It was like a burden had been lifted off her shoulders, one she’d been carrying for months now, or maybe years. Worry. About everything. About everyone. About what they needed, what would make them happy, what would contribute to the household, to the business. This stood alone. It wasn’t about anything but feeling good now.
That was a revelation.
“I want you,” she said.
It was all either of them needed to know.
“Your place or mine?”
“Yours,” she said.
Because she wanted separation. From that house that her kids lived in, the place where she and Jonathan had slept together for all those years. She wanted her and Zach to be a separate thing, even though it really couldn’t be. Even though it was always going to be colored by the fact that there was something satisfying about it being Zach who was coming to her rescue. Something satisfying about it being Zach who wanted her. Both because of who he was, and who he was to Jonathan.
But if she could just have this ...
She would do her best not to compare, not to think about the reality of her life. She just wanted a fantasy. For once. She wanted to be swept away.
“Let’s go.”
His car was nice, of course it was, but that only occupied a fraction of her brain on the drive out of town toward his mountaintop home. She had been there before, but it had been a long while. Back when Zach had first partnered with Jonathan on the business.
It was beautiful. Wood and stained glass and glorious natural light that filtered through the windows, a profound view of the valley below.
It was like a church there, separate from everything, worshipping nature.
That was her memory of it, at least. Right now, everything felt contracted. Small. Like there was nothing beyond the car, nothing beyond the two of them. Nothing that mattered, anyway.
When he parked in the driveway, she hesitated, and then he rounded to her side of the car, opened the door for her, and took her hand. Even now, he was taking care of her.
The sound of their footsteps on the gravel heightened, the sensation of that rough hand closed around hers extreme.
She let him lead her inside, and the feeling of being outside her body was suddenly intense. An unfamiliar house, and an unfamiliarman. This wasn’t her. But she wanted it to be. She slipped back inside herself and looked at him. Grounded herself in the moment.
She reached up and touched his face, tracing the angles of it. It was funny, because his face was so familiar. She had seen it a hundred times on her favorite TV series as a teenager before he’d moved to town. But that was different from the reality of him standing right in front of her. Different from this real version of him who had lines on his face and radiated heat.
It had been innocent back then. He’d made her heart beat faster, and he’d been hundreds of miles away. A stranger. A concept. He was real now. Her heartwasbeating faster, but her whole body ached along with it, and he was here. She could touch him. Taste him.
She wanted him.
More than she had ever wanted anything before. Or at least, that was how it felt. Because everything she had ever seen or done or wanted before was fuzzy in comparison to this.
This was all that was real.
If she had any magic within her whatsoever, she wanted to call all of it to the surface now so he could feel what she did. So that it would be as electrifying for him as it was for her.
Yes. She really wanted that.
“Don’t overthink it,” he whispered.
“I can’t help it. I’ve spent my life overthinking all the details so I could be sure everything would work out according to plan.”
“And has it?”
She laughed. Maybe this was a stupid time to laugh, but she couldn’t help herself. She threw her head back and dissolved. “No. No. Nothing has worked out the way I expected it to, or the way I wanted it to. But right now it feels worth it.”
She was about to have sex with Zach Woods. Teen Daisy would be elated, as long as she didn’t look at the rest of the mess her life was in.
You don’t need to look at it right now either.
