Counting on Cayne (Hallow River Book 1) (8 page)

“Thank you,” I said as
he gazed back at me with innocent saucer eyes. I looked up at Aunt Lu and
managed a thin smile.

“Thank you,” I repeated.

She nodded and smoothed
Georgie’s corn silk hair.

“You look beautiful.” Cayne
looked admiringly at me as he opened the door of his pickup truck. The sky
glowed rose with the last flickers of sunset. He offered a hand to boost me
into the front passenger seat. “New dress?” His eyes rested hungrily on my
chest and the deep cleavage revealed by my plunging neckline.

“As a matter of fact, it
is.” The dress, which I’d picked up at a local shop on my way home from work, was
a pale yellow cotton in an eyelet print with a halter top that tied around my
neck, a high waist, and a short flared skirt. The back was low and open. I felt
Cayne’s cool hand sweep down my spine just before I dropped into the seat.

“So, where are we
headed?” I asked. As usual, Cayne was behaving as a man of few words and many
mysteries. After calling me earlier in the day to invite me to dinner, he had refused
to give any direct answers to my several inquiries about our plans.

Now, in response to my
question, he just grinned, his dimple popping adorably into place, and ran his
hand under my yellow skirt and smoothly up my thigh, stopping with his fingers
just brushing against the seams of my panties. I could feel myself already
getting wet. My nipples grew hard under the thin cotton of my halter top. My
body reacted to Cayne’s nearness with an electric power that I had difficulty
controlling. I felt my neck prickle pink and took a deep breath to steady my
pulse.

He maneuvered through
the quiet streets in the gathering twilight and stopped in front of an
industrial-style cement building. A hand-painted sign over the entrance read
Hallow
River Community Center
in bright green, red, and blue letters.

“Here we are.” Cayne put
the car in park and looked over at me.

“
This
is our
destination? The rec center?” It was the place where I had spent nearly every
Saturday morning from the time I was five years old until I was eighteen. It
was where I first learned to dance and where I later taught classes.

Fluttering paper flyers
taped to the windows advertised story time readings and basketball tryouts. A
row of abstract preschooler art rested on the inner window ledge.

“It sure
is
our
destination.” Cayne laughed at my dismay. “Don’t ever say that I don’t know how
to show a lady a good time. Come on.”

He hopped from the truck
and jogged over to my door to let me out. The center was locked and empty at
this hour, but Cayne produced a key from his back pocket. Walking through the
front doors instantly transported me to a thousand mornings from my youth.

The lobby was still
decorated in the color palette of the 1980s. Not a thing had changed. Lumpy turquoise
couches, faded by a layer of dirt and the accumulated imprints of countless
bodies, sat around the borders of the room. There were battered plywood tables covered
in stacks of well-thumbed books with heavily cracked spines and piles of
magazines with crinkled, grimy covers. The walls were painted in streaks of hot
pink and neon green. When Cayne flipped a switch, the overhead fluorescent
bulbs lit up with an insistent buzz. The smell was intensely familiar. Combined
scents of playdough, tempera paint, and pizza grease permeated the air. I
placed a hand on a grungy sofa arm to steady myself beneath a wave of memories.

Cayne grasped my hand without
speaking and walked me down the linoleum hallway, past a display of clumsily
drawn American flags, and toward a door that I knew well. The chipped gold
lettering on the glass simply said
Dance
.

The studio was just as I
remembered it. A mirror took up one full wall, and a ballet barre ran the
length of another. The varnished wooden plank floor was scratched and pitted
from decades of toe and heel strikes. I glimpsed myself in the mirror across
the room and saw a grown woman where last I had seen a young girl brimming with
hope and promise. The transformation was enough to knock my breath out of my
chest.

Cayne put his palms on
my bare shoulders and turned my body slowly toward a corner of the room. There
was a collection of blankets and a picnic basket, long white tapered candles,
and a bottle of wine. I gazed up at him, a question in my eyes.

