Meeting Miss Mystic (26 page)

“Some of that needs to be refrigerated,” she said from his kitchen, bending down to pick up Cleo and cradle the little dog in her arms.

Was it crazy that he felt jealous of his dog?

Paul took a deep breath. “Sure.”

He followed her to the kitchen, shaking his head briefly, trying to clear it. He placed the bag on the kitchen counter.

“Would you like a drink?” he asked.

“Yes!” she sighed with enthusiasm and relief, before chuckling lightly. It broke the tension between them.

“What do you want? Wine? Beer?”

“Wine.”

“White or red?”

“Red.”

“Merlot or Cab?”

“Cab.”

“Californian or Australian?”

“You know wine!” she said, smiling up at him.

“My parents insisted.”

“Like dancing lessons,” she said.

“Yeah.” He chuckled. “Did I tell you that?”

“You must have mentioned it,” she said quickly. After putting Cleo on the floor, she took a few groceries out of the bag, placing them in the refrigerator.

“Let’s see…Margaret River or Napa Valley?” Paul took two bottles down from a wine rack that took up most of the space between the top of his kitchen cabinets and the ceiling.

“Oops. No. I had a good Margaret River here, but I think this one is…yup. Coonawarra.”

“Even better,” she said, closing the fridge door and folding the brown paper bag against her chest before tucking it neatly between his coffee maker and microwave.

“Over Napa?”

“Sure. Why not give an underdog a chance? The Aussie wines are some of my favorites.”

“
You
know your wine.”

“Maybe I dated a sommelier,” she said, leaning against the kitchen counter across from him, eyes sparkling.

He didn’t want to think about her dating anyone, and his desire to possess her, to own some part of her, to obliterate the memory of any other guy who had ever smiled at her, touched her, made love to her suddenly overwhelmed him. He swallowed uncomfortably, staring at her teasing face, his pulse racing with irrational need and desperate want.

His eyes darted to the wine glasses hanging from a rack above her head. Taking a step toward her, he set the bottle down to her left before placing his hands on the countertop on either side of her. He felt his breath hitch to be so close to her again and her chest rose and fell, the tips of her breasts brushing against his chest every time she inhaled. She was beautiful as hell and she was no princess, but he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted another woman. Ever.

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you today,” he breathed, lowering his mouth to hers.

She shifted up on her tiptoes, which made her anklet jingle, and he pulled her into his arms roughly, groaning into her mouth as she stroked his tongue with hers. He lowered his hands to her hips and lifted her easily onto the counter in front of him, slanting his head to deepen their kiss. She raised her legs, her skirt riding up as she locked her ankles around his back, the anklet tingling again as she pulled him into her.

His fingers slipped beneath her white shirt. He kneaded the soft skin of her waist and she whimpered lightly, arching against him. He moved his hands up until he could cup her breasts through her bra, his thumb finding her nipple and rubbing it in a point. Suddenly she pulled back from him, and he worried for a moment that he’d pushed her too far. Her eyes were heavy as she quickly unknotted the shirt she was wearing and pulled it over her head before reaching for the hem of his t-shirt. He barely had a moment to look at the insane beauty that was her breasts in a sheer white bra before tearing his shirt off and pulling her back against his bare chest. If he was aroused a second ago, the boldness of her actions made him almost unbearably hard.

He met her eyes, dark pools of wild passion, as her fingers landed on his face, pulling him back toward her. His arms went back around her as his lips crashed into hers, their teeth colliding briefly as his tongue demanded hers. She moaned, bowing into his body, her ankles tightening around his waist with a tiny jingle.

He knew she could feel how much he wanted her; it was blowing his mind that the hardness under his jeans was pressed against nothing more than the thin barrier of her panties. He was going to seriously lose it if they didn’t stop soon. His self-control was almost gone.

But he could feel her nipples like hard little pebbles pressing into the smooth muscle of his chest and before they stopped, he needed more. He drew back from her mouth, brushing his lips down the side of her face to her neck, trailing lightly against her throat and moving his hands to cup her breasts. He lowered his head and captured one hard bud through the thin fabric of her bra.

