Page 76 of The False Flat

“I want you to be like you. Despite what William might tell you, I don’t want to date myself.” The last word caught in his throat, and he put a hand to his back, obvious pain shooting into his face.

“What’s wrong?”

“I tweaked my back a few days ago at the B and B worksite.” Another grimace crossed his face.

“You’re really hurting, aren’t you?” I scooted close, slipped my hands under his shirt, and dug into the tight muscles of his back. “You’re tense.” I was tense. Touching him had turned my whole body on, a Lite-Bright with all the pegs pushed in.

He tilted his head back. “I’m better now.” His deepened tone oozed into my core, softened my rigidity, and liquified my insides until I was a jellyfish. I felt his low moans in my palms as they permeated his back and shimmied into me, through my hands, to my wrist, then arms, shoulders, then my breasts. I wanted him.

“I like you, Penelope.”

The words were almost too bright, as if my eyes and heart needed to adjust to the light of them after being kept in the dark for so long.

“I do have a talent for back rubs,” I said, trying to pull up back to the surface before I got completely lost in it.

He turned, faced me, caught my hands in his. “Not because of the back rub.”

His eyes, like his words, bored into me, made my pulse clang like one of those windup monkeys smashing cymbals. “I’ve never felt like this. I think you’re it.”

I stopped breathing entirely, air lost in the maze of my lungs, as I tried to make sense of what he’d just said.

The silence was so filled with possibility I shook. “Is this because of the Marcus Aurelius thing, because—”

“It’s not because of the Marcus Aurelius thing.” His head tilted up to the sky. “Okay, maybe a little. That’s definitely something I’m not going to ignore, but I liked you before we ever set foot on this mountain.” He reached up and ran a thumb over my cheek, making my body shiver. “But I said it tonight because of the Marcus Aurelius thing.”

This thing between us was moving too fast. What we’d shared tonight was deeper than anything I’d ever had, anything I’d allowed myself to have, and I’d already been more intimate with him than I’d been with any other man in my life, and he’d barely touched me. This was different.

We stared into each other’s eyes in the dusky light, next to a little pot of fermented vegetables.

He leaned into me, and his lips gently caressed mine, not a kiss, but a whisper that dipped all the way to my toes.

“How’s your back?” I asked, breathy because I knew what was coming next. I needed it to so I would stop thinking and could focus on all the physical sensations that pulled my body like taffy.

“What back?”

He pulled away, bit his lower lip as his eyes devoured me, then swept my hair aside and bent to my neck. A warm tingle fanned out from the spot where his breath met my skin. I closed my eyes and waited for his lips, waited to see where he’d touch me next. The moment stretched, him maddeningly out of reach, until he began his trail of tiny, succulent kisses up to my ear, where he half sighed, half groaned, and I came half undone. My body arched toward him, and then he whispered the most peculiar thing: “I’m not going to make love with you, Penelope.”

I blinked, my body prepared to hear a completely different combination of syllables. Surely he was joking, and this was some twisted bout of foreplay.

“How do you know I want you to?” I teased, letting my hand move across the spot where I’d seen his tattoo, allowing my fingers to trace the waistband of his jeans.

“That look on your face tells me you want me to.”

“So what if I do?”

“I won’t do it.”

Were we playing, or was this about to get religious?

If we were playing, I was going to give as good as I got. If this was religious, well . . .

I leaned down to his ear and huskily asked, “Are you sure?” And then my teeth softly scraped against his earlobe.

His moan told me he wanted this as much as I did, so I was surprised when he leaned away from me.

“Please don’t tell me you’re a virgin.”

His half smile was tortured. “I’m not a virgin, but I am serious about sex and you. Taking that step means neither of us will go anywhere.”