Chapter 16 #2
“I know,” I say thickly, while I watch the sunlight and dappled shadows chase each other over her forehead, her hair, and the bridge of her nose.
“I haven’t done any since he passed and the house was sold,” I admit.
“I sort of wish he would have left it to me, but he wanted the money to go to all the charities he supported. I don’t regret that for a second.
Part of me wishes that I would have had the money, or that I could have qualified for a mortgage to buy the house, but part of me knows he never wanted me to stay trapped and constrained in one place.
He didn’t want me to be weighed down by ghosts.
He would have told me that a house is a house, and you can plant flowers and make a garden anywhere in the world.
He would have said that memories are what lasts forever.
He was right. He was right about everything. ”
Esme’s lips purse. Her other hand clears the empty space on the table and wraps around mine.
She holds tight to me with both of her hands twisted around my fingers, half like I’m her anchor, and half like she’s anchoring me.
“He used to say, above all, take care of each other. He meant everything from people to the environment.”
We stay that way for a long time, holding hands beside two barely touched plates.
It’s Esme who breaks the stillness. “We should maybe get to doing the security? I know that it’s probably a big job.
I’d really like to help you, if you need some, even if it’s just offering encouragement when you seem happy about doing something.
I wouldn’t know the first thing about what it’s supposed to look like, but I know that you’re a genius, and I’d trust your cues. ”
I stand when she lets me go slowly, peeling her fingers away one at a time like she doesn’t really want me to. I take our plates to the fridge, then motion for her to follow me.
***
We spend the next half an hour pulling tech out of her car and finding tools around the cabin.
As a club, we want to build a few outbuildings out here, maybe even a shop one day, but we haven’t made it that far yet.
The ladder and tools are in the mudroom at the back of the cabin.
All the old cameras are already wired in.
I can reuse most of everything and the hard part is already done.
After that, I’ll have to get on the roof and mount the new satellite dish for improved internet connection.
The cameras are mounted all around the cabin and there are a few on the power pole in the middle of the yard. I didn’t turn any off when we got here, which means that Maverick, or Dravin, or both of them, probably saw me bawling like a baby this morning.
Whatever. I don’t have any shame about what happened. How can I when Esme is standing right here with me? She’s stock still beside the ladder and looks serious about holding it even though I only have to go up a few steps because the cabin is all one level and the roofline is just above my head.
I have a camera in my hand. The bag of tools sits by the foot of the ladder.
Esme is so much more alluring. I know I said slow and I’ve cautioned myself a thousand times about that since breakfast alone, but part of me wants to tug her into a tight hug.
A hug that turns into me running my fingers through her hair, her body melding against mine, and me flipping off all the cameras, or shorting them out completely, before I scoop her up and abscond with her into the cabin.
Whoa. Okay, great. I’m now fully, raging hard. So hard that there’s going to need to be an adjustment soon, before my dick gets damaged punching the back of my fly. There’s no way that my body wants slow.
I feel like I need to go for a shower AfuckingSAP, wrap my hand around my cock, and jerk myself off three times in a row before I’m going to be able to calm down.
“Wizard?” I nearly leap out of my skin. My face is a thousand degrees, thinking that Esme is going to point out my very visible erection and tell me to take it down a notch.
Of course she would never say that. But I really don’t want her to be uncomfortable. Jesus, how am I supposed to get up on the ladder with an outline of my hard dick in my jeans, right by her face while she’s holding it?
She releases the ladder and steps into me. I’m frozen. I’m holding the camera, panting, wanting, a total dork with feet lodged in cement, bolted down to the earth. I need her. So fucking badly.
Esme cups my jaw. Her thumb strokes along the rasp of stubble that I haven’t had a chance to shave.
She closes her eyes and melts against me, her soft curves meeting my hard ones, the missing piece to a puzzle that’s always been incomplete.
I nearly whimper. I just about pitch over.
Pass out. A wave of black overtakes my vision before I can even close my eyes.
Shit, this is it. This is going to happen.
