The Private Serials Box Set (30 page)

   He smelled incredible.  The scent that was simply Preston mixed with the unmistakable smell of his leather jacket was enough to force my eyes closed as I breathed him in.

   The bike suddenly jolted forward, moving into traffic, and I yelped, unprepared for the movement.  His hand came off the handlebar and rested against mine clasped to his chest.  He ran his hand over mine a few times, soft and gentle, before putting it back on the handlebar.  I relaxed as the ride went on, getting use to the unfamiliar feeling, leaning into turns and being so vulnerable to every car on the road.  

   It occurred to me about ten minutes into the ride that Preston was an excellent motorcyclist, and he must ride often to be that proficient at it.  I began to relax and enjoy the scenery passing me by.  I hadn’t thought to ask him where we were going, but I didn’t worry about it.  I was willing to go wherever he wanted in that moment.

   We left the city proper and started to ride away from the commotion. The road we were on wound up the hills of a volcano in the middle of the island. 

   On one straightaway, I watched as Preston took his hand from the bike and placed it high up on the outside of my thigh, giving it a firm squeeze.  The touch was simple but meant so much to me.  It was thankful, as if he were glad I was with him in that moment.  It was regretful, as if he were sad this was the first time I’d been on the back of his bike.  But it also felt possessive, as if he were just reaffirming that I was, indeed, his.  All I could do in response was snuggle in closer to his back and let my hands roam a little freer across his chest, pull myself into him further.

   After about an hour, he pulled off the main road and onto a gravelly path that led to what seemed like an unofficial lookout.  Obviously, many people came here to admire the view as indicated by the pieces of litter along the edges of the area. 

   He flipped out the kickstand with his foot and I unwound my leg from the bike, eager to stand and take in the view.  I pulled the helmet off and a smile spread across my face.  The view was absolutely breathtaking.  Blue ocean met blue sky, wispy clouds far off in the horizon, and white waves crashing onto the shores below. 

   I turned, a smile still stretching my cheeks, like I hadn’t smiled in weeks, to find Preston leaning against the seat of his bike, ankles and arms crossed.

   “Don’t you want to come see the view?”

   “I like the view from here just fine.”  He smiled as he spoke, but it wasn’t the brilliant smile I wanted to see.  “Come here,” he finally said, the darkness back in his voice.  I walked to him and stopped a few feet away.  “I did a lot of talking back there.  Is there anything you want to say to me?”

   His question caught me off guard, but I thought about it for a second.  Then I shrugged.  “Why weren’t you just honest with me from the beginning?”

   He sighed heavily and ran a hand over his bearded face.  “Looking back, that might have been the better choice.  But just because I lost my mind when I saw you that first day, didn’t guarantee you felt the same way about me.  I guess I figured if I could get you out of your marriage unscathed, I’d done my job.”  He paused and looked me in the eyes.  “I wasn’t planning on falling in love with you, Lena.”

   “That’s the second time you’ve said that today,” I murmured.

   “What?”  He looked puzzled.

   “That you love me.”

   “I’ve said it to you in my mind a million times.”  He stood, pushing off his bike, moving closer to me.  “I’ve said it silently to you while you’ve slept next to me.”  He took another step toward me, leaving just half a foot between us.  “I’ve said it out loud, praying you could hear me an ocean away.”

   “I feel like I’m on a roller coaster,” I whispered, looking down at my hands, wringing them in the space between us.  “For weeks now I’ve cursed you, hated you for how you betrayed me.  Then, you just show up, and you seem to have an explanation for everything.  And I want to believe you, Preston, I do.”  I took in a breath, bracing myself.  “I want to believe you and go back to the blissful place where you and I were exploring what it meant to be ‘us,’ and let you in all over again, but I’m scared.”

   “I know,” he said as his hands reached gently for my face.  My first instinct was to pull away, to keep a safe distance from him, but I couldn’t move.  He brought his hands up to my jaw, fingers curled, the back running along my jawline and down my throat, leaving a warm tingle in their wake.  My eyes closed again and I swallowed, trying to keep down everything his touch evoked.  Then, his fingers opened and slid around to the back of my neck, his thumbs resting on my cheeks, pulling my face even closer to his.  “I want you to trust me,” he said softly.  “But I know I have to earn that back from you.  But please, tell me you’ll give me that chance.  Let me show you.”

