Her Billionaires(29)
“Shh!” he said, grabbing her arm suddenly, the pressure of his fingers more urgent than arousing. “Look!” he hissed, pointing into the woods. She leaned into him, craning her head to see what he was pointing to, taking advantage of the moment to get that much closer, to cross the silent boundary between them and to bridge the gap in those first seconds of contact that you never get back.
She could smell him this close and he smelled like pine and sweat and something more— a sporty musk that seemed to turn on her inner sensors, making her instantly flushed, a lump forming in her throat that told her that there was definitely a spark of chemistry here. An inner bliss poured into her veins, channeling through her, making every pore hum and relax as she reveled in the newness of Mike.
“What is it?” she asked.
“There —do you see it?” Two deer stood deep in the woods munching on the bark of a tree. The mother perked her head up, turned to her fawn, and looked back at Laura and Mike with a precision only animals could possess. The doe nudged her baby and the two ran off into the woods, not so much scared as careful. You never know about humans; they’re just as likely to be friend as foe, and Laura understood. Goodbye, little Mama, she thought.
“Oh, wow,” Laura said. “That’s really beautiful.” A quick glance showed he was watching the animals as intently as she was, yet also attuned to the tension between them, now shifting from the sheer simplicity of first contact to a journey of unspoken communication. Blood pulsed through her, beating a rhythm of questions she hoped he could feel and that, in turn, he could decipher. I want you, it said, and the greatest hope inside her was that his return beat would be the message, I want you, too.
The pressure of his fingers lightened, shifting from a grab of urgency to a lingering touch that asked a question his mouth couldn’t— or wouldn’t—ask. Two seconds, Laura, she told herself, two seconds to just start to breathe before turning and looking at him. Was that his return beat? The feel of his fingertips was agonizingly puzzling, for it could mean nothing or, if she was right, it could mean everything.
When she turned, body perked like the doe’s, heightened by animal instinct, she saw it in his eyes, too, as Mike leaned down and took her lips with his.
Bringing Laura up here had been a dicey move. He hadn’t really thought much about his request to make a first date out of a hike, but then again he wasn’t exactly Mr. Suave. And this was his life, so sharing it with someone upfront made a certain kind of sense to him. Get reality out of the way and if the other person still wanted to see him, then great. If not, they didn’t waste their time and could move on. If only everything were so simple. Dating, so far, hadn’t been, no matter how hard he tried to make it cut and dried.
He found solace—he found peace—he found meaning and fun and even excitement in the woods, on the slopes, on a long run. When he ran, his mind turned off and something deeper turned on. An awareness of being that he only got from the pounding of his soles against the pavement, against the dirt, on the trail.
Most people didn’t like the way he lived. It was too different, too quiet, too introspective and too focused on doing and not focused enough on talking or posturing or obvious displays of status or of involvement in things that just didn’t matter to him. He wanted to move. He wanted to run. He wanted to ski. He wanted to help people. And to his surprise, as he’d reached adulthood, he’d found that there weren’t that many women, or men for that matter, who valued that.
He watched Laura closely and had liked what he saw. She wasn’t an outdoors type but she was gamely marching on up this hill; he could tell she wasn’t a hiker. He could tell she wasn’t the type who would, on her own, take the initiative and go for a long bike or a run or a swim. She certainly wasn’t a triathlete, but she had a gentleness about her and openness and a willingness to just be that he didn’t find in many people.
He didn’t find it in any people other than, strangely enough, Dylan—and then in Jill. And so when he leaned in to kiss Laura, he surprised himself; that was the last thing he expected he would do on a first date. He wasn’t exactly the kind of guy who wined and dined women, and yet this felt right. It felt perfect.#p#分页标题#e#
Something in him deepened as their mouths met, as he reached for her, as he claimed those curves for his own. In that moment, he rose up and a finesse, a sophistication that he knew was there but buried very deep, surged to the surface. This woman was his, in his arms as she softened, opening up to him, their tongues intertwining. He would definitely not be just sharing this woman with Dylan. They would be partners with this woman.