Stroke of Love (16 page)

She didn’t know if she should be offended or take it as a compliment, but he felt so damn good pressed against her, and she felt so much more for him than she ever knew was possible, that she didn’t want to overanalyze it.

“Never. You?” she finally answered.

He shook his head. “Never.” He loosened his grip, and she slid down his body and took him in. All of him. He sucked in a breath.

“Jesus, Kate. You feel so good.”

His desirous, sexy voice sent a thrum of excitement through her. Knowing she was making him feel as good as she felt excited her even more. She buried her face in his neck and kissed the muscles that bulged there as he moved her body in tune to his own powerful thrusts. He was so big, so strong. She loved how feminine she felt when she was with him and was taken by surprise each time they made love by how uninhibited she felt. Now, with the sun beating on her back and him buried deep, she wondered how she could be so consumed with worry one minute and overtaken by desire the next. She looked into his eyes and felt her heart swell with emotion.

She pulled his mouth to hers and kissed him again, closing her eyes to revel in the feel of him. He held her hips still, then pressed her hard upon him again and moved in the same circular motion he had the night before. Kate’s eyes flew open with the sensation. She gripped his shoulders and closed her eyes.

“Look at me,” he said.

She opened her eyes, but she was on the brink of falling apart, and it was too much. “Can’t.” she said and closed her eyes. Her head fell back and his mouth found the curve of her shoulder. His tongue caressed her as he sucked and kissed her right up over the edge.

“Kate,” he said in a deep, throaty voice. He gripped her hips tighter as he followed her over the edge, both of them breathing hard, clinging to each other as if their lives depended on the strength from the other.

Half an hour later, their bodies dry from the warmth of the sun, they dressed and sprawled out on the sand. Sage took a pen from his pocket and lifted Kate’s shirt above her rib cage.

“Signing me?” she teased.

He shrugged. “I had the urge to draw, and I can’t think of a better canvas.” He ran his hand over her belly. Kate tried to block the sensual urges from her mind as she watched the muscles jump beneath his tattoos.

“How much does it hurt to get a tattoo?” she asked as he began to draw. She held her breath against the tickle of the pen.

“More than this does.” He kissed her stomach.

Kate ran her hand through his thick hair.

“Tell me about where you go from here, Kate. If they continue to help this community, do you stay? Do you leave? When do you go home? Where do you even call home?”

She stifled a laugh as the tip of the pen traveled over her ribs. “Even if AIA doesn’t pull out, I’m slated to go to another location a few months after I leave here. I’ll have a few weeks, maybe two or three months in between assignments. When you work for a company like AIA, you really don’t maintain a home, unless you own it outright. You have to prove to AIA that you have no debt that you could default on while you’re on an assignment, so…”

He met her gaze. “That makes sense. So when you go
home,
what does that mean? Do you stay with your parents?”

“Yeah, I stay with them. They live just outside of DC. I haven’t seen them in person in almost two years. They were going to come visit, but it’s so expensive.”

“You must miss them.”

She was too distracted by the tickling of the pen on her skin to answer. She tried to see what he was drawing, but he shielded it with his hands.

“Don’t peek.” He kissed her stomach again. “I promise I’m not drawing something inappropriate.”

“I’ve never had anyone draw on me before.”

He smiled up at her. “Then I’m honored to be your first.”

He spoke with a sexual undertone, as if he’d said,
I’m honored to have been your first lover.

He went back to drawing and said matter-of-factly, “But I’m awfully tempted to lift this shirt up the rest of the way.”

“Not much up there.” She’d always been self-conscious of her small breasts, and the words came out of habit. With Sage, she realized that she didn’t feel that way. He looked at her like she was the most beautiful creature on earth.

“You’re kidding, right?” He propped himself up on his elbow. “You’re perfectly proportioned. Everything about you is lovely. Feminine. Sexy as hell.” He kissed her, then slithered back down her body and went back to drawing. “Do you miss your parents?”

“I know it sounds a little silly, but I do miss them.”

