Kaleidoscope (Colorado Mountain #6)(26)

He just intended to add really great things.

I hope this wakes you up, sweet Emme.

I took a sip of the beer that I held until then forgotten in my hand.

And when I was done, I whispered, “I think I just woke up, Harvey.”

And when I did, pure joy flowed through me.

So I smiled.

Chapter Six

Weird

One hour, two minutes later…

I lay on my back in my bed, staring unseeing at the ceiling and going over the last two days in my mind again and again.

No way I could sleep.

No way.

So I rolled, turned on my light and saw the ring Dane had given me the night before on my nightstand.

The box was open.

I flipped it shut and put it in the nightstand drawer.

Dane giving me that weirded me out, but it was the kind of gesture that you didn’t make an “euw” face and throw it across the room.

So, after I’d tried to refuse it, gently saying it was too much, and he’d refused my refusal, adamantly and repeatedly, I’d given up, thanked him and kissed him.

He’d done what he always did when I kissed him. He escalated things and made love to me.

I’d had two lovers in my life, and to say Dane was better than the first one was a massive understatement.

Still, I read enough, watched enough TV and movies, heard enough girlfriends talking about it, I knew I was missing something.

Even from Dane.

I knew this because I’d never had an orgasm with a partner. Not once.

I faked it.

It wasn’t a good thing to do but eventually things just kept going, it got tedious, and I had to do what I had to do to end it so I could get some sleep.

Thinking on this brought me to the memory that Elsbeth had not shared often, but she had shared. And what she shared was that Jacob had no problems in that department. They’d started their relationship young and had been together for five years. Elsbeth and I were the same age and she’d been twenty when they started out. He’d been twenty-three. She had not been a virgin but she’d been an orgasm-during-sex virgin.

According to Elsbeth, Jacob had taken that particular virginity and done it spectacularly then went on to give that to her frequently and unfailingly.

Now I was thirty-four and had two lovers and no orgasms that had been given to me by anyone else but me.

And I had sexual knowledge of the man who that night told me he was interested in me and intended to do something about it.

So even though it was late, I was me, he was Jacob and I was psycho.

Not to mention, these thoughts were tamping down the joy I’d felt earlier, and I didn’t like that much.

So I got out of bed, wandered through the dark to the kitchen and nabbed my phone.

I called him wandering back to my room through the dark.

“You okay?” he answered.

“Just to say, if I wasn’t, although you have superhuman strength and an off-the-charts IQ, I’d still probably call 911.”

“Babe,” he replied.

I waited but he didn’t follow that up.

So I asked, “Babe, what?”

“Babe,” this time there was a smile in his voice, “get on with what you’re callin’ about.”

“Right,” I muttered as I walked up the rounded staircase that was reason three I bought this house. Reason one being the view I saw from the circular drive. Reason two being the extraordinary wood starburst inlaid in the entryway floor.

“Emme,” he called.

“Sorry,” I replied. “I was thinking about my starburst.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly. “Is this too late to call?”

“No, but just to say, no time is a bad time to hear from you.”

Good answer. So good, it made me feel mushy inside.

Safe in that feeling, I admitted, “I can’t sleep.”

“Emme—”

There was concern in my name and a hint of Jacob being what Jacob had been recently. Determined to go full steam ahead, do most of the talking and the talking he did blowing my mind.

So I interrupted him.

“No, please, Jacob, hear me out.”

He said nothing.

I walked down the hall toward the light coming from my room trying to find the courage to say what I needed to say.

Walking into my room and seeing the pretty I’d wrought with my own two hands, some YouTube videos and a lot of elbow grease, I found the courage.

“This is weird,” I said softly, making my way to the bed. “I know things about you.”

“Girl talk,” he murmured, and I knew he knew what I was saying.

“Yeah,” I agreed, climbing into bed and sitting cross-legged on it.

“Bad shit?” he asked and I felt my head jerk.

“Bad shit?” I repeated.

“She bitch about me?”

She hadn’t. Ever. I didn’t even know if they ever fought.

God, she was so stupid.

“Was there bad shit?” I asked hesitantly.

“I didn’t think so until she dumped me,” he replied and I felt my lips smile.

“That came out of the blue for everybody, honey,” I told him. “Not just you.”

“Right,” he replied, that word clearly a prompt to get on with it.