That felt unbelievably nice.

He dipped closer.

I started breathing again only to hyperventilate.

“He’s been jacked by a woman,” he said quietly, “a smart man learns. And, baby, you know I am not dumb. And what that man learns is not to waste time on bitches. But more, not to waste time when he finds one who he knows is worth it. Now, you got until Sunday. You with me?”

He stopped speaking and I knew he wanted a response but I just didn’t have it in me. I couldn’t cope with this, this massive shift, this incredible gift, the offer of all his beauty.

He got so much closer all I could see were his hazel eyes. And that close I noticed that, although his lashes were dark, short and spiky, there were a lot of them. So dense, they were fascinating, and I found myself wanting to take up the challenge of counting each and every one.

“Emme,” he whispered.

I blinked and focused.

“You with me?” he repeated.

“I think our conversation about insulation took a very weird turn,” I replied.

His eyes lit with warmth and humor and I lost my fascination with his lashes because I’d seen that look in his eyes frequently when he was with me but I’d never seen it that close and it was so beautiful, I wanted to hold onto that moment for eternity.

“Right,” he said. “You got until Sunday. You feel like pickin’ up the phone, I’m busy but I always got time for you. You need space from me ’til then, you got that too, baby. Yeah?”

I decided my best bet was to nod.

So I did that.

“Okay,” he murmured. I felt his hand in my hair pull me forward and I felt my breath stick in my throat before I felt his lips touch my hair and there he kept murmuring to say, “Strawberries.”

My hair did, indeed, smell like strawberries. That was what the shampoo smelled like that cost an arm and a leg and a vague promise to the devil I’d bear his children to populate the earth with devil’s spawn in order for my hair to get this soft, sleek and shiny.

But Jacob murmuring that word against my hair, I decided to make that promise not at all vague. I’d produce demon spawn to hear him say it again and again.

Alas, he did not say it again.

But what he did was a whole lot better.

His hand at my head pulled me slightly back, his fingers drifted through my hair to my temple then curled so the backs could glide lightly across my cheek and down, touching the side of my lip in a way that was a promise I felt sear through me from lips, through my heart, straight between my legs.

Was this happening?

“You can shake and bake with the best, Emme,” he told me, his hand settling cupping my jaw, and at words that were so far out of the moment, I stared.

Then, at the reminder of the dinner I served and that it might be good, but it was a far cry from gourmet and it was so Jacob to mention it, tease me about it, and it was also so Jacob to go out of his way to take us out of intense and put me at ease, that suddenly a feeling I didn’t quite get but I really liked stole through me and I felt my lips smile.

“Gourmet all the way with me, honey. That’s why you got the buffalo-flavored Shake ’n Bake.”

“I cook next time,” he declared, and Jacob was an excellent cook. Amazing. And he didn’t shy away from anything, even gourmet.

And what he said meant he intended to cook for me.

That stole through me too.

“I expect Indian,” I told him and something about him shifted, relaxed, and I knew, in sharing I was going to be eating with him again, I’d also shared I was “with him.”

My breath started coming faster again.

“You got it,” he replied, leaned in, kissed my forehead, leaned back and caught my eyes. “Later, Emme.”

“Drive safe, Jacob.”

He grinned.

My heart jumped.

His hand slid away from my jaw and I watched him saunter out of my living room.

Then I sat immobile and listened to the front door open and close.

And last, I listened to the distant sounds of his truck growling out of my drive.

Been to some interesting places, Emme, baby, and that has always been with me.

I sat unmoving and remembered standing outside the door to the hotel room he was staying in since he left the apartment to Elsbeth. I stood there heartbroken for him, heartbroken for me, and I gave him that kaleidoscope. I remembered what I said. I remembered his eyes got warm and surprised and he took the box and opened it, pulling out the piece of beauty within and holding it like it was precious.

I also remember he didn’t let me into his room.

He just kissed my cheek and whispered in my ear, “I’ll always remember you, Emme,” before he pulled back, gave me a smile that got nowhere near his eyes and backed into the room, closing the door on me.

Taking the kaleidoscope with him.

At the time, I got it, why he had to close the door on me. At the time, I was distraught at what his breakup with Elsbeth meant to him.

And to me.

So I’d walked away and let him go.

But at the time, I also was dealing with things, things I didn’t share with anybody, not Elsbeth, definitely not Jacob.

I still had that secret.

Words came to me. Words said in a man’s voice, a man no one knew was in my life. A man who was special to me in a way I knew no one would get. A man I shared with nobody.

I hope this wakes you up, sweet Emme.

I closed my eyes and called that moment up in my mind.

It was a month after I got out of the hospital. I’d visited him. He could not visit me. He’d been concerned. Eaten up with it, it was plain to see. But he could not come to see for himself I was all right.

He had to wait for me.

We were sitting in his kitchen, drinking coffee.

I hope this wakes you up, sweet Emme.

It did. Being sick like that, it did.

I didn’t get it then. I didn’t get it when he said that to me. I only got it when Jacob pointed it out.

I opened my eyes and looked to Jacob’s beer bottle on my coffee table.

You can shake and bake with the best, Emme.

I knew right then that Jacob saying that meant that he intended to keep the goodness, the easiness, the familiarity of what we had safe.

He just intended to add really great things.

I hope this wakes you up, sweet Emme.

I took a sip of the beer that I held until then forgotten in my hand.

And when I was done, I whispered, “I think I just woke up, Harvey.”

And when I did, pure joy flowed through me.

So I smiled.

Chapter Six

Weird

One hour, two minutes later…

I lay on my back in my bed, staring unseeing at the ceiling and going over the last two days in my mind again and again.

No way I could sleep.

No way.

So I rolled, turned on my light and saw the ring Dane had given me the night before on my nightstand.

The box was open.

I flipped it shut and put it in the nightstand drawer.

Dane giving me that weirded me out, but it was the kind of gesture that you didn’t make an “euw” face and throw it across the room.

So, after I’d tried to refuse it, gently saying it was too much, and he’d refused my refusal, adamantly and repeatedly, I’d given up, thanked him and kissed him.

He’d done what he always did when I kissed him. He escalated things and made love to me.

I’d had two lovers in my life, and to say Dane was better than the first one was a massive understatement.

Still, I read enough, watched enough TV and movies, heard enough girlfriends talking about it, I knew I was missing something.

Even from Dane.

I knew this because I’d never had an orgasm with a partner. Not once.

I faked it.

It wasn’t a good thing to do but eventually things just kept going, it got tedious, and I had to do what I had to do to end it so I could get some sleep.

Thinking on this brought me to the memory that Elsbeth had not shared often, but she had shared. And what she shared was that Jacob had no problems in that department. They’d started their relationship young and had been together for five years. Elsbeth and I were the same age and she’d been twenty when they started out. He’d been twenty-three. She had not been a virgin but she’d been an orgasm-during-sex virgin.

According to Elsbeth, Jacob had taken that particular virginity and done it spectacularly then went on to give that to her frequently and unfailingly.

Now I was thirty-four and had two lovers and no orgasms that had been given to me by anyone else but me.

And I had sexual knowledge of the man who that night told me he was interested in me and intended to do something about it.

So even though it was late, I was me, he was Jacob and I was psycho.

Not to mention, these thoughts were tamping down the joy I’d felt earlier, and I didn’t like that much.

So I got out of bed, wandered through the dark to the kitchen and nabbed my phone.

I called him wandering back to my room through the dark.

“You okay?” he answered.

“Just to say, if I wasn’t, although you have superhuman strength and an off-the-charts IQ, I’d still probably call 911.”