keeps going.
I have to shut him up. Finally. I grab him and hush him with my mouth. Throwing my arms around his neck, I kiss him so hard that I push this tall fellow backward until the chair keels over behind him and we’re on the bed, kissing, with me on top of him.
His salty lips are still at first, as are his hands, like he’s not sure this is actually happening. I pry open his mouth with my tongue and thrust it in to taste him, needing his lips, his tongue, his mouth.
He needs to know how much he’s undone me. He needs to know all the things I’ve been thinking about even though I’ve been totally heartbroken, and now it’s coming back together.
Chapter 17
Laney
I wake up to a warm sensation all over my body. It’s warm in this hut, probably because I slept late and forgot to close the balcony and now the sun is streaming in, blazing up the entire room with its heat.
But after another minute, I realize that no, it’s my body producing that heat. And I’m not in my hut, I’m on Hugo’s boat. I look down and see the source of my heat.
Hugo’s mouth is full of me. Claiming me, owning me. Kissing and licking ever so slowly that it lights up every last nerve ending in my body and my blood feels like I might have a fever.
“Hugo,” I whisper.
He pauses his open-mouth kisses against my sensitive skin just long enough to whisper something in French. “Mon coeur."
His words transport me back to our first night together.
I give in to the happy memory and imprint it with what’s happening to me, to us, right now.
“My god, what a gift you are to me,” he whispers against my sensitive skin.
His soft, sensuous suction resumes. The feeling could be compared to a swarm of butterflies teasing me all over my skin.
Every time he speaks, I hear the realness in his voice. I’m overcome with emotion.
I’m so turned on at the moment, I have to bite down on my lip because all the windows are open and if I let loose, everyone on the dock will know what’s happening in here.