Looking for You (9 page)

He frowned.
"It's cold out."

She nodded.
"This is San Francisco. It's always like this in August."

"I
didn't want you rollerblading home in the fog," he explained, picking up a
gourd and studying it.

She barely
resisted the urge to snatch her artwork out of his hands. "What does a
little fog matter?"

"It's
dangerous. I'll take you home."

"
No
." She shook her head vehemently.
She'd been treated like she was some sort of fragile crystal when she was a
kid, and she wasn't about to revert to that. "You aren't my keeper.
Besides, I have plans."

He set the
gourd back in its exact spot and faced her. "What plans?"

"None
of your business. You're the one who's been absent, so don't act like I'm at
fault for living my life." She turned to walk away.

He grabbed
her hand as she walked by and pulled her into his body. She contemplated
pushing away, but he felt good. Why spite herself?

"I've
been working a lot, and I miss you," he told her, clutching the back of
her shirt in his fist and holding her flush against him. "So I'll wait and
take you home after whatever you have planned. Not because I don't think you
can take care of yourself but because maybe I want to spend time with
you."

She melted
with happiness. "Do you have a fever?"

"Early
dementia." He brushed back her hair, tipping her head back.

She eased
more into him. Kiss me, she wanted to whisper. "I hear they have drugs to
help with that these days. Or maybe you can try electroshock therapy."

"The
only therapy I need is this." He lowered his mouth to hers.

At last
.

Moaning,
Gwen wrapped herself around him. He hummed, backing her up until she felt the
counter behind her. Picking her up, he set her on the counter and stepped
between her legs, kissing her as though he didn't want it to ever end. Wrapping
her legs around him, she held him close. She didn't want it to end either.

"That's
what I needed," he murmured against her lips.

"Why
didn't you just say so?" she asked, sighing as he slipped his hands under
her shirt.

"Actions
work better than words with you." He ran his hands up and down her spine,
kneading gently. "Cancel your plans and take me home."

Normally,
she wouldn't have, but this thing with Rick wasn't normal. Frankly, Lola would
nag her all night if Gwen didn't go with him. So she nodded. "But only
this time."

He stepped
back from her. "What can I help with?"

She hopped
off the counter. "Nothing. I need to call Lola and then lock up. Sit down.
It'll only take a second."

She called
Lola, who replied "Duh" when Gwen told her she was going home with
Rick. Then she quickly put away the cash and receipts, aware that he watched
her the entire time. She couldn't read anything other than need in his
expression.

He wanted
her
.

She
shivered, delicious goose bumps of anticipation. She could almost forgive him
for not calling her all week.

Maybe after
she made him grovel a little.

She left
her rollerblades in the back, grabbed her bag, and smiled at Rick. "Ready
to go?"

"Yes."
He stood and followed her out of the store, a hand on her back. It may have
been wishful thinking, but it felt possessive. What surprised her more was that
he took her hand after she locked the door.

She stared
at their hands, clasped together, as they walked to his car. It felt good.
Warm. Sweet. She liked it way more than she wanted to.

"Why
are you frowning?" he asked as he held open the car door for her.

"No
reason."

He looked
at her like he didn't believe it.

"It's
just that I'd never have taken you for the hand-holding type," she
explained.

"You
have nice hands," was all he said as he closed the door. But after he
settled into the car he took her hand again and held it the entire way to her flat.

It'd been a long night. Rick had been
on surveillance—a typical case where the wife suspected the husband of
cheating. She'd been right, of course, and Rick had photos to prove it.

Sometimes work was demoralizing. It
was hard to imagine anyone ever being honest. It was hard to trust anyone, when
all you saw day in and day out was the seedy side of human behavior.

He'd planned on going home after
dropping off the photos to his client and sleeping the morning away. He
had
gone home, only he was haunted by
the look on the wife's face as he handed over duplicates of the photos. What
really wrecked him, though, were the sad looks on her little kids' faces as
they clung to her pants, sensing something was wrong with their mom but not
knowing that their world was about to change forever.

Sometimes his job sucked.

He'd gone home and tried to lie down,
but sleep had been elusive, so he got up, had a cup of coffee, and did the only
thing he could thing of: he drove to Gwen's shop.

Why? He shook his head as he looked
for parking a couple blocks away from her store. He was down on people and
their inability to be honest, and yet he was choosing to seek comfort with the
one person in his life he trusted least.

That was screwed up.

Parking, he went directly to her
store. Gwen and the woman she was talking to stopped and stared at him. He'd
seen the blonde with Gwen before—they were obviously friends. The blonde
was his type, but he wasn't interested in her in the least. His body didn't
react to her—not even a glimmer of a spark.

But he looked at Gwen and his entire
body became alive. He walked straight to her, lifted her pointy little chin,
and laid one on her.

There was nothing sweet about the
kiss. It was hot and carnal and wiped the entire night and morning from his
mind.

Someone cleared her throat. It took
him a moment to realize it was the other woman. He lifted his head and frowned
at her.

The woman looked very amused. She
winked at him and then turned to Gwen. "I'm going to leave before he
escorts me off the premises. See you tomorrow?"

Gwen nodded. "Yes. Thanks
again."

"Anytime." The woman winked
at him and sashayed out.

He followed her, only to lock the
door behind her and turn the sign to
Closed
.

"What are you doing?"

"Insuring our privacy." He
walked back toward her. "Is that okay?"

"Do I have a choice in the
matter?"

"Yes."

She pursed her lips in thought.
"Are you going to kiss me like that again?"

"Definitely."

"Then I'm okay with it." She
walked up to him, grabbed his shirt, and yanked his mouth down to hers.

