Meant for Love (24 page)

“Sorry, I’m all sweaty, and you’re so pretty and perfect.”

“I don’t care if you’re sweaty.” To prove her point, she ran her index finger over the moisture on his chest, stopping when she reached his belly button and noticed the hard ridge of his erection.

She looked up at him. “Are you hungry?”

“Starving,” he said, his tone rife with double meaning that had the full attention of all her most sensitive places. “Let’s find some shade.” He took her hand and led her to his truck, where he retrieved a beach towel that he flung over his shoulder. “Glad this was still in the truck from the last time I went surfing.”

“You surf?”

“Yep. I could teach you if you want.”

“I’d love to learn.”

“We’ll do that sometime.” He strolled toward a grove of trees on the far right side of the area where he’d been working. “You’ve got to see this.” Parting a curtain of willow tree branches, he gestured for her to go ahead of him into a garden in full bloom, surrounded on all four sides by tall hedges.

“Oh my goodness!” Jenny turned in a complete circle, taking in the incredible sight of thousands of blooms: lilies and roses and sunflowers, and those were just the flowers she could easily identify. “It’s incredible. And the scent…”

“Isn’t it crazy? The Chesterfield estate pays us to take care of it, even though no one lives here anymore. It was Mrs. Chesterfield’s pride and joy.”

“I can see why. It’s amazing.”

He gave her a quick tour of the garden, dazzling her with his in-depth knowledge of every type of rose and how they were germinated as well as the Latin name for every plant in the garden.

“How do you know all this?”

“It was my job in another life.” The far right corner was tucked in the shade, so Alex guided her that way with his hand on her lower back. He spread the towel and said, “After you.”

Jenny moved carefully to settle on the ground, her legs protesting the movement.

“Still sore?” he asked as he settled next to her.

“Not like yesterday.”

“I feel bad about that.”

“You shouldn’t. It was fun.” She smiled, hoping to reassure him. “A lot of fun.”

“So much fun I’ve thought of little else since then.”

“Is that so?”

“Yep.” He poked his nose into the bag that was closest to him. “What’s for lunch?”

“I got turkey and chicken salad. I’ll eat either, so you can pick.”

“Half of each?”

“That sounds good.”

Jenny unwrapped the sandwiches, handed him half of the turkey, along with a Coke. She opened a bag of chips and put them close to him as she reached for the grapes while he devoured an entire sandwich before she’d had her first bite.

He guzzled a bottle of Coke as Jenny watched him, fascinated.
 

“Sorry, totally dehydrated from the heat,” he said. “Thank you for this.”

“My pleasure.”

“Um, no, it’s definitely my pleasure. My long, boring day just got a whole lot more interesting.”

He made her burn when he said things like that, but she couldn’t get so caught up in being with him that she forgot why she’d come.

“I have a bit of an ulterior motive.”

“Yes, I’ll do you right here in the garden. You didn’t have to bring me lunch to butter me up. I’m kinda easy where you’re concerned.”

Jenny laughed—hard. “You should’ve been spanked more as a child.”

“I’m happy to let you discipline me any time you’d like.”

“Alex. Stop.”

“Why? If I stop embarrassing you, I won’t get to see your sweet blush every time I say something outrageous.”

“I don’t blush.”

“Um, yeah, you do, and it’s fucking hot.”

Jenny blew out a deep breath. He was far too much for her, and yet he was just enough, too. “If you can be serious for a minute, I’d like to talk to you about something.”

“I can be serious, as long as you aren’t going to tell me all the reasons why we can’t possibly keep doing what we’ve been doing.”

“I’m not going to say that,” she said, touched by his concern.

“Oh good.” He popped a grape into his mouth and reclined on one elbow. “The time I’ve spent with you lately is directly related to my will to live.”

“No pressure or anything.”

He smiled widely at her. “None at all.”
 

Did he have any idea how sexy he was? And he wasn’t even trying to be.
 

“So what do you want to talk about?”

Jenny took a deep breath, summoning the calm and the courage she needed to get through this. “I want to tell you about Toby.”

He stared at her, not a muscle in his body moving for a long moment. “Okay.”

“It’s important that you hear it from me, and enough people on the island know my story that I was worried about someone else telling you. I feel bad about interrupting your workday, but I couldn’t wait until later to get this off my chest.”

“You haven’t interrupted anything, and I want to hear anything you want to tell me. But I don’t like seeing you so nervous about talking to me.”

“It’s kind of a big deal.”

“I figured it had to be, or you wouldn’t have been dreaming about him and asking him not to go.”

Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath in through her nose. “I rarely have the dream anymore, and I’ve had it twice recently. I’m trying to figure out what that means.”

His hand on her knee was warm, heavy and comforting. “Start at the beginning. Take all the time you need.”

Jenny forced herself to say words she’d prefer to never say again. “Toby was killed on 9/11. He was in the South Tower of the World Trade Center, above where the plane hit.”

Alex blew out a long deep breath. “Oh God. I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything. Just listen, if you would, and then I’d like to tell you how to successfully navigate this situation, if that’s okay.”

“I’d love to hear that.”

Jenny focused on a cluster of pink rose bushes. “We’d been together three years, from almost the beginning of grad school at Wharton, through the first year of new jobs in New York. We were due to be married just over a month after the attacks.” Jenny rolled a cold bottle of water between her hands. “I’ve been on a very difficult journey since then, to say the least. I’ve been better, much better since I moved here more than a year ago now. The island has given me the fresh start that I desperately needed.”

