I instructed him to sit cross-legged on the floor facing me, our knees touching. Or rather, my knees touched his shins, as his legs were longer than mine.
His whole focus seemed to be on where our legs touched each other. “You okay? No, um, sudden reactions?”
He scowled but didn’t reply.
“Okay, so this should be easier for you because you naturally think in pictures. We’re going to ground and center using a mental image…”
“What am I picturing? TIE fighters? Snow speeders? Imperial walkers?”
“A tree.”
He raised his brows and smiled. “Ewoks?”
“Nope, no Ewoks. A tree. You are a tree.”
“But—”
“It’s pretend, Wil. Imagine you are a great oak tree and you are going to connect with the earth. You are going to be solid and sturdy and unflappable as a tree. You will be dug in so deeply that not even the strongest storm can blow you over. Because your roots run deep into the earth.”
He was staring at me as if I’d sprouted a third eye on my forehead.
“No, I’m not crazy. Close your eyes and imagine roots extending from your body into the ground below us.”
“But the ground isn’t below us. We’re two floors above the ground.”
I sighed. “Just do it.” His eyes snapped closed. “Good. Hold out your hands. It might help to connect with me.” I rested my palms on his and clasped his hands.
“Now breathe in and send those roots down into the soil below you.”
“Out of my butt?”
“What?”
“Are the roots coming out of my butt?”
“Come on! You aren’t taking this seriously.”
I moved to pull my hands back from his, but his fingers tightened around mine. In that moment, something startling happened. It felt like…a pulse of heat passed from him to me. If I were more new-agey than I actually was, I’d have called it an energy exchange or said that I’d felt his aura.
But no, this was something much more basic. I licked my lips, acknowledging this in-your-face physical attraction.
William was a handsome guy, and though he seemed to be a man of few—and sometimes exasperating—words, he was also accustomed to getting his way. I attempted to pull my hands back again, but he still didn’t release them.
“I don’t want to let go of you right now,” he said in a low voice.
I took a deep breath through my nose and caught a whiff of him. He smelled like soap and clean goodness. And now the tension thickened as my gaze slid down the strong column of his neck to his chest. “Don’t forget to breathe,” I murmured.
“I won’t forget that.”
I didn’t reply. I was talking to myself, not him.
“I don’t want you to leave with the Faire, Jenna,” he said quietly in that strange monotone of his.
“What about you?” I asked. “Don’t you ever get wanderlust?”
He shook his head. “Lust, yes. Wanderlust, no.”
Lust…there was plenty of that going on right now as I focused on William’s broad chest. His t-shirt had a picture of a knight in a full suit of armor with the words ‘Dressed To Kill’ beneath it. I wondered if he understood the play on words—or even the irony—and I surmised that someone had given him the shirt as a gift.
My grip on his hands loosened as I became aware of the rough calluses beneath my palms. William was a man who worked with his hands—all raw talent and masculinity. And the more I became aware of that, the warmer I felt—and the harder it was to breathe. His fingers squeezed, as if anticipating that I would pull away.
I began to fidget as he scrutinized my neck and then my shoulder, his gazing moving as high as my chin. “Why would I want to move on when everything and everyone I love most is where I am now?”
Longing. Loss. Pain. Something about his words made me ache, and I hated feeling this way, which is why I rarely allowed myself to wallow in those feelings.
“Can you—can you let go of my hands now?” I said in a tiny voice. And he did—slowly—but without pulling them away.
I removed my hands while I tried to analyze where this pang was coming from. My mind raced to figure out a way to make it stop.
As we continued to sit there, William’s eyes drifted back to the poster, then over to the bulletin board hanging next to it. He gingerly rose to his feet and walked directly over to the board. Something must have caught his eye.
He reached up and traced the decorative scrollwork on the border of Maja’s wedding invitation with a long index finger. “This is nice work. Hand drawn.”
“That’s my sister’s wedding invitation. Apparently, her fiancé likes to draw as a hobby.”
He nodded and moved to get a closer look, his eyes skimming over the text. They were lovingly handmade invitations instead of the fancy, mass-produced kind. And Maja had taken care to have some printed in English to send to her old friends in the US. “In June,” he said quietly. “Will you be attending?”
I shrugged. “I thought I’d go back for a couple weeks…spend some time with my family before the Faire moves north at the end of the month.”
He nodded but said nothing before turning back to me.
There was something so refreshing about William. So unassuming. He was comfortable in his own skin and didn’t try to make himself out to be something he wasn’t.
And he never boasted. The offhanded way he’d let on that he was beyond financially secure was evidence of that. The car he drove, the house he lived in…both were nice, but not over the top. Nothing about him screamed small-penised man trying desperately to overcompensate. He was Doug’s polar opposite in practically every way.
I had to admit to myself, if to no one else, that I wanted William. Maybe the card I’d pulled last night really was calling me a fool. A sudden wave of sadness washed over me.
I leaned back on my hands. “I think I could use a drink. How about you? Do you drink?”
“Sometimes. But not to excess. And not when I’m driving.”
“Let’s get drunk, Wil.” And before he could answer, I pushed up to stand and turned to leave the room. I didn’t want to chance him detecting my melancholy—or that strong pull I was feeling toward him. With alcohol, I could convince myself that it was all about my vulnerable state and blind attraction to a handsome guy. Nothing more.