Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124320 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 622(@200wpm)___ 497(@250wpm)___ 414(@300wpm)
I catch sight of Ezra watching me, one shoulder leaned into the back doorjamb, an old affection on his new face. In some ways, I’m still reconciling this adult “fine ass” Ezra with the boy who took up much less space in the world, but who was even then, my whole world. I lose my focus mid-jump and fall on my butt. The trampoline, bouncily forgiving, throws me back up and springing to my feet. My forced breaths come loud in the quiet night as our stares tangle. We’ve snared each other with a look and I can’t wiggle free. Ezra’s smile dwindles and he takes a few steps forward until he’s at the lip of the trampoline.
“Can you imagine if we’d had one of these growing up?” he asks.
“We would never have gone to school.”
He nods to the surface where my feet still lift a few inches reflexively. “May I?”
“It’s your trampoline,” I say, as breathless from his proximity as I am from exertion.
He steps through the net and onto the taut surface, taking my hand. A kaleidoscope of butterflies instantly migrates from my belly to my throat. I should object even to this contact, but I don’t. I simply look from our joined hands to the smile on his face.
“Let’s jump,” he says.
And then we’re bouncing, facing each other, looking into each other’s eyes as the trampoline tosses us into the air. It hits him first, the laughter. A smothered chuckle when he releases my hand to bounce on his butt, then to his feet, and then springing higher into the air. And then I’m in its clutches, the mirth, the giggle spilling out of me like an overturned bin of pixie dust. It suffuses the air around us, the joy. We’re kids again, without cares or responsibilities. There are no ceilings on our dreams or walls on what could be. We could jump all night and laugh until dawn. Except after a few minutes, we stop bouncing to land on our butts and lie on our backs and look up. There’s a silver scythe moon slicing through the black velvet sky.
“The stars are a blessing tonight,” Ezra says, his voice hushed like if he speaks too loudly, he’ll scare them off. “Living in the city, you don’t always see them like this. These are special occasion stars.”
I smile at the whimsy of the boy that survived in the man. “And what’s the occasion?” I turn my head to study the rugged beauty of his profile.
He turns his head, too, and his smile evaporates like cotton candy on your tongue, a sweet vanishing. “Us,” he says. “We’re the special occasion.”
Who moves first, I’m not sure. Later my pride will say he did, but that could be a lie to exonerate myself. Regardless, his hand is cupping my face and my fingers burrow into the shorn curls at his neck. His thumb brushes my mouth, an echo of our first innocent kiss, but this kiss isn’t tentative or shy. He tugs my chin until my mouth opens and he licks into me, hungry and reckless. I lick back, I suck back, I groan back. This kiss flies into the sun, melting my iron will and burning my reservations to ashes. I fight my way through the lust fog and search for reason, a mirage in the distance, something flickering in and out of sight between hot fantasy and cold, hard reality.
“You said I could trust you,” I pant between kisses. “I don’t cheat, Ezra.”
He stills, opens his eyes, rests his forehead against mine, his harshly drawn breaths fanning over my lips both wet and burning. “Neither do I.”
He rolls away onto his back and runs a hand through his hair. The motion flexes his bicep, and I allow my eyes to wander over him, so big and fit and finely made. The wide chest beneath his T-shirt heaves like he’s been running. I am, too. Running from this, from him, from the traitorous desires that threaten to flatten my convictions to nothing. Just below the taut line of his stomach, his pants are tented with an erection.
Shit.
“I need to go.” I sit up, but he takes my wrist gently and pulls me back down. His scent, the heat emanating from his body intoxicate me, and I draw deep breaths of him. Fill my lungs with stunted possibilities and forbidden desires.
“Don’t go yet,” he says. “Let me explain.”
I feel his eyes on my face, but refuse to turn my head, to get caught in the violet-hued trap of his eyes. “You’ll explain why you say you don’t cheat, but then you kissed me?”
We both know I kissed him back.
He’s the one to sit up this time, drawing his knees to his chest and looping muscle-corded arms around his long legs. The T-shirt strains across the width of his back.