“Touching you again,” he says, his voice as earthy and warm, as his scent, “or rather you touching me this time, is better than the first time.” He offers me the card. “Happy Birthday, Faith.”
I don’t ask how he knows it’s my birthday. It’s on the card. It’s also on documents that he, no doubt, studied before he came here today. I reach for the envelope, but he doesn’t let it go. He holds onto it and me, and it hits me that the two things in life that I’ve learned you cannot explain nor can you control, have now collided: Death and lust. And I have never needed control more in my life than now.
Tiger reaches up and strokes the hair from my eyes, his hands settling on my cheek, a stranger that somehow feels better than anything has in a very long time. And just as I feared, I’m reminded of how good an escape that dark lust can be, how addictive. He’s right. I am afraid. I’m afraid of losing what little control I have right now.
I stand up and go on the attack. “You researched me like a client or someone you’re prosecuting,” I charge, knowing it’s a ridiculous reason to be mad. I would have researched him too had I gotten in earlier last night, but I don’t like it right now. I don’t like how he’s taken my life by storm. “You knew it was my birthday before you came here.”
“I researched you like a woman I want to know. And I do want to know you, Faith.”
His tongue strokes my name again, soft yet rough edged, which somehow screams sex to me. HE screams sex to me. “Stop saying my name like that.”
“Like what?” he asks, and in that moment, with his long hair tied at his nape, and his deep voice, roughened up, he is lethal for no logical reason.
“Like we’re intimate,” I say. “Like you know me, because the internet doesn’t determine who or what I am.”
“Then you show me who you are.”
“Why?” I challenge. “You already read me like a book. I need to get to work.” I turn and climb into my car, as I should have before now.
He kneels beside me, and I brace myself for the touch that I am both relieved and disappointed doesn’t follow, but I can feel him compelling me to look at him. “This is what I do,” he says, undeterred when I do not. “I push and I push some more to get what I want.”
I look at him before I can stop myself. “You officially pushed too hard.”
“If you’re still running, I haven’t pushed hard enough.”
“This doesn’t work for me.”
“Good. It doesn’t for me either.”
I blink, confused by a reply that conflicts with his pursuit. “What does that even mean?”
“Our shared state of mind simplifies the attraction between us and even explains it. Bottom line: We both just need to fuck a whole lot of everything out of our systems, including each other.”
“Who even says something like that to someone they don’t know?”
“Me, Faith. I might not always show my hand, but as I said, I don’t like lies. When I say something, it’s honest. It’s real.”
“You don’t think not showing your hand is a lie?”
“Do you?” he counters.
“Good dodge and weave there, counselor,” I say. “There’s more to you than meets the eye, Nick Rogers.”
“I could say the same of you, now couldn’t I, Faith Winter?”
“Yes,” I dare, because most likely he already knows this as fact, and anything else would challenge him to prove otherwise. “You could.”
He arches a brow. “I expected denial.”
“Seems you didn’t learn everything about me on the internet that you thought you learned.”
His eyes glint with something I can’t name. “The internet was never going to give me what I want from you anyway.”
I tell myself not to take the bait, but there is more to him than meets the eye. More that I don’t just want to understand. More than I almost feel I need to understand. And so, I do it. I dare to ask, exactly what he wants me to ask.
“Which is what?”
“You. Not the you that you show the world. The one behind the wall that intrigued me last night and now. The real you, Faith, stripped bare and not just exposed. Willingly exposed.” He stands up, backs away, and shuts the car door.
I LEAVE DOWNTOWN WITH NICK, or Tiger, or whatever I decide to call the man, on my mind, and he stays on my mind. Five minutes after my encounter with him, much to my dismay, I can still feel that man’s touch, and the warmth of his body next to mine. Ten minutes later, the same. Fifteen. The same. This, of course, was his intent when he suggested we fuck and then left without so much as another word. He wanted me to crave his touch. He wanted me to be ready for next time, which we both know will come. And it worked.
I hit the twenty-minute mark with Tiger haunting my thoughts, but I finally have the blessed distraction from him as I pull onto the long, winding path leading to the place I call home. The white country-style house I’d bought with my inheritance six months after my father’s death. I’d finally accepted that my mother would run the winery into the ground if I didn’t leave my life in L.A. behind. I’d had this crazy idea back then that I could merge my world with that of the winery. I’d been wrong, but today it’s my birthday, and I’m giving myself the gift of a weekend with my art, including a brush in my hand.
I park in the driveway rather than the garage, and quickly grab my bag, hurrying up the wooden steps to the porch that hugs the entire front of the house. Once I’m inside, I clear the foyer and hurry across the dark wood of the floors of the open living area to my bedroom. I enter the room I haven’t slept in for a month, everything about the space artsy and clean, done in cream and caramel tones. A cream leather-framed bed and fluffy cream area rug. Caramel-colored nightstands. A cream chair with a caramel ottoman. My painting, a Sonoma landscape, is the centerpiece above the headboard, because hey, I can’t afford a Chris Merit, though Josh loves to tell me I could be the next Chris Merit. I’d be happy to just be the next me, and actually know what that meant, which reminds me of the card from my father. I set my bag on the bed, and pull out the card, staring at my father’s script. I run my fingers over it, missing him so badly it hurts, but I remember that he saw my art as a hobby, and the winery as my future. I’ve accepted that destiny. I’m protecting our family history and his blood and sweat. But I can’t open a card tonight and risk gutting myself before a night I’ve already committed to surviving. I set the card down and whisper, “I love you, and I’m going to make you proud.”