“No.”
Jessica pushed past him. “Yes.”
“Jess—no!” Luke grunted the words through quick labored breaths.
Jessica finished with an all-out sprint. “Deep down … I want you to beat me, Jones!” The second her shoes hit the sand, breaking the invisible finish line, she threw off her shirt and bra, continuing on toward the water.
“Jessica!”
A few feet before breaching the water, she turned and smiled as she removed her shoes and shorts. Luke dropped to his knees in the sand, bowing his head.
“I’m going in, Jones. Feel free to watch … we’ll call it your consolation prize.”
A shrill squeal filled the air as she ran into the cool water several feet before making a shallow dive into the waves. For a few brief seconds she was free, liberated, and alive. She prayed to her God, any God that would listen. She prayed that the water would wash away all her problems and that she’d emerge a normal woman, a woman worthy of Luke Jones.
“Dammit, Jones,” Jessica yelled with her first breath upon seeing him still kneeling in the sand, refusing to look at her. “You’re such a killjoy.” She pulled out her ponytail holder and rung out her hair as she walked toward him, collecting her clothes along the way. She stopped in front of him, clothes in one hand, shoes in the other.
“You’re not supposed to get your stitches wet.” At most he could’ve seen her feet, if his eyes had been open. But they weren’t.
“You have a degree in medicine, yet you won’t look at me?”
Luke remained still.
“Am I too short?” She slipped on her bra and top.
Headshake.
“Too many muscles … too butch?” She stepped into her shorts.
Headshake.
“You prefer blondes?” She put on her socks and shoved her feet into her running shoes.
Headshake.
She squatted to tie her shoes. His eyes blinked open and met hers.
“Well then, I must just be too fucked-up in the head so I might as well tell you. The first person I attacked was my mother when she woke me up the day after I came home from the hospital. In turn, she spent two days recovering from a concussion and a broken rib.”
That loving daughter turned monster bit her lips together, but it didn’t keep the tears from bleeding down her cheeks as a sob escaped. Feeling required such vulnerability. It was all or nothing. She couldn’t just take the good times, the happy memories. Life was an ebb and flow of pain and pleasure. One could not exist without the other.
With every blink, another teardrop faded into the sand between them. “I will never get married. I will never have children. I will never wake up in the arms of a lover. So here’s what I have: a job that nobody understands, a random dating life where I never have sex with the same guy twice because really … who sticks around after a roll in the hay with Count Dracula? My only option is some masochistic freak who gets off on that shit, but here’s the thing: I don’t. I don’t want to be that person. I hate that person.”
There was nothing but anger in her veins and a pounding pulse in her ears until Luke flipped her whole world on its head.
“You’re so beautiful,” he whispered.
“Fuck you. Don’t you dare say that now.” Jessica swiped away her tears as she stood.
Luke clasped her wrist and gave it a gentle tug like he was asking, not demanding. “Jessica?”
His paralyzing touch bled along her skin and seeped into her chest leaving a permanent mark. She lowered to her knees in front of him.
“I want to tell you that I prefer long dark hair, heavenly amber eyes, and a petite body: seductive, sexy, torturous. I want to tell you that a few minutes ago I would have rather gone blind than not looked at your naked figure. I want to tell you that I hate wine, yet I can’t go to sleep until I’ve had one sip because that’s what your lips tasted like that night we kissed. But I can’t tell you any of that because what I want more than anything is to help you, and I can’t do that from the bedroom.” Luke rested his hands on her cheeks and his forehead on hers. “Because, Jessica, I know if I had you in my bed I would never … ever … want to leave,” he whispered.
Jessica bit her trembling lip—hard. His words, the most beautiful pain ever, became the bane of her existence.
“I’ll never be normal. Will I?”
Luke moved to his feet, dusting the sand off his legs then offering his hand to her. “Normal is subjective and boring.”
She wanted to smile but it didn’t quite make it to her lips. “Then I must be the most fascinating person in the world.”
“You are. Let’s go. I have a surprise for you.” Luke lifted his hat, ran a hand through his matted hair, then repositioned it.