Secondhand Purses (20 page)

“Sorry, Alex.”

“It’s no big deal, I get it. At twenty six I should have already marched about twenty guys in and out of my panties. But, I just can’t bring myself to be casual with my body like that. Eat, please, I need a second and third opinion on whether this makes the menu.”

The girls cut into their pastries, both of them whimpering a bit when the molten chocolate oozed out. I watched their faces as they experienced the cornetto. Watched their eyes darken and their pupils dilate. People didn’t realize, but the physical responses that they had to great food sometime was equal to that of actual desire. It was incredible to watch. It was my drug.

I watched them raise the forks to their lips, their tongues darting out to touch the blended combination of chocolate and strawberries. I saw their eyes light up with pleasure as the flavor combination registered in their minds.

As they chewed and swallowed, their moans of pleasure were what sealed the deal for me. I mean, really, who needed sex when they could be witness to this all day. This
was
my sex, my intimacy.

“Well?”

“Damn, woman. I can’t even come up with words to describe how that tasted, and I come up with words for a living.”

“How many of these do you have?” Ashely leaned over, trying to see if there were any more behind the counter.

“So, you think this is going to work? The bakery, I mean?”

“I think that you had better take it easy in the coming weeks. Because I have a feeling you’re going to be so busy with non-stop customers once you open, you’re not going to have any time off for a
very
long time.”

“From your lips to God’s ears.”

chapter twenty four

‘
Chirp’

I looked down at my phone and saw that I had a message from Nick.

‘Pick you up in about fifteen minutes.’

I sat there, staring at my phone. I had thought I was going to meet him there. That was what he had said, right? I replayed our last conversation in my mind. Yup, that’s what he’d said. I didn’t know if this was a good idea. I mean, us going together seemed too much like a date, right? Too much like we were a couple?

‘
Thought I was meeting you there.’

‘Nope, picking you up. Friends do that, too.’

Well, he had me on that one. I looked down at my workout clothes, suddenly very self-conscious about what I’d chosen. I went over to the mirror in the foyer, to double check for camel toe. Everything seemed to be in order. I was about to run upstairs to get a long t-shirt instead of the tank I was wearing when heard the knock on the door.

Crap. Too late.

I opened the door and nearly had a 1800s English romance novel level swoon.

I mean, seriously. Dayum.

I had to fight myself not to touch. How had I not noticed until now that Nick had tattoos? So my dream guy from my teen years has the dark Italian looks I seemed to crave, rode a motorcycle and had tattoos? My uterus was practically begging me at this point to just give it up already and make babies with this man. Or at least
try
to make babies. A freaking
lot
.

“Hey, Alex? My eyes are up here.”

Nope, pretty sure they weren’t. His teasing voice was trying to break through my thick skull as I salivated over biceps, abs and ink.

I shook my head to get the lust induced fuzz out of it, glared at him, and stepped back.

“Let me just get my purse and a bottle of water. You want one?”

“No thanks. I’ve got one in the truck.”

“Okay.”

I turned to walk away and felt his hand wrap against my wrist. I looked down at his hand in shock, the warmth flowing up my arm from where he held on to me.

He pulled me sharply towards, him, so that I ended up falling into him.

“This seems to be our favorite position.” His voice had taken on a deeper, huskier tone. This was dangerous territory. I needed to regain control of the situation, stat. My brain was trying to pull away from him, but I imagined that my girl parts had wrapped my brain in duct tape, put a gag in its mouth and was cheering me on from the sidelines.

I reached a hand to his chest to start to push him away from me. Ugh, he definitely worked out. I looked up to start speaking and was staring up into hot chocolate eyes.

In my defense, I did push him away. A little. He must have felt it, too, because he reached up and wrapped his other hand around mine and held it tighter to his chest.

I couldn’t have torn my eyes from his if you’d paid me a million dollars. Seriously, every cell in my body was frozen in place at this moment.

