Pressed against each other, their lips just a breath apart, she looked up into his eyes. Unable to resist the pull he had over her, she leaned in the final inch. Jason pulled her into him and bent his head, lowering his full lips to hers.
She felt his breath and then the soft, alluring pressure of his warm skin against her mouth, already swollen in anticipation of his kiss.
The kiss was sweet and sensual and the most powerful sexual experience Emma had ever had in her life.
She slid her tongue into his mouth, wanting to know his taste, wanting to devour him.
Jason groaned as her tongue slipped into his mouth, and he deepened the kiss, pulling her even closer to him. Her hands danced over the hot skin of his chest, and began, of their own volition, to move lower, toward the waistband of his swim shorts. Emma was unaware of the driver, oblivious to anything but how glorious it felt to be held in Jason’s arms, to be kissed into delirium by him.
The way Jason was looking at her was scary yet exciting, like he wanted to devour her, just as he had so many years ago. He was so close that Emma could feel his elemental warmth envelop her, pumping life into her cold blood.
The only time she’d ever let herself really live was with Jason. And she wanted to live again.
“Come outside with me,” he said and those four simple words excited her more than anything ever had, even though somewhere in the back of her brain a warning bell was sounding, alerting her that Jason wanting to be with her out of the blue like this made no sense at all.
But Emma had the rest of her life to examine her mistakes, to see where she’d gone wrong in betraying him and choosing a plastic existence over the real, flesh and blood life that she and Jason might have created together. Tonight was her one chance to be with him, to finally give herself to him fully and completely. And she was going to take it.
A whispered, “Yes,” was all Emma could manage as she walked to the door, knowing that Jason was behind her with every step, his heat, the potency of his gaze burning through her.
Sudden, powerful lust coursed through her veins. She felt wild and far more wicked than she ever had before, except in her secret erotic dreams. From this moment on, tonight was for her, damn the
consequences.
With Jason dangerously close behind her, so close that she could hear his even breathing in her ears, Emma pushed through the heavy double doors and inhaled the cool night air. It did little to quell her fever. Her desire. She welcomed the chill after the heat of too many bodies, all trying to outdo each other with bragging about how far they’d come in the ten years since college. Amazingly, the headache that had been building up all day behind her eyes, threatening to break her skull apart, disappeared.
The thought was fleeting—Jason is the best medicine, just as he always was—floating around inside of her, waiting for a quiet time when she could dissect it.
She’d always loved the Stanford campus with its mature oaks and palm trees, large expanses of lawn, and the mix of old stone buildings with modern glass and steel structures. But tonight, as Emma moved away from the faculty club into the night, buoyed by Jason’s silent urging from behind her to go farther, beyond the clinking of wineglasses, away from the overly bright laughter, she was oblivious to her surroundings.
Under the fronds of a palm tree, she turned to face him, praying for boldness, hoping for the strength to see this through.
Jason’s smile was feral, intense. “The usual place?”
Emma shivered at his words, knowing that she didn’t deserve his invitation to revisit their past. His offer was a gift, the most valuable gift she had ever been offered. Far more precious than a BMW or a diamond bracelet or anything her ex-husband had ever given her.
Another fleeting thought passed through her—I would give up everything for this man—and again she let it sink deep into her. Something else to add to her list, to deal with later.
“Yes,” she whispered again, her eyes bright with unforgotten memories. “The lake.”
Eighteen again, they ran through the night, traversing familiar, well-worn dirt paths through campus, past the dorms, past the faculty offices, out into the University wild lands. The leather rims of Emma’s shoes bit into her heels, her lungs whooshed and pumped for air, her hair fell from its tight ponytail to dance at her shoulder blades. She felt free. Like anything was possible. Like dreams came true. And even though she knew from experience that real life wasn’t ever going to be a fairy tale, tonight she was going to pretend that it could be.
Through their clasped hands, Jason’s lifeblood infused her with renewal. Like a vampire, Emma sucked at his power and let it fill her until the dried-up stick of a woman from just minutes ago was nearly erased.
And then the lake on the edge of campus stood before them, a full moon revealed on its clear, still surface.
Fear hit her like a jackhammer, right at the place in her skull that had been on the verge of detonation in the ballroom. Who was she kidding? She wasn’t a woman who ran with the wolves, for God’s sake. Soft visions of fairy-tale endings fled and she felt more vulnerable than ever before.
As if he could sense her sudden panic, Jason said, “It’s now or never, Emma.”
His words were neither an invitation nor a condemnation, and a picture of the rest of her life assaulted her. It wasn’t pretty. It wasn’t interesting.
If she didn’t take this “now” there would only be “never” for the rest of her life.
Turning to face him, holding his hazel gaze with her own she spoke the word that would seal her fate.
“Now.”
What the hell am I doing?
Jason knew he should leave. Right now. Five minutes ago, even. He was supposed to make a little small talk, put the past firmly in the past, then forget Emma and get on with his life.
But with Emma’s lips mere inches from his, with her br**sts close enough for him to lean into, Jason was hard-pressed to think of anything but touching her. Kissing her.
Making love to her.
A ruthless voice inside him—a voice that Emma had unleashed with her betrayal in college, a voice that had never been silenced since—quickly reminded Jason that love had nothing to do with it.
And so he admitted to himself that from the moment he’d seen her across the crowded room, he’d wanted to own her, to possess her with everything he had. His hands. His mouth. His teeth. His cock.
Especially his cock.
But just as he had known that coming to the reunion was not one of his better ideas, he knew that taking Emma to the lake, taking everything she had kept from him in college was a bad idea. He’d heard that she was newly divorced and, therefore, vulnerable. And yet, all the wisdom in the world didn’t matter tonight.