Touch Me Once Read online

  Touch Me Once

  Anne Kyle

  Copyright © 2013 by Anne Kyle

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written consent of the Author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  CHAPTER 1

  There are times in your life that you know are important while they’re happening—your first kiss, the first time your heart gets broken, graduation— you know, the milestones. Then, there are moments that will change your life forever that, at the time, seem no more important than choosing what pair of pants to wear. I had no idea that the moment I was in would end up being a turning point that would show me just what kind of woman I really am.

  I had been back in my hometown of Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina for just under two weeks. Mt. Pleasant is just across the Arthur Ravenel Jr. Bridge, which joins the town of Mt. P as we call it with historic Charleston.

  The Civil War started here, and there are some who still claim that the South didn’t lose; it’s just halftime. The entire area— the region, for that matter— known as the Low Country was built on the backs of shrimpers, fishermen, and oystermen and the landed gentry that they worked for.

  No matter where you look, the beauty is astounding. If you grow up here you can leave the place, but this place never leaves you. I left for several years, but now I’m back, in disgrace, hoping to put my life back together.

  I’ll get to the disgrace part in a little while, but for now let’s get to me sitting in a booth with a job application in front of me for a waitress position. I went to one of the best schools in the state. I graduated with honors, and my major was accounting. After graduation, I became a CPA and was on a fast track to becoming a partner in a reputable firm in Columbia, South Carolina. Now, for reasons that will become clear in a bit, I was praying that I could just land this simple job and get some money coming my way.

  I’m at Westy’s on Shem Creek. It has high-end bar food, a spacious dining room, and a large comfortable bar with an amazing view of Shem Creek, where all of the shrimp boats dock. Pelicans sit on top of the dock pilings and wait to swoop down and snatch the trash fish coming off of the back of shrimp boats. Dolphins surface behind the sport-fishing boats to grab the leftover bait fish that gets tossed in the water.

  Looking at all this life happening, I’m surprised when one the hottest men I’ve ever laid eyes on slides into the other side of the booth from me.

  “Katherine Matthews?” he says, offering his hand over the table. “I’m Alex Westfield, the owner.”

  I take his hand, and static electricity pops when we touch. We both pull our hands back and let out a nervous laugh. I can’t tell how tall he is, since he’s sitting down, but he looks to be about six feet. He has sandy brown hair parted on the side with a slightly wind-blown quality that makes me want to run my fingers through it and smooth it down, then maybe kiss him. Holy shit, keep it together girl. Focus. His ice blue eyes have a laughing twinkle and when he fixes them on me, I feel like I should smooth my skirt down, even though I’m wearing pants.

  Before I get any more flustered, I blurt out, “Wow, was it good for you?” Okay, maybe I did get more flustered.

  He smiles, showing off a row of perfect white pearly teeth that indicate either very good breeding or expensive dental work or both. He tilts his head slightly, like a curious dog, and says, “Well, you certainly have a lot of energy. Should we try this again? Katherine Matthews?” He repeats my name while our hands cautiously in closer. Just as we’re almost touching, we jam our hands together and shake once then let go.

  “Please call me Kat. Since we almost electrocuted each other, I think that puts us on a first- name basis.”

  He smiles. “Kat, then. Please call me Alex. Would you like something to drink while I look you over…I mean look this over,” he asks pointing at my application.

  While he calls over a server, I can’t help but wonder if his little stammer was flirting or not. Despite the fact that I don’t want him to think that I’ll hump my way into this job, I hope he was. I sip my iced tea as he reads my application and try not to stare at him.

  It’s not like me to flirt or be too obviously available to a guy, but right now I can’t help myself. I’m a little giddy. He has strong-looking hands with neat, short nails, and when we shook hands his palms felt just rough enough to be workingman hands, but not so rough that they wouldn’t feel nice running up my thighs and—Jesus! I’ve got to get it together.

  Just as I’m thinking these sexy thoughts, he looks up at me like he can read my mind. I wouldn’t mind if he could, I realize. He smiles and looks back at the application while I try to control my breathing. Thankfully, before I have time to start fantasizing, he slides the application away, takes a sip of his tea and says, “Okay, let’s get into it.

  So, it looks like you’re from Mt. Pleasant,” he says raising an eyebrow and giving me an opening to continue.

  I reply, “Yeah, born and raised. My folks are here, and my sister and her family.”

  “You’re lucky. I’ve only been here a few years, and I just love this place. I can’t ever see myself leaving— at least not voluntarily that is,” he said with a chuckle. His voice had a real, honest tone. His accent was hard to place, but it definitely wasn’t from South of the Mason-Dixon Line. It wasn’t a harsh accent. I would say maybe upper-crust New York City. It made me think “ boarding-school education.” Just the sound of his voice made me want to reach over the table, look deep into his eyes, and ask him to tell me everything about himself.

  Instead he said, “So, you waited tables in high school. The same restaurant for two years; that’s a good sign.”

  “Yeah, I was there my junior and senior years. It was a little mom-and-pop place run by the Potters. They were a sweet older couple. They closed the place when I went to college.”

