One More Kiss. Katherine Garbera

I won’t drive like a maniac, you’ll be safe with me. I promise.”

      She didn’t want to believe him, but she did. She wanted to hold on to her anger and just stew in it for as long as she could, because being angry was insulation against starting to feel again.

      “I’ll think about it. If you don’t go back in the Corps what will you do?” she asked.

      “A lot of that depends on you.”

      “It can’t. You have to want to get out for yourself.”

      “I don’t really know,” he said, then pushed his hands through his hair. “I hate being indecisive but my future isn’t as set in stone as it once was.”

      “Why?” she asked. “Did something happen? Our marriage wasn’t enough to change your mind?”

      “Nothing happened,” he said. Nothing he wanted to talk about at least, she thought. He’d been raised to be strong and he wasn’t going to admit to her that he was a little scared of the future. “I’m just getting older,” he told her.

      She knew there was more to it than that but he was still not ready to really talk to her. She put her napkin on her plate and stood up.

      “It’s been nice but I think I’ll be going,” she said.

      “Why? What did I say?”

      “It’s what you’re not saying. You ask me to give you a second chance. Telling me nice-sounding platitudes and then when I ask you for something real, it’s back to the smoke and mirrors.”

      She stared down at him. And then, when he kept silent, she shook her head. “Good luck, Jay.”

      “Wait. Let’s go for a walk … I’ll tell you what’s going on,” he said.

      “Okay, but you asked me to trust you, and I’m not sure I can but I’m at least trying. I need to know that you’re doing the same,” she said.

      “I’ll try, I’m not any good at this sort of thing, which is why I probably should have just stayed out of your life.”

      “If you believe that, why are you back here?” she asked. “Why did you call Sweet Dreams and order dessert for a woman—me—to try to win her back?”

      “I want something more,” he said. “I had a close call on my last deployment and I realized that I really don’t want to live the rest of my life alone—without you.”

      She didn’t either, which was why she’d always been … waiting for the right guy.

      For honesty, that was pretty much on the mark. And his words made her admit that she didn’t want him to be alone, but that didn’t mean that she wanted to be the woman at his side. Jay was difficult to get to know and it was only tonight that she was coming to understand how difficult. That week together had been almost a fairy tale and she’d seen in Jay only what she’d wanted to. A man who was enamored with her and as caught up in the whirlwind romance as she had been.

      “What do you want?” she asked.

      “I have two weeks to figure it out,” he said. “I’m having lunch with some buddies who got out last year,” Jay said. “Something might come of that. If I can’t find work do you think you could use another cake-froster?”

      “Cake-frosting is a delicate art. It requires a skill set you might not have.” He’d given her a little nugget of truth and then turned the topic to something safer and she let him do it. She wasn’t sure how much “truth” she could take tonight. Seeing him was enough of a shock, learning that he’d almost died before he could come back to her … Well, that was something she didn’t want to dwell on.

      “What skills exactly?” he asked. “I have steady hands.”

      He held his big hands out to her. They were tanned and had blunt-trimmed nails. They were the hands of a man who took care of himself. No metrosexual manicure, but looked after all the same.

      “That’s only part of it. I’d have to see how good you are using them,” she said, flirting just a little because she wanted him. And to be honest, flirting was safe. She flirted with uniformed Marines every day and nothing came of it.

      “I thought that would be the one thing you’d know I could do,” he said.

      She shivered as she remembered his hands on her body. He was very good at using them. He was a thorough lover who had taken his time with her, every time. The attention he’d lavished on her had made her feel like the most fascinating woman in the world.

      “That’s a different type of hand work,” she said.

      “Really?” he asked in a teasing smile.

      “I didn’t mean it that way!”

      “Of course you didn’t,” he said with a laugh. It sounded rusty.

      “You’d be bored,” she said. “It’s quiet and repetitive. Most of the stuff we do for decoration is simple flowers or candies. Staci and I do all the work ourselves because it’s our favorite part of the job.”

      “I get your passion. You both have a stake in making sure the business is successful, I’m sure it shows in your work,” he said.

      “Yes, it does. You’ll be able to tell when we have dessert,” she said.

      “What did you make for my mystery woman?” he asked.

      “Wait and see.”

      “About working at the bakery, I don’t think I’d get bored. Plus, you’d be there … we’d have some frosting.”

      “Okay, enough with that. This is a first date not—”

      “Not what? Our last first date ended pretty well.”

      “The date did, but what happened afterward is something I’m not looking to repeating.”

      “Me, neither,” he said.

      He took her hand, cradling it in his own. He ran his finger over her knuckles. She felt an electric charge go up her arm and then shivers across her shoulders and chest. Her nipples tightened and her breasts felt fuller.

      She remembered how one simple touch could lead to much more. She pushed her fingers through his and held his hand in hers. He tightened his grasp on her fingers and lifted her hand to his mouth.

      The warmth of his breath brushed over the back of her hand. He looked up at her as he kissed her hand and then her wrist.

      She pulled her hand from his grasp and put it in her lap. She wasn’t ready to rekindle the sexual flame that had always been between them. Not at this instant. But to reclaim herself she knew that she was going to have to. And she was afraid that when she did she’d lose a little bit more of herself.