“Ah!” she whimpered, her hands running through his hair as he ran his tongue around her before taking it into his mouth and sucking greedily. She was sensitive and the way she reacted to what he was doing made him feel like a god.

Her fingernails dug into his scalp as he moved to her other breast, first licking, then sucking the other nipple into his mouth as his thumb continued to caress the other, soaking and pebble hard, through the gauze of her bra.

“I can’t…” she cried in a breathy moan, arching her chest against his face, holding his head against breasts, her head thrown back, her ankles locked like a vise, her whole body rigid.

“Just let go, love,” he murmured, his voice thick and soft before razing the tight bud one last time with his teeth.

As she started to shudder, he raised his head and claimed her lips one last time while she fell over the edge into pleasure, her body lightly bucking against him as he swallowed her moans, his fingers rolling her nipple with one hand as he cupped her jaw in the other. Finally, she stilled, and he felt the limpness of her muscles as she bowed her head onto his shoulder, her racing pulse pounding under his thumb at the base of her throat. Her ankles relaxed until they unlocked, falling gently to his sides, and he gathered her gently into his arms, running his fingers up and down her back.

“Oh. My. God,” she finally whispered against his shoulder, near his ear.

He closed his eyes, holding onto her, realizing that whatever he’d felt for Holly had been eclipsed in three days by Zoë. Giving her pleasure felt awesome and strangely, he felt totally satisfied with what had just happened between them. For him, it was enough that he’d made her feel good. It was all that mattered.

It also made him wonder if what had just happened between them a mild preview of what would happen once he had her in his bed. Her responsiveness was off the charts. A jolt of anticipation went through his body at the thought.

She readjusted her head so that her ear and cheek rested comfortably on his shoulder.

“That’s never…I mean…I’ve never, you know,
that
way. It’s just been a long time, I guess. And that was…” she sighed. “…unexpected.”

“You’re really sensitive,” he whispered, kissing the soft skin behind her ear, letting his lips linger against her honeysuckle-scented skin.

“What about you?” she asked in her gaspy-breathy voice, her sensitive breasts pushing against his chest as he explored her throat with his lips.

“Me?”

“You didn’t…I mean, are you okay?” she asked softly.

“Yeah.” He leaned back and smiled at her
. Way better than okay.

“That was
really
nice,” she sighed, and he loved it that she wasn’t bashful or uneasy. She looked like a cat who’d just had a saucer of cream.

He smiled at her then kissed her forehead before reaching over her head and taking down two wine glasses that clinked lightly as he set them on the counter.

Zoë’s skirt had bunched up around her waist and she lowered and smoothed it as she crossed ankles, the tingle of the anklet echoing the glasses.

“
That
is driving me crazy,” said Paul, flicking his glance to her breasts that had two circles of dampness around her still-erect nipples, making them appear darker through the flimsy fabric. It made him feel something sharp and satisfying to know that it was his mouth that made them look that way.

“Hand me my shirt,” she said, giving him a look.

He handed it to her, realizing she’d misunderstood him. “Those drive me crazy too, but I was talking about the anklet. Every you move, it jingles, and it does something to me. Makes it so I have to touch you.”

He skimmed his palm over her thighs in demonstration, then pulled out the drawer beside her and rifled through it for a corkscrew.

“Miss Temptation,” she said lightly. “When I saw it in a store window today, I couldn’t resist.”

“When I opened the door, it was like a fantasy come to life. I swear I wanted to…”

“What?” she murmured with wide, dark eyes trained on his. “What did you want to do?”

His breath hitched and he forced himself to look away from her, twisting, then pulling until the cork dislodged with a pleasing pop. He glanced back up at her.

“Take you upstairs,” he answered honestly.

“Without dinner?”

“
For
dinner.”

“You’re naughty,” she said, re-tying the knot in the bottom of her shirt. His body hardened. He could tell she liked it.

“Not usually. Usually I’m just Principal Paul.”

“I like Principal Paul,” she said softly.

Her simple words made him beam like an idiot as her handed her a glass of wine, the red liquid swirling round and round the wide bowl.

