“Do you enjoy working at the flower shop?” he asked.
I nodded. “I do. I’m afraid I’m not very ambitious.”
“Why do you care about ambition?” he asked. “You should care more about being happy.”
I turned to face him, absolutely loving the conviction in his tone at his words.
“I know,” I said. “But the expectations of your loved ones are a heavy burden to carry. Plus, I’m adopted, and I know I shouldn’t be saying this, but I feel a bit more indebted to them than I probably would have if they were my biological parents.”
“I completely understand.” Then he leaned forward and without a word, tucked my hair behind my ears as though it was an abominable obstruction to his view of my face. Then he gazed at me with such love in his eyes that I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“Why do you look at me like that?” I asked.
“Like how?” he asked.
I forced myself not to hold back. “Like you … adore me.”
24
Willow
“I do … adore you,” he said quietly.
His answer shocked and confused me. I distinctively felt as that was not the first time I was hearing those words from him. He’d said those exact words to me before and I had said something similar back. But of course, he hadn’t and neither had I. I must be mistaken, but I couldn’t help feeling as if I was dealing with something I couldn’t understand. There was also the sense of danger, as if I was stumbling about in the dark and there were monsters prowling all around me.
“I’m done,” I said, jumping to my feet. “I should leave so that you can get back to work.”
He rose with me, and began to assist me in putting away the used boxes. He wrapped it all in a plastic bag and as he headed over to a corner to deposit it in the wastepaper basket I headed over to his windows. I wanted to leave, but I couldn’t help myself. The view was so striking. I had never seen Folsom from this high up before.
“This is beautiful,” I said.
“It’s even better when you look at it with the lights off,” I heard him say from behind me. The monsters were waiting in the dark. I didn’t turn around to face him.
“Could you turn the lights off then? I want to see it.”
A second later, I heard a click and the entire room was thrown into darkness, offset only by the illumination of the town’s skyline beyond.
I heard him come up to me. Just as I had expected and hoped, he stood behind me. He was so close I could feel lovely heat from his body.
As though programmed to respond, I took a step backwards, and leaned my frame into his.
His arms encircled my waist, and I couldn’t ignore the fact that I felt more at home in his embrace, than I ever had in my own body. We both watched the skyline lit by thousands and thousands of little lights, and didn’t say a word. Simply content to bask in each other’s presence. But as my awe at the splendor of the skyline before me began to fade into the background, I became more and more aware of the hard solidity of his body. I had never leaned on a man like this and it felt so damn good.
The sweet ache in my core that had made my nerves taut with tension all evening, began to intensify. My fingers began to stroke the skin of his arms, and in response his arms tightened around me. I didn’t know how to ask for what I wanted. I wished I was Sandra. She would have just turned around, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him naturally, but me. I was frozen to the spot.
I battled internally with myself: how to delicately let him know that I wanted him to fuck me out of my mind, and when I couldn’t find the guts I gave up with a sigh.
It was time to leave anyway. I tried to pull out of his hold, but he wouldn’t let me go. His arms were underneath my breasts now and with the way they were bunched up, he might as well have been touching them.
Suddenly, I found my courage. What did I have to lose? I began to slowly grind my ass into the bulge in his pants, and before long, my effect on him was apparent. He became as hard as rock.
I moved my hands from his arms and wrapped them around his neck. My chest jutted forward, as my gyration against his groin continued. My intention couldn’t be clearer.
“Touch me,” I groaned.
He leaned down to place a soft kiss on the skin that shielded the pulse in my neck. Then his arms loosened, and began to move up the outline of my body towards my breasts. The sinking of his hands into the soft swells of my breasts was so intimate and erotic, I was convinced that it was enough to make me orgasm right then, but I bit my lip and hung on.