Save My Soul (15 page)

He curled his fingers around the waist of her yoga pants, dragging them down. A cold breeze blew, but she filled with unearthly warmth. He slipped his hands over the curves of her backside and tilted his reverent face to hers before rubbing his lips below her naval and drawing his mouth lower.

Nerve endings exploded when his tongue pressed between her folds. The intensity made her hold on to him for more than balance. If she fell, she would plunge off the pier into the murky depths. She suspected the thought was a warning, but the sexy jolts piercing her body banished further reason.

He took the flesh between her legs with the same intensity as he took her breasts, drawing every last ounce of magic from the smallest points of pleasure. Sucking. Tugging. Pulling. Teasing. And then licking with a laziness that made her lose control. A violent rush carried her cries into the night.

Jordon wrapped his hands around her wrists and pulled her down. They tumbled together, sprawling across the pier with Maggie falling on top of him. She welcomed the collapse, the protection of his arms and the blanket of ecstasy. With her nose buried in his evergreen-scented neck, she slowly returned to her surroundings. The pier rocked gently on the waves while the November wind blew lightly over her goose-pimpled skin. Jordon's fingertips traced her back, slipping over her curves. She smoothed her cheek against his and lowered her lips to his mouth. He smelled like a man and tasted like a lover.

When he opened for her, her tongue barely touched his before his arms tightened around her waist. “Now it's your turn, Maggie.”

She pulled back and stared at the shadows on his face. She didn't see an ounce of darkness, only deep desire. His lids were heavy, and his tongue slipped back and forth over his bottom lip.

“But go easy on me,” he said with a smile.

She pushed to straddle his thighs and reached for his belt buckle. While she unbuttoned his pants and loosened the zipper, he remained still except for his eyes. They followed every move.

“Can you at least lift your butt?” she teased, gripping the waist bands of his pants and boxers.

He chuckled as she slid the clothes down his legs and crawled over him to nip his lips.

“I don't know what it is about you, but I like relinquishing control,” he said in a whisper against her lips. “Just don't go around telling anyone. I have a rep to protect.”

Another secret to keep. Only this one Maggie didn't mind keeping. And the other one … she wouldn't have to keep forever. She'd help everyone get what they needed, starting with Jordon.

Maggie dragged her lower half over his erection as she kissed him. He didn't kiss her back. His hands stayed at his side. Apparently, he was serious about submitting.

She laughed against his mouth. “Oh, I see how you are. You want me to do all the
dirty
work.”

“Exactly.” His perfect smile glowed in the moonlight. “Reach into my coat pocket.”

She straightened, ran her hands over his hardened length and twisted toward the discarded pile of clothes, searching until she found a box stuffed inside his pocket.

“I came prepared,” he said.

Straddling his thighs again, Maggie worked his penis with her hands. “You brought an entire box. You're awfully confident this is going to become a habit.” She threw him her best smoldering look as she rolled a condom into place. “But I'm not convinced,” she added, moving to hover above his erection.

Without warning, Jordon gripped her waist and thrust inside of her. “How about now?”

She needed a second to recover from the unexpected jolt and the fact that Jordon wasn't a complete pushover. Of course he wasn't. He was only rusty, probably hoping the Maggie-on-top position guaranteed success. And why, oh why was she analyzing the first meaningful sex she'd had in years?

Drawing a couple deep breaths, she refocused and let the feel of him inside of her radiate through her body. Only then did she move.

He watched, his hands sliding over her thighs.

Emotions grew from the place where they connected and built in intensity as they climbed her belly, swirled around her heart and whimpered out through her open mouth. So much power. So much pleasure. She was giving, but she was receiving, too. Had she ever done both simultaneously?

Maggie smiled and dragged the tip of her tongue across the ends of her upper teeth. “This could become a habit.” Her hands slipped over her breasts as she rocked against him.

He moaned. “Absolutely.”

