In one fluid move Nikki picked up the knife, sliced a wedge, salted her hand, and brought it all home. She saw his expression and said, “Where the hell you think I’ve been all these years?”
Rook smiled at her and prepared another, and as she watched him, she felt herself relaxing her sore shoulders and, inch by inch, coming untethered from the state of alertness she had unwittingly adopted as a lifestyle. But when he was ready, Rook didn’t down this shot. Instead, he held out his hand to her. She looked down at the salt on his skin and the lime between his thumb and finger. Nikki didn’t look up at him because she was afraid if she did she would change her mind instead of taking the leap. She bent toward his hand and darted her tongue out, quickly at first, but then, choosing to slow the moment down, she lingered there licking the salt off his skin. He offered her the shot and she fired it back and then, cradling his wrist in her fingers, she guided the lime wedge he was holding to her lips. The burst of lime juice cleansed her palate, and as she swallowed, the warmth from the tequila spread from her stomach to her limbs, filling her with a luxurious buoyancy. She closed her eyes and ran her tongue on her lips again, tasting the citrus and salt. Nikki wasn’t at all drunk, it was something else. She was letting go. The simple things people take for granted. For the first time she could remember in a long time, she was flat-?out relaxed.
That’s when she realized she was still holding Rook’s wrist. He didn’t seem to mind.
They didn’t speak. Nikki licked her own hand and salted it. Held a wedge. Poured a shot. And then she offered her hand to him. Unlike her, he didn’t avert his gaze. He brought her hand up to him and put his lips on it and tasted the salt and then the saltiness of her skin around it as they stared at each other. Then he drank the shot and bit the lime she gave to him. They held eye contact like that, neither one moving, the extended-?play version of their perfume ad moment on Matthew Starr’s balcony. Only this time Nikki didn’t break off.
Tentatively, slowly, each drew an inch closer, each still silent, each still holding the other’s steady gaze. Whatever worry or uncertainty or conflict she’d felt before, she pushed it aside as too much thinking. At that moment, Nikki Heat didn’t want to think. She wanted to be. She reached out and gently touched his jaw where she had struck him earlier. She rose up on one knee and leaned forward to him and, rising above him, lightly kissed his cheek. Nikki hovered there, studying the play of shadows and candlelight on his face. The soft ends of her hair dangled down and brushed him. He reached out, gently smoothing one side back, lightly stroking her temple as he did. Leaning there above him, Nikki could feel the warmth from his chest coming up to meet hers and she inhaled the mild scent of his cologne. The flickering of the candles gave the room a feeling of motion, the way it looked to Nikki when the plane she was in flew through a cloud. She pressed herself down to him and he came to meet her, the two of them not so much moving as drifting weightless toward each other, attracted by some irresistible force in nature that had no name, color, or taste, only heat.
And then what began so gently took on its own life. They flew to each other, locking open mouths together, crossing some line that dared them, and they took it. They tasted deeply and touched each other with a frenzy of eagerness fired by wonder and craving, the two of them released at last to test the edge of their passion.
A votive candle on the coffee table began to sputter and pop. Nikki pulled away from Rook, tearing herself away from him, and sat up. Chest heaving, soaked with perspiration, both his and her own, she watched the candle’s glowing ember fade out, and when it had been consumed by the darkness, she stood. She held out her hand to Rook and he took it, rising up to stand with her.
One candle had sparked brightly and died but one was still burning. Nikki picked that one up and used it to light the way for them to her bedroom.
Unknown
Heat Wave
TEN