I Found You. Jane Lark

any details of my life, but I could get to know him better.

      We laughed, argued and debated, and in the park we walked down to the river, as I’d done earlier, but this time instead of looking at the water I looked at the Brooklyn Bridge, lit up against the night sky.

      “One of the things I miss most about home, is that you can easily drive out of town and into the dark, and when you’re in the dark, you can see millions of stars piercing the sky like pinpricks of light, it’s awesome. You can’t really see the stars here. All the city lights screen them out.”

      I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. I’d always lived in cities. “I’ve never seen that. I suppose you and Lindy used to drive out of town and make out beneath the stars?”

      His hands were gripping the rail. He looked at me but didn’t turn. “Yeah.”

      “Romantic,” I said dryly looking away from him and down at the dark shifting water.

      “Yeah, our first time was out there.”

      My eyes shot back up to him. It was an honest thing for a man to say, and without any prompting. Where the hell had it come from?

      His eyes said he was remembering it. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking across the river to Manhattan and the city, lost in time and lost in thought.

      I could tell from his expression his first time had been planned, and looked forward to, a momentous occasion designed to be fixed in his memory and cherished forever.

      Fuck, he really was small town. My first time had been quick and disappointing, a drunken fumble on a park bench. I’d only met the guy that night. I hadn’t thought myself in love. I’d just wanted to do what everyone else claimed they’d done. Afterwards I’d discovered most people had been lying and they hadn’t done it at all.

      I started laughing, which was definitely the wrong thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself.

      He let go of the rail and turned, looking at me, his eyebrows lifting.

      I tried to stop laughing, but didn’t succeed. The back of my hand lifted to my mouth to hide my mirth. “I’m sorry, I just can’t believe you’ve only ever slept with one woman … ” He hadn’t said it, but I just knew it was true.

      “I can’t see why that’s funny.”

      “It’s just… Well, it’s just… You amaze me… You’re so good-looking. The other night, when I met you, I assumed you’d left dozens of hearts broken in Oregon.”

      He gave me a broad smile, apparently not offended in the least. Then I realized what I’d done, I’d told him I thought him good-looking. Well, he was good-looking, he surely couldn’t be blind to it, yet I hadn’t noticed any vanity in him at all. God, he was turning into the most perfect guy.

      I smiled too. “I respect you. I think it’s commendable.”

      “But you’re still laughing inside.”

      He was getting to know me. I smiled more.

      “What about you, then? How many people have you been with?”

      My smile fell.

      The question was lightly put. He was teasing me back for teasing him. But I couldn’t answer, not with the truth. He’d be disgusted. His small town ideals would be rocked to their very foundations.

      “You don’t want to know.” I killed the conversation flat and for a moment he was silent as he looked past me probably trying to guess if it was tens or hundreds.

      His gaze returned to me. “So, have you always lived in New York?” The perfect guy that he was, he didn’t push, just changed the subject.

      Surely I’d dreamed this guy up. He was too nice to be real. “No, I grew up in Philadelphia. I moved here when I was eighteen.”

      It was the most personal thing I’d told him about my life, and I saw him recognize that as his gaze struck mine with a searching look.

      He wanted to ask more questions, I could see that, but he didn’t. He turned back to face the water and gripped the rail again. “You and I, have lived very different lives, haven’t we, Rach…”

      The fact that he shortened my name gripped in my chest, about my heart; it made me feel closer to him, like we really did know each other, like I’d known him for years.

      “Yeah,” I said in a quiet voice, feeling suddenly solemn and low again, as I looked across at the heart of New York, too.

      Declan would be over there somewhere. I doubted Jason Macinlay could even begin to imagine how I’d lived my life. Fast. Reckless.

      “We should be getting back,” he said. “I’ve got to get up for work in the morning.”

      “Yeah, Mr. Boring, we have lived our lives very differently.” I laughed. He didn’t. He just glanced at me, and then gestured with his elbow for me to take his arm. It was the first time he’d offered it. I’d just taken it before. It was a sweet gesture.

      My laughter turned to a smile, and he smiled back.

      God, I liked him.

       Chapter Four

      I was half asleep but desperate for the toilet when I woke up.

      Jason wasn’t in bed. He must have gone to work already.

      My eyes half shut, I didn’t looked at the clock, merely rolling onto my side then got up, trying to cross my legs a little as I headed for the bathroom. I was seriously bursting, and with my mind focused on that, I didn’t hear the sound of the shower running, until I opened the door.

      “Fuck, sorry, I need the toilet.”

      God, he was gorgeous. When I’d opened the door, his hands had been on the wall either side of the shower and his head had been down as he let the water run over it and then down his body. It had been running down his back in a waterfall, and that back, and his butt… The air that had got trapped in my lungs left them.

      The older guys I’d dated, or rather fucked, had been all swarthy with hard muscle. His skin was pale and it looked soft, and the muscular definition beneath it was sinewy and lean. I longed to touch… Nope, I didn’t just want to touch, I wanted to have him. His buttocks were so tight, I wanted to grip them with my fingers as we did it, and feel the strength of his thighs between my legs.

      I was a messed up, bad girl––he was taken. And I was trouble.

      His head had turned toward me, and I saw his brown eyes watching me. He’d seen me looking at his ass.

      There were droplets of water caught on his dark eyelashes.

      He really was beautiful, the most beautiful guy I’d ever known.

      “Give me a second, I’ll be out…”

      His words brought me back to reality, to the fact I was standing in his bathroom staring at him as he stood naked in the shower. “Sorry, I’ll wait outside.” I think I must have turned bright red as I exited, and then I remembered just how badly I needed to use the toilet, and leaned against the wall, crossed my legs and bit my lip. But the image of him was still in my head. I didn’t think it was ever going to leave.

      I heard the shower turn off. A couple of moments later the door-handle shifted. I tried to straighten up without having an accident.

      “Rach…” He had a towel wrapped round his lower half, secured low on his hips, so now I got a front view of the glorious chest I’d seen the definition of through his body-hugging top on the first night.

      He didn’t have any hair across his chest, apart from a couple of stray ones around his nipples, but he had a line of dark hair protruding upwards from his groin which just