Placing the salad on the small patio table, I turn to Jordan, ready to enlighten him how that will never happen. I won’t let it. I can’t let him in only to have him hurt me again. But I don’t get the chance because a sudden gust of wind slams into us, blowing dead leaves across the patio. A burst of light flashes overhead, accompanied closely by a loud crack of thunder seconds before the night sky opens up like Niagara Falls.
“Shit!” Jordan exclaims, running out into an already muddy backyard where the charcoal grill plumes smoke as the rain pelts it.
After a quick inspection, he yells at me over the raucous of the heavy rain, “Can’t salvage them. Water has already filled the grill.”
Another flash of lightning briefly illuminates a soaking wet Jordan. His hair is plastered to his head, and his shirt clings to his chest and abdominal muscles I can delineate from ten feet away.
I cup my hands around my mouth and shout, “Get back under the overhang. You’re getting drenched!”
Thunder rolls through me and rattles the window glass of the house.
Jordan sloshes up the patio steps, looking all kinds of wet and sexy, a wicked grin gracing his full lips. Before I’m able to squeak out a protest, I’m lifted in his arms and carried out into the downpour. Rain instantly soaks into my clothes and hair. My body shivers from the chill, and I cling closer to the warmth Jordan is emitting. I can literally see steam wafting up from his body.
“Jordan, what are you doing?” I splutter as rain runs down my face.
He sets me carefully on my bare feet while still keeping me in his arms. Slick mud oozes between my toes and masculine hands entwine with my fingers.
“You said one of the things you’ve always wanted to do is dance in the rain.”
“Are you crazy? This isn’t rain. This is a freaking thunderstorm!”
Holding my right hand tightly, he twirls me out and spins me back in.
“Just let go, Douglass. Don’t think about it. Enjoy the moment,” he hushes near my ear, and I shiver for a whole other reason not related to the damp chill of the rain.
Just let go.
And, for once, I do. I let go and enjoy this insane, wonderful moment with him as we dance. Girl in the thunderstorm. Harper’s painting that I love so much. I’m that girl right now.
Jordan loops my arms around his neck and holds me close with one hand pressed to my lower back and the other curled around my neck.
I shut my brain off for once, and the music of the rain fills my ears, melding with the deep rumble of thunder, as we slow dance. I don’t want to ruin this precious, once-in-a-lifetime moment Jordan is giving me. I made myself a promise to never take life for granted again; to grab hold of whatever snippets of happiness that come my way and covet them.
So, I close my eyes and tip my head back to the sky and relish this new experience.
My senses become hyperaware. I can feel every raindrop splash against my skin. I can see the intricate spiderwebbing of each lightning bolt as it forks across the sky, jumping from cloud to cloud. I can feel the thunder as it reverberates inside my chest. I can taste the ozone that crackles the air and smell the mustiness of the wet soil beneath my feet. But overpowering all of that is the man whose arms I’m in. His scent, his touch, his voice. I feel it all. I feel himeverywhere.
“Douglass.”
He says my name like a benediction, and my nipples tighten at the deep huskiness of it. Need crawls over my sensitized skin when his nose brushes up my wet cheek to my ear.
My eyelids slowly open, and I’m met with blue ones the color of the Caribbean Sea being churned by the storm that surrounds us. Jordan is so damn beautiful, it hurts just to look at him. Sculpted face with a strong jawline covered in tawny-brown stubble, clear ice-blue eyes that are staring hypnotically into mine, and his mouth. God, his wonderful mouth that brought me so much pleasure.
Jordan’s fingertips brush over my parted lips dewed with raindrops, and my body goes up in flames that not even the deluge pouring over me can douse.
“I’m going to kiss you,” he warns, giving me seconds to say no.
He won’t hear me say it. I want his kiss. I want it more than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. I want his lips on mine again, the silkiness of his tongue dipping inside my mouth, stroking. I crave it. Just like I’ve craved and loved Jordan since I was fourteen years old.
Which is exactly why I take a step back and slip out of his arms.
“Douglass, stop doing that. Stop running away. Let me in,” he implores.
My head turns wildly from side to side in denial as the thunderstorm calms to a tapering, gentle mist.
I gesture at the grill. “I think it’s safe to assume that dinner is ruined,” I say, ignoring my desire for him that’s thrumming through me like a living, breathing thing.
Jordan’s shoulders rise and fall at my refusal to acknowledge what is happening between us. The shift that just occurred. But I’ve always been a master at denying myself what I want.
