Sunsets & Seduction. Tawny Weber

I can’t figure out why Jonas would think that. We got to know each other quite a lot in those few weeks. I thought he was starting to like me.” More than like.

      “Well, he’s lost his sight. It’s a trauma. People have strange reactions to things like that. Maybe he just had to strike out at someone, and you were there.”

      “I guess. But he was pretty specific about why he was angry with me.”

      Never had Tessa imagined the degree of Jonas’s injury from that night. She remembered feeling reassured when she’d heard his voice as he talked to the EMTs when they had loaded him into the ambulance. She’d wanted to go with him, but the police wanted to talk to her about the attack, and then her father had sent Howie to check in on her, and everything was chaos for the rest of the night, with the press and trying to get rid of Howie.

      “Are you sure he’s angry with you? Maybe he’s just upset in general?”

      “Furious might be a better word.”

      “Well, maybe wait it out, see what happens. He might come around.”

      “I guess I shouldn’t have pushed the issue by throwing myself at him. If he had a bad opinion of me to start with, that didn’t help. I was just so hurt. By how he kept saying there was nothing between us.”

      “So you wanted to prove that there was.”

      “Yeah.”

      “I don’t know. From what I saw, the way he used to look at you, a fool could tell he was crazy for you,” Lydia said, picking up a lotion sample and rubbing it into her hands, then smiling as she sniffed.

      “I like this,” she interjected. “Is it new?”

      “Yes. I meant to tell you about it—it’s a combination of gardenia extracts and spices.”

      “Nice.”

      “Well, I put the ball in his court. I told him if he wants me, he knows where I am. I’ll be damned if I’ll beg or humiliate myself any further.”

      “Under the right conditions, I might consider begging if a guy like Jonas was interested in me,” Lydia said mischievously.

      “You’re a bad influence, you know that?” Tessa said, smiling at her friend.

      Lydia smiled sympathetically, which accentuated the small crescent moon tattooed at the corner of her lips. “So I’ve heard. If he’s smart, he’ll show up at that door and apologize. If he doesn’t, it’s his loss. You have to be able to move on.”

      “I know.” Tessa sighed. “I just never really felt with any other man what I felt with him.”

      “Then you haven’t been with enough men, my friend.”

      “Again, the bad-influence thing.”

      “I have to get back to the store,” Lydia said, looking upward as thunder crashed louder outside, offering Tessa a warm smile before she walked to the door. “I do love storms. I know you don’t. If you need company, just text me. I’m closing down early.”

      “Okay,” replied Tessa as two other people walked into the store.

      She didn’t expect any business in weather like this, and the two women struggled to get their umbrellas folded and left their raincoats on hooks by the door.

      “Welcome to Au Naturel, ladies. You are a couple of determined shoppers, to be out in this weather,” Tessa said with a professional smile, helping them set their soaked umbrellas by the front window to dry.

      “We had no idea the weather was going to be this bad, but we had to stop here before heading home,” one explained, pushing a handful of thick, auburn curls away from her face, smiling.

      “I’m getting married this weekend, and I need to buy some items for my honeymoon. You know, maybe some scents that will drive him a little crazy? A friend of mine was raving about your honey dust?”

      Tessa smiled. Her organic honey dust—a body powder made of honey that made women’s skin very soft and that was also very delicious to lick off—was one of her top-selling products.

      “I have several new varieties,” she said. “I’m sure I can find something that will work for both of you,” she promised.

      She had been working on a line of scents that were specifically for erotic stimulation, but many scents had arousing side effects.

      Sage for boosting libido and quelling anxiety. Lavender to create a sense of comfort and safety, perhaps for lovers who were having rough times. Orange for joy and heightened sensitivity, and sandalwood, her favorite, to incite an air of earthy creativity, encouraging lovers to experiment and enjoy each other.

      She was so excited about the new idea. Sex and scent were so closely aligned, more so than people imagined, but there were a lot of myths about scents, as well.

      For instance, according to some studies, a woman’s sensitivity to musk scents was almost one thousand times more sensitive than a man’s, being that much more arousing for women than for men, as previously thought. Hence, musk colognes for women didn’t make much sense, depending on your sexual orientation.

      Stopping for a moment, she closed her eyes, inhaling and remembering Jonas’s scent. He didn’t wear cologne, but he used a sandalwood soap that she had given him, and he had grudgingly admitted to liking it. She liked it, too. A lot.

      She’d worn some scents including cinnamon and lavender around Jonas, the first known to arouse men and increase erections, the second providing comfort and an inviting aura.

      People thought that sex happened in the brain, but the brain only processed all the things brought to it by other reaches of the body, like the nose or the mouth. Or the hands, the lips … and all the other parts she would like to share with Jonas.

      Jonas had a very strong nose, and a firm, sensual mouth. She loved his hands. How he had closed his long fingers around her wrists earlier, even though he had been trying to stop her, still made a delicious shiver run down her spine.

      “Miss?”

      Tessa blinked, her cheeks warming as she realized she had completely lost track of the moment, and the two women were standing, gazing at her curiously.

      “Oh, so sorry. I was thinking about which scents would be best for a bride on her honeymoon. Tell me a little more about your husband-to-be, his likes and dislikes, and your relationship. We can go from there,” Tessa said, pushing thoughts and worries about Jonas to the back of her mind as she listened and focused on her work.

      There was no point in torturing herself with thoughts of him—that was clear from how he’d walked away earlier, rebuffing her concern.

      An hour passed, and before she knew it, she was hustling the two women back out the door to the cab she had called for them. It was normally still light outside, but the storm had made it like night. The winds were picking up, the rain coming down harder.

      She flipped the sign to Closed and stared out at the wind-whipped rain, wrapping her arms around herself and holding on as a roll of thunder made a ripping sound that had her hugging tight.

      She hated storms because when she was a kid, lightning had hit their house outside her bedroom and had started a small fire. It wasn’t a major incident, the fire was put out before it became serious, but all she could remember was being shaken from a sound sleep by the crash of noise and blinding light, being hustled from her bed and then the sirens. Although lightning had started the fire, it was the thunder that always bothered her more.

      She wished it was Jonas’s arms she had around her, but that didn’t look as if it was going to happen. When he was around, she hadn’t feared anything. He made her feel safe. But he wasn’t here, and he wouldn’t be. She would be riding this one out alone.

      The best solution was work, to keep busy. It was her usual solution to disappointment and heartache.

      Maybe