Page 140 of Love, Rekindled

I can barely focus on his words with his hand at my breast and his eyes so intent on my face. Suspecting that’s what he’s counting on, I force myself to pull back until his hand drops away.

“I know this whole trip put the cart before the horse,” I say, pulling my dress and my sanity back into place. “But I’d rather take our time.”

“You want to stop sleeping together?” he asks, his expression unchanging. “We can do that.”

“Oh, hell no.” I reach between us to palm him through his pants. “Give this up when I just learned to ride it?”

He smiles and caresses the cleft in my chin, his eyes softening. “Then tell me what you want.”

I shrug, feeling self-conscious for some reason. Maybe because it exposes the girl who through the years stopped believing in fairy tales but now finds herself in the arms of a prince.

“I want us to make plans and to feel anticipation as I get dressed, knowing the doorbell will ring and it’s you. I want to kiss you goodnight and get the chance to miss you when you’re gone. I want to wonder when I’ll see you again.” I run a hand over the back of my neck. “It’s silly, I?—”

“I’d like that, too.” He kisses my nose, smiling. “I want to spoil you.”

I tip back on his lap and laugh. “I hope you don’t expect me to stop you.”

A knock on the door interrupts whatever we would have said next. It creaks open to show Yari with her hand over her eyes.

“I’m not looking.” She peers through the crack of her fingers. “I mean, maybe a little.”

I swing my legs over and off Naz’s lap and straighten out my dress. “Nothing to see here.”

“If you say so.” She turns back toward the door. “I came to find you because they’re about to cut the cake.”

“Oh, yay.” I move to follow her, but Naz pulls me up short.

“Hey, about what you asked for,” he says, his smile as dazzling as the chandeliers out front. “I’m going to court you like you deserve.”

“You old school.” I laugh. “And old-fashioned.”

“You like it.” He pulls me toward the door. I dig my heels in, stopping so that he turns a querying look to me. I look straight into his eyes. No teasing. No humor. No confusion or even guilt.

“I likeyou,” I say, squeezing his hand for emphasis.

“I know,” he says, stepping out into the hall and leading me toward the music drifting from the dance floor. “I mean, I got to third base with you the night we met, so I figured.”

“Oh, my god!” My cheeks go hot, despite the fact that we’ve done much freakier things since that night on the roof senior year. “Mama would have plucked me like a chicken if she’d caught us.”

“Cliff caught us instead.”

I’m silent, letting the prickly situation with Cliff still ahead nick my happy bubble for a second.

“It’ll be fine. I’ll do whatever I have to do to make it work with Cliff.” He lifts my chin and searches my eyes. “You trust me?”

The confidence and earnestness in his eyes settle the unease gripping my heart, even if only for the next few minutes. How could I not trust him? I nod and lean into him for our last few steps into the main room. We melt into the crowd that’s waiting and watching the stage. He pulls me close, my back to his front and his arms linked over my middle.

“Good evening, everyone,’” Lotus says from the stage positioned in the middle of the room. She wears a white floor-length cape dress that bares one shoulder. “Thank you for traveling to celebrate Kenan’s birthday with us.”

Kenan stands beside her, watching her with so much adoration, I feel like a voyeur. Like an interloper observing something so intimate between them, even though it’s just a glance. I wonder how long it will take for me to look at Naz that way.

Unless I already do?

Two servers wheel a huge, multi-tiered white cake onto the stage.

“Before we cut this masterpiece of a cake,” Lotus says, “I want to make a toast to my husband, my best friend, my soul mate.”

Lotus closes her eyes briefly, pressing her lips tight as if fighting for control of her emotions.

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