The Davis Years (Indigo) (17 page)

“Oh?” Jemma handed him a bowl.

“Yeah.” Davis moved behind her, slipping his hands into the water and covering hers. “Don’t you think so?”

“Um.” It was hard to think at all with him so close. His lips brushed the tender skin behind her ear. He pressed in closer and she reached up for another kiss, barely realizing she was doing it.

“So?” He trailed his wet, soapy fingers up her arms.

“Huh? I mean, well, we should finish washing the dishes—I mean, that gravy’s going to be really hard to get out of the pan later,” Jemma said, needing some space. She wasn’t sure she was ready for what would happen if he didn’t back away. The more she thought about it, the more she was afraid that if she let him go too far, let him get too close, she would cross that line she’d been toeing for over a week. If she crossed it, she wasn’t sure she could get back to the safe side.

She had to leave Derring. She could never be free of all her personal demons if she didn’t. She couldn’t trust the love, believe that it could be enough even if they both really did feel it, when it had never been enough before. Love hadn’t saved her brother. Smooth had supposedly loved Lynette, but he’d still destroyed her. Lynette and love—putting those two words next to each other didn’t seem right.

“Okay,” he said with a sigh, moving over and picking up the dish towel again. She had to want him to move closer to the dish rack. She stopped herself from pulling him back to her.

They sat down to watch a movie once the dishes were done. The little bit of tension from earlier had passed. The movie was something basketball related and Jemma quickly lost interest. Davis kept catching her falling asleep and teasing her about it.

Jemma yawned. “I think I’ll make some coffee.” She stood and Davis pulled her onto his lap. “What?”

“I know a better way to wake you up,” Davis said, his eyes twinkling. “Let’s go for a walk.”

Jemma raised her eyebrows. “You know it’s midnight, right?”

“Yeah. Best time for a walk.” He said it as if everyone knew this was true.

A smirk of disbelief spread over her features, but she let him take her hand. They padded out of the living room on bare feet and went through the kitchen and out the back door. He led her down the steps. Her toes curled around the cool, moist sand as they walked out onto the beach.

“Hmm. That feels nice,” she said and smiled. “The sand.” She stared up at the moon, so bright that night. She caught his eye from the corner of hers. “Yes?”

“You’re so beautiful in the moonlight. Then again, you’re beautiful everywhere,” Davis said, encircling her waist with his arm and drawing her closer. They walked down to the lake’s edge.

“You brought me all the way out here in the middle of the night to tell me how beautiful I am in the moonlight?” she asked with a grin, resting her head against his shoulder. She admired the moon’s reflection on the shimmering stillness of the lake’s surface.

“No. I can tell you how beautiful you are anywhere. I could tell you all day, every day.”

“Oh. That’s nice.” She was starting to get carried away again, but she couldn’t stop it this time. The scariest part was she didn’t want to.

“I should thank you.”

She looked up at him, confused. “For what?”

“For coming back to me. Even if just for a little while. Saving me. Again,” he murmured into her hair. “I wasn’t—I wasn’t doing so well before you came back.”

He didn’t seem to be anything like what Emily Rose had led her to believe she’d find. He didn’t seem nearly as broken as she’d expected him to be.

“You’ve done so much for me. And you mean the world to me. You keep saving me. I feel so whole—so happy here next to you. I can’t believe I’m holding you in my arms again. You’re such a large part of my life. Even when you’re not physically in it. We don’t have much time, and I don’t know how to tell you everything that’s in my heart.”

Jemma felt as if her own heart would disintegrate. “Then don’t.”

“Don’t?” His brow puckered in confusion.

“Remember? That’s part of the deal we made,” Jemma said. “Enjoy this night with me.” She walked backward into the lake, reaching out for his hands.

“What are you doing?” His voice was wary, but he gave her his hands.

“Enjoying this moment with you,” she said, walking further backward. She didn’t stop until the water was waist high. The water she’d disturbed by walking in pushed against her waist in small, pleasant waves. She leaned her head to the side, enjoying the contrast of Davis’s dark hair with his pale skin. Her eyes lingered on the angular line of his jaw. In moonlight and shadows, his face was perfection. The face of all her favorite dreams. But that was all he was meant to be now. Dreams and memories. They would have never lasted as a couple. Trying wouldn’t have been good for either of them.

Davis said, “Why are we standing here with all of our clothes on?”

“’Cause I can’t do this on land.” She splashed water into his face.

“Oh. It’s on now,” he said, splashing her back. She reached down to scoop up an armful of water to fling at him and he grabbed her arms. She laughed, struggling against his grasp until they both lost their balance and went crashing into the lake. Once they surfaced, dripping clothes adhering to their skin, he pulled her close, and kissed her hard and sweet with a passion that would have sent her right back into the lake if he hadn’t been holding her so tightly.

“It’s not so bad being in here now, is it?” she said between kisses.

“It’s not anything but perfect when we’re together like this.”

She smiled against his lips.

***

“I still can’t believe we did that,” Davis said. “That water was freezing.” He wrapped a towel around her and rubbed her shoulders. “I’m glad we did, though.”

Jemma nodded. Her dress lay on the bathroom floor and she wore only her wet underwear and the towel Davis had just wrapped around her.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she said. Needing to feel him close, she sank back against him. “Just a little chilly.”

She felt his breathing, gentle and quick, against her neck. She put a hand over his, which lay against her shoulder. She was just going to have to deal with the pain of leaving. She wanted to enjoy every minute she had left with him in the fullest way possible. She needed to listen to what she kept telling him. All that mattered was living in the moment. Enjoying what time they had left to say a real goodbye to each other—something they’d never gotten the chance to do.

