Harry’s knee against Rand’s thigh when they sat together; and more critically, the way they left themselves wide open to each other. They weren’t playing a game. They were building their own world. Karma. Rand deserves his happiness. He’d long ago earned it. She was still behind on points in life. Always would be.
“You ready to ride, Jake?”
He curled his hand around hers. “You hungry?”
“It’s almost the same question.” She bent her knee and traced it up the side of his leg.
He caught it, wrapped his hand underneath her thigh and dragged her closer to him. “What’s the answer?”
“You first.”
“I’m ready to take you anywhere you want to go.” He hesitated; a more confident man would’ve said, “so long as it includes you naked in my bed”. He finished with, “on my bike.”
She laughed. He must’ve have known she was looking for another answer. “Chicken.”
A smile played across his face. “So, you are hungry.”
“Oh yeah,” she said, “hungrier than I’ve ever been before.”
Their first stop was a restaurant in suburban Albert Park that was quiet, relaxed, with excellent food and discrete service he arranged in advance. Rielle was barely aware of anyone else in the room but Jake. They started out sitting opposite each other, shared antipasto, a dry white wine, and a conversation that after all the flirting and teasing was suddenly awkward, halting and stilted. Just like a first date; just like they hardly knew each other. There was so much she lightly, flippantly steered away from: childhood, family and the future, and he let her. They were both riding the wavelength of now, knowing it wouldn’t take much to tip them off and send them hurtling back to someplace before they were so enchanted with each other.
She had fish, he had steak. They shared vegetables and bites from each other’s plates. Then over coffee, she moved her chair adjacent to his, put her hand on his thigh, rubbed her fingers against the inside seam of his jeans.
“What are you doing, wolf-woman?”
She stopped, blinked at him and lifted her hand. He captured it and placed it back down on his thigh, holding it there. “I didn’t say I wanted you to stop. I’m just interested in your logic. Do you think if you seduce me here at dinner, I’ll forget you’re a crappy conversationalist?”
“I didn’t think we were about conversation; I thought we were more about doing other things with our tongues.”
“Ah, you see right there.” He sighed. “Right there, is my problem, Rie. You bring me so close, then you slam the door and you expect me not to care about what’s behind it.”
She looked away. “You won’t like what’s behind it, Jake.”
“You’re not giving me the chance to find out.”
Frustrated, she met his eyes again. “If you want me, you have to take me as I am right now, not how you wish I’d be. I’m not Eliza Doolittle. You’re not Henry Higgins, you can’t make me over, change me.”
“So, if I say it’s all or nothing?”
She removed her hand, flattened it on the white table cloth and rocked back in her chair, dropping her eyes. She felt him tense for her response. “Then it’s nothing.”
“You’d walk away from this thing, whatever we have, that makes me want to forget my manners and screw you on the table right now?”
He spoke low voiced, close to her ear, but she felt his words hit like the roar of a stadium audience. They blew out her senses and left her momentarily blind, fumbling to remember who she was and what she wanted.
“I’m not the one making demands. I’ll take you exactly as you are, Jake. I think you’re perfect.”
The sixteen-year-old boy still a part of Jake wanted to leap to his feet and announce to the restaurant that this girl—this mad, brave, talented rock star—thought he was perfect. The twenty-eight-year old heard her words and felt a wave of conflicted feelings threaten to dump him on the shore. He could no sooner walk away from Rielle than let himself drown. But whatever she was running from—whatever she thought needed to be hidden, weighed him down, like swimming fully dressed.
He had a mouth full of sand. He said bluntly, “Let’s go,” signalling for the cheque.
Back on the bike, he thrilled to the touch of her arms around him. There was no distance between their bodies, and she moulded her curves to him as he weaved through the traffic, her hands pressed against his chest, the helmet he’d bought her