Esme’s perfect lips press against mine. Butterflies and heat erupt in my stomach.
My cock leaps, so hard that it’s probably purple and soaking my boxers.
Can she feel that? The heat of me? The hardness?
The wet? I’m all ache, all over. It’s sharp.
Her lips are so soft. They press against mine, a chaste kiss, but it’s enough to make my body buck and curl around hers.
I hold the camera tightly, white knuckling the damn thing just to keep myself from clutching Esme and folding her in against me.
I want to kiss her senseless. I’ve done it a thousand times in my dreams, but this is so much better. It’s perfect.
I start trembling when her lips part. I gasp against her, making a mess of the kiss, sucking in air roughly.
My heart pounds out of my chest and my balls tingle like I’m going to blow my load two seconds into this.
It’s so much. It’s everything. It’s too much and it’s not enough. I’ve gone from trembling to shaking.
She pulls back long before I’m ready for the kiss to end. It was sweet. The sweetest first kiss ever. Because I’m an overeager, complete and total moron, I blurt out the last thing I should. “That was—is my uh—first kiss.”
She reacts like I just shot off a firecracker between us.
Her mouth parts, but no sound comes out.
If the guys are watching the cameras and they saw that kiss, they’re definitely cheering.
I just hope they’re not good at lip reading.
The cameras I’m going to install have sound enabled.
The old ones don’t. I’m a little bit surprised that my phone doesn’t start blowing up.
Maybe that moment was private.
Just for me and just for Esme.
It really happened. She truly kissed me. And I really am just standing here like I’ve been properly shellshocked.
“What?” Her brows rocket up. Her hands trace that same upward trajectory then come down hard. “No. No, no.”
Shit, I know exactly where she’s going. “Hey. Don’t think like that.
You didn’t fuck me up or ruin me. I only ever wanted you and then I got busy with the military and I came back here and was working twenty hour days at the clubhouse most of the time, or at least doing security for all those hours.
I had no interest in going out and finding anyone.
It wasn’t because I was so unhappy that I couldn’t function or even think about being with someone else.
I didn’t want to. It wasn’t the right time for that in my life.
It was full already.” I need to shut up.
Stop blurting out words that all run together, on and on, and on.
“So you haven’t… you’re a…” She trails off, unable to say the word.
I’m going to have to do it. My face is hot again. I’m hot all the way down to my toes. “A virgin? I’ve always thought it’s a pretty stupid notion, but yeah. Technically, I guess so.”
“Fuck. Oh my god. Shit.”
“Whoa. What’s wrong?” I set the camera on one of the ladder rungs and reach for her.
I hope it’s a good thing that she doesn’t shy away.
She lets me take her hand. We’re both shaking.
Two thirty-year-olds who just shared a sweet kiss, but we’re unravelling.
It’s so much more than that, but I don’t want it to be.
I really don’t want this to be over before it starts.
So much for trying to be cool. “Why is that such a bad thing? There’s no pressure.
This isn’t some made of glass version of me.
I’m still the same person. I was busy, and I was able to satisfy myself when I got horny. ”
“Your club has… has women who would have slept with you.”
“No doubt, but I didn’t want to. I was usually busy too. Security. Screens. I hardly ever go to the club parties, even though I’m in the clubhouse.”
“That’s what you wanted?”
“I was happy to give something my all and use my full potential. I liked the challenge. To me, that’s what being part of the brotherhood meant. I was never asked or expected to do what I’ve done. Don’t think that anyone used me ill.”
“I don’t think that.”
I lift Esme’s wrist and kiss where her sleeve ends. Her fingers curl like I’ve found a ticklish spot I kiss her palm and then wrap my fingers tight around hers again. Her breath catches, like it’s the most intimate thing anyone has ever done for her.
“It was just me, my own mind, and a challenge. I got to build something from the ground up. I’m proud of that. I felt a little like Grandpa in his garden, I guess. Planting seeds, nurturing, watching it all grow. But with tech. Sort of. It’s a bad analogy.”
“I think I understand.”