Asher set the glider going with a push of one foot.
Sera finished her coffee in three quick gulps, setting the mug down rather too hard on her own side table. “Sorry.” She winced at the clatter.
“It’s all right, Bliss,” he said. “I’m nervous, too.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said that tonight,” Sera blurted out. “What do you have to be nervous about?”
He slanted her a sidelong look, those green eyes of his almost black in the darkness. He ran a hand through his short hair, then laid it back across the glider, this time touching her shoulders—deliberately, she thought.
“Bliss,” he said gently. “Do you know you are the first woman I’ve invited to my home here in Santa Fe? Since I moved here four years ago—since my life fell apart back in Tel Aviv—I’ve been content to move slowly, collecting myself, letting this place heal me and my needs make themselves known to me in their own time. At first, I simply needed everything to be different, to remind me of nothing from the past, so I built myself a new business, honed a craft I’d only ever practiced as a hobby before. Nothing truly touched me, except my memories—both good and bad. I drifted in this beautiful dream of a city. For a long time, it was enough, and eventually my heart became quiet. But now those needs… they’re awakening.” He leaned closer, impressing her with his earnestness. “What I mean to say, Bliss, is that you are awakening them.”
Sera’s heart was suddenly thrumming like a hummingbird’s wings. She sensed he was about to open up in a big way, and that perhaps he’d spent a lot more of his time focused on her than she’d ever imagined. Could she handle what he had to say? His hand was gently stroking her hair, toying with the lock at the front that never behaved itself, fingers skimming her cheek. Sera trembled, hardly daring to breathe.
Asher spoke softly, but with conviction. “What I’m talking about, Bliss, is the need to know another person… to hear her, and understand what drives her. The need to see her grow and challenge herself—even if it is sometimes in ways that make her uncomfortable.”
For an unhappy moment, Sera wondered if he were just speaking generically, but what he said next dispelled any question—Asher meant her.
“I need to watch her dance with abandon when she thinks she’s alone—and to hold her close while we dance together under the Fiesta lights. To watch her blush—far too often—at every little thing.” He smiled, stroking Sera’s cheek as if to note how flushed it was even now. “To watch how she gives love to those who are important to her, and witness her kindness when she offers others a new start. To see her smile”—he traced her lips with one featherlight finger—“and to know that, just maybe, I had something to do with that smile…”
Sera trembled, and tears threatened to overflow her lashes.
“Asher…”
“I find myself with the most powerful need to taste the confections that come from her kitchen, and to see her master a monstrously big truck. And most of all, I have the need to do this…”
This time, the kiss was not on her forehead.
It captured her lips, hot and urgent, but what it stole was Sera’s soul. The feeling was like a sob, a deep, ache-from-the-bottom-of-your-guts sob, only it was good, so good, both desire and admiration intermingled. The desire was for his body—and how—but the admiration was for his personhood, in some intangible way.
She couldn’t help but respond. Overwhelmed, afraid, and dizzily flattered, Sera once again felt her wits skip town under the influence of Asher’s kiss. But for once in her life, her body seemed to know just how to respond. As their lips and tongues tasted and tested one another in the cold, clear night, she was overcome by the essence of Asher. It was all-encompassing. Like a drug, like the drink she’d given up, she longed for more of this man. He was so immensely promising, so tempting in the most primitive way…
Never in her life had Sera felt such a surge of straight-up passion. It flooded her loins and quickened her breath until she was dizzy with it. All she could think was more. Give me more, and more, and more again. She moaned, and his mouth took hers more deeply. She tasted coffee, fresh and deep, and man… and longing. Unbelievable longing, both hers and his.
It was that longing that stopped her.
Sera ripped herself from Asher’s embrace, leaping to her feet and nearly tripping over the comforter in her haste to get away. Silver yipped sleepily as she lunged over him and Sascha, scrambling to achieve some distance.
“Bliss, what’s the matter?” Asher rose to his feet in a hurry, but Sera waved him away.
“You don’t know what you’re saying, Asher,” she warned. “You don’t know me.”
“I know enough—” be began.
“You don’t know enough, Asher. You don’t know the first thing about me. If you did, you wouldn’t be kissing me right now.” She drew in a sharp breath and wiped her lips, as if she could erase the feel of him so easily. “Truth is, Ash, I’ve been a first-class mess for most of my life, and I’m only just starting to sort myself out now. I’m an alcoholic; a failure in my career. Back in New York, my very name is a joke in some circles.” Sera’s voice broke, and tears began to fall in hot streams down her cheeks. “I’m glad you’re getting over whatever it was that hurt you, Asher. You deserve all those things that you want—that you need from a woman. Most of all, you deserve happiness. You’re an amazing man. But I’m not an amazing woman—not yet. I’m still trying to get my shit straightened out, and I’m so far from where I want to be that some days I can’t even see the goalposts. And there are some things”—like my problems in the bedroom—“that I’m probably never going to overcome. You won’t find what you need with me, much as I wish I were all those things you think you see right now. I wouldn’t bring you happiness, Asher—I’d only fail you, and humiliate myself in the process. So let’s just nip this thing in the bud, okay?”
Sera didn’t wait to see whether Asher agreed. She ran for her truck and hauled ass out of there, leaving a trail of smashed lavender and sage in her wake.
And one very disappointed Israeli.
Chapter Seventeen
You two should fuck,” Pauline announced.
For emphasis, she stuck her spade in the pile of freshly turned earth she was fertilizing, propped her elbow on the handle, and gazed at her niece and her guest with a beatific smile that encompassed them both.
“Whaaaaat?” Sera squealed. Oh no, you did not just say that out loud… right there in front of Asher! She cringed behind the flower bed she was, with no great conviction, attempting to weed.
“You know. Bone. Bang. Bump uglies. Make the beast with two backs. Shag each other silly. That whole thing.” Pauline waved the spade back and forth between Sera and Asher, then made an obscene, impossible-to-mistake finger gesture.
Serafina didn’t know whether to throw up or die. Oh, my God. A third option—blushing herself into a coma—appeared to be her body’s instinctive answer to the conundrum.