“What’re we drinking to?” she asked, slipping off the counter.

“To you, Zoë,” he answered, holding her dark eyes, as he lifted his glass to touch it against hers. “I’m drinking to you.”

Chapter 15

Paul insisted she put on his navy blue fleece jacket and they re-set the table on the back porch. She’d imagined him on this very porch so many times and smiled at the swing to the left, then took in the rest of the covered space; room for a table with four seats, a barbeque grill and a small serving table. Looking out at the view, she easily found Electric Peak in the distance based on his descriptions alone. This was where he’d written to her, gotten to know her, fallen for her, and she felt an immediate comfort in her surroundings.

Being wrapped up in his jacket, surrounded by his scent was the warmest, happiest place Zoë had ever visited. She sat at the table and sipped her wine as he stood at the grill, telling her about his family. It surprised her to learn that he hadn’t been completely forthcoming about his relationship with them during their correspondence; he wasn’t close to his family. He had more or less left Maine purposely to place distance between himself and his family and start his own life in Montana.

“Do you go home?” she asked, lightly swirling her wine glass, which sparkled in the candlelight.

“Honestly? It’s awkward. I go for Christmas, or like, if there’s a wedding or something back east, I try to go. My brother Bennett is a total asshole. Sorry. But he is. And my other brother Ted is a puppet. He’s the youngest and he does whatever Bennett and my father tell him to do.”

“Which is?”

“Yale undergrad. Harvard Law. Family firm in Boston.”

“You don’t think he’s happy?”

“I don’t think he ever looked around long enough to decide if it was what he wanted. And Bennett…” he swore lightly under his breath.

“What?” she asked, longing to know everything about him. “What about Bennett?”

“He’s like a sociopath. Super charming. Really good-looking. Insanely successful. But, he’s void of feelings. He’d step on your face if it helped his purposes. He’s cold.”

“No,” breathed Zoë. “It’s not possible if he’s your brother. Something must have happened to him.”

“If it did, I don’t know what.”

“How much older is he? Than you?”

“Eight years.”

“And he’s close to your dad?”

“Sort of. I think he kind of hates my father, but he smiles through it. It’s creepy.”

“And your mom?”

“She and Bennett are like oil and water. She gets on better with Ted.”

“You don’t include yourself at all.”

“I guess I don’t feel like a part of them,” he confessed, shutting the lid of the grill and taking a seat at the table across from her. “But in a nutshell? My father’s disappointed in me. My brothers think teaching’s a joke. And my mother…”

“What about your mom?”

He smiled lightly, joining her at a seat across the table, swirling the wine in his glass. “She’s okay. She can be pretty great one on one…when she’s not being a super-snotty society wife.”

It sounded complicated and Zoë thought about never knowing her father, her mother’s death, her broken relationship with Thea. Listening to Paul’s brokenness with his family made her want to fix the problems in her own, made her wonder if she had the strength to reach out to Thea and Brandon once she got home again.

“You love your mom,” Zoë said quietly.

He looked up at her, looking unsure of what to say. Or maybe he just didn’t want to talk about his family anymore.

“What about you?” he asked, taking a sip of his wine and stretching his legs out under the table until his bare feet found hers.

“My Dad left when I was too little to remember. My Mom passed away when I was in high school.” She knew that she was sharing facts she had shared as Holly, so she didn’t mention Sandy. “I have an older sister.”

“And nephew,” said Paul quietly, his eyes darting to her scar before returning to her eyes.

She nodded, relieved that he didn’t appear to be correlating Holly’s history to hers.

“I don’t speak to my sister,” she blurted out. “She hates me, pretty much.”

“Because of the accident.”

Zoë nodded, biting her lower lip and willing the tears away. She didn’t want to cry. She wanted to be able to talk about it without the crushing sorrow. So far she was doing a better-than-usual job at keeping it at bay.

“His car seat wasn’t working right. I knew it. I should have figured out another way to get him home, but I was in a rush. We were sideswiped on the highway and he…he just…” Her voice trailed off as she shook her head back and forth slowly, unable to say any more, losing the battle with composure.