“Unless they want a stick of gum, I don’t have anything for them.”
She laughed again, tucking another lock of hair behind her ears. The laugh died when she saw the intense, almost hungry look Jonathan cast in her direction. God, how had she ever thought that they could hang out together as friends? Jonathan didn’t know how to be friendly with a woman. All he knew how to do was devour her with his eyes.
Like he was doing right now.
Averting her gaze, she took another experimental step forward, and the ducks continued to swim alongside. “We should get something to distract them,” she told him. And you. “Do you want to go to a nearby coffee shop and get something to eat?”
“I suppose I could,” he said slowly. “Do you want something, too?”
“That’d be lovely,” she told him, flashing him a smile. “Three sugars, extra cream?”
He nodded and jogged down the path, heading in the opposite direction from where she stood. She watched him go, admiring the lines of his shoulders in his jacket and the way his ass filled out the back of his jeans. Damn you for not having a potbelly and a bald spot, she thought with a self-deprecating grin. Then, she turned and marched toward the Marlow Bridge, tablet clutched tightly in hand.
Following the footpath, she soon came to the bridge and edged toward a plaque set amongst the bricks, curious despite herself. Marlow Suspension Bridge, it read, along with the name of the designer. She scanned it but there was no mention of “Ozymandias,” no mention of Percy Shelley, and she felt a bit of doubt. What if they were grasping at straws? Surely her father hadn’t meant for them to take thirteen steps underneath the bridge?
After all, thirteen steps underneath pretty much led right into the water. Violet gazed at the quacking ducks, who were eager for a handout.
Then, she shrugged and sat on the grassy bank, undoing the buckles on the ankle of her high heels. After her disorienting wake-up, she’d “armored” herself in her schoolteacher attire. In a knee-length wool skirt, a demure long-sleeved cardigan, and low, strappy heels, she felt like her normal self, her controlled, careful self. That was the woman she was now, she told herself. Not the girl who’d fallen in love with an intense, soulful-eyed college boy so long ago.
The fleet of ducks quacked and streamed away from Violet, and she looked up to see Jonathan returning, two coffees and a small brown bag in hand. He frowned down at her as she removed her first shoe. “What are you doing, Violet?”
“Getting ready to go into the water.”
Nearby, a goose honked.
He gazed down at her, his expression intent. “It’s cold. I should be the one doing it.”
“It is cold,” Violet agreed, her hands moving to her other shoe and working on the straps. “But, it’s also my father who sent us on this chase, so I’m the one going in.”
He was silent for a long moment, no doubt formulating a new argument, Violet figured. She was surprised when he capitulated. “Very well,” Jonathan said. “Just be careful.”
“I will,” she told him, and tossed her other shoe on the bank. “You’ll have to feed the ducks and keep them away from me,” she said, and glanced up at him.
Her breath escaped her throat.
Jonathan’s intense gaze had moved from her face to her legs, and his hands were clutching the coffees so tightly she could see the whites of his knuckles. The expression in his eyes was pure lust as he regarded her stocking-clad legs, which she’d thoughtlessly sprawled on the embankment. There was a prominent bulge in the crotch of his jeans.
Oh.
Violet turned away, her cheeks reddening, and she picked up a shoe and pretended to fiddle with one of the dainty buckles. Jonathan was aroused by the sight of her stripping off her shoes on the riverbank. She should be appalled. She really should be.
Instead, she felt an old, familiar ache start between her legs. Her breathing quickened, and she put the shoe down and did the worst thing imaginable.
She hitched up her nice, sweet, demure skirt to the tops of her thighs and began to slowly roll one thigh-high down her leg with great care. He wanted to watch, did he? She’d give him something to see.
Funny how the thought of him watching her undress made her breath catch.
Ever so slowly, she rolled the stocking down her thigh. Her fingers brushed her knee and she bit her lip, hesitated, and then continued downward, gently tugging the stocking down her calf. She arched her foot and pointed her toes as she lifted her leg into the air and carefully pulled the stocking off. “You don’t mind if I’m the one who goes into the water, do you?” she asked him in a sultry voice, placing the stocking into the grass.
When he didn’t answer, she looked over.
Jonathan’s jaw was set, the lines of his mouth hard and flat. He might have looked angry if it weren’t for the dark, smoky look in his eyes that she’d seen so many times before.
He was incredibly aroused.
And suddenly, Violet felt as if she were playing with fire. What was she doing? Why did she care if Jonathan was aroused by the sight of her stripping her stockings off? Jesus, was she insane? Violet suddenly wanted to kick herself. This was not the way to keep him in the friend zone. This was just her torturing him with what he couldn’t have.
It was rather classless of her.
One of the geese honked again, as if to agree.
Angry with herself, Violet jerked at her other stocking, shoving it down her leg as unsexily as possible. When both of her legs were bare, she got to her feet and paused on the bank. She’d originally planned on taking off her cardigan so she could see how Jonathan reacted to her wearing nothing but a skimpy camisole underneath, but that suddenly seemed like an incredibly stupid idea. What was she thinking? Violet frowned to herself and buttoned her cardigan up higher. “Just hold my coffee until I get done, all right?”
“Of course,” he said in that low, ardent voice.
Shivers rippled through her. She ignored them, ignored him. Brushing off her skirt, she headed to the edge of the water. “Thirteen steps in, right?”
“Thirteen,” he agreed tensely. “Be careful.”
“I’ll be just fine,” Violet assured him, glad for the distraction. She tiptoed to the edge. It was hard to tell how deep the water was from the bank, but there was a bridge, so that meant deep, right? Violet swung one foot over and dipped the other in, trying to determine how deep it was.
To her surprise, it only came up to her calf. “Wow. It’s not all that deep. Maybe the river’s low at the moment.” She took another step in and let her hitched-up skirt drop, since it was clear that it wasn’t going to get wet. Another step in and she turned around, glancing back at Jonathan. “Do you think that it’s thirteen steps from the bridge, or thirteen steps into the water?”