Nick slowly lowered his head towards mine. My heart was pounding. Oh my God, was I about to have a heart attack? Well, I really didn’t care at this moment, it was a kind of worth dying right now, heart stopping moment.

He leaned past my lips, and I could feel his breath on my ear.

“Breathe, Alex.” His whispered voice sent shivers down my back. I hadn’t even realized that I was holding my breath until that moment. I let the air out in a whoosh, and turned my head towards his.

“Better.” Nick smiled at me. He released his grip on my arms, and his hand moved to my back, stroked upward, up my neck, and through my hair to the back of my head.

“If you want me to stop, tell me. If you really don’t want this to happen, you’d better let me know now.”

I just looked at him, my lips parted as I was having a hard time catching my breath. It really wasn’t registering to me that he had just given me an out. An out that my brain heard but was still being held hostage at gunpoint by every other system in my body.

“Alex, last chance. If you don’t want this, say no.”

“No?” I was nodding while asking the question, my voice thin and unconvincing.

“Still adorable.” His voice was barely audible with the rush of blood pounding in my ears.

His grip on the back of my head tightened, and he pulled me tight against his body with the other hand that had wrapped around my lower back.

He paused a second, his eyes searching mine, but I didn’t know for what. Then that impossible grin as he pulled me the rest of the way, lowering his head to mine.

His lips touched mine gently at first, slowly adding pressure and intensity. I felt his teeth gently bite my lower lip as he sucked on it a little bit, asking permission for more.

I hesitated.

For about a half of a second.

I reached around and slid my hands up under his shirt, ran my hands over the muscles of his back, and dug my nails into his skin. I heard him hiss with the sting of pain.

I pulled him closer and opened my mouth to his. He took immediate advantage, and ran his tongue across the lip he had nibbled on before deepening the kiss.

I didn’t even notice that we had started moving, until my back was against the wall.

I could both hear and feel the groan coming from his throat as I kissed him back with the same level of intensity that he was giving me.

He moved his kiss down to my throat and my head automatically tipped back, giving him better access. I felt his hand moving up underneath the front of my tank top, under my sports bra, and cupping my breast.

Holy shit that felt incredible. Warmth pooled in an area that I had though was permanently out of commission.

He gently squeezed my breast while gently sucking on my neck. I couldn’t help it, I moaned like a porn star.

He pinched my hardened nipple and I yelped a little at the instant pain, but then groaned as it turned into pleasure. So. Much. Pleasure.

That little nip of pain had me opening my eyes and I realized I was staring out the open front door of my house onto the street. The somewhat busy street of a little town where everyone knew everyone and what everyone was doing.

What had I done?

I unwrapped my legs from his waist one at a time, not remembering when they had moved up and wrapped themselves around him. My body protested that it was being pulled away from him, especially when it was incredibly obvious how much he was enjoying this as well. I mean,
incredibly
obvious.

My brain was apparently working its way loose from the duct tape and gag my hormones put it in, and was beating the shit out of my lady parts for getting us in this situation. Reason was starting to win as I slipped from his grasp and put as much room between us as possible.

I couldn’t blame him for what had just happened. Not entirely. Oh, I was certain that at some point I would be able to come up with a way to blame him, but not at this moment. I had thrown myself whole heartedly into every moment of that make out session.

I was shocked at the fact that I had almost given up my v-card against the wall in my foyer with the door wide open. I was supposed to have at least a little more self-control than that. Perhaps I had given myself too much credit. Maybe the reason I hadn’t lost my virginity before was because the countless guys I’d dated didn’t make me feel even a
tenth
of what Nick’s kiss did.

I jogged to the kitchen, grabbed a water bottle, and grabbed my purse.

Looking at Nick, I could barely meet his eyes.

“Let’s go, kickboxing time.” I tried to get the breathy quality out of my voice. The game just changed and I wasn’t ready for it to.