   I could feel his breath on my lips, could smell him all around me, and feel his hands on my skin.  Then, suddenly, I was touching him too.  My hands tentatively rested on his chest and he took in a small but audible breath at my touch.

   “Please, sweetheart,” he begged.  It was as if he was asking for everything: to forgive him, to love him, to be with him, to let it all go and move forward.  I couldn’t answer him, didn’t have all the resolutions he was looking for, but I could kiss him.  So I moved my lips just close enough to his to feel the warmth of them.  Then, like I’d given him the first ray of light in a dark room, he took my mouth and showed me how sorry he was.

   It wasn’t a soft kiss.  It wasn’t a slow kiss.  It was a desperate kiss, as if he were afraid I was going to change my mind at any moment and he was trying to soak up as much of me as he could before I came to my senses.  But my senses had fled and left me alone with this man and his mouth. 

   It was a hungry kind of kiss, the kind of kiss that was vocal.  I could hear him kissing me, all the growls and groans.  I didn’t need to worry about breathing because, somehow, the kiss was breathing for me. 

   His hands were still on either side of my face, holding me to him, turning me every which way, trying to reach every part of my lips with his.  My fists gripped his jacket, then blindly found their way to the zipper, pulling it down and finding his shirt underneath.  I slid my fingertips down his torso, remembering every ripple of corded muscle, every ridge.  When I reached the hem, I slipped my hands beneath it and started my journey back up his stomach, this time feeling his warm skin against mine.

   He spun us around, one hand coming to my back, and he pressed me down to sit on the seat of his bike, straddling my knees.

   Then, he shifted gears unexpectedly and I was floating.  His mouth was a whisper upon mine and he feathered his hands down my neck, along my jaw, teasing my collarbone. 

   All the times Preston and I had been together, he’d been all manner of lovers.  The first time was hard and rough; the release of all the tension we’d built between us.  The second time was sweet and slow; a celebration of finding one another.  But this,
dear sweet Lord
, this was divine.  He was worshiping me, giving thanks, and each kiss was a prayer.  Each kiss seemed almost breakable, so fragile, and it was perhaps that moment, in that kiss, I realized how sorry Preston actually was.

   The reverence with which he touched me, the gentleness, it broke something inside of me.  The dam I’d built, the wall I’d erected, and it came crashing down.  Each tender kiss from him was like a wrecking ball to my defenses.  Tears started streaming down my face, but for the first time in months, they were a mixture of sad and happy tears.

   A sob broke free against his mouth, and then his hands gripped my hips and he hauled me up against him, lifting me off the ground.  My legs went around his waist without a single thought, and then he sat the bike so he was balancing on it and I was straddling his lap.  His hands moved upward, moving over my back, curving over the top of my shoulders, pulling me down to him even more. 

   I cried against him and eventually my face found the crook of his neck and I let everything out I’d held on to so tightly since that day when I thought my world had fallen apart.  He let me cry. He held me, rubbed every part of my body available to him with his large, strong hands.  He whispered to me, trying to calm me. 

   “Shh. Baby, please.” 

   His voice was shallow and broken, hurting along with me.

   “I’m so sorry.” 

   I could hear the sorrow in the low timbre of his voice.

   “Everything is all right now.”

   I believed him.

  When I’d finally exorcized all the emotions from my body, I pulled away and looked at him.  He looked just as wrecked as I felt with worried eyes and creased brow.  I cupped his jaw with my hands and spoke softly to him.

   “I forgive you.”  I shook as I spoke the words.  I wanted him to hear me say it, so I said it again, louder this time.  “I forgive you, Preston.”

   “Lena—“

   “No, let me finish.”  I took a breath and trudged forward, staring into his eyes, watching the worried look from his face slowly disintegrate.  “It was shitty that you lied to me.” I watched as he opened his mouth to speak, but I narrowed my eyes at him.  “But, I understand why you did it.”  My thumbs brushed over the peaks of his chiseled cheekbones under his beard and a smile crept across my face.  “And if I didn’t love you so much, I would probably hold it against you forever.”

   I watched as the understanding moved over the features of his face as he realized what I had said and what it meant.  His hands slid down my back, coming to my sides just over my ribcage, his thumbs just brushing the sensitive skin at the underside of my breasts through my shirt.

