He leans his putter against the hand rail beside him and steps up behind me. “Don’t think. Just feel.” His breath sweeps across the shell of my ear, making me want to say “huh” just so he has to repeat himself. His defined body moves close up against my backside. I have to fight my natural reflex to push back against him. His hands grip me by the shoulders and squeeze my muscles almost like a massage. His hands run down my arms from behind, effectively encasing me in him, my much smaller frame like a shadow beneath his. His fingers wrap gingerly around my hands and make adjustments to my grip as he goes. One hand falls away, splaying across my sternum just beneath my bra. I gasp at the intimate touch. Zander rights my posture and then runs his hand down my back. He taps his fingers low on my inner thigh, motioning for me to spread my legs a little. I adjust myself with his help. All the while he’s holding his other hand over both of mine, still gripping the putter.
“A little goes along way,” he breathes into my ear, this time much closer. So much closer that I’ve forgotten the damn golf and hole nine and the world. His hand joins my two and his one on the grip of the putter. He squeezes gently. I close my eyes and end up holding my breath. The putter swings back then forward almost like a porch swing. No stopping. Just one fluid movement. I open my eyes just in time to see the wretched ball drift easily over the AstroTurf, slowing as it nears the cup then falls in with a “plink.”
Zander takes the putter from me, sets it with his, and turns me to face him. “So simple you don’t even have to try. Just gotta let it happen.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“Because it is.”
My own guilty conscience rears her ugly head, snapping me out of my Zander-coma. Images of Jake flit through my mind and it’s a slap in the face. I step away from Zander, disappointed in myself not just for my internal tug-of-war but for wanting him so badly that I can nearly taste him. Zander makes no response to my sudden retreat. He just eyes me carefully, which only heightens my disappointment. This isn’t fair to him either. It’s not fair to Jake at all, but Zander doesn’t deserve this tension, this desire then a cold shoulder, but I just can’t go there with him. It’s wrong.
“I know you feel this.” His words are simple but weighted. Zander steps closer to me. “You feel it like I feel it.”
I swallow hard searching my brain for the right move. A subtle nod is all I can come up with.
“Tell me. Say it,” he orders in a voice laced with pleading.
I can’t refuse him. I don’t want to refuse him. I’m so confused. So mixed up. So lost. “I feel it.”
“Tell me you want this like I do.”
“I want it.”
“Please don’t go back to Atlanta yet.”
“I’m not going. Not yet.” I make my promise and look closely at Zander. I see myself in him, I think. I know how lonely I am most of the time and it occurs to me that Zander is lonely too. I know the look. I know how it feels and it seems that when I’m talking to him, when I’m near him, the companionship that passes between the two of us is medicating. He pacifies a pain that being alone has brought me and I think I give him the same. Or something like it.
“Want to have lunch at my place?” Zander’s voice is still lusty and pleading. He makes me want to give him everything I can’t if it means it will make him smile.
“As long as you don’t try to feed me enchilada casserole.” I give him a small smile, hoping that it will please him like his smile pleases me. If my suspicions are even anywhere close to correct, then earning a smile from someone like him, like me, is definitely pleasing. It’s a small victory in a war against the worst parts of life.
Zander’s hand closes around mine and pulls me toward the parking lot. He doesn’t say anything and neither do I. I try hard to focus on him instead of my same old demons. I find myself wondering why he’s so alone down here in his beach house. I don’t understand why he wants to be so closed off to the world. I can understand the need for isolation, though. Who needs to be around people when the crowd of thoughts in your head keeps you pretty busy?
Zander stops in his tracks, causing me to stop too. I look up at him to see his nostrils flaring. His jaw is tight and his eyes are brimming with anger. I follow his gaze to find him staring at a shiny black Lincoln parked across the lot from where his Jeep is sitting. Zander squeezes my hand in his then releases me.
“Stay right here, Sadie. Right here,” he reiterates in a serious, dominating sort of tone.
I can’t do anything but nod. I watch him stride quickly over to the vehicle. I can barely see the window roll down around Zander’s frame. He braces his palms against the top of the window and leans down to talk to whoever is in there. I can’t see who it is. Zander lifts one hand from the top of the window and it looks like he’s jabbing his finger at whoever is in the car.
“What the hell?” I mumble just as Zander turns on his heels and marches back in my direction. The window begins sliding up and I catch sight of a man in a suit just before he disappears behind the dark tint.
“C’mon,” Zander huffs out, taking my hand in his again.
“What was that?” I ask without hesitation, glancing back over my shoulder one more time as he pulls me to the Jeep. If Zander is involved in something shady, I refuse to have any part of it. He doesn’t seem like the criminal type, but how in the world do you explain that gangster-looking shit that just happened in the parking lot of a place called Adventure Island? It’s not like we were at the grocery store or a bar or something and just happened to run into someone he knows. No. Whoever that person was, they came to find Alexander McBride.