Jordon smoothed his palms over the tops of Maggie's thighs until his fingers reached the slick between her legs. The added pleasure made her rhythm as erratic as her breathing, and she leaned forward, bracing her arms on the wood beside his head. He grabbed hold of her bottom and pumped harder, forcing her out of control, out of her body, fighting to stay present.

Colossal pressure built above their joining and clawed across her skin until it exploded in her head. Jordon breathed her name and drew her to his chest, shuddering and gasping for air in her ear. Heat molded their bodies beneath the stars.

Maggie wasn't in love. She wasn't saved. But she was certainly satisfied.

Maggie pushed off the pier and plunged head first into the dark water. Cold liquid bit her skin, sending a crash-cart shock to recharge her soul.

“What the hell are you doing? That water's barely sixty degrees.” Jordon's voice penetrated the water as she surfaced.

“I needed a jolt,” she said, slicking back her hair. “It's symbolic.”

He sat naked on the pier except for his open dress shirt, his legs dangling in the water. “I'll give you a jolt. I negotiated an eight-year, one-hundred-and-eighty-million-dollar contract.”

The numbers strung together in her head. “That's a lot of money.”

“I know.”

She could see his smile, and the joy drew her to him. Cutting through the crisp water with such peace, she wrapped her arms around his legs and stared at his face.

“It's a lot of money, and it's all over the news, but you know what I was thinking about the minute those papers were signed? Actually, even before those papers were signed?”

“What?” She ran wet hands ran along his strong calf muscles.

“You. And I never let my personal life mix with my business life.” He threw his hands into the air. “I'm not sure what to make of that.”

Neither was she. Holding his feet and letting her body float on the water, she lifted her face to the sky. “I think you're entitled to be obsessed with sex since you've been holding back for a while. It's normal to become rather compulsive when you're deprived of something. The desire will fade.”

“You make it sound so clinical.”

“Because it is.” Something inside of her ruptured, and sadness bubbled in her chest.

“But what if there's more to it?”

Detach.
Her body sunk, as she let go of him, and she treaded water to keep from going under. There was a point in every relationship where the potential for attachment pushed Maggie away. She hoped the point wasn't now — not so soon after feeling so wonderful.

She thrashed her arms and legs below the surface. “What more could there be?”

“Maggie, what if we're meant to be together?”

Water slipped into her open mouth and she choked. When her coughs quieted, she tried her best to rationalize his words. “That's impossible. We're complete opposites. You think I'm a flake, remember?”

“That was before I understood you. Now I think you're brilliant. You took the biggest flake of all … ” he slapped a hand to his chest “ … and you helped him work through some major stuff. I haven't felt this good in years.”

Maggie started to sink again. When clients achieved relief from their troubles and opened their minds to the experiences of their early lives, they connected with their therapists, saw familiarity in their trusted confidantes. The phenomenon was called transference. And sometimes people confused the feeling with romantic love. Jordon wasn't her client, but she was helping him break through an intimacy drought, and she was helping him with Carlos. The line blurred.

As Maggie kicked harder to keep her head above the cold water, her teeth chattered. A therapist never created transference on purpose. It was a dangerous and powerful thing. Had she done it unknowingly with Jordon?

Her silence must have unnerved him, because he studied her with a wrinkled face. “What if I love you?”

She struggled to downplay his emotions. “Of course you love me. Love is the predominant feeling we should have for all human beings. You're thankful, feeling particularly favorable toward me, and you're confusing that for society's molested version of love.”

“So I'm confused and molested?” He straightened and started buttoning his shirt. “How'd you ever get past your negative opinions long enough to screw me?” He reached for his pants. “Never mind. I get it. I can give you an orgasm, but I can't give you a future.” He shoved his legs into his pants. “And here I thought I was the one who needed help.”

Panic mixed with Maggie's full-body chill. “Don't go,” she pushed the words past chattering teeth. “Let's talk about this.”

