His Gift 2(10)
“Yes.”
“How old are you?”
The last thrills of the orgasm were leaving me under his eyes. He looked so fierce. Almost angry. I frowned back at him, crossing my arms over my chest.
“Did you even bother looking up my name?”
“I’ve only had a few hours, and most of your records are sealed. All of them, in fact. But you knew that, of course.”
Yes. My parents had paid money to scrub away my teenage crimes. They’d been ashamed, and now as I thought about it, the disappointment they’d shown made me feel utterly guilty.
They’d punished me back then, too, of course. Not physically, they weren’t that kind of people. I’d hated the punishment. But their shame made me feel so wrong that it hurt me all over again.
I shook my head. Why did my mind fly to all of my bad memories when I thought back to that time?
“An article on your high school website showed you graduated five years ago, with your name in the list of graduates. I assumed—”
“I got my GED at the end of middle school and went to work on my parents’ farm,” I said, thinking about the two-story white building sitting in the middle of a cluster of low oaks.
“Middle school?”
“Yes.”
He sat down, his face pale. He was sitting in a puddle of paint that I’d dropped earlier, the dark indigo now seeping into the gray of his pants. It looked like a bloodstain on the side of his leg, as if he’d been shot.
When he spoke again, he spoke in one sharp breath, as though he’d gotten the wind knocked out of him.
“How old are you, Lacey?”
I knelt beside him. His eyes searched mine for the answer. I couldn’t hold out any longer. It was torture to him, I could see that.
And, unlike him, I could not stand to torture.
“Twenty-one.”
He exhaled. Relief rippled through his muscled arms and he swallowed. His chest bellowed out against his white undershirt smeared with a rainbow of paint.
He rubbed his temples with his fingertips, sliding them to the bridge of his nose and then back.
“I’m sorry. You don’t know— you can’t know.”
Know what? I kept myself from speaking the words. He would give me his past when he wanted to. I could sense that pressing him would make him recoil from me.
“How old are you?” I asked.
He smiled.
“Thirty-one.”
“That’s not that old.”
“There’s a world of difference. Once you’re out of college—”
“I’m not in college. I never went to college.”
He looked at me anew.
“Of course. That’s right.”
“Stop looking at me like you just figured something out about me,” I said.
“Is that how I’m looking at you?”
“Don’t talk down to me.” Irritation surged through my chest. “You don’t know anything about me. I’m not some pampered rich kid like you, okay? I had to grow up early.”
“I’m sorry. You’re right.”
He patted the ground next to him. I sat, careful to avoid the indigo puddle even though I was covered in paint. My back itched from where the paint was drying. When he looked at me, his eyes searched mine.
“Tell me about yourself, Lacey.”
Chapter Five
The sun had almost reached the top of the Manhattan skyrise buildings. We sat in the middle of the room full of canvases and talked as the room warmed with its light.
We ate from the silver tray he’d brought. There was a full tea set with cream and sugar. A heap of pancakes was topped with strawberries and handwhipped cream, and another plate was laden high with bacon and eggs.
I reached for the pancakes and he stopped my hand with a touch of his wrist.
“Let me feed you,” he said.
I was uncertain, but I bit my lip. He was trying to do something for me, I realized. Something nice. Something… innocent.
“Strawberry, please,” I said.
He picked up a strawberry from the side of the dish and dragged it through the whipped cream. He lifted it to my lips.
It was the sweetest strawberry I’d ever tasted. I licked my lips and saw him look away. Good. Maybe he would feel some of the unsatisfied desire that I’d felt before.
“These remind me of the strawberries we had on the farm,” I said. “They were smaller, but just as delicious.”
“You worked on a farm? Really?”
“Yeah.”
“What does that mean?”
“What do you think it means?”
“Living on a farm? I don’t know. I’ve never been to a farm,” he said.
I grinned. It was nice to feel like I had some experiences that he hadn’t had already. Lord knows he was way ahead of me when it came to sex. But at least I was ahead of him when it came to farming.