Sally: Autumn Storms (F&L Story #4)

Sally: Part 21

Part 21

Staring at the steaming mug on the table in front of him, he mentally shook his head and sighed.  Help the woman out of a jam with her ex and she becomes a tease with an insatiable appetite.  Tend to her wounds and she grows her first modest bone in her body.  Tell the woman that he wanted her – bad – and she becomes indignant.   He just couldn't win.

Looking up, he drank in the sight of her.  The firelight flickered across her beautiful face, highlighting the fringe of dark blonde lashes around those luminous golden eyes.  She knelt in front of the coffee table with her hands folded in her lap and her back ramrod straight, pushing her breasts forward.  And she just didn't get it.  She had not clue how desirable she was.  Did she ever see how men looked at her?  She walked around with a fierce, confident grace, smiling that glorious smile with her eyes shining and a glow to her cheeks that couldn't be faked with make-up or tanning booths.

That bastard Peter really did a job on her.  When that man she loved spurned her in front of friends, family, and God, no less, he'd taken her ego with him.  There was more honesty in her temper tantrums than in her laughter.  If he thought he could get away with it, he'd take her in his arms right now, lay her down in front of that fire and make sweet love to her before she could remember why she was scowling at him.  He'd do it in a heartbeat.

But he couldn't.  The stubborn set of her jaw and that tell-tale glint in her eyes said, “I want answers, not gestures.”

Ah, hell.  The only way he could explain to her how much she truly affected him was to tell her exactly how eager he'd been.  He removed his hat and scrubbed a weary hand through his hair.  Had that only happened the night before?  It seemed like an eternity.  Admitting to an early arrival of his little naval fleet was akin to mounting a horse with his hands and feet tied together.  It's going to be tough.

Sally knelt there, patiently waiting...well, patient for her, anyway.  Though her hands were folded in her lap, the middle fingernail of her right hand was flicking and tugging on the seam of her jeans with irritation.

He opened his mouth to relate his side of last night's story, and the words wouldn't come out.  He tried again.  Sally's face darkened, but she didn't interrupt.  He dug through the recesses of his brain for something – anything – to help him say the words...just to say, “I want you so much I climaxed too early.”

Yeah...not in this lifetime.

“Twenty Questions,” he blurted out.  Sally furrowed her brow at him.  “This is going to be a chore for me,” he explained foolishly.  “I'll need some help.  Could you ask me some questions so I can work my way up to it?”

She huffed, poured a measure of whiskey into his cup and a double measure into her own.  “Fine.  You do remember kissing me, right?”

“Oh, yes, I remember.”

The tone of his voice jerked her gaze to his.  She narrowed her eyes at him.  “Do you know why you kissed me?”

Wilson sighed.  “I think because you don't believe yourself to be beautiful.”

Sally snorted.  “Uh huh.  Kissing me and then ditching me really proved me wrong.”

Without warning, he roughly slid the coffee table across the room, sloshing coffee out of their mugs, and hauled her into his lap.  Sally squeaked and knocked her chin on his collarbone.  “You are beautiful,” he insisted softly, touching a fingertip to her mouth.  “I thought so the first time I laid eyes on you.  There you were, digging your heels into the ground, trying to change that tire, and all I could think about was how your jeans molded to your backside like a second skin.  With the sunset shining down on your hair and your eyes and all that beautiful golden skin...  I may have been without a woman for three long years, but that didn't mean I didn't want to be.”