Breathless - Jesse Book 1 (10 page)

“Niki. Hey Niki.” Kat’s steady voice pierced my illusion, dissolving the hallucination. My field of vision expanded, and opened again. My weight settled in the center of my body.

“Where did you go there? It seemed like you spaced out for a while,” she laughed nervously. “Here, hand me your empty bottle. We don’t want it to break and leave glass all over the beach. Someone might step on it and get hurt.”

I watched her take the bottle out of my hand.

“Sit down girl. You look like you just saw a ghost.” She strummed a soft soothing melody on her guitar.

I glanced down at my feet and everything was right again, the sand looked like it should in the light of the fire. I sat down in my chair and took a deep breath, slowly rubbing the smooth clear skin on my forearm.

“Kat, I, I...” I didn’t know what to say. My emotions split me apart. I didn’t want to hurt Kat, but I was sliding down a slippery slope with Jesse. I didn’t want to face Jason who was on his way home, and I didn’t want to disappoint my dad.

“It’s okay, Niki.” Her gaze focused on her hands, working up and down the guitar. “Don’t sweat the load. I know you are crushing on Jesse. Go for him girl. I saw the way he looked at you.”

“But, but, argh, I feel like a jerk.”

“Nah, sweetie. It’s cool. I’m fine with it. I noticed how he eyed you at the gym earlier. It was all over for me and Jesse, right then and there.”

“Don’t hate me.”

“Never, hun. Nothing can ever come between us, especially not some hunky guy. You’re every girl’s best friend. Come on, let’s have a good time and enjoy this beautiful summer night on the beach. Come on baby light my fire...” She started playing the song, and my thoughts turned to Jesse. I wanted to go to him.

I stood up and stretched my legs. “I’m gonna go mingle. Do you mind?”

Kat looked up with a soft smile, “Go find him already.”

“Thank you Kat. You’re the best.”

“Just give me a heads up if you end up going home with him.”

I gasped. “No way. I just met him...and you know...Jason.”

I weaved my way through groups of people. As I passed by the fire, Tanner had his arms wrapped around Jenna and they swayed to the soft melody of Kat’s guitar. I pushed on to another group gathered near the café. The patio was lit up with multi colored lights, flanking the beams that held up a gauzy sun canopy. At first, I observed Jesse from a distance taking a few moments to admire his stature, to read him unobtrusively. Was he really a disaster waiting to happen? I tried to take an objective point of view as my eyes traced his silhouette. He had an athletic solid frame and was tattooed on his right biceps. In him was a generally recognized quality of confidence. Nothing scared him. The way he talked so easily in front of people…he had a fearless self-assurance that set him apart.

Jesse saw me closing the gap between us, and broke away from the group to meet me. My nerves were frayed. My stomach felt like I just hit the first drop on the roller coaster. I stopped and waited for his path to meet mine. I didn’t want to join the group he was talking with and have to make polite conversation. I wanted to talk to him, just him and no one else.

“Do you always come to these “shindigs” looking devastatingly beautiful?”

I nearly dropped my beer, painfully aware that my mouth hung open. He smiled a heart stopping pearly, white, smile and pushed his unruly hair out of his eyes.
Damn, he was fine.
I froze, speechless. Words wouldn’t come; my mouth was as dry as the Sahara.

“Hi,” I managed to crackle. Oh, that sounded really smooth. My greeting was a chicken crackle. I cleared my throat, ducked my head down and blushed in the dark. “Let’s try that again, Hi Jesse.” I laughed. He did too and I was glad to see my blunder amused him.

“Enjoying the bonfire?”

“Yeah, I love going to the beach. It’s really beautiful here in the summer at night. It’s one of the things I missed the most when I lived in New York.” I forced myself not to stare at him. I dropped my head to my feet and kicked at the sand.

“Wait, what? You lived in New York? I’m from New York, well upstate New York. When did you live there?”

My eyes raised to his chest, the T-shirt he wore stretched tight across its expansiveness. They tracked the ripple of muscles shifting under the fabric as he tilted his beer bottle to catch the last few drops.

“Oh, a long time ago, before high school. I went to a boarding school there.” I locked my gaze on a small mound of sand I raked to the side with my foot. When I lifted my head, he had a perplexed look on his face. He shot a glance over to the fire and back.

“Would you like to go for a walk on the beach?”

Oh my God
. Alone with Jesse on a warm summer night, was tempting. The few butterflies stirring in my stomach now swarmed to a thousand. I wrung my hands and glanced over to where Kat played her guitar. I let out a breath.

“I’d love to. Let’s grab a beer from my cooler to take with.” Agreeing to go with him came so easily to my lips. I said it so willingly, yet I had Jason to deal with. Jason who had no clue this was happening. Jason, who would be blindsided. My stomach constricted. The guilt could’ve been wrung out of it like a wet sponge. “The heart wants what the heart wants” and although I felt I was on the cusp of a journey filled with both roses and thorns, I pushed that thought aside.

I scooped the last two bottles from the cooler. Kat gave me a nod and a wink, without breaking the rhythm in her song, playing and singing softly by the fire. I handed one to Jesse, he twisted off the cap and flipped it into the embers. I faced him, my eyes seeking his for direction.

“Come.“ He jerked his head in the direction of the open beach. I followed willingly into the darkness, my heart pounding. We pushed off in the soft sand, my feet slipping a little out of my sandals as I walked. A full moon was forming at the edge of the sky.
He slowed down when he saw me shifting my weight, and tripping in the sand ruts.

