Finding West (6 page)

I
clamped my hands onto her hips, enjoying the contrast of her body’s heat and the cold on my face. I feigned a struggle, to encourage more wriggling on her part, feeling myself harden underneath her.

She stopped, looking down at me with a snowball in one hand, the other resting by my head. “Do you give up?” she gasped.

I saw the moment awareness crept into her eyes, when she realized, beneath the thick layers of clothing, the hardness she was feeling between her legs was actually my erection. She tried to climb off me, but I squeezed her hips to hold her in place. “Never,” I breathed.

Her lips parted as she stared down at me, and just as I was diving into a fantasy where
we were naked and in a warm place, Kat brought the snowball down on my face. “Let me go,” she said.

I held her one moment longer before releasing my hold. She stood up and stomped bac
k to the house, the shovels forgotten. I wiped my face and stared up at the clear blue sky, trying to hold onto the memory of her heat a second longer before the breeze chilled it completely. I stood up and brushed myself off, deciding that what I needed was a long, cold shower.

I had my cock in my hand for a good portion of that shower.
I could already feel some of my control evaporating and I needed to relieve the pressure to continue acting civilly, but try as I might, I couldn’t
not
think of Kat as I worked my erection, my imagination taking off when I tried to picture the warm, strong body under all those baggy clothes.

I came with a groan, holding onto the wall as I shot my seed all over the shower floor.
It felt good to release some tension but instead of relaxing me, it wound me tighter. Now I couldn’t get the image of a naked Kat out of my head, and my penis was in complete agreement.

After the shower, I looked again at my cheesy tattoo in the mirror.

I came. I saw. I conquered.

The tattoo itself was visually simple
and elegant, but the message inscribed on my body was one that reeked of frat boy vainglory. Was I really
that
kind of guy who thought the world and everything in it existed solely for me to conquer?

When I came o
ut Kat was nowhere to be found so I took a chance and walked down that narrow hallway. I stopped with my fist poised to rap on the door and heard music and something else, the sound of a machine whirring. The sewing machine came to a stop and then a gruff voice said, “Leave me alone.”

I took a deep breath and
, despite wanting to do the opposite, walked away.

7

KAT

I was finally able to release my breath when the shadow under the door moved away.
For a moment there, I thought he would burst in the room and… I don’t know, kiss me or screw me or something. Our horseplay outside had quickly turned to something else, something that confused the hell out of me because I had liked it.

I’d only known him a day and a half, and already my body was responding to his like a dog in heat. And most frightening of all was that, he—or at least his body—wanted it too.
And frankly, I didn’t know how to feel about that.

So I did what I do best and hid.

I tried to work on the dress I’d been working on. For weeks I’d been unable to finish the floor-length gown because I couldn’t figure out what the hell was missing. Something was off and I didn’t have the trained eye to figure it out. Everything was trial and error in my life. Nothing had ever come easy.

I stripped
down to my underwear and slipped the dress over my head, struggling a little with the tight fit around my chest. I waddled over to the long mirror nailed to the wall and adjusted the gown. I turned around, trying to figure out the missing element, very nearly falling over the fabric twisting around my ankles.

Then I realized that the dress simply needed to be shorter. It was too long, too much.

Before I could forget, I wriggled out of the dress and laid it out on the table, trying to figure out the best place to make the cut. A rap on the door startled me.

“
What?” I shouted, reaching for the scissors.

The door opened and
I spun around in time to see the stranger’s eyes taking in my white-underwearing glory. I froze, pinned in place by his traveling gaze.

Without a word, he took a step back and closed the door.

I ran to the door and locked it, my heart pounding in my ears, the embarrassment and excitement all rolling into one truly frightening feeling.

I stomped out a few minutes later, after
recovering my wits and my clothes. I found him standing at the west window again, his arms folded casually as he stared out the window. Without his beard, he looked like a complete stranger. Well, more so than he already was.

“What did you want?” I asked
, hoping I wasn’t blushing.

He turned to me with a serious expression. “I can’t stay here anymore.”

I took a moment to absorb his words. “That’s what you barged in there to tell me?”

The corner of his mouth tugged upward. “No. I was going to ask if you wanted a sandwich.”