  He gave a small smile, fixed his eyes on mine and said, “Well, I guess they just couldn’t go on without you. I hope I don’t make the same mistake.”

  We held that stare until I felt my cheeks start to get hot and was forced to look away. When I looked back at him, he was still smiling, so I said, “You won’t know what you’re missing until you give me a try.”

  With that he smiled even bigger, leaned back a little, and said, “From where I sit, I can tell that I don’t want to miss anything you have to offer.”

  I felt a tingle shoot through my entire body, and I hoped he couldn’t see my nipples stiffen through my bra. It was all I could do not to look down and check. But to my credit, I thought, I leaned forward and gave my best come hither look and said, “Why, Mr. Westfield, if I didn’t know better, I would say you’re flirting with me.”

  Alex leaned all the way back in his seat and very slowly looked out at the barely filled bar. He seemed lost in thought. Just when I about to say something to fill the silence he pushed my application to his left and rested his arms on the table, hands folded in front of him.

  “Kat, can I ask you a question?”

  “That’s what I’m here for.”

  “I… when I saw you come in and noticed you were alone, I was just about to come over and introduce myself as the owner and ask if I could buy you a drink. Then I saw you get the application and I thought, shit. Now I have to be professional and try to be impartial and interview this amazing-looking woman. I’ve never had this reaction before, just so you know that I’m not an asshound or anything.”

  I didn’t know where this was going, but
he definitely had my undivided attention.

  “So, we’re sitting here and I swear to God I can barely keep my attention on the application. This just isn’t coming out right. Look, I just want to ask you one thing. How badly do you need this job?”

  Oh, shit. Is this the part where he tells me that all I have to do is give him a tumble and the job is mine? I can’t believe this is happening. I put a hard look on my face and said, “I don’t need any job bad enough to screw my way into it, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  His reaction took me by surprise because he let out a full- throated laugh that would have made me smile if we were lying next to each other in bed. When he got his amusement down to a chuckle, he said, “I am really screwing this up. I hope it shows you how out of practice I am at things like this. Could you please drop the scary face and stop thinking about running out of here and straight to a lawyer?”

  I softened a little, leaned back in the booth, took a sip of my tea, and told him, “Okay, you’ve got my attention.”

  “First of all, I don’t sleep with my employees. Never have and never will. Which brings me to why I asked you how badly you need this job. Jesus, this is hard. I don’t want you to work for me. What I do want is to have a drink with you. Find out more about you and maybe tell you things about me. Like I said, I don’t do this. I don’t just walk up to beautiful women and start talking, especially to ones who are applying for a job. But there’s just something about you. I don’t know what and I’m kind of going out a big limb here, but I want to find out why I feel this way about a complete stranger. The only way I know how to do that is to talk to you. I think you feel it, too— at least I hope you do. I mean, we’ve already established that we have some electricity. Sorry this is so rambling. I’m going to stop talking now so you can tell me what you think.”

  Huh. I did not see this coming. Maybe I should apply for jobs more often

  “Well Mr. Westfield, you sure know how to keep an interview interesting. So let me get this straight. You don’t want to hire me as a waitress because you want to get to know me better.”

  “That’s right. Just give me a chance and let’s see what happens.”

  “How am I supposed to know that you don’t do this all the time? Maybe you are an asshound who uses this place as your own little dating service.”

  He unclenched his hands from in front of him and held them up in supplication. “I can think of two ways to show you. First— yo, Jerry,” he yelled to the bartender, “Am I an asshound who uses this establishment as my own personal dating service?”

  Jerry came down to the end of the bar and replied, “I didn’t think you liked girls, Boss.”

  “Not helping, Jerry. Not helping at all.”

  “I’m just shittin’ ya, Boss,” Jerry said. He then looked at me for the first time, leaned his elbows on the bar, pointed one finger at Alex and continued, “This man took a chance on me when I got out of jail. He gave me a job, what is it three years ago? He cosigned a loan for me so I could get a car two years ago. I’ve seen him almost every day of those three years, and not once have I ever seen him hit on a woman. I can say with authority that he does not use this establishment as his own personal dating service. But I do.” Then he winked at me, nodded at Alex and went back to wiping down glasses.

  “See, if you can’t trust an ex-con who I helped get a loan, who can you trust?”

  That made me smile. So we smiled at each other for a second before I responded, “You said there were two ways. What’s the second way?”

  He shot me an even bigger smile and said, “You could come to my house, which is about five minutes from here, and we could have a few drinks and talk while we watch the sunset from my dock.”

  What a day. “All right, I hope I don’t regret this, but what’s life without a few risks? I just need to know one more thing.”

  “No, I’m not a convicted sex offender.”

  “That’s easy enough to find out, but what I really want to know is, do you really think I’m beautiful?”

  We both laughed at that, and when he had gotten out of the booth, he leaned on the end of the table and said, “Let me put it this way, I hope the sunset doesn’t mind if I ignore it tonight, because there’s something more radiant I want to look at.

  “Well played, Mr. Westfield,” I said, as I slid out of the booth, “well played, indeed.”