“Uh, okay.” He looked at me with a darkening gaze, confusion and a little bit of hurt in his eyes. He didn’t even bother hiding his arousal, which was tenting his gym shorts considerably. I tore my gaze away from
that
and walked towards the door, pointedly waiting for him to walk out of my house.

He glared at me a little before stalking out the front door towards his truck. I locked up the house, and jogged to the truck.

Despite me leaving him a little blue, he was holding open the passenger side door for me.

“Thanks.” I mumbled my appreciation as I climbed into his huge truck.

I looked down at the console and saw several CDs. Huh, he had a truck with a CD player? I thought that nowadays they all came with MP3 jacks. I scanned over the options, my eyes bugging out when I saw the name Rob Thomas.

No way.

No freaking way.

I pulled the CD out from the rest, and sure enough, it was the CD I’d given him for his birthday. I opened up the case and pulled out the insert, opening it up to where I’d written him the note.

I saw my sixteen year old handwriting looking back at me.

Love you.

And I still did. Shit.

My eyes filled up with tears. This was not supposed to have happened. I was supposed to be able to keep away from him. I told him that I didn’t want to know how a heart felt when it was broken, but it seemed like my heart was destined to constantly break at his hand.

Like right now. I still loved him. My body craved him. But I knew I couldn’t survive having him. Because if I said yes and he walked away at any point in time, it would kill me. My heart was breaking because I had just decided.

The answer had to be no. In my mind, my not-so-ladylike parts just threw themselves on the floor and were having a full on kicking and screaming temper tantrum.

He saw me put the cover back in the CD case and put it away, but didn’t say a word. We drove in silence to the little strip mall where FierceFit was located.

I was both sorry and really grateful to get out of the truck. I needed to kick and punch something. I needed to get the frustration and growing anger I felt out of my body.

I looked at him, giving him a tight grin that I was sure didn’t meet my eyes.

“Ready to get your ass kicked?”

He looked at me sadly, shaking his head as he walked ahead of me towards the gym.

Yup, this was how a heart breaks.

chapter twenty five

I ran up the stairs behind Nick, and walked through the doors of the gym.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but this wasn’t it. I was used to stark gyms, colorless, cold and impersonal.

I walked into this gym, and was met with thumping house music. The lights were low and there was a floor disco light ball casting colors around the room. A handful of people were milling around in the little lobby area.

“Hi, I’m Leah. You’re new.”

“Yeah, we’re here for kickboxing. I’m Alex, this is my… friend, Nick. Are we late?” I felt Nick pull back about a half an inch. But the distance between us was growing as wide as the Grand Canyon, with me hesitating over what he was to me. Great, screwed up again.

“Nope, right on time. Kirstin is just wrapping up her class, she’ll be done in about five minutes.”

“Do you work here?”

“Yeah, I guess you could say that.” Leah let out a soft laugh.

“Hey, Lee, need me to wrap you up?” A guy came over, holding up hot pink wrap.

“Great, thanks Corey.” She held her arms out to him, and turned to look over her shoulder at me.

“Your first class with us is free, so you can try it out. Have you ever done kickboxing before?”

“Did it all the time when I lived in Atlanta.”

“Just to check, kickboxing or cardio kickboxing? They are different and wanted to make sure you aren’t disappointed.”

“I’ve done both, but I’m sort of in the mood to kick ass tonight, so I’m hoping that it’s straight kickboxing.”

She looked between Nick and me and gave a knowing nod.

“It sure is. Looks like Kirsten is done, go grab a pair of gloves and let’s get started.”

I practically skipped into the studio, finally finding a place that I understood. Kickboxing had been my escape, my way of getting through all the anger and pain that had followed me from Providence.

“Need help with those gloves, Alex?” I turned and looked over my shoulder and smiled at Leah.

“Nah, I got it.” I pushed the second glove on and tightened the strap with my teeth. I punched the gloves together a few times and bounced from foot to foot.

“Let’s do this thing.”

Leah shook her head at me, laughing as she walked away.