“For you,” he said. “I
figured we would revisit an important place from our past, but also use it as a
jumping off point to start something new.” He took both of my hands in his, gripping
my fingers tight. “A lot of years have passed, but here we are again. Let’s
make it count.”

I stared down at the
floor, thinking hard about the changes that I had undergone during that time
and wondering how Cayne would feel when I finally told him about my history. I
knew that if we had any chance at a real relationship, I had to start with
candor and full disclosure rather than with secrets and evasions. I parted my
lips, ready to speak, but then I looked back up into his eyes and saw a pure
hopefulness there that silenced me instantly.

Cayne still saw me as
the Brinley from ten years ago, not the broken woman that I had since become.
His faith and admiration had the power to erase the years and change me back
into that girl I once was. It strengthened and fortified my spirit, held
together the broken pieces of my soul with an impermeable bond. I wanted to
stay that girl forever for him. Maybe it meant living a lie, and maybe I didn’t
give him enough credit for accepting and loving the real me. But, in that
moment, I couldn’t bear to see that hopeful look leave his eyes.

“I think that sounds
great,” I said with complete sincerity. I stood on my tiptoes, the heels of my
strappy sandals leaving the floor, and wound my arms around his neck. We kissed
long and deep. His hands coursed down my bare back and landed around my waist.

He walked me over to the
blanket, poured two glasses of red wine, and lit the candles with a match. The
flames cast a warm glow over the dim studio and flickered in the mirrors.  I lowered
myself onto the blanket while Cayne removed items from the picnic basket.

“You’re spoiling me with
these romantic dinners.” I took a sip of wine and kicked off my shoes.

“Don’t get too excited
just yet.” He lifted a plate from the basket and pulled off the foil covering
to reveal a slice of pizza. “We are at the rec center, after all. I wanted to
keep our meal authentic.”

“Just as long as we
don’t have to endure any more of that awful beer,” I laughed and clinked my
glass against his. “Pizza and wine is the classiest pairing I’ve had in a
while.”

“Well, you’re the
classiest girl I’ve tried to impress in a while.” He smirked and sipped his
wine. I bowed my head and felt a blush overspread my cheeks. His fingers
caressed my shin where it rested on the blanket and then circled around my slim
ankle.

We ate in silence as the
sky outside the windows grew dark and the candle flames provided our only
illumination. I watched the reflection of his back in the mirror as his
shoulder muscles, visible beneath the thin material of his slate blue t-shirt,
shifted and rolled with each movement. A lock of his hair had flipped over his
forehead, and I pinched it between my fingers, pressing it back into place
while our eyes met. I swept my hand down the side of his handsome face, feeling
his strong cheekbone and the rugged masculinity of his slightly stubbled chin.
He grabbed my hand and kissed my fingertips.

“Just like old times,
huh?” he said softly.

My gaze roamed around
the boundaries of the room. “I can’t believe that everything looks the same as
the day I left. Nothing in this place has changed.”

“Some things have
changed,” he said. “You told me that you don’t dance anymore, but you didn’t
tell me why. What happened? What made you stop?”

“I don’t know.” I
swallowed a sip of wine. “I guess I just wasn’t good enough. I realized that I didn’t
have what it took to succeed in that world. So, I gave up.”

“Nah, that’s ridiculous.
I don’t buy it.” He squeezed his fingers around my ankle. “You were an amazing
dancer. There had to be some other reason.”

The candlelight glinted
in his eyes and brought out flecks of gold amid the green. I shook my head. “I
stopped believing in myself. That was all.” I felt tears rising to the surface
and cleared my throat to tamp them down.

“You are still an
amazing dancer, Brinley. I believe in you, even if you don’t believe in
yourself. You have to know that.”

I looked again into his
luminous eyes, reflecting back a vision of my former self.

“I want so much to be
the person that I was then,” I said pensively. “I want to have that same
self-assurance and confidence. But what if it’s all gone? What if the girl that
you knew is lost forever?”

He delicately took my
wine glass, set it on the floor, and grasped both of my hands in his.

“Come here,” he said
gently, standing and hoisting me to my feet.

