19. ~ Char ~
CHAPTER 19
~ Char ~
J ames. Oh, that man. He was sending my head spinning today. His sweet family, his kiss, his gentle caress and the way he kept looking at me. It was a good thing we’d had to drive to Prince’s Island Park, because my legs were a bit weak with all the swooning I was doing.
“There’s a run?” I asked, reading the various signs posted around the island park as we parked his SUV and began walking.
“It’s to raise money for local animal shelters.”
“Are we running?”
James definitely looked like a runner, but me? Not so much. I had too much painful jiggling going on to make that sport any fun. A 5K would leave me black and blue and cranky for days.
“No, no. But I thought it would make a good distraction.” He grinned. His knuckles brushed against mine and I wished I’d reacted fast enough to hook my fingers in his. “There’s a DJ and beer garden. Figured we could crash it.”
I gasped, delighted. “You rule breaker!” I raised a hand for a high-five and he complied, but then twisted his wrist, capturing my hand, holding it while we crossed a footbridge over the Bow River. I tried not to skip along beside him, excited that he was holding my hand.
People were filing past us, many wearing cat or dog ears, as per the run’s theme of raising funds for the local shelters.
“I want ears,” I said, watching a man in a full black cat costume pass us.
“They have them at the registration table,” he called back to me.
I gasped and turned to James. “Think we can score some?”
He laughed at my eager tone, his hand tightening around my own. “Sure? My mom used to have some—that’s what I was looking for in the garage.”
“How did you know about this?” I asked him as I stretched to reach the stripped-down registration table and its pile of leftover headband cat ears. I asked the person packing up, “Can we?”
She nodded and I returned to James, releasing his hand to slide a pair of ears onto my head.
“The run?” James was standing close, like he wanted to still be touching me when we weren’t holding hands. “I was supposed to work security at the beer gardens.”
“Why aren’t you?”
“I was supposed to have the night shift at the museum this week.”
“But?”
“Schedule was changed at the last minute.”
“What drew you to security? It doesn’t seem like your thing.”
“Yeah.” He untangled a lock of hair that got caught in my ears. “I didn’t realize it would be so boring. I was looking for something fun, but would give me time to think.”
“Time to think?” I cringed automatically. Thinking was never a good idea in my case. It was as unhealthy as sitting around. The more I did it, the more I feared becoming my mother, or the more I whirled in my own toxic thoughts, blaming myself for selfishness that had ended our cozy little family dynamic. Although, thinking about now, with James snugged up close to me, I didn’t get that familiar old clenching in my gut or wash of spine prickling shame. Did that mean I was finally letting it go?
“So why don’t you get another job?” I asked.
“There’s this cutie,” he said affectionately, adjusting my ears again, “who keeps coming into the museum and bossing everyone around. I couldn’t possibly miss out on that.”
Heat flowed through me as I realized he was referring to me. He’d been staying in a boring job so he could see more of me? I could faint. Swoon. Dance.
He had to be lying, right? I mean, who did that?
But I was pretty sure he was telling the truth, and it made me want to float away.
“Well,” I said, reaching up to put his ears on. “If you’re feeling lucky, you could call her up and arrange a meet up.” I was careful not to say date, even though that was what I really wanted. It had taken us some time to get where we were tonight, slowly dipping our toes outside of the friend zone. I didn’t want to mess things up by cannonballing my way into something he might not be ready for. Especially since I still wasn’t sure how we’d work long-term. Did he want a cozy home life, or did he want spontaneity? He said he wanted spontaneity, but I could see that a cozy home life was important to him. And did the two go hand-in-hand? I wasn’t so sure.
“I should quit, huh?” he said.
I smiled. “You should do whatever you want to do.”
“Yeah.” The intensity in his gaze made me feel pinned to the spot, my breath catching. His thumb was caressing my neck, just below my ear, and I realized I had an erogenous zone I hadn’t known about.
“Yeah. You should.” I cleared my throat, hoping he’d devour me with that mouth and those dark sexy eyes of his. “How do I look?”
“Cute.”
I gave him a flirty flutter of my lashes. “I always look cute.”