Corey took the front of the class and led us in some pretty extreme stretching. I’d only been away from kick for a few weeks, but damn, I was tight.

Finally, we were done with stretching and on to the good stuff.

Corey called out combos and I punched and kicked like a wild cat. He walked around with a pad, giving each of us the chance to actually hit something.

I was chomping at the bit to hit those pads, to hit anything.

Finally he stepped in front of me and I had my turn.

“Right jab, left hook, right upper cut. Go.”

I leaned into my jab, leaned back for the hook and then pulled up for the uppercut.

“Again.”

I repeated the cycle, with more power.

“Again.”

I grunted with each punch, my hair had gone loose from my ponytail, hanging in my face in damp tendrils.

We went through ten rounds, and he finally stepped back. I had to fight to not whimper in relief. I did not want anyone, especially Nick, to know how out of shape I was. For all my talk, I was in no way prepared physically to give him the ass kicking I had promised.

He moved on to Nick, who I was glad to see had a hard time keeping the combo straight.

After going through the rounds, Nick bent over, hands on his thighs, his chest heaving. For a second it looked as if he was going to hurl. I wasn’t too upset about this. Yup, I was going to hell.

“Okay everyone I’m going to have you pair up. One of you will hold the pads, the other will be throwing punches. The goal is to
not
hurt each other, well, not yet anyway.” He chuckled to himself.

“Partner up.” Nick and I turned towards each other. I tilted my head in question. He hesitated before nodding his agreement.

I grabbed the pads first, allowing Nick the chance to throw punches. He hung his head for a second, then looked up at me, the raw pain in his eye ripping the breath from my chest. This was not good.

He started throwing the punches to the pad, the force pushing me back a bit before I was able to regain my footing and push back. His form was great, his movements were fluid yet perfectly controlled. It was absolutely a beautiful sight watching him in motion.

“Switch.”

It was my chance to prove that I was the superior athlete, well, at least in kickboxing. It was my chance to deliver the ass whooping that I had promised. So why did I suddenly feel as if it was the last thing I wanted to do?

I looked up at him.

I went to throw the first punch and I stopped halfway through.

“No.”

“Alex, what are you doing?” Nick pushed the pad towards me a little, telling me wordlessly to hit it.

“I can’t, Nick. I just... I can’t.” I pulled off the gloves and walked out of the studio. I don’t know what happened to me in there, but the last thing I wanted to do was throw a punch at him. My heart wasn’t in it.

I waited by his truck for him to finish up, slightly annoyed that he didn’t follow me out. I mean, I got it. I’d done everything wrong tonight. I’d ruined the evening. But still. It would have been nice to be followed out.

Sniff.

I swiped at my cheek and was shocked to find moisture there. I was crying? What the hell? I had promised myself years ago that no more tears would fall with Nick’s name on them. No tears would ever fall for any man.

“Hey.” I turned and looked at him. He had his arms crossed, and was looking everywhere but at me.

“Hey.” Awkward silence. That was so not us. But, then again, there was no us. I had made sure of that with my rejection of him tonight.

“Ready to go?”

“Yeah, ready.”

He opened the door for me and I hopped in. It was a very quiet five minute drive back to my place. He stopped in front and turned off the truck. He rested his forehead on the steering wheel.

“I can’t do this, Alex. I can’t keep trying to make you want to be with me. Your body language says yes. Your eyes say yes. Hell, every part of your body was screaming yes earlier. But then you shut me out. You act like I mean nothing to you when we are around people, when we aren’t alone. I know that what happened ten years ago was horrible, and screwed up, and just
wrong
. But it was ten years ago. Ten
years
. You seem willing to crucify me and not give a chance to prove myself over transgressions from when I was a seventeen year old kid. You aren’t willing to take any blame on yourself, it’s all me, what I did, and how you can’t help but expect me to do it again. I think we could be amazing together. But, I can’t do it alone. I deserve better than this. Alex, I think it’s time for this to come to an end.”