“Do you wanna walk or sit?” He stretched his arm in a sweeping motion, opening to the expanse of the ocean view before us. “Isn’t this fantastic?”

I caught up next to him and laughed. “Yes, I love it.”

“Do you know what I see?”

“No, what?” I pulled my long dark hair around to the side with my free hand, as the night breeze whipped it across my face.

“I see a dirt track. I could kick up about a ton of this sand riding my motorcycle up and down the beach, doing donuts in the sand. Woo...” He motioned in the air like he gripped the handlebars and revved the throttle. His expression beamed, lost in thoughts of riding. I laughed at his pantomime of a wild ride and he exhaled with a whoosh, shaking his head.

“Wow, that’s never gonna happen.” He stomped his foot and looked at the sand. “Who gives a shit anyway?”

Even in the darkness I could see his sadness. The smile faded from his face. He kicked at the sand and walked, leaning his upper body in a motion for me to follow. I fell in beside him, indulging the silence in the night air. I peered into his downturned face and asked, “Why will that never happen?” His forlorn face stabbed at my heart. Something had hurt him. Or someone? In one moment my problems were gigantic, in the next they seemed miniscule.

“I mean... you’re not allowed to ride motorcycles on these beaches. You’d get a ticket. But that wouldn’t stop you, would it? So supposing you could get your bike here, why can’t you ride your motorcycle on the beach?

Jesse lifted his left hand in the air and wiggled his fingers, splayed them out, then formed a fist. “This.” He looked at his hand and dropped his arm to his side. “I injured my hand...and leg in an accident, the last race I was in. It wasn’t a clean break, so I needed surgery on both my hand and leg. It’s complicated.”

“Oh. Isn’t it healed by now? It looks fine to me.”

Jesse plopped down on the sand and rested his elbows on his bent knees. I followed suite and sat cross legged next to him. I sensed a story was about to erupt. Needles prickled my skin. I wanted to know his story and everything about him. Our walk had taken us far enough from the bonfire to be secluded from the others, enough to tempt fate.

“It’s taking longer than I thought. I mean who gets a broken leg or broken hand and it takes this long to heal? I want my hand to have the precision needed to work the clutch. That’s on the left handlebar of a bike. I have a little gripping ability, but not enough, it’s not tight enough.” His eyes followed the waves.

“I see.” I said softly. I hadn’t realized the severity of it all. I felt like an insensitive fool. “And your leg?”

“The left leg is used to shift the gears. On a bike it’s the foot that clicks the shift, up for first gear, then down for the others. That kind of movement takes refined muscle coordination. It’s one thing if a person rides for fun, but someone like me, a racer…well you get the picture.”

Impulsively, I reached out and took his left hand, stroking it. He locked his eyes on me, brimming with frustration.

“Niki, it’s not just that I can’t make a living racing, it’s the thought that I may never be able to ride in a competition again that scares me the most. I need to feel the freedom of racing. Riding soothes my soul. At first, right after the accident, I was lost, didn’t give a damn about anything. I wanted to exist without responsibility, without faith or friends or warmth. But now, well,” he gazed into my eyes. “I have a feeling that good things are happening and everything’s going to look much better in the future.”

“You're crazy. I’m sure it will heal fine and you will be back competing sooner than you think.” His eyes slipped over my face in the dark until they found my eyes.

“And you’re crazy beautiful.”

My pulse picked up speed, racing through my body. Touching Jesse’s hand made me feel secure, warm and special. It started at my toes and filled me all the way up to my smile. He glanced down at my hand stroking his, then back up to my face.

“I didn’t mean to...I mean, with my hands...” My head was light and dizzy. Suddenly, I was aware of my breathing, aware of his touch, aware of how fatefully close our bodies had come to each other.

“Your hands? They don’t offend me. What if I
want
your hands on me?” He said in a low voice.

The visual of my hands on Jesse’s bare skin made my stomach drop. It was exactly what I wanted. We sat in the darkness on the beach, locked in an intense gaze for what seemed like an eternity of silence. And yet, he didn’t withdraw. My skin burned like fire, from the mere touch of his hand.

“I, I....” My words caught in my throat, I couldn’t find enough air on the entire beach to breathe.

 
Jesse adjusted his position closer me, and took my hand in both of his. Stroking and kissing, he pressed his lips to my hand, gently rubbing the backside against his cheek. Logic dictated I should pull my hand away but my emotions battled against it.

“I really want to kiss those lips of yours,” he murmured.

My lips parted, my breath ragged. All I saw in front of my face were his perfectly kissable lips and he so much as said he wanted me to touch him. To hell with Jason. The desire to be in Jesse’s arms, to feel his touch, to kiss his lips, was an uncontrollable hurricane. I couldn’t have stopped it if I tried. But he could. And he did.

I sat transfixed, leaning in for the kiss, lips next to his, and the scent of shave cream lingering on his skin, when the look in his eyes shifted. He gently laid my hand in my lap, leaned back and took his hands away.

“You have a boyfriend.” He cocked his head to the side and blinked at me.

The ocean rolled and the crashing sound of water invaded my senses. Dammit, this was an unpredictable quality for a “bad boy”. My heart sank. I wanted him to be bad, so I wouldn’t have to feel guilty for what I was about to do to Jason.

It was hard to swallow. I couldn’t look him in the eye. “I don’t really...I mean. We broke up.” I bobbed my head up and down and pursed my lips. “Yup. We broke up. A day…a couple days ago, yeah, couple days.” He stalled out for a moment. I could see the gears churning in his head. My heart pounded out of my chest. I felt like an idiot. I thought I saw a look in his eyes.