   “You have no idea how much I’ve missed you, how many times I stopped myself from getting on a plane and just coming for you.  You’ll never know…”

   “It’s okay,” I said, my forehead pressed against his.  “I wasn’t ready for you.  If you’d come any sooner, I probably would have turned you away.  I was pretty mad at you for a while.”

   “I’m sorry.”

   I pressed my fingers against his lips, effectively stopping any more words he tried to speak.  “I know, and it’s over.  No more apologies.”  I ran my index finger along the length of his full bottom lip, then I moved down and took it into my mouth. 

   The heat was back and it came through me like wildfire.  The sweet kisses from moments ago, and even the mournful ones we’d just shared, all gave way to the raging heat coursing through me in that moment.  The kiss erupted and so did my self-control.  I found myself gripping him, wrapping my legs around his waist tighter, trying to bring myself closer.

   Even though the horizon was orange and pink with the sunset, the sky just overhead had turned purple with clouds.  Suddenly, we were in a downpour with rain falling from the sky, washing away everything from the last two months.  All the anger, the sadness, the heartbreak; it all was rinsed away by the warm rain.

   “Please let me take you home,” Preston rasped against my lips.  I knew what he was asking, knew he didn’t just want to drive me to the apartment. My heart sped up at the thought of being with him again, letting him see me vulnerable again.  But then I remembered what it was like to give myself to him.

   When I was with Preston, when I gave him control over my body and let him have his way with me, it was the best form of escape.  I didn’t have to think about anything when I was with him, and I definitely never worried about a thing.  It would be nice to disappear for a while, only concerned with Preston and what he was doing to my body.

   He gently bit my lower lip, tugging on it, pulling it through his teeth.  Shivers exploded all over my body, shooting directly to my core, heating me instantly.

   “Yes,” I breathed, bringing his mouth back to mine, tasting the rain water running down his face.  “Please.”  He kissed me thoroughly, but then I was picked up and plopped down on the ground next to the bike, a little dizzy from the kiss and the movement.  He pulled his leather jacket off and wrapped it around me.

   “Put this on, sweetheart.”  My heart soared at his words.  I slipped my arms through his jacket as he climbed on the bike, pulling the helmet over his head.  I mounted the bike behind him and did the same.  I wrapped my arms around his waist and held on tight. 

   He navigated the winding roads back down the mountain, the rain pelting us for nearly half the time it took to get home.  The rain was warm – something a native Oregonian had to get used to over time – but the wetness combined with the air whipping past us made every part of me cold.

   By the time we arrived back at the apartment, I was shivering and my teeth were chattering.  He parked the bike and took me by the hand to his door, opening it, and ushering me straight to the bathroom.

   He reached into the shower and turned the faucet on, then turned back to me and immediately started taking off my layers of soaked clothes.  I was too incapacitated by the cold to argue or stop him, but I wondered why he wasn’t freezing as well.  He’d given me his coat and his tee shirt was soaked through, clinging to every contour of his chest.  I found myself just staring at how each muscle moved, each one rippled in acquiescence as he moved about the bathroom, shedding me of my clothes.

   By the time he had me in my bra and panties, I regained a little use of my brain and started to pull up on his shirt, trying to help him get warm too.

   His shirt peeled off his skin with a slurping noise and then made a wet plop as it hit the floor, water droplets splattering all around it.  I reached for the button of his jeans, threading it through, then pulling the zipper down, all requiring my full attention.  When I looked back up to him, his eyes were on me and somehow, even though I would have thought it impossible, the chocolate of his eyes was even darker.

   He toed off his shoes and socks, never breaking eye contact, then walked backward, carefully climbing into the tub, watching me all the while.  He held his hand out to me and I didn’t hesitate to join him inside the shower.

   The water rained down on me and I sighed loudly, the hotness stinging against my cold skin.  I closed my eyes and leaned my head back, running my hands through my hair as the water ran down it.  Preston’s mouth was on my neck and immediately a different kind of heat come over me.  His mouth worked against my pulse point and his hands slid around my ribs to unclasp my bra.  He pulled it off my arms and threw it over the top of the shower, the sound of it hitting the floor outside making me smile.