He guided me to the
center of the room, my bare feet padding on the scuffed wooden floorboards. We
both faced the mirror. He stood behind me, and I could feel the solid chiseled
armor of his chest muscles pressing against the naked skin of my back. My hair
was swept up high. He slowly ran his fingers down either side of my neck. My
flesh tingled. His lightest touch left me impossibly aroused.

“Look in that mirror. You
still have it all, Brinley,” he whispered. His lips brushed against my neck and
my shoulder. “The talent and the fire still live here inside of you. I saw it
then, and I see it now.”

He wrapped one arm
around my waist and placed his palm flat on my stomach.

“When you danced, you
were completely transported. Your body was here, but your mind was off in
another world, a better world. Every time I snuck in to watch you,” he jutted
his chin toward the back wall and smiled, “I wanted to be transported too. I wanted
to go to that better world with you. You were unique and special and
courageous. You were brave enough to lose yourself in front of entire theaters
filled with people and gifted enough to leave every single person in those
audiences spellbound. You left me spellbound a hundred times right here in this
room. Those were the qualities that made me love you back then.”

I flinched with surprise
at his use of the word “love.” Cayne paused and cleared his throat.

“Maybe it’s silly to use
a word like ‘love’ in that situation,” he continued, shaking his head. “We were
kids. I barely knew you, not really. But all of those qualities that I saw in
you then, I still see in you today. It would be the tragedy of my life to watch
you give up on yourself. You were everything. You are everything.”

I gripped his hand tight
where it rested on my stomach. I closed my eyes and breathed in the fresh
woodsy scent of his cologne and felt his strong virile arms enfold me closer. His
firm pectoral muscles pressed deliciously against my shoulder blades. I bent my
head down. He kissed the vertebrae up my neck one by one, then the curve of my
hairline and the indent just below my ear.

I looked up. Our eyes
met in the mirror. My dress was held in place with a bow tied around my neck.
He reached up and plucked it loose. The strings dropped limply over my shoulders.
I watched as he slowly and carefully pulled the top half of my dress down
toward my waist, revealing my naked breasts shining round and full in the
flickering candlelight.

He brought his palms
underneath my breasts, first lifting and cradling them gently, then squeezing
them tenderly several times. He rubbed his fingertips over my hard nipples in
slow tantalizing circles. His touch sent waves of the sweetest pleasure
coursing through my body. I arched my neck backwards and let my head rest on
his chest. He pinched my nipples and flicked his tongue playfully against my
earlobe. Then he gripped my breasts firmly, pressing them tightly, grazing his
tongue up the side of my neck and groaning softly into my ear.

With one hand, he reached
toward my back and opened the zipper on my waistband. My dress slid smoothly
over my hips and dropped to the floor. I stepped out of it while he removed his
shirt. His body glistened in the warm glow of the flames, the shadows of his rippling
muscles etched clear. I had a burning urge to sink my teeth into his solid flesh
just to taste it and feel it resist.

He walked around and faced
me. My naked breasts heaved with every breath, and my pulse sped through my
veins. He kissed me hard, our tongues massaging and stroking while his
fingertips eased under the edges of my delicate white panties and pulled them
down over my hips and thighs. He got on his knees in front of me as he coaxed
the panties over my shins and ankles and lifted my feet one by one. The thin
scrap of fabric fell from his fingertips to the ground.

He stayed on his knees. I
twirled my fingers through his hair, brushing it from his forehead as he stared
up at me. He ran his hands up my bare legs and cupped and squeezed my ass with
an enticing force. He kissed my stomach, sweeping his lips lower along my
abdomen, and then lower still. I gasped with erotic delight as his lips
surrounded my swollen and throbbing clit, and his tongue began licking and
stroking it in a smooth rhythm.

I spread my legs wider
apart and felt a surge of ecstasy when his tongue darted and licked me from the
inside while his lips massaged and sucked me on the outside. He gripped the
backs of my thighs as his tongue entered me again and again, then licked me in rapid
circles, each wet swipe sending a rush of carnal bliss through every part of my
body.