The contact was everything he
wanted—everything he needed. He found himself relaxing even as he tensed.
She raked her fingers in his hair and he groaned with pleasure.

"The back," she muttered
against his mouth.

He didn't need to be told twice.
Hoisting her up, he carried her down the hall she pointed, to a room in the
back.

There was a long table with all sorts
of tools and little pots. Instinctively, he knew it was sacred grounds, so he
set her down on a spot by the sink that was clear of any impediments.

She grabbed his head and kissed him
like her life depended on it, her legs clasping tightly around his hips,
pulling him close.

There were no words, only actions. He
pushed down her leggings, thrilling when he found her bare beneath it. He felt
her hands undo his jeans and take him out. His head fell back involuntarily the
shock of her touch was so instant and electrifying.

He reached into his pocket for a
condom. "I can't wait."

"Good." She rubbed herself
on him, as though he were a toy there for her pleasure.

"That's not helping," he
said as he fumbled with the wrapper.

"It's helping me."

He managed to ease away enough to
slip the rubber on his hard-on and slowly thrust into her.

They both moaned.

Perfect
. He
gripped her hips, wanting to stop the moment and feel it just as badly as he
wanted to push into her and take her.

She set their course when she began
to rotate her hips against him. "If you're going to burst into my store
and disrupt my day, you should at least perform."

"Are you taunting me?"

"I hope so."

He stopped and smiled down at her.
"Thank you."

She frowned. "A little
premature, aren't you? You haven't gotten there yet."

"Are you saying I should get to
it?"

"That's exactly what I'm
saying."

He thrust into her, over and over, so
there was no room for words or commands. There were only feelings, and those
feelings were
good
.

He snaked his hand under her blouse
and found her naked breast—
oh god
—and
taut nipple. She cried out when he touched her, and because he wanted to here
her cry out again, he slipped a hand between them and touched her again, this
time where it counted.

Her fingers clawed into him and her
head fell back. "
Mon Dieu
,"
she shrieked, right before he felt her tighten around him.

He felt her climax and fell in line
behind her, unable to hold out. Clutching her so she couldn't wiggle off him,
he thrust one more time and followed her into oblivion. They slumped against
the wall behind them, panting, his forehead pressed against hers.

She was the first one to speak.
"I'm glad you stopped by."

He chuckled breathlessly. "So am
I."

"This was good."

"Yes, it was."

Then she said, "Do you want to
talk about what's bothering you?"

He lifted his head so he could look
at her. "You could tell?"

She nodded. "But I think you
feel better now."

"I do." He frowned.

A look of sadness lined her lovely
face. "It bothers you, that I can help."

"It bothers me that I don't
really know you." He remembered how she'd exclaimed in French during sex.
"Like you've never told me you speak French."

He watched her retract, distancing herself from him, even
though she didn't move a muscle. "A lot of people speak French," she
said carefully.

"But not so fluently that they
cry out in it as they come."

She really did pull away this time.
"I thought we had a détente about you investigating me."

He wanted to draw her back to his
chest and keep her there, but the distance between them was suddenly vast.
"I'm not investigating, I'm making an observation."

She sat up, grabbing her shirt from
the floor next to them and holding it to her chest. "Maybe this wasn't a
good idea."

"It was an excellent idea."
He sat up, too. He noticed the way her eyes ate up his nakedness.
Good—because he wasn't even close to being done with her.

"I don't know. You obviously
still want to discover my
secrets
"—she
made air quotes—"and I still don't like you."

She didn't like him?  He narrowed his gaze. "You seemed
to like me well enough a minute ago."

"I lust for you, but like is a
different story." She reached for her pants.

Grabbing them from her, he tossed
them aside and crawled over her.

"What are you doing?" she
asked as she lay back down under him.

"Showing you that you like me
more than you think." Hands on either side of her head, he dropped a kiss
at the corner of her mouth.

"Why is it so important that I
like you?" she asked, her eyes wide and fathomless. "This is just
sex."

He didn't know why, and this wasn't
"just sex." When he touched her, the world exploded, and that wasn't
a normal thing. "My ego can't take it," he joked.

Gwen snorted, but she made no move to
get away. "And you say
I'm
nutty."

"You like me." He kissed
her again, on her jaw. And then on the spot at her neck that made her squirm in
pleasure.

She melted under him. When she spoke,
her voice was full of desire. "You'll have to do better than that to
convince me."

"I can do that." He slid
his hand over her subtle curves, to the core of her.

Fingernails biting into his
shoulders, she moaned as her legs fell open. "You have a compelling
argument."

He kissed his way down her body.
"Hold on, Princess. It's about to get a whole lot more compelling."

Gwen stood in the workshop at the
back of her store and studied the gourds she'd finished for the exhibit at the
de Young. She was always concerned about quality, but this time she'd been
especially discerning selecting the right gourds. She'd taken more time and
care in creating them, longer than she normally did. She'd carefully gutted,
dried, painted, and cured them.

The end result was better than she'd
imagined. They were stunning, and she was highly critical of her own work.

Instead of making them glisten with
shellac, she'd opted for something darker and more shadowed. She'd painted the
entwined lovers in passionate embraces wrapped around the gourds.

She had Rick to thank for it. Seeing
him the past couple months had opened her eyes to a new, sensual world.

Two months. She shook her head,
unable to believe it.
Seeing
was the
accurate word, too;
relationship
would have been overstating things. They got together for drive-by sex.
Excellent drive-by sex.

Gwen told herself she was okay with
it. Most of the time she believed herself.

She boxed the gourds for the museum
and then, feeling restless, headed to Grounds for Thought to see Eve. When she
walked into the store, Eve's barista Maggie welcomed her from behind the
counter.