  “I just have to go make sure everything’s okay with the kitchen and the front of house, then you can follow me home.”

  As he walked away, I couldn’t help but admire what looked like a really firm ass. Jerry caught me looking and said, “Yeah, I’ve always thought he had nice ass too.”

  I could feel myself blush a little and asked Jerry, “Is he really as nice as he seems?”

  Jerry put a glass in the overhead rack and said, “No bullshit, he’s the nicest guy I’ve ever met. I would do anything for him, and he’s proven that he would do anything for me. You know that expression, ‘With ten men like him, I could conquer the world’?” I nodded my head. “You only need one Alex. So don’t fuck with his head; he doesn’t deserve it. And if he saw something in you this quickly, then you don’t deserve it either. So have fun.”

  “Thanks, Jerry. My name’s Kat. I hope to see more of you.”

  “Kat, it’s been a pleasure. I look forward to seeing what happens.”

  I turned to walk away and said over my shoulder, “That makes two of us.

  CHAPTER 2

  He really did live just five minutes away. I followed his BMW in my crappy little Corolla and pulled into his driveway underneath a beautiful, sprawling live oak. The house was large, but not ostentatious. No pillars, nothing shaped like a lighthouse, and no cement dolphins in the front yard. “This is really nice,” I said, as we walked up to the front door.

  “Thanks,” he told me as he grabbed his mail out of the box and opened the front door. We went through a small hallway and walked two steps down into his living room. It was a large airy room with twenty feet of ceiling space. He had some nice art on the walls and what looked like an extremely comfortable couch. Hardwood floors complemented the warm tone of the paint on the walls. What struck me the most was how neat it was. I’ve been in men’s homes before, and they’ve run the gamut from postapocalyptic dorm room to anal-retentive mama’s boy. This place felt I guess the word for it would be “fresh.”

  “Let’s hit the kitchen and see what we can dig up.” The kitchen was magnificent: Sub-Zero fridge and freezer, restaurant-quality stove, and blond wood cabinets lining the walls. The counter space was immaculate and held a bunch of expensive- looking kitchen toys, like a blender and a mixer and one of the fanciest juicers I’ve ever seen.

  “This is quite a setup. Do you like to cook?”

  While he was looking in the fridge, he said, “I like to cook, but I hardly ever do. I usually just take something home from work or order out. It seems like a waste to whip up something elaborate for just me. But I took some cooking classes in college and even thought about going to cooking school. Then I found out what a hot sweaty mess that job is and bought a restaurant instead.

  I’m not used to having guests, so let me tell you what we have.” I took a seat at the butcher’s block in the middle of the room and gave him my full attention. “I have beer. I have wine in the box or in the bottle. I have liquor, some mixers, and plenty of ice. There are non-alcoholic choices, but what fun is that?” he said wiggling his eyebrows. “Just don’t ask me to make juice with that machine over there. I’m not sure how it works, and to tell you the truth, the thing kind of intimidates me.”

  “Wow, that’s a lot to choose from. I’ll make it easy— I’ll have what you’re having.”

  “In that case how do you feel about vodka tonics?”

  I replied, “Strangely enough, that’s usually my drink of choice.”

  “Fantastic,” he said grabbing a little cooler from underneath the sink. “It’s kind of a long walk down the dock, so we’ll
have to pack a liquor picnic basket.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?” I asked.

  “Can you cut limes?” he said with a smirk.

  I got up and grabbed a knife out of the block on the counter. “Is this what you use to cut?”

  He grabbed a couple of limes out of the fridge and said, “Go to town, smartass.” I cut the limes while he got a bottle of Absolut from the freezer and a bottle of tonic from the fridge. He put both bottles in the cooler and dumped in some ice. He handed me a baggie and I put in the limes. “I’ll just grab a couple of glasses and we’re good to go.”

  “I have to warn you, I’ve got a pretty long dock.”

  “That has to be one of the worst pick-up lines I’ve ever heard.”

  He laughed and handed me two glasses, and we walked to the back door. We passed an open door on the way out and I looked into his bedroom. The entire back wall was nothing but huge windows that looked out over the marsh. “You’ve got a great view to wake up to.”

  “I love the marsh to be the first thing I see in the morning. I can see egrets looking for fish, and when the wind blows, the marsh grass sways like it’s waving hello to me.” When we turned to go outside, we were face to face, close enough to kiss. I could feel his breath on my face, and just for a second, I almost leaned in and planted one on him. I think he felt it, too, but he didn’t push it. I wished he had.

  “You weren’t kidding about your long dock,” I playfully said.

  “Kat, you should know that a man never kids when he’s talking about the size of his dock.” I loved this playful flirting. I couldn’t remember the last time I felt this comfortable around a man. Especially a man I had only known for a few hours.

  “Seriously,” I said, “How long is this thing? It must be 500 feet.”

  “Actually, it’s closer to 800. That’s why we had to bring so many supplies. There’s nothing worse than being nice and relaxed, then realizing your drink is done and you’re facing a 1600 round trip.” We got closer to the end of the dock and fell into a comfortable silence.