She turned around in his arms and locked her hands behind his neck, letting them rest against the nape. And then she drank him in with her eyes. She let them move over the shadowy planes of his face—crooked nose, cheeks, and finally eyes—those eyes a perfect, clear blue. The sky on a cloudless autumn day when everything seemed so perfect it was almost believable that all was going to be okay. That kind of blue.

He traced his fingertips along her cheeks, over her ears, down to her shoulders. Up again, under her chin. He moved them across her collarbone and then up and down her arms from shoulders to elbows. The whole time, they watched each other. They kept their eyes locked as if trying to tell each other all the things they’d forbidden each other to say out loud.

She slid her arms down to his waist. He stroked her hair away from her face. Everything seemed so perfect in that moment. If only there was a way to trick herself into believing it could always be that way. Too bad she knew better.

***

Davis pulled Jemma’s towel open and held the ends of it in his hands. She wore only a soaked black lace bra and panties. Her nipples strained against the transparent material of the bra. She started to move closer. He shook his head, not yet done drinking her in with his eyes.

“What?” she whispered.

“I’m just admiring.” His eyes traveled over the rise of her breasts, down to her flat stomach, over her navel, and to the scrap of lacy fabric between her perfect legs.

“Admiring?”

“Yes. Admiring.” He dropped the towel and moved closer.

“Oh.”

His hands slipped over her hips as he hugged her to him. She moaned, pressing her hands into his lower back.

He tried to absorb every inch of her. He only had days left with her, and he had to be able to remember everything perfectly. From the way her neck curved into the slope of her shoulders to how his name sounded coming from her mouth. To how good it felt to run his fingers over her silky skin.

He knew she was right and that was why it was good she was going to Florida. But that didn’t mean he wanted her to go. He wished he were more selfish. Selfish enough to beg her not to go. To ask her to marry him although he had no right to ruin her life by making himself a permanent part of it.

“Davis?” she asked in a soft murmur as his lips found their way up one arm.

“Hmm?” He hummed into the flesh of the opposite arm, working his way down to her fingertips.

“I’m glad you brought me here.”

He nodded, his lips pressed to the flesh between her breasts. He let her bra slide from his fingers to the floor. Holding her eyes with his, he spread his fingers over her shoulder before tracing them down to her navel. His lips touched the places his fingers had been. He kneeled in front of her, his hands pressed to her thighs. He took the top of the black scrap of fabric between his teeth and pulled it slowly over her thighs and then released it from his teeth, letting it fall to the floor.

He kissed her inner thighs, inhaling her sweet scent, his hands on the backs of them. He felt her fingers in his hair and his kisses became deeper. While he pressed his lips into the skin of her hip, one of his hands found its way from the back of her thigh to the wet warmth between her legs.

He pulled away and she moaned in disappointment. He stood and took her hands, pulling her over to the bed. Lying on top of her, he said, “I want you to be happy.” He’d almost said he wanted to make her happy, but he wasn’t sure he was capable of doing that. He represented things from a past she wanted to forget. A past anyone would want to forget.

“I am,” she said before kissing him.

“Good.” His kisses moved lower and lower until he once again found himself between her gorgeous legs. He drowned out his thoughts with the scent and taste of her.

Monday morning, Davis limped into the kitchen to find Jemma making breakfast. He kissed her cheek before grabbing a mug and going over to pour himself a cup of coffee.

Jemma said, “I’ve had such a good time here. You sure you can’t call in sick?”

“Only if I want to get fired again today.” Davis went to the fridge to look for cream.

“Are you okay?”

He looked up from the fridge. “What? Yeah. I’m fine. Why?” No cream. Maybe there was some non-dairy creamer in one of the cabinets.

“Well, it’s just that you’re limping. And the Vicodin . . .”

“I’m okay. I don’t even take the Vicodin. Have you seen me take the Vicodin?” He slammed a cabinet shut. He put a hand over his eyes and winced. He felt bad for snapping at her, but he didn’t like to talk about his knee. That, combined with the previous night making him so much more aware of what he was about to lose, led to him being on edge. He also hadn’t been able to sleep well, thinking of those things.

“Sorry. You looked like you might be hurting is all.” She flipped the eggs that sizzled in a black skillet.

She had no idea how he hurt. “It’s okay.” He dumped some of the powdered creamer he’d found into his coffee. Then he went to find a spoon.

“I hate to think of you in pain.”

He stirred sugar into his coffee.

“Davis?” She put a hesitant hand on his back. He tensed, but didn’t move away from her. “I’m sorry. About you and Tara and your . . . what happened between you two. I wanted to say that the other day. And I didn’t.”

He nodded. “Thanks, but that was a long time ago. Tara was another part of me. A part I didn’t like very much. She’s not important anymore.”

“It has to hurt, though. If you ever want to talk about it—”

He shrugged away from her hand. “Ever? Don’t you mean if I want to talk about it sometime in the next two weeks or so before you take off for Florida?”

“I’m sorry, Davis. I am. But you have to know it’s better for both of us this way,” Jemma said.

“What I know is that it hurts. I love you, Jemma. I’ve always wanted what we shared this past weekend. Last night. I’m only letting go because it’s what you want and what you deserve. I know it’s my fault—a lot of the reason you hate being in Derring.”

“I don’t want to talk about this. It’s all in the past and the past can’t be changed.”

He turned his coffee cup in circles on the counter, looking at it instead of her. “Regardless, I wish I could take it all back.”

She was rougher with the plates she pulled from the cabinet than she needed to be. “Like I said, we can’t change the past. Only move forward. That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“I wish I could have been all that you needed. I wish I could be now.”

Jemma turned off the stove burners and put her hands on her hips. She stayed facing the stove. “I’m sorry if I hurt you. Maybe this was a bad idea. If you want me to leave you alone for the rest of the time I’m here—”