“And beautiful.” He gently gripped my chin between his thumb and index finger, tipping it upward so he could lower his lips to mine. He kissed me slowly, like earlier. But when I kissed him back, suddenly the intensity level shot through the roof, his arms tightening around me, drawing me close like he’d been waiting to do this since the day we’d met. Like he’d lain awake for more hours than one could count, wondering just how amazing this might be.
And amazing, it was. My whole body felt light, but also very much here and now, alive in every spot that our bodies touched like I was playing with electricity.
We broke the kiss, my breathing jagged like I’d just crossed the finish line after sprinting the last half of the run.
James. Oh, James. Did he have any idea how sexy he was? And wearing those adorable kitty ears and owning them, not shedding them like wearing them would lessen his masculinity. He was perfect.
“Wow,” I whispered.
He breathed me into another kiss, long and slow and so filled with promises I wasn’t sure my legs would ever work right again.
“You’re going to give me diabetes,” he said, his hand finding mine.
“What?” I felt dazed, like I’d shot through a portal and into a whole new life.
“Your kisses are so sweet…” He kissed me again, like this would help him prove his point.
“I need whiskers,” I whispered when he seemed done kissing me. I swung my purse off my shoulder and rummaged through it, feeling suddenly nervous and unsure what to do with my hands, my mouth, and all of these feelings I’d kept so carefully hidden for so long.
I handed him an eyeliner pencil, my hands shaking. “Give me a nose and whiskers, please.”
With a slow smile, he didn’t question why I didn’t use one of the small mirrors hanging on the stand near us, but uncapped the pencil and shimmied his feet so he was even closer, like we might kiss again. I could feel his breath, warm on my cheek, his jacket brushing my chest.
“What do I do?”
I angled my face upward. “Triangle nose. Three whiskers each side.” I mimed where I wanted the whiskers on my right cheek. His face was so near to my own, it was impossible to meet his gaze without burning up.
He was closer than he needed to be and I loved it, sucking up the pleasure of having his body so close to mine. He gently placed his left hand on the side of my face, his palm cupping my jaw. My breath hitched as his large, rough hand brushed my skin, his eyes taking in every detail of me.
He took his time, sketching a triangle on the tip of my nose, then colouring it in with gentle, patient strokes.
His eyes seemed so blue whenever I flicked my gaze to his. He finished the nose, the act of applying the makeup feeling more intimate than if he’d kissed me again.
“You have flecks of green in your eyes,” he whispered, angling his hand to start on the whiskers.
Daring myself, I allowed myself to meet and hold his gaze, possibly the scariest, most intimate thing I’d done with him to date. This close I felt vulnerable, exposed. But also held and cherished and safe. I trusted this man more than any other.
“Mm. You have bits of grey.” I felt dazed and dreamy, as if I could float away like one of Estelle’s fairy coworkers.
Estelle. Debt.
Ooph. Unfun thoughts.
But the giant grant. The fact that the agency had wanted us to get both lots and had found enough money to buy the land so we could get started. Well worth any wishes added to my bill.
I felt my smile pick up again.
James was frowning, his focus narrowed as he carefully drew one gentle line from the valley of my nose and cheek outward. I giggled and moved, his line going off course.
“Stay still.” He laughed.
“Sorry.”
“I love that you trust me,” he murmured as he carefully, stroked his thumb across my cheek where the whisker line had strayed.
“Maybe I shouldn’t,” I teased.
“I have no real plan.”
“For what? Your life?”
“That, but also tonight.”
“Who needs a plan to have fun?” I scoffed, before realizing that Sophia had left her mark on him. He’d said she had life all laid out, their routines set. He hadn’t been able to see spontaneity in his future—the one thing I had in spades. Maybe I was his type, from head to toe. And maybe that whole tight knit family business could be learned. Maybe this was exactly what my heart had been waiting for.
“I don’t need things laid out, James,” I assured him.
“I promised you a distraction,” he said, reworking the original wonky whisker.
“You’re delivering.” I nestled deeper into his open arms.
The whisker he was drawing went crooked again.
I laughed at his exasperated expression. “I give up.”
“No, no!” I tilted my head upward for him, my smile properly schooled, eyes watching his. He was shaking his head, not truly upset if his sparkling eyes were to be the indicator. He seemed to love this every bit as much as I did.