“So seeing me in my underwear made you want to run away as fast as possible?” I asked before realizing I didn’t want to hear the answer.

“
No. Not in the way you’re thinking.”

“Then what?”

He took in a long, deep breath.

I crossed my arms, mimicking his pose. “You afraid of me?”

He came closer and stopped a few inches away so that I had to crane my neck to meet his gaze. “You’re not the one I’m afraid of.”

I knew exactly what he meant because I
felt it too, and never more than in that moment, when our bodies were so close we had but to lean forward to touch. I studied his face, still taken aback by his stark beauty. His face was angular; the harsh cut of his jaw, the high angle of his cheek bones, his feline eyes, his wide chin. Everything down to the slight crook at the bridge of his nose was infinitely masculine, roughly hewn and yet utterly perfect. That was no boy hiding under that beard. He was very much a man.

I suddenly felt very
aware of every inch of my body, of the tingling between my legs, the trembling in my stomach. I’d only ever felt shades of this kind of desire before; never had it been this strong or vivid.

Somehow I found the will to nod. “Yes, you really need to go.”
Nothing good could happen if he stayed, I knew that for sure.

He took a step back, allowing oxygen into my lungs again.
“I’ll go as soon as the snow is passable.”

“Fine,
” I said through stiff lips. My stomach chose that moment to grumble. Loudly.

“So how about that sandwich then?”
he asked and took the opportunity to put some distance between us.

I ate my sandwich in the living room while he remained at the dining table; both of us needed some space, which was hard to get in such a small house. Every move I made, every breath I took, I felt him with me. I realized with a start that I felt comforted by his presence; the thought made my face burn with anger.

I have
always prided myself on my independence. Ever since my father went off to prison I’d taken care of myself and I’d be damned if I let someone else come in and invade my space, making me dependent and weak and shit.

No freaking way.

After finishing my lunch, I stalked over to the sink and washed my plate. As I made my way back to my studio, the stranger’s deep voice reached out to me, stopping me in my tracks. “Don’t be mad, Kat.”

I looked over my shoulder, surprised once again by the face of the man looking back. “I’m not mad.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So this is happy, then?”

“Fucking elated,” I said deadpan.

He chuckled. “You have nothing to be embarrassed about, you know,” he said. “You have a nice body.”

My pulse picked up again, despite my wishes.
“Nice. Yep. Right.”

“What, you don’t think you have a nice body?”

“I think I have a strong body,” I shot back.

“
Don’t tell me you think you’re fat.”

I whirled around, my hands already clenched. “God, you’re so confrontational.”

His eyes burned into mine. “So are you.”

“
For fuck’s sake, no, I don’t think I’m fat,” I said. “Do I think there are better bodies out there than mine? Sure. Do I bemoan the fact that I’ll never have a sexy Hollywood body? Hell no. Do I care about what I look like? Take one guess.”

“Do me a favor, Kat,” he said gently from across the room. “When I’m gone, stand in front of your mirror and take a look at yourself. Really look. Pretend you’re seeing through
someone else’s eyes.”

“What’s the point in that little exercise in futility?”

“I want you to see yourself for what you really are,” he said. “Don’t be afraid to look.”

Okay, that incensed me.
Nothing like telling me I’m a scaredy-cat to piss me off. “I’m not afraid. I just don’t want to be all gussied up for absolutely no reason. I live alone; the only person I have to please is me. And you’d better believe I’m okay with what I see.”

“
There’s a distinct difference between okay and happy.”

“I was happy before you came along.”

“Were you really?”

I wanted to say yes. Every contrary bone in my body was shouting yes, and maybe two days ago that had been true. But things had changed and I’
d be a liar if I said it hadn’t affected me. “Why does it matter to you?”

His luminous eyes studied my face, the dark pupils piercing my brain.
“Because it does.”

“I’ll be fine once you’re gone,” I said. “
When everything goes back to normal.” But I doubted the words even as I said them.

The stranger went to my dad’s bedroom and took a nap, hoping to sleep off a headache. I went back to my studio with Josie to work on shortening the dress while listening to music, but every time I held the scissors over the blue fabric, I stopped and questioned my sanity. Was I doing the right thing? Would I regret it come the morning? Was something clouding my judgment?