“Could I ask you something?”

“Anything.”

“The other night, with me. Was that the first time?”

“No, but it was the first time in a long time and the first time it’s mattered, and that’s why I wanted to tell you about this.”

“I’m glad you told me, but I hate that you had to go through such an awful thing.”

“Thank you. I hate it, too. I hate it for everyone who loved him and all the others who were lost that day. I hate it for him because his life was just getting started, and it was snuffed out by people with no regard for what a gift life is to all of us. I hate a lot of things about it, but more than anything, I hate when people look at me and only see my tragedy.”

He thought about that for several quiet minutes.

Jenny took a sip of her Diet Coke and waited to hear what he would say.

“You said it was the first time that mattered. Why do you suppose that is?”

“I don’t know, but it’s been different from the beginning with you. I’m almost afraid to say that, because it’s awfully revealing. And the last thing I want to do is put more pressure on you at a time when you have more than enough to contend with.”

“I don’t feel pressured. I feel honored that you care enough to tell me yourself before I heard it from someone else. I appreciate that you told me what you don’t want, and I get that, too. I hate that everyone here thinks of me as the guy whose mother has dementia. Those things have a way of defining a person.”

“Yes,” she said with a sigh of relief. “Exactly.”

“It was why I liked that you didn’t know who I was at first or what I was dealing with. There was comfort in the anonymity.”

“For me, too. My friends have been fixing me up on dates, and I know the guys are fully prepped, and it’s sweet of my friends to see to that. But I liked it so much better that you didn’t know.”

“I was rough with you.”

“No, you weren’t. You were perfect. If the next time is different, I won’t be happy with you.”

That drew a short laugh from him. “I stand warned.” He looked up at her. “You’re amazing.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. You’ve survived the worst possible thing, and you’re still able to laugh and joke and tease and smile so brightly you make me ache. If I say you’re amazing, you’re amazing.”

Deeply touched by his kind words, she said, “It took a really, really long time to be able to do any of those things.”

“I’m sure it did.” He kissed her hand, setting off a firestorm on the surface of her skin with only the rough brush of his whiskers. “Do you feel better after telling me about it?”

“I do. I felt bad last night that I didn’t tell you when you asked me about him. You told me about your family and your mom. It didn’t seem fair that I was unwilling to do the same.”

“You weren’t unwilling. You weren’t ready.” He reached up to caress her face and then wrapped his hand around her nape, giving a gentle tug to bring her down to him, pillowing her head on his arm. “What you said about this being the first time it mattered?”

She nodded, breathless as she waited to hear what he would say.

“It’s the first time it’s mattered for me in a very long time, too. I had a girlfriend in DC when I lived there. I thought she was the one, until she let me know she wasn’t going to wait around for me to work out my family issues.”

“She actually said that?”

“In so many words. But the funny thing was, I barely gave her a thought after we broke up. I guess it wasn’t what I thought it was.”

“She hurt you.”

“She disappointed me more than anything.”

“I heard what you said about this being a bad time for you to start anything—”

“It is a bad time. Probably the worst possible time, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s already started.”

Jenny rested her hand on his face. “For me, too.”

He curled his arm and brought her in close enough to kiss her.
 

“Don’t you want to finish your lunch?” she asked over the racing beat of her heart.

“I’m ready to move on to dessert.”

“How about I put the rest of this away and then we talk about dessert?”

“Hurry up about it. Dessert is my favorite part of the meal.”

He made her laugh when she’d expected to cry. He made her smile all the time. He embarrassed the hell out of her sometimes, but even that was charming. Most important, he made her
feel
again after twelve years of numbness that she’d once thought was permanent.

With the remnants of the picnic back in the bags and set off to the side, Jenny said, “We’ve got cookies for dessert.”

He held out his arms to her. “I had something sweeter in mind.”

Jenny snuggled into his embrace.
 

“I don’t want to get you all dirty.”

“I don’t care. I’m going home after this.”

“That sounds like a green light for dirty,” he said with a sexy grin.

“Wait. What did I just agree to?”

“I’ll show you.” He kissed her long and hard, his tongue demanding and persuasive.
 

That he now knew her story but still wanted her and still kissed her the same way he always had was a huge relief that had her relaxing in his arms. His lips and hands were everywhere, or so it seemed, and then he was on top of her, their bodies aligned for sensual pleasure. “I want you right here,” he whispered, his lips soft and his whiskers rough against her neck.

Jenny shivered from desire as much as the need she heard in his voice. “What if someone comes?”

“We’ll both come. That’s the point.”

“
Alex!
You know what I mean.”

Laughing at her outrage, he pressed his hard cock against her, letting her know how badly he wanted her. “There’s no one around. We won’t get caught.”

“I don’t know…”

“Come on, live dangerously.” As he said the words, his hand traveled up her leg, taking her skirt with it as it went.

While she was still formulating her objections, he had her dress completely off.

“Alex…”

“Shhh, relax. Trust me.” His lips on her neck were almost as persuasive as his gruffly spoken words.
 

Powerless to resist the desire that thrummed through her like a live wire connected directly to an electrical source, Jenny decided to trust him and forced her rigid muscles to relax.

“That’s it,” he whispered as he kissed his way to the tops of her breasts. He reached under her to release her bra with one-handed skill that indicated lots of practice. She’d have to ask him about that sometime. With her breasts bared to his intense gaze, she couldn’t have found the words just then.