Page 28 of Our Sweet Destiny
“What are you so afraid of?” he asked.
“You’re always laughing at me, and we’re always wrestling in…trucks.” She shook her head, and she, too, was soon laughing. “We are pathetic.”
“A little,” he said. No one had come out of the sedan, and he wondered what the driver was doing on the other side of his truck.
“Did you want something?” she asked in a friendlier voice.
Do I ever.“Just wanted to talk, that’s all. But I can see you’re in a hurry, so don’t let me keep you.” He watched her mulling over her answer. She looked at him, then at the steering wheel, then at him again. She rolled her lower lip into her mouth and licked it as it unrolled.
She was killing him, action by sensuous, mind-blowing action. One stroke of her tongue at a time.
She relaxed into the driver’s seat.
“I’m sorry I was watching you the other morning,” he said. It was the one thing he’d really wanted to tell her. He’d never spied on a woman before, and when she’d first noticed him in the woods, sitting on Hope, captivated by her silhouette, he’d felt all sorts of wrong and even more sorts of right all at the same time. But in that crazy mix, he realized that she’d probably thought he was a little like a Peeping Tom.
She looked up at him through her thick, dark lashes. “I didn’t mind.”
And just like that, she flipped back to the tempting seductress who’d told him to taste her. Every nerve in his body challenged him to kiss her, touch her, do something to indicate his desire, but if he’d realized one thing, it was that he was not the best interpreter of her moods, so instead, he smiled.
A man came around the bed of his truck, and when Rex looked up, the man curiously retreated. Something was off about the look in the man’s eyes, and Rex wondered if he was messing with his truck.
“What the heck?” he said.
“What’s wrong?” She looked back at his truck.
“Nothing. Some guy’s by my truck.”
“Did you want to talk? I guess I can stay for a few minutes.”
Rex saw the guy pop his head around his cab, then disappear again. He was torn between finding out what that guy was up to and trying to salvage things with Jade.
“Look, you’re obviously sidetracked. Why don’t we catch up another time?” Jade slammed the door and started her car.
“Jade!” he said, but she was already pulling out of her parking space. She sped off, and the sedan that had been next to Rex’s truck backed up and looked as though it was going to follow Jade. Rex’s pulse soared, and he took off running toward the sedan, legs pumping, biceps pulsing.Jade.Just as he reached the rear bumper, the man he’d seen peering around the bed of his truck stepped from the car.
“Hi,” the gray-haired man said. “I’m looking for the Carroll house? I’ve circled the area twice, but I can’t see the addresses on the mailboxes. It’s so darn dark.”
Lost?He’d completely misconstrued the man’s intent—and there was no denying what he felt. The urge to protect Jade was ten times what he felt for any member of his family. He had to find her.
“Pull out of the driveway and make a left. Third house down on the right.” He spoke quickly, pulling his keys from his pocket and heading toward his truck with one thing on his mind: finding Jade. He pulled onto the road behind the old man, who was driving way too slowly. Two minutes later, the old man pulled into a driveway and Rex put the pedal to the floor in search of Jade’s car. She couldn’t have gone far.
He sped toward Jade’s house. Knowing he’d overreacted about the guy by his truck pissed him off even more. He’d had a chance to talk to her and he’d blown it again. He was at her house a few minutes later, and her car wasn’t there. He continued down the road, cursing at the situation. Life was a heck of a lot easier when he wasn’t driven by his heart, but that option no longer existed.
He pulled onto a dirt road to turn around and caught sight of Jade’s car parked between two large trees.What the heck?When he pulled in, his headlights shone on the trees beside her car, illuminating carvings covering most of the trunk. Rex smiled as he realized where he was. He parked his truck and headed down the dirt path.
He hadn’t been to Rights Creek since he was a kid. He’d always preferred the ravine to the creek, although he knew plenty of kids who hung out there when they were teenagers. Guided by the moonlight filtering through the trees, he followed the narrow path to the wide creek. He heard a splash before he saw movement in the water.
Beneath the iridescent moonlight, Jade swam lazily through the water. She glided with strong, fluid strokes, and when she reached the middle, she dove headfirst like an elegant swan beneath the surface. Her naked body slithered quickly behind, her bare bottom arcing up in the air before plunging deep with one last kick of her legs until she had disappeared completely. Rex was mesmerized as she breached the surface again. Her breasts bobbed over and under the water as she wiped the water from her face.
He couldn’t be caught again watching her like a psycho, and yet he couldn’t turn away as she swam to the water’s edge and pulled herself from the water. She’d taken her hair out of its tether and now it stuck to her creamy skin. Rex did the only thing he could do. He moved toward her like a thief in the night.
“Jade, it’s me, Rex,” he called softly, so as not to startle her.
She gasped, reached for her clothes, and quickly put them on.
“I didn’t come to spy on you. I promise. I thought this guy was going to follow you out of the Gesalts’ and…Aw, heck, Jade…”How can I possibly explain this?“I guess I did follow you, but I didn’t know you were skinny-dipping.”
She sat down on a fallen tree with her back to him.
“May I join you?”Please God, cut me some slack here.
“It’s a free world.”
Not really. Not where you and I are concerned.He sat beside her, and suddenly he wasn’t sure what had felt so urgent. He couldn’t put two coherent thoughts together. The thin fabric clung to her body, and without her hair tumbling in waves, there were no distractions from her electric-blue eyes.
