Chapter One #2
He laughed and answered quickly. “Thirty-five. You?”
Not a student, she thought, relieved. “Thirty-three.”
“Well matched, then.”
Well matched for what? she wondered, and then surprised herself by wanting to find out.
But, as much as she wanted to take off her mask, there was something intriguing about not knowing.
Something more intriguing still that he, too, wouldn’t be able to piece together her own auburn hair, full cheeks, and dark brown eyes if they ran into each other at the market later.
She bit her lip, looking over her shoulder at him. “Keep the mask on.” Her voice was quiet but sure.
She didn’t know if he heard her over the crackle of the bonfires and the roar of the surf, but then his smile widened. He had the face of someone who smiled easily, with soft lines bracketing his lips like it was something he did often.
“What can I call you?” he asked, the question carefully constructed.
“Linda,” she said, taking inspiration from her last name.
He thought for a moment. “Call me TK.” TK, the shorthand for a placeholder.
The same one she got entirely too much use out of when she was drafting academic papers and working on translations.
Was he a writer? A professor, too, perhaps?
She had a fleeting fear she was flirting with a colleague, but she would have noticed if she worked with someone who had such kind, beautiful eyes.
She felt a sudden jolt of bravery, perhaps from the punch she drank earlier, and reached out to touch TK’s jacket.
It was so soft, and even in the firelight she could see that it was faded and worn in places.
He watched her fingers graze the fabric.
“Tweed is a bold choice for a beach festival,” she teased. “But I think I like it.”
The heat in his gaze was now undeniable as he said, his voice low and just for her, “I’m not sure it would be polite for me to tell you what I think of your dress.”
Maggie swallowed, her mouth suddenly dry.
Before she could lose her nerve, she stood, shaking the sand out of the gauzy fabric of her skirt.
TK didn’t move to get up at first. Did he think she was running away?
She reached out her hand to him, and he stared at it like it was a strange creature before grabbing it, engulfing it completely, and pulling himself up.
When he was standing, he didn’t let go of her and knit their fingers together.
She thought it should have felt awkward, but it didn’t.
It felt like they fit. It felt right. “Will you get me a drink, TK?” she asked, and she wasn’t sure if her cheeks would ever stop burning.
“Of course, Linda.”
—
The ghost of his fingertips brushed her back as he led her through the crowd, sending more goose bumps along the curve of her spine. She turned to look at him as she took a sip of the honeysuckle punch he’d bought her, a shy grin on her face.
When they found a quiet spot close to the dunes where the crowd was thin, Maggie asked, “Do you dance?”
For the first time, she heard a hint of nerves in his voice. “I try.” He downed the last of his punch in a single sip, stacked their glasses in the sand next to the shoes they’d abandoned, and returned to her side.
Their dancing started out innocent enough, the way you dance with friends.
Maggie admired his slightly awkward effort, and as they drew closer and closer over the course of a song, she forgot completely any stiffness in his movements.
She slid his hand to the small of her back, and he rewarded her by tugging her toward him until their bodies were flush together with Maggie’s breasts pressed against him and their legs intertwined.
Usually, Maggie’s mind was unstoppable, a constant stream of what-ifs and now-whats that she couldn’t quiet, but the world telescoped to his touch.
Through the paper-thin fabric of her dress, his fingers stroked the point where her back curved into her ass, and his leg between hers was a teasing glance of pressure.
Her head rested on his chest, and she could feel his heartbeat, just as fast as hers.
Without letting go of her hand, he tipped her chin upward until she was looking at him.
He leaned down, and Maggie thought, surely, he was going to kiss her.
Instead his lips were against her ear, the flutter of his breath along her skin sending a flush across her chest, and he whispered so she could just hear him over the music, “I would very much like to kiss you.”
She had only just nodded when his hand was back to her chin, the press of his fingers against her neck firm and confident as he tilted her where he wanted her.
And then his lips were on hers and his hand on her back pulled her even closer to him, the pressure between her legs even more insistent.
She gasped against him, wrapping her arms around his neck and deepening the kiss, running her tongue along the seam of his lips until she could taste the honeysuckle on him.
Maggie was lost. The night became touch and sound and feeling, and though she knew tomorrow she would not recognize him, she hoped she never forgot the way her body electrified beneath his fingers, his tongue.
She wanted to memorize the topography of their bodies together, everywhere skin touched skin, lips touched lips.
She ran her hand through his hair so she could commit the silk of it to memory.
He held her to him, sliding his hand from her shoulder and over every curve of her body, as if he was doing the same.
And when they finally came up for air, lips swollen and cheeks red, masks askew though still hiding their features, he asked her again. “Please take off your mask. Let me see you,” he begged, his voice pleading. Needy.
Maggie crashed back to earth and looked around her.
The bonfires were dying down, though there were still plenty of partygoers enjoying the dregs of the darkness.
The sky was a shade brighter than it had been, with dawn announcing its near arrival.
She looked back at the man and saw that some of the blossoms had been knocked from his mask and were scattered around them.
There was a part of Maggie that wanted to give in, but the ember of whatever might kindle between them frightened her.
When she didn’t answer, TK untangled their fingers and reached for his mask.
But Maggie grabbed his hands in hers and then stood on her tiptoes, placing a chaste kiss on his lips.
“I’m sorry,” she said without pulling away, her lips moving against his as she spoke.
He kissed her again, and she returned it, allowing herself to taste him for one moment more.
And then, as the bonfires died down and the sky grew even lighter, she whispered, “I can’t. ”