Page 72 of The Fate Factor

“Sure, gorgeous. Mark me yours.” I laugh, and his hands fall to the hem of the T-shirt I stole, dragging it up my belly. He catches his lip between his teeth, sucking in a breath when he gets to my bare breasts. “Take this off.”

“No.” I cross my arms, clutching the cotton. “I want to wear it.”

He chuckles. “Why? It’s been on the floor all night.”

“I just do.”

“Fine. I can work around it.” His hands slip beneath it instead, which is a perfectly enjoyable compromise. Then he sinks to his knees and stretches the tee over his head.

My laugh turns into a gasp of pleasure when his teeth graze my navel, his hot breath trapped against me. “I want to bury myself in you. Stay there all day.”

I latch my hands into that bed head. “That sounds like a very enjoyable day.”

“But…” He kisses my hip.

“But?”

“I have to work.”

“Booo,” I whine, and he laughs against my skin, then frees himself.

“Baby, if I’d known I was going to wake up here when I did the schedule, trust me, I wouldn’t have been on it.”

“Are you sure you’re up to it?”

“I need to get back to full time soon. We’re about to be busy once the cold settles in and people don’t want to drink on decks anymore. But I have the lunch shift. I’ll be done by five. There’s a thing down on Thompson’s Point tonight. I want to take you.” I glance at the bruise still lingering on his ribs, and he catches me. “It’s low key, I promise. Just music, food trucks. Beer. You can sleep in my bed after?”

“Whose beer?” I ask.

His face lights. “Mine.”

“Well, I suppose you have to be there then.”

“It would be the professional thing to do.” He dips his mouth to my ear. “But just so we’re clear, I want you there for purely non-professional reasons.”

“Okay,” I tell him, my heart glowing. “I’ll go with you.”

twenty-one

Jamie

It’sduskwhenIslide my card into the parking kiosk in a dirt lot at the edge of the point. Noel fidgets beside me, her fingers in her skirt. It’s pink and gauzy and covered in flowers, short enough that my eyes keep landing on the hem. Her sweater is pink too. She looks like cotton candy, sweet and delicate. It brings back the memory of howindelicateI was with her after she agreed to come here with me tonight, when we’d fallen back into her bed for another couple of hours until I was forced to either leave or be late.

I’ve never desired to stay horizontal for so long before. Normally restlessness gets the better of me and I need to get up, move. But there were too many places I still needed to touch her, too many words bubbling out of us. We talked about the house,the brewery, what we want to do downtown before the snow flies. Stupid stories from when we were kids.

I told her how Greg’s family had a slip off of the East End, and it was a miracle none of us ever drowned falling off the rowboat we used to get out there after dark. She told me how she used to take the ferry to Peaks with her Nana to go to the same festival as the T-shirt I had on yesterday. We figured out we were definitely there at the same time, and my mind had taken that coincidence and run with the what-ifs. Of course, she was a pre-teen there with her grandmother and I was sneaking beer in my backpack with my delinquent friends, so they were just fantasies.

If there’s any magic in all of this, it’s that this beautiful, perfect woman found some reason to wake up beside me.

With that thought in my head, I grab her hand and lead us down the walking path leading to the outdoor venue. The air’s more crisp the closer we get to the water, scented with smoke from the food trucks, and cold dirt. It feels like walking over a bridge toward fall.

I try not to think of it as the season before she’s supposed to leave.

It feels like the two of us have grabbed hands and taken a huge leap, only to find we’ve landed on ground that’s not entirely solid. My feelings for her are as solid as concrete, but this part I have no control over.

“Have you been here before?” I ask her, holding her hand a little tighter.

“Nope.”

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