But her eyes could.
‘I’ve never flown one. I think my mother was afraid of friction burns on my hands.’
A long-dormant part of him deep inside roused, lifted its slumberous head. Aimee had been so protected from life … The things she must not know … The things that he could teach her …
If she was his to teach.
But all he said was, ‘Come on. Time to add a new life-skill to your repertoire.’
Sam’s heart was simultaneously warmed and saddened by the enjoyment Aimee got from her lesson. His urge to protect her clashed headlong with his anger at the selfishness of her parents—raising her in an over-cautious bubble and robbing her of simple childhood joys.
Like flying a kite.
She set off again, in a long-limbed gallop across the open parkland, with the fuchsia fabric eel trailing behind her, lifting higher, flirting with the current. This time it caught and held, and she jogged to a halt and looked back at him across the foreshore, with triumph in her whole body as it climbed.
‘It’s up!’ she cried in astonishment, bouncing on the spot, returning her eyes to the feminine kite wavering and folding in the air high above her.
‘She’s like an alien,’ Sam muttered as he jogged across to her, his own yellow and black kite in his hands. A big-brained alien who existed on learning new things.
‘If she starts to drop,’ he called out, ‘pull on the line. If she veers left, you pull right …’
In under a minute Sam was by her side, staring up into the electric blue above the park, his hawk kite dominating the sky, expertly keeping his strings from tangling in Aimee’s.
‘You’re good!’ She laughed as her eel tumbled momentarily.
Sam reached one hand over on top of hers and showed her how to moderate its altitude. Her hands were warm and soft and fitted perfectly in his. He had to force himself to let go. ‘I flew kites as a kid. It’s like riding a bike. You never really forget.’
‘I never learned that, either.’ She squealed as the eel cut to the left sharply, but she’d already started correcting it.
‘You have good instincts.’ He smiled.
‘I