“Why is that silly? I miss my family and I’ve only been here for a short time. What about friends?”

That was a more difficult question. Most of Kate’s friends from college kept in touch via email, but she almost never saw them, and she didn’t really have close friends, except for Luce, whom she saw sporadically. Kate’s career didn’t allow for very close friendships.

“I guess I don’t need many people. I’m pretty content with the people and the life I have here. I don’t really
miss
the friends I have.”
Or at least I thought I was content, but when I’m not with you, I find myself missing you
. She sighed.
Stop it.

“Hm.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing. I was just curious.”

He stopped asking questions, and Kate wondered if he thought she was weird. She knew that not having a lot of friends might appear odd to some people, but with her lifestyle, it was just what it was. Sage finished drawing in silence. As the sun began to sink from the sky, he looked at what he’d drawn with serious eyes.

“Can I see it now?” she asked.

“Sure.”

“Can I touch it?”

He sat up beside her and rested his arms on his knees, staring solemnly at the water. “Sure.”

Kate ran her fingers over the fine details of a perfect replica of a globe, atop of which she and Sage were sitting side by side, hand in hand, their legs dangling off the edge of Central America. In the center of the Gulf of Mexico, deep in the water, which looked so real Kate wanted to dive in, it read,
Sage + Kate
.

“I love this.”
I could love you.
She touched his arm, expecting him to lean over and kiss her. When he didn’t move—not even so much as a smile—she realized something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Only she had no idea what it was. “Sage?”

“Yeah?” Again, he didn’t even look at her.

“What’s wrong?”

Sage pushed to his feet. “Nothing.” He reached for her hand and helped her up. “We should probably go back before the sun goes down.”

This was just what Kate needed. A moody artist on one of the most difficult nights of her life.

THE MORE SAGE got to know Kate, the more of a connection he felt toward her. He’d always felt like a bit of a fraud living in the heart of New York in an enormous townhouse that cost far too much money. He would be much more comfortable in a small cabin in the woods, using a rustic barn as a studio. He’d thought about making changes in his life often over the last year or two, and the thought excited him, but then the excitement was quickly chased away by his father’s voice pushing him to
be more
.
Do more
. Make more money. Be the best he could be. The days he’d spent with Kate had reignited his love of the outdoors and a more comfortable, relaxed lifestyle. The work he was doing there felt like the missing piece he’d been searching for. Now he wondered if he was really being
the best he could be
by not doing more.

He reached for Kate’s hand on the way back to the cabins, chewing on what she’d said about not needing many people in her life. He felt closer to Kate than he did to anyone else, but he’d begun to worry that perhaps he was feeling something she wasn’t. And he might just be setting himself up to be hurt.
Will you miss me when I leave?
The thought of leaving—and the lingering question of how Kate might answer the unasked question—made the pit of his stomach ache.

“You didn’t mention your meeting with the people in the village. How did it go?” he asked.

“Great. But if we pull out of here, who will advocate for them? We’ve been trying to get this through for the last year and a half, and we’re so close.” She sighed. “I just hope that Friday’s meeting will make a difference.”

“Friday?”

“Yeah. There’s so much to all of this, and I’m not an engineer or anything, so my voice is just one among many, but I think it’s important that I help. On Friday the Ministry of Rural Development is sending an engineer out to review the area and meet with the residents. I can at least speak my mind and hope it makes a difference.”

“It’s government. They’re all about dollars and cents.”
Which is why a nonprofit focusing on wells makes so much sense.

Kate sighed again and shook her head, like he totally didn’t understand. Which was accurate, because he didn’t understand how a volunteer could make that big of a difference where politics were involved. Greasing a palm maybe, but good intentions rarely got things moving in government.

“Is there some way I can help? I know you don’t like me to throw money at problems, but this is a prime example of how if you’d agree to let me create a few pieces and sell them for charitable proceeds, the money could benefit the community.”

“I just…” She blew out a breath as they came to the cabins. “Yes, this is about funding. But the government has the money. They’re just diverting it to larger communities, like the small ones don’t matter. Like if there are fewer people, they don’t need the same resources.”