Eventually
I put the scissors down and locked the door. Unable to get the stranger’s words out of my mind, I stripped down to my underwear and stood in front of the mirror, my feet shoulder-width apart, my hands on my hips.

“There, I’m looking,” I told my reflection in the mirror.
“Nothing special.”

I was tall and solid, not willowy like those models in fashion magazines, but I was strong and it showed. I had well defined arms and if I flexed, my stomach showed the defined muscles underneath.
My thighs were thicker and my hips more voluptuous than I’d like, but no number of squats was going to make that go away.

I turned around and looked at
my reflection over my shoulder and, suddenly, I caught a glimpse of myself with my back arched in an S-shape, my ass sticking out. It was a side of me I rarely saw and I was surprised to say I looked sexy. Even more shocking was that it wasn’t an altogether unpleasant look.

I tried out another feminine pose, facing the mirror and cocking my hip to the side
and sticking my chest out. It was then I noticed that the flare of my hips made my waist look narrow, accentuating my chest. Even though they were my favorite assets, I often hid my breasts from the world to keep my body from becoming my identity. I wanted people to see me as Kat rather than as a pair of boobs with a side helping of attitude.

For a long time,
I posed in front of the mirror and finally allowed myself to admire my body in a way I hadn’t ever done before.

So maybe the stranger was right in suggesting I needed to appreciate my body, but there was no way in hell I was going to admit that out loud.

Before too long the room fell into silence when my iPod’s battery ran out of charge, and it was then I noticed a drip-drip noise outside. I peered between the blinds and was surprised to find the sun out and the snow beginning to melt. Water was dripping off the eaves of the house at a speed that meant the snow was on its way out.

Which meant no more house
guest. No more tall, dark, and handsome. No more piercing eyes, no more verbal sparring.

Rather than
address the feelings of sadness, I dressed and went to the kitchen to check the freezer instead. I could make him a goodbye dinner at the very least, something to make up for my surly attitude so he wouldn’t forever remember me as the jerk in the trailer home.

He came padding out of the room just as I was draining the spaghetti noodles. “You have impeccable timing,” I said, taking in his sleep-mussed hair and the rumpled look on his face. “Did you get a good nap?”

“Yeah, but I still need an aspirin or something.”

I nodded to the bathroom. “There’s a plastic tub with pills and stuff under the sink,” I said and belatedly realized I’d just sent him to where I also kept my tampons and pads.

He came out a few minutes later, his hair damp and combed back a little.

“You look almost civilized,” I said, getting our bowls ready.

He smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkling. “
Did you just compliment me?” he asked, reaching for the drink glasses.

I s
hrugged. “The snow is melting.”

He nodded. “
Ah, so you’re playing nice now that I’m almost out of here. I get it,” he said.

“Something like that.”

He glanced out the window. “Depending on the situation after we eat, I can probably get out of your hair tonight.”

I felt a small lurch in my stomach. “Um, no, you
can stay the night if you want,” I said, trying my best to sound casual and not at all panicked. “You’ll have better luck at the station in the morning.”

His
stood beside me and grabbed our bowls of food. “You’ll miss me,” he teased, nudging me with his arm. “Just admit it.”

“
No, I won’t.” Probably. Hopefully.

“Well I’ll miss you.”

I looked up at him to see if he was just teasing, but his face was all earnestness and warmth. “How could you possibly miss someone you’ve only known a few days?” I asked, needing an answer, anything that would explain away the tightness in my chest.

He gazed down at me and I knew with absolute clarity that I would never be the same. This stranger had somehow managed to change me. “You’re the only person I know.
Of course I’ll miss you.”

It wasn’t the romantic declaration I’d unwittingly been hoping for, but it was enough. Whoever he was, whenever his memory returned, at le
ast he would always remember me as the only person who took up space in his mind, at least for a time.

We ate in the living room and watched something on television, a reality show I’d never seen before about people doing daring stunts. The host looked squeamish during one of the stunts involving a tightrope walk across two skyscrapers. It was clear that he wasn’t the real host of the show, and said as much as he interviewed each contestant later.

“
So, what’s Prozac?” the stranger asked, draining the last of his beer.

“
What, were you snooping?” I asked, putting down my fork.