Campbell foundcigarettes in the third drawer he tried.
To hell with sucking any more goddamn mint toothpicks. Leaning against the kitchen counter, he sniffed the crumpled pack and shrugged. Stale Virginia Slims. Couldn’t complain—he’d smoke a piece of cow dung right now. The only way to get rid of the quiver in his stomach, he figured.
A third round of sex, as fucking phenomenal as the first two, hadn’t helped him there.
At least they had made it to the bed for the last one.
A dark-wooded monstrosity, scattered with a mound of colorful pillows that he’d sunk right into—just as he’d sunk into her. After making love until they were both close to dropping, the rain plinking off the windowpanes and her drowsy sighs had lulled him to sleep.
He’d woken after dreaming of his mother.
A paint-spattered smock covering her slight frame, her hair caught in an ugly kerchief, the smell of turpentine heavy in theair. Painting had alleviated her manic episodes, and his memories of her here, in this cottage, almost felt normal.
Almost.
With a groan, he crossed Fontana’s living room, newborn sunlight spilling over brightly patterned rugs and polished hardwood, fumbling in his pocket for the matches he always kept. Not a good sign for someone trying to break a ten-year habit.
He grabbed his camera from the hat rack by the door, bounced the screen door wide with the palm of his hand, and had the cigarette lit before it slapped shut behind him.
Sucking deeply, the sooty pinch calmed his racing pulse, the acrid aroma overriding the tantalizing one clinging to his skin. Fontana’s home smelled like a vibrant welcome: fresh-baked bread, cinnamon, flowers. On the way out, he’d spotted five overflowing vases and at least that many plants of all shapes and sizes. No wonder it felt like she had sprung from the earth, she brought nature inside with her.
Turning his face skyward, he released a rough exhalation. He was burning up—on fire—and restraining himself from crawling back into her cozy bed and taking her every way he could think of.
And he could think of many.
He had to remind himself that she needed rest after the night they’d had. He, on the other hand, had slept for three uninterrupted, blissful hours. It had been years since he’d done that. And never, ever while staying the night with a woman, which he usually avoided.
Funny, he hadn’t been able to leave Fontana. Or maybe he just hadn’t wanted to.
She’d been wrapped around him, surrounded by a mound of harem pillows, her silken hold unyielding—like she couldn’t bear, even in repose, to let him go. An hour had passed as he held her, watching dawn peek around thecurtains, a golden slide down her cheek and the sleek arch of her neck.
The intense urge for nicotine hit the moment the whispery light struck her breasts.
In his mind, he’d taken her photo then, dozens of them, recording every luscious inch of her. He’d even considered grabbing his camera, imagined her through the viewfinder.
Thatthought sent him racing from the room in search of relief.
It stunned him to even entertain such a foolish idea. He read emotions poorly, but he read photographs well—and they weren’t forgiving. He didn’t want to see broken pasts and fearful futures in anyone’s eyes, sentiments unlocked by an astute lens.
Hadn’t the disaster with his mother taught him anything?
Stalking across the yard, he threw his cigarette to the ground and crushed the butt beneath his heel. But after a few steps, he tracked back and grabbed it, because he knew she’d frown upon litter in her grass.
“Trouble,” he reminded himself. Fontana Quinn was trouble. He had known she would be, the kind of warning you got deep in your gut without one tangible reason to back it up.
Boy, had he nailed it.Nailed her, he thought with a smile, unable to shutter the juvenile response. Immaturity felt protective at the moment.
Halting at the edge of her garden, he raised his camera and popped off two inattentive shots. The sex hadn’t been offhand or breezy—nothing like what he had promised himself it would be. Not the kind of scratching-itch fornication he’d forget the next day.
This had been 15 on a scale of 10. Soul-searching, mind-numbing.
They’d crawled inside each other and barely made it back out.
Staring through the eyepiece, he saw Fontana’s face soften during her last climax, eyes the exact color of the cool waters off the Maldives fixed on him, begging him to come with her. A request he had been unable—if his life depended on it,unable—to refuse.
Quite purposely, but with the gentlest purpose he could imagine, she’d consumed him.
Then she’d laughed about it, and he’d laughed back. Like he was free of concern.