He looked unbelievably wonderful, drenched in moonlight, with his shirttails blowing in the wind. She felt possessive, fearful, chilled to the bone and strangely aroused by the heightened emotions.

“If you want to talk, get out of the water. I feel like an idiot professing unrequited love to some mythical creature. I bet you have a tail. You probably spend half your life swimming the oceans causing perfectly sane sailors to lose their minds.”

He'd come undone, babbling about mermaids in the moonlight, shoving his hands through his glorious black hair, and she'd done this to him, pushed him to the point of no control. There was something vulnerable and beautiful about the process. Her troubled mind raced for reason with a reminder that detachment was the smart thing to do.

Maggie didn't listen. Floating again, she lifted one leg out of the water and ran her hands down the length of skin. “See? No tail.”

After a few silent seconds, his shirt floated to the pier and his body splashed into the lake.

He surfaced with his arms around her waist. “It's cold.” He sounded miserable.

“It's refreshing.” She wiped the water from his eyes and smoothed back his dripping hair.

The moonlight accentuated the painful shadows on his face. “Have you ever been in love, Maggie?”

She wasn't one to shy away from heavy conversations, but pressed against his naked body, she felt particularly defenseless. “I love almost everyone I meet,” she said, hoping the teaching from her childhood would offer protection.

The wrinkles on his forehead deepened. “That's not what I meant.”

She knew what he meant, and he deserved an honest answer, but these were the intricacies about her that would keep them apart. And she wasn't sure she was ready for that. Still, if they were destined to be apart, wasn't it better sooner than later?

The stabbing in her heart wasn't convincing. “No. I've never been in love.”
Because romantic love doesn't exist.
She stopped before the worst part came out. He looked forlorn enough, like he waited on an answer he didn't entirely want to hear. Every part of his gorgeous face frowned. His eyes drooped. His cheeks caved. His lips sagged. She did the only thing she could think to do. She redirected the conversation back at him. “Did you love your ex-wife?”

“I guess not, not if the marriage ended the way it did. I used to think love was about the perks, the hot wife, the huge house, the sex I was entitled to. It was disgusting and immature. And I paid for it.”

Maggie smoothed a wrinkle from his cheek. “And now, what do you think love is about?” The question came out of a need to know from someone other than her mother.

Jordon spun her around in the water. “Love is about being happy.” He let go of her, plunging under the water and disappearing.

Maggie tipped her head to the sky for guidance. She wanted to believe in an unselfish, prolonged state of attraction that filled a person's body and soul with joy, but she knew better. She knew a rush of subjective emotions lurked behind the romantic notion. And she knew emotions were fleeting.

But what if she was wrong? What if she could love a man for no other reason than because it made her happy? No enlightenment. No threat to her spiritual experience. If she could love like that, would it be Jordon? They were from opposite sides of the country and opposite sides of the spirituality spectrum. Their only commonalities were lust and a troubled young man. Was it enough? Carlos wouldn't always be troubled, and lust would wane.

Maggie shivered. Jordon didn't love her. He didn't know her. He'd never seen her walk barefoot over embers. He'd never met her mother. A mainstream man like Jordon would run from Maggie's circus sideshow life.

Jordon's shadowy head appeared further out in the lake. “Maggie, I don't care what you say,
I
say I'm falling in love with you.”

Once again, thoughts of transference clogged her throat. It was the best explanation of how they went from a strange and strong attraction to talking about love. If it was transference, her carelessness was unforgiveable, and she had to make it right.

“Jordon, you aren't in love with me. You just think you are.” She couldn't help herself; something pulled her from the safety of the pier, toward him. As she cut into the deeper water, her body grew colder.

He disappeared again, and her heart thudded in her chest. She spun around, searching the pitch black. The water nipping at her numbing skin left her senses compromised. She could see the dim lights of the house, but she wasn't sure how far she'd swum.
Save me.

A rush of dread threatened to drag her under. “Jordon!”