“Well, since you’re available and so am I…” She gives me a level look and draws in a bust-lifting breath. “I’m saying yes.”
That magic word sets me into immediate motion. I reach for her, scooping her close and wrapping my arms around her waist. I bend my knees so I can bury my nose in the silky sweep of skin from her shoulder, up her neck and behind her ear. Her fingers in my hair are the most delicious kind of torture.
I pull back to brush my thumb across the vibrant coat of lipstick, smearing it. Her lips are soft as petals under my finger. I do it again and again until nothing but the natural pinkish-brown of her mouth remains. Her breaths come harder every time I touch her lips, and she’s panting, her eyes never leaving my face. I cup the back of her head and bend, giving her one last moment to think better of it—to pull away. But instead she leans in, meeting me halfway, her mouth open and her sweet tongue seeking mine. I groan into the kiss, searching the silky interior of her mouth, my hands roaming down her back and squeezing her ass through the shimmering layers of fabric.
Just when I think I’ll combust, cold water sprays my face and back and arms.
“What the…?” I look up to the sky, expecting rain.
“It’s your sprinklers,” Kimba says, sounding horrified and wriggling to get out of my arms.
The hell I’m letting her go. The water dances over us, a shocking shower soaking me through. She squirms in my unbreakable hold. “Ezra! My hair!”
The silky, straight strands are wet and clinging to her neck. The perky layers of her dress now droop with the weight of water. I laugh and pull her even closer.
“Ezra Stern,” she grits out. “If you don’t—”
It only makes me laugh harder because if she could see herself, she’d laugh, too, but she can’t so I’m laughing for both of us. She turns in my arms, poised to run, but her high heel gets stuck and her foot sinks into the mud.
“Dammit.” She pushes the wet hair from her face and bats at my arm around her waist. “Let me go.”
“No way I’m letting you go,” I whisper in her ear through a clump of damp hair that’s already starting to curl. “You said yes.”
She goes still. Stops squirming and looks up at me over her shoulder, her lipstick smeared, her mascara streaked. The annoyance slowly dissolves from her expression, and a smile, the kind I haven’t seen since we were kids, high on anticipation and down for whatever, breaks out on her face. I spread my hand over her stomach and pull her back into my chest, angling my head so I can reach her mouth, and I kiss her.
It’s the kind of perfect kiss that has nothing to do with technique or experience. Nothing even to do with ardor, though that’s evident in the way we clutch, we cling. It’s perfect because it’s her and it’s me and it’s about time and it’s overdue. And we kiss like there’s no tomorrow because there have already been too many yesterdays, too many years we were apart. Centuries separated us, but now here we are and here’s our chance. It’s not ideal and it has its complications, but it’s ours. And we’re taking it.
Also, I was wrong. This sprinkler system? Perfect timing.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Kimba
I’m wet and past caring about it.
Ezra’s sprinkler continues its assault on my blow-out and my Jimmy Choos, but I can’t stop this kiss. He holds me from behind, his arm wrapped possessively around my waist. I reach up, clenching my fingers in his soaked hair and pressing his mouth deeper into mine. His lips are soft and starving, stirring all my senses to life. He moves his hand up from my waist and squeezes my breast. I turn into him, pressing my curves into the hard plane of his chest. He tugs at the bodice of my dress and runs a thumb roughly over my nipple.
“Inside,” he mutters, raining kisses down my neck. He grabs my hand and turns to run through the garden. My heels keep getting stuck in the mud and I turn my ankle every other step.
“My shoes.” I stop and bend to take them off, but he dips under my midsection and hoists me over his shoulder.
“Ezra Stern!” I squeal, bouncing against his back, the rows of vegetables a blur as he dashes through mud and squash and tomatoes. “If you drop me…”
When we reach the back door, he opens it and steps into the mudroom, my body still slung over his shoulder. He slides me down his front and carefully sets me on my feet.
“We’re a mess.” I laugh.
Lotus’ gorgeous creation may be unsalvageable, the vibrant wings limp and flopping around my hips and legs. My high heels squish as soon as they hit the hardwood floor. Ezra’s jeans and shoes are sloshed with mud. Water beads his face and hair, crystalline droplets suspended from his long lashes. His YLA T-shirt is transparent, plastered to the heavy muscles of his chest and tapering to his ribs and narrow waist. He reaches back and wrenches the sodden shirt over his head.
My laughter evaporates along with all the oxygen in the mudroom when I come face-to-pectoral with his broad, wet, naked chest. His body is something beyond the basics of human anatomy, overreaching into divine engineering. With trembling fingers, I trace his abs, his chest and broad shoulders, strength and sinew draped tightly over bones. I touch his mouth, the well-drawn bow of his top lip, the alluring fullness of the bottom one. Ocean and midnight sky, desire and tenderness swirl in his eyes. A voluptuous silence swells and curves between us, thickening by the second.
“Tru.” He brushes his knuckles across my cheek and pushes the wet hair away from my face. “Let me see you.”
I jerk down the shade at his door and find the zipper at my back, tugging until the bodice gapes, liberating my breasts, proud and heavy, tipped up at the ends with large brown nipples.
“Shit.” He runs reverent fingers over them. My breath hitches. “You’re…”
He swallows and cups my neck, bends to run his tongue along my collarbone, lapping up the beads of water on my skin. He wanders to one breast, pulling on it with his mouth so softly, with such care, my knees literally go weak. He licks the halo surrounding my nipple over and over. The drag of his tongue provokes a shudder through my whole body. He takes my hand, linking our fingers, and gently pushes me, urging me to sit on the mudroom bench. Dropping to his knees, he removes my ruined heels and pulls my legs over his shoulders. His head disappears under the iridescent layers of my skirt and he strokes along the bare skin of my thighs, lifting my knees higher, wider. When his finger probes the edge of my panties between my legs, I instinctively tighten my knees. His head bobs beneath the skirt, lips tugging on my clit through the silk underwear.