Leaving Normal, Stef Holm [ebook reader screen .TXT] 📗

her hip as he brought her to him, then his mouth covered hers in a kiss she wasn't remotely expecting.

His lips were soft and warm, inviting, and evoking in her a jumble of feelings and sensations she'd thought were long dormant, and maybe even nonexistent.

Heat washed over her, through her, inside the marrow of her bones. It came from the pressure of his fingers slightly digging into the soft flesh covering her hip and under the fabric of her jeans. He held her close, yet didn't have both arms around her. She kept herself more captive than he did, frozen still and reeling in the overwhelming physical need that one simple kiss in a hallway could fan into life in her.

Sexual awareness preoccupied her every thought until she had no thoughts left at all.

Her lips were moist from his, from the way he slanted his mouth and took her with a kiss. What she felt was like warm silk against her tender mouth and then a soft nip of his teeth. She sucked in her breath, her arm raising on its own accord to cup the back of his neck and hold him close.

Her bottom lip was more sensitive than the upper and he nipped at it once more, just briefly enough to make her want him do it again, yet at the same time causing her pulse to beat so erratically at the base of her throat she almost grew incoherent.

He explored the seam of her wet lips with the tip of his tongue but didn't enter her mouth. He stroked the plumpness, the corners, the bow on her upper lip until her mouth parted with a moan.

As soon as she did that, the spontaneity of the moment was over as quickly as it began.

His hard, chiseled face was above her, his eyes dark and intense and presently unreadable. And just as un-expectedly as he'd taken her into his arms, he released her and she felt a rush of cold air swirl around her and almost bring her to her knees.

"Your water's on the table where you left it," he said, leaving her to go back into the television room.

To steady herself, Natalie braced a hand on the wall, her breathing coming in short, choppy intakes of air. She looked over her shoulder to see if he would be coming back…wishing he was. Hoping he wasn't.

She had to get her head on straight.

What had he just done to her?

It was more than a kiss. So much more…

Chapter Sixteen

The Balloon Bunch

Natalie Goodwin was losing her mind.

She'd never been one to walk around with her head in the clouds; it wasn't her nature. She was sensible and practical most of the time, although she could get distracted like anyone else.

Right now, Tony Cruz distracted her even without being in the same room.

She hadn't seen him in several days. He'd worked on Saturday and Tuesday, and she'd been busy at the shop. Yesterday he'd called to invite her to the Macaroni Grill for dinner tonight. She'd turned him down, said she had a big wedding to do. At the time she needed an excuse not to see him, to really back away from what she was feeling for him.

Her excuse had been real, however. Just how real it would turn out came as a surprise this morning when her biggest shipment of flowers had been delayed. She'd be working extremely late tonight— probably until one in the morning just to get everything done.

Meagan was helping when she wasn't on the floor with customers, but Natalie stayed in the shed making basket arrangements out of classic deep red roses, twigs, green hydrangeas and bells of Ireland.

Music played from the CD player, and a floor heater kept the space warm, but not too warm to damage the flowers. She felt cool, but not too cold. She let her thoughts go numb while arranging, trying—but without much success—not to fixate on one man's face, the resonant sound of his voice, the touch of his mouth against hers.

At certain times of the day when her mind ran with these images of Tony holding her, kissing her, speaking softly to her, there didn't seem to be enough oxygen in the room.

For a second, Natalie wanted to pick up the phone, to call him back, to tell him she'd have dinner with him another time, but she never made that call.

Smart. Wise. Sensible.

A knock sounded on the shed door and she looked up to see her dad come inside.

"Hey, Dad," she said, cutting the stem of a rose. She wore her apron and its front was stained blush red and a verdant green from flower petals and stems.

"I got all the deliveries done," he said, milling around the doorway.

"Thanks. I appreciate your staying late and doing, that for me."

Carl, her BSU student who worked part-time as the delivery driver, hadn't been able to come in this afternoon; he'd had to take a test.

Her dad didn't readily leave. Rather, he closed the door and came inside. She kept working, but looked over her shoulder at him.

She waited for him to say something. He didn't.

"Is everything's okay?"

Fred proceeded to her long workbench strewn with vases, reels of ribbons, scissors, knives, floral foam and myriad other things she needed.

"Why wouldn't it be?" he said almost in an accusatory tone.

"I don't know. You're standing around and not saying anything."

"What do you call what I'm doing right now? I'm talking, aren't I?"

She let it go. Sometimes there was just no appeasing him.

He walked around the shed, looked at a few things, took in the floral refrigerator, then the helium canisters and balloons. Then he came to stand by her once more. She glanced at him.

He looked good. In fact, he looked great. Well rested, happy in the countenance—especially around the eyes. They were warm and bright; a light twinkle in the gray spheres. He'd gotten a haircut recently, the spot above his ears clipped to neat perfection.

He held back, watched