Page 44 of Where It All Began
“I did. I just told him to get his head out of his ass.”
“Just told him as in recently?” Phoebe asked.
“Yeah. A week or two ago.”
“What the hell took you so long? I was here all of a week when I realized he’s head over heels for her.”
“I let nature take its course,” John shot back. “Things work out best when you don’t try to force them.”
“Or they never happen at all,” she argued. “Sometimes things need a little push in the right direction.”
“That’s not the way I operate,” he told her.
Phoebe rolled her eyes. “Oh, believe me. I know.”
“And what’s that supposed to mean?” Now he was getting annoyed.
“You a plodder.”
“A plotter?”
“P-L-O-D. You’re not a mover and shaker. You don’t make quick decisions because you’re too busy weighing out every possible outcome.”
“There are consequences to every decision,” John reminded her, irritated.
“Yeah, yeah. And sometimes, when you spend all your time worrying about the consequences, you miss out on some really great opportunities because you think everything to death!”
“Whatare you talking about?” he demanded.
“Ugh. Forget it. Just forget everything.” Phoebe pulled herself out of his grasp and stalked away.
She didn’t want to go back to the blanket with her mood black as the darkening night sky. She wanted to be alone and fume in peace. She slipped around the gazebo and away from the merriment, cursing the crazy town’s crazy vibes that were making her crazy.
The man was infuriating. He had a smart, interesting, attractive,willingwoman—one that he admitted to being attracted to—under his roof for the next month, and John Pierce, with his glacier-like moves and 1950s etiquette, couldn’t get beyond his pro/con list. If he wasn’t worried about falling head over ass for her, then maybe he just wasn’t interested. And he could have saved her a ton of angst by admitting it, letting her suffer her embarrassment, and then moving on.
She felt better, letting her temper guide her to a tree line just beyond the gazebo. On the other side of the park, hundreds of Mooners were anxiously awaiting their co-dependent town’s celebration of independence. And she should be enjoying it with them. It was a once in a lifetime chance to be right here, right now. And she was wasting it moping over a man who was never going to make his move.
“What is my problem?” she asked the night.
“You lack patience. You need to know what you wantandbe patient enough to get it.”
John’s hands were on her, turning her to him. She opened her mouth to argue, to apologize, to promise she’d give it a rest. But the words never came out. John’s mouth was on hers, softly, sweetly, with a steady undercurrent of determination.
Chapter Seventeen
Explosions of color and fire lit the sky in a spectacular show. But it was nothing compared to what Phoebe saw when John’s mouth covered hers. Softly at first, sweetly, his lips moved over hers. His fingertips held her face, still giving his mouth free rein to explore. The heat, the tenderness overwhelmed her. She was dizzy with it as he unglued her piece by piece.
Finally, when she thought she could take no more, John deepened the kiss. His tongue swept inside her mouth to taste and tease. Phoebe felt her toes curl into her sandals as if they were trying to hold her upright. She clung to him, fingers cramping from the strength of her grip on his shoulders.
She felt the booms of the fireworks in her bones, and the rest of her body vibrated with the need that John had ignited within her. His hands were on the move, sliding down her back to the curve of her ass. He squeezed, lifted, hitching Phoebe up his body. She wrapped her legs around his waist and enjoyed the new angle of the kiss.
Her brain completely blanked. All that registered was pleasure and need, and there was so much of both.
He pulled away even as she tried to drag him back, hold him still. “We need to go home. Now.” His voice was jagged like shards of glass.
“God, yes.”
Half stumbling, they made the mad dash to John’s truck in the shadows, pausing only twice to fuse their mouths together again, hands wandering, fingers gripping.