Listening to the passion in her voice, and knowing how hard she worked for the community in all regards, not just for the well, made Sage feel even more for her. He brushed her damp hair from her shoulders. “I’m proud of you, for all you do and how much you care. You’re amazing, and you should be proud of yourself, too.” He felt protective toward Kate, and that feeling had only grown since their first kiss.

She blinked several times, as if she couldn’t believe what he’d said. “Thank you.”

He pulled her close and kissed her cheek. He knew it was dangerous to allow his heart to embrace her, given the distance between where he lived and where she might be in a few months, but he was unable to stop himself from being drawn into everything about her. “I want to help, and if you won’t let me help monetarily, then please let me help in some other way.”

“I guess you could come to the meeting. That would help. The more supporters the better.”

“Okay. I’ll be there.”

“Really? It’s Friday at three in the village.”

“Absolutely.”

“What about the mural? The kids?” Her eyes held a mixture of hope and worry, and Sage wanted to satisfy both.

“I’ll talk to the teachers and see if they can accommodate the painting before the lessons. Then I’ll meet you there.”

“I don’t want you to mess up your schedule, but this is really important to me. It would mean the world to me if you went.”

“And you’re important to me. I’ll be there.”

Her lips curved into a smile, and when it reached her eyes, the worry seemed to disappear. “Thank you.”

Every nerve in Sage’s body ached to discuss where they were headed—and if there was any chance of seeing each other after he left. But he worried that Kate would slide him back into the pushy artist or celebrity category. He would wait it out. Kate hadn’t indicated any interest in seeing each other beyond their time together in Belize. In fact, she might have been telling him otherwise just a few minutes earlier.
I guess I don’t need many people. I’m pretty content with the people and the life I have here.

Sage would take all the time he could get.

LATER THAT EVENING, Kate and Luce stopped by Sage’s cabin on their way into town. They found him sketching in the screened-in sleeping area, wearing nothing but a pair of gym shorts, sweat dripping from his skin. Kate stood on the outside of the screen looking in, thinking about how his wet body had felt against hers earlier in the afternoon.

“You do have a shower, you know,” Luce teased.

Sage didn’t lift his eyes from the sketchpad. “Yeah. I’ll get to it.”

“What are you drawing?” Kate stood on her tiptoes, trying to see what he’d drawn. Her hand dropped to her stomach where he’d drawn them sitting on top of the world. When she’d showered earlier she’d been careful not to scrub the image away.

“I want to remember everything here so I can capture it when I return home. In the jungle, right by the end of the path near the beach, I saw the most beautiful red flowers. That’s what I’m drawing.” His eyes remained intent on the drawing.

Kate felt a spear of guilt. She hadn’t been close enough to any artists to understand what they must feel when they’re inspired. Now, watching Sage so engrossed in capturing what he’d seen, she wondered if she’d made a mistake and stifled that inspiration by not allowing his canvases to be shipped in for paintings he’d send back to the States.

“We’re heading into town for dinner. Want to come?” Kate asked, but she could tell by the fact that his eyes did not once waver from his drawing that he was in some sort of artist’s zone again.

“No thanks. You guys have fun. I’m gonna finish this and then work out.”

Kate waited for him to add,
Can I see you later?
or
I’ll catch up with you afterward,
or
Let me kiss you goodbye,
and when he didn’t, it pierced like a needle to her heart.

Luce tucked her arm into Kate’s. “Ready, girlie? Fajitas are calling me.”

“Um, yeah.” She glanced at Sage again. “Okay, well...”

His eyes darted to her and her hopes soared—for a brief second they connected—and then he dropped them to the drawing again. “Have fun.” With his eyes locked on the drawing, he added, “I’ll come by later.”

Once out of earshot, Luce said, “You have quite the moody artist there, don’t you?”

“Who knew?” She tried to make light of Sage being completely absorbed by the drawing instead of her, but she heard the hurt in her own voice and knew Luce would too.

“Hey, you okay? He’s just doing his own thing.”