“Gran’s been retired for years, but she loves hangin’ out so she can get all the town gossip.She always offers to help, and so does Mama when she’s not workin’, but I can’t rely on them.Gran’s got bad knees, and my mom has zero creative bones in her body.I have to instruct her and tell her where to place every single flower or else her bouquets look like a tangled, messy pile of flower vomit.She tries, but…
“Someday, I’d like to open a second store.Maybe in Jackson.I’d need several employees to pull that off, but we’re not quite there yet, you know?”
I watched her mouth as she talked, stealing long, wanting glances since she couldn’t see me.I wanted so badly to kiss her again.
She moaned louder when my hands slid higher and wrapped around her ankles.And when they moved even higher and slipped beneath her silky pajama bottoms, she sighed and scooted closer to me.Her pillow fell to the floor, and her hair splayed out beneath her on the couch cushion like silk.
“It’s been a long time since anyone touched me like this, Dixon.I-I think maybe you should stop.”
“Why’s that?”I asked, scooting closer to her, too, and I turned and lifted her foot to my mouth.
When I kissed the tip of her big toe, she gasped and her eyes popped open.“Because you said you only wanna be friends, but that’s not what I want, and you touchin’ me like this isn’t makin’ it easier to not throw myself at you again.”
I wasn’t sure when or why that had changed, but it wasn’t what I wanted either.In her quiet house with not so much as a clock ticking, the connection we’d always had sparked and flashed between us.Since the day I’d stumbled into her shop, it had been morphing and changing into something I had no right to expect.
Quietly, I said, “Maybe I want you to.”Maybe I want you to plaster yourself all over me.Maybe I want your full, lush ass in my hands, your legs hooked over my shoulders, and your fingers streaking my back with scratches.
“You do?”
I nodded.I couldn’t speak.The want I felt for her was so big, it clogged my throat and made my heart race like a jackrabbit trying to escape a cougar’s snapping jaws.
The happy, calming sound of her voice was doing something to me, and how had I never noticed the sexy timbre and the squeaky rasp?It had always been that way, I finally realized, kind of a husky, beckoning sound, and now I wanted to hear it when she came and called my name.
She stared at my face, probably trying not to get whiplash, but I watched her reacting to my touch, watched her breasts rise and fall with her breath, watched her hands grip the couch.She licked her lips, and her pink tongue left behind a silky, wet sheen that made the pout of her bottom lip irresistible, and that was the last straw.I needed that plump skin between my teeth.
Carefully, I inched closer, sliding my hands even higher.
I had been wrong before.AJwasa drug.She was a comforting ease, and every touch of my skin on hers made me remember the past.It became clearer and clearer, but the bad, painful memories weren’t flooding my mind like they usually did.
No, AJ made me remember laughing with her in the forest.She made me remember the simple happiness of long summer days under the sun, reading together as she lay next to me in the dirt or propped against the base of a tree, peeking over my shoulder to get lost in whatever fantasy I’d borrowed from the library, and Smartie wars when we kept count of how many we tossed that landed in each other’s mouths.
Her mouth now was the portal to remembering who I used to be, and I wanted so goddamn badly to remember the person who hadn’t injected filth into his veins or lied to the people he loved.I wanted to be worthy of my son, and even though I was sober and should’ve been able to hold my head high, I couldn’t.
AJ’s touch on my skin or the taste of her tongue in my mouth couldn’t make my neck any stronger, but I wished for it.
Her eyes didn’t stray from mine, and slowly, she unbuttoned her pajama shirt.The fabric slipped over her skin like water over a stone at the edge of a brook and revealed to me something I hadn’t realized I’d been longing for.
Connection, touch, and need.But not chemical need.No, this was about instinctual need, a base desire.
But only AJ would do.It was why I’d been dreaming about her before I came home.Somehow, somewhere deep inside, I knew I needed her in my life.
I hadn’t been with a woman since Kel, and sadly, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t recall the act that had created the best thing in my life.We had been high that night.We got high every night back then, and all those nights bled into days in my mind.
It was just another reason I wanted to remember who I’d been before the drugs.Another reason I wasn’t good enough for my son.
Only AJ had the power to make me forget.She could blur out the ugly with her flowers, her gentle acceptance, and her beautifully brilliant smile.
“Please,” I whispered.My hand wandered up her leg and over her soft stomach.
She nodded and reached for me, and her legs settled beneath me as I crawled over her.
Regarding me for a long moment, her eyes caressing the long strands of my hair as it fell between us, finally she asked, “What’s changed?”
“I’m not sure, but I need you.I want you.I need my face buried between your thighs, and I wanna know the taste of you.”
She blushed and lowered her gaze, but I fit my finger beneath her chin and lifted her eyes back to mine.“But can I ask, why doyouwantme?I don’t have much to give you.”
She breathed a laugh, and the sound was sex and home and the answer to a question I’d never bothered to ask.