I couldn’t breathe. I knew I’d screwed up. I didn’t think it was that bad.

“Nick, please, give me just a little more time. I know I screwed up tonight, and I’m so sorry. I didn’t want to ruin our night. I’m just scared. I was so broken after what happened. I know it was ten years ago. I know I should get over it. But I’m scared. If there was anyone who could break me, it’s you. And I don’t know if I could survive it this time. I almost didn’t survive last time. But I don’t want to lose you, either.” I know I’d decided that I couldn’t, but I didn’t want that. Not really.

My eyes begged him to change his mind.

He slowly shook his head no.

“I think it’s done, Vicki.” He leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek, then sat back in his seat, leaving me to get out of the truck on my own.

I gasped, and held my breath trying to hold the tears at bay until I got in the house. My breath was threatening to come out in short bursts, the tell-tale sign that an ugly cry was about to hit full throttle.

I scrambled out of the truck and stumbled towards the front door, not looking back over my shoulder to watch him drive away. The acceleration of his engine was enough to put that final knife in my heart.

I closed the door and leaned back against it, my head tilted forward in defeat. I don’t know how it had happened twice in a lifetime, but I had fallen for and been broken by that gorgeous man.

I couldn’t let that happen again.

***

I woke up the next morning, my eyes so dry that it felt like they were being rubbed with sandpaper when I opened my eyes. Ugh. This was worse than a hangover.

I wanted to spend the day in bed feeling sorry for myself, but that was too pathetic for me, so instead it was time to suck it up and face the day.

I looked at my phone and my heart jumped into my throat when I saw that I had a message.

‘
Hey girl, don’t forget to get today’s paper. Everything goes fast forward starting now.’

It was Karyn. Not Nick. I knew it wouldn’t be him, but still.

‘Thanks, K. I’ll grab a copy or thirty on my way in.’

I pushed myself through the motions of getting ready to go in for the last bit of heavy lifting to get the equipment ready and set up for opening.

On my way in I stopped at the gas station and gasped when I saw my face staring back at me from the cover of the Onset Live. I bought myself the largest possible coffee that they sold, and scooped up an armful of papers on my way out of the door.

I let myself in the bakery, and kept the door open as I sat down to read the article.

A little over a month ago, the Onset community mourned the loss of someone who wasn’t from here, but who became one of us in the eight years she lived among us. Nonna would bake for us, telling us stories of her family in Naples. When you saw her walk towards you with her basket your mouth would water in anticipation of what was about to be handed over.

Many times, she would sit down and share stories of her life with you. Most of the time, those stories were about her granddaughter, Alex.

Three weeks from today, Alex will be opening the bakery that she and Nonna dreamt of. But she needs our help as a community. Alex is struggling over what to call it. Onset Live has set up an online voting site at OnsetLive.com/ForNonna. The choices are:

Nonna's Sweet Dreams

Nonna's Flour Power

Nonna's Baked Memories

Nonna's Sticky Buns

Sweet Nonna's

In addition to helping her pick a name, she’s hoping for help decorating the bakery. To make sure that Nonna gets to be a part of her bakery, she is asking if anyone who has pictures of Nonna that they would like to share please bring them to the bakery, which is located on the corner of Onset and Hotel Avenue. They will be proudly displayed in the bakery, making sure that she is forever an active participant in her dream.

I have had the opportunity to visit with Alex in the bakery. It is warm and welcoming with an antique register and pink polka dot walls, which matches an apron that Nonna gave her ten years ago. Alex explained that she’s been spending a great deal of time not only mastering the Italian classics that she learned from Nonna, but also working on giving them a more modern twist. Recreating them. She will be calling them Amped Classics.

While sitting down with her at one of the bistro tables in the bakery she served a chocolate covered strawberry cornetto. The pastry was light and crispy, the chocolate strawberry filling melted in your mouth and warmed your soul.

The grand opening is scheduled for three weeks from today. Please help Alex make Nonna’s dream a reality.

Wow. This was happening.