After cleaning the wound and dabbing antiseptic ointment on it, Joanna smoothed an adhesive bandage into place, then pushed his foot off her lap. “That should do it.”
Putting as much distance between them as the couch allowed, he nodded. “Yeah. That should do it.”
She closed the first aid kit and carried the trash to the garbage can in the kitchen. Washing her hands in the sink, she asked over her shoulder, “So, is lifeguard one of your titles around here?”
“No.” Because he needed something to do with his hands, he crossed the room to pull a bottle of water from the fridge. He felt the thin bandage on his sole, but the cut didn’t hurt. Much. “You could call that an unofficial sideline.”
“The boy’s sister wasn’t much help, screaming and splashing the way she was.”
Swallowing a gulp of cold water, he nodded. “They were just a couple of young inlanders who shouldn’t have been out there alone.”
Joanna turned and leaned back against the counter to look at him. “You sound like a local. You never told me where you grew up, only that you’d won that vacation in a charity raffle. Was South Carolina your childhood home?”
He didn’t want to get into his childhood right then. Suffice it to say he hadn’t been raised in a warm, supportive, encouraging environment like the one Joanna apparently provided for Simon. Neither his detached, nomadic father nor his troubled, chronically depressed mother had taught him much about parenting or selfless reliability, though his overworked maternal grandmother had done what she could to fill in the gaps.
He doubted a woman from Joanna’s background would understand. He gave a quick summary instead of anything more detailed. “No. I lived in West Virginia for a while. Kentucky. Mississippi. Joined the army when I was nineteen, served some time in Texas, then a twelve-month tour in the Middle East. I was stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina when I met you, before my second tour.”
Her gaze fell to his chest, and he knew she was picturing the scars through his shirt. Though he knew it was foolish, he half turned away as if to hide his chest from her, raising his water to his lips again.
Seemingly oblivious to his self-consciousness, she commented, “You moved around a lot as a child.”
“Yeah.”
She waited, as if to give him a chance to elaborate. After a few moments of silence, she sighed. “Do you find this all as bizarre as I do? We spent a long weekend together six years ago. We never really got to know each other.”
“I didn’t hear any complaints at the time,” he muttered.
She smiled a little wistfully. “I had no complaints. Then or now. It was a wonderful weekend. We had fun. And though we didn’t intend to, we made a child together. But when it comes right down to it...we’re basically strangers, aren’t we?”
Strangers. The word bothered him more than he could explain, though he supposed technically it was accurate.
He set the bottle down on the counter with a thump and looked at her through narrowed eyes. He shifted his weight, bringing them close enough now that he could touch her with only a slight lift of his hand. “We’re not exactly strangers.”
“What would you call it, then?” she challenged, sounding suddenly weary. “We really don’t know anything about each other.”
“I remember a few things about you.” Something made him reach out, cup her face between his hands. Something drove him to lower his mouth to only a breath above her surprise-parted lips. To murmur, “I remember that you tremble when I do this.”
He brushed his lips across her right cheek, then the left, each time stopping just at the corner of her mouth. And felt her tremble.
“I remember the sound you make when I do this.” He caught her lower lip gently between his teeth, then ran his tongue over it. And heard the faint catch of breath in the back of her throat. A sound he’d heard echoed in a few erotic dreams since he’d left her.
He lifted his head to gaze down at her flushed face with a hunger he was having trouble keeping in check. She might be surprised to know how well he remembered certain things about that weekend. The hell he’d been through afterward, both in his deployment and his long recovery, had changed him in a lot of ways. Maybe Joanna had remained in the back of his mind as a symbol of that one last weekend when he’d felt the brash invincibility of youth.
Six years suddenly felt like a very long time, aging him far more than it should have. As Joanna had pointed out, she really didn’t know him now at all—and he didn’t know her. Time and vastly different experiences had altered them both, leaving nothing but hazy memories between them.
Well, that and a son, he added with a swallow that burned his throat. Recalled abruptly to his senses, he let go of her, starting to move reluctantly away. Only to be stopped by her hands on his shirt, gripping him, pulling him closer. She rose on tiptoe to meet him when he lowered his mouth again to hers with a muffled groan.
CHAPTER FIVE
IF SHE CLOSED her eyes, Joanna could almost believe no time had passed since their last kiss. Adam’s lips felt exactly as she remembered, moved against hers in the same way, tasted the same. His hands settled on her body with the same confidence and skill and her skin tingled with the same response.
Her mind emptying of all rational thought, she pressed closer, opening her lips beneath his to deepen the kiss. He took her up on that silent invitation immediately and thoroughly, proving she wasn’t the only one still susceptible to their attraction. He was hard and solid against her, almost pulsing with a fierce masculine strength.
She’d called him a stranger. How, then, could he still feel so familiar? So right? Was it only that it had been too long since anyone had aroused this rarely-indulged side of her?
Lost in this kiss she had initiated, Joanna ran her palms up his chest. Exploring. Savoring. Despite his scars, his body was as firmly muscled now as she’d recalled.
She raised her arms even higher and slid her fingers into his hair. His thick, soft, still-wet-from-the-shower hair. Long enough now to tangle around her fingers, to tumble over her hands. This, she thought dimly, had changed. It felt so different from the military cut she remembered that she was startled back into the present.