Move the Sun (Signal Bend #1)(71)
And then Lilli remembered. She’d come out of the bathroom and met Lucinda on her way in. When Lilli had tried to sidestep her, Lucinda stepped over, too, staying in her way. She’d smiled up at Lilli, who had three or four inches on her, and said, “You’re pretty, no doubt. You think you have him now, but don’t get comfy, sugarpie. I’ve had years to figure him out. I know what he needs. You’re just a cute young thing caught his eye. What do you say we wager on who lands him?”
Feeling wasted and mellow, and totally secure, Lilli had just smiled and sidestepped her, but the bitch grabbed her when she passed and tried to yank her back, hissing, “Don’t dismiss me, little whore.”
Lilli didn’t remember thinking anything then. She’d just wheeled around, instinct taking over, and busted Lucinda in the face. Lucinda had dropped to the ground, and Lilli remembered standing over her, snarling, “You lose, bitch.”
The rest of the night was still a fog, except for a memory of being in the water. But standing in the grassy aisle between booths, staring at Lucinda and her black eye, Lilli remembered enough to know she needed to be careful at this night’s bonfire. Finally, bestowing on Lucinda a confident little smile, she turned and continued down the aisle with falafel and sodas for her and Isaac. She was not thrilled to discover that she could be jealous and catty.
Back at their booth, she uncovered Isaac’s plate and handed it to him. He stared down at it for a few seconds. “Um, Sport? What’s this?”
“Falafel. Never had it?”
He shook his head. “I ask again: what is it?”
“It’s fried chickpea balls in pita bread, with greens and a spicy sauce. It’s good.” She took a bite of hers.
It was delicious, in fact, and the spice in the sauce made her tongue tingle.
“None of the words you just said is a meat.” He set his plate aside and opened his Mountain Dew.
She laughed and rolled her eyes. “Dude. You’re not even going to try it? I asked what you wanted, and you told me to surprise you. Well, surprise!”
“I thought you’d be picking between a steak sandwich and a bratwurst! Who even came up with a stupid word like falafel? Sounds like a frog with tonsillitis.”
“It’s Middle Eastern, and you are being a big baby. At least try it. I promise you won’t turn into a vegetarian if one meal you eat in your life doesn’t have an animal in it.”
He pulled his plate back. “Yeah, something tells me this is a gateway sandwich.” With an attitude of reluctant experimentation, he took a bite. Lilli watched him consider what was in his mouth and on his tongue. He smiled as he took a second bite and said around his mouthful, “I draw the line at tofu. No way that’s food.”
She laughed and handed him a napkin. He had sauce in his beard, and she pointed where he needed to wipe. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
oOo
When Lilli and Isaac went to the bonfire the second night, with their blanket and cooler of beer, Lilli did so with the resolve to stay in better control of herself. Like the night before, there were people playing music and singing, weed and ‘shrooms were going around, people were talking and laughing. The log they’d settled at was taken by the musicians this time, so they found another spot on a grassy patch a little farther back from the fire. They weren’t mobbed this time by fellow artisans. It was almost as if they were being left alone on purpose. Lilli wondered if Isaac had said something.
There was nothing to lean back against, so Isaac stretched out on his side and pulled Lilli to lean back against him. He pulled the band from her hair and combed his fingers gently through it, and she closed her eyes and relaxed.
Feeling soothed, she let her senses reach out. The big fire cast a dancing, golden glow over everything around it; patterns swirled through Lilli’s closed eyelids. The warm, woodsy smell of burning pine was almost a potpourri. The sound of sap crackling in the flames seemed to harmonize with the music being played—right now it was “There but for Fortune.” And then there were Isaac’s hands—one playing softly in her hair, the other around her arm, his thumb tracing patterns on her bicep. She loved those hands, big and calloused, rough and strong. Tender and loving.
“Baby, you goin’ to sleep?” His voice was gruff, little more than a rasp over his tongue. He brushed her hair off her shoulder and ran the backs of his fingers against her cheek. Jesus, what his touch did to her.
Everything from her shoulders to her knees constricted in a powerful spasm of desire. Because he’d touched her cheek.
“Nope.” She shifted to lie down next to him, on her back so that he loomed over her. He pulled her in more snugly and looked down at her, his ponytail falling over his shoulder. Lilli reached up and took it in her hand, coiling it through her fingers.
“You look good enough to eat, Sport,” Isaac growled. “I’m more than half tempted to get you screaming right here by the fire.”
She smiled and pulled on his ponytail, bringing him down for a kiss. She’d only had a couple of beers, but she was so overwhelmed by the powerful need she felt for him that she was more than half tempted to let him get her screaming right here. Instead, though, she turned her head away from the kiss, just a bit, and whispered, “I really love you, Isaac. I love seeing you this way.”
He smiled, his brow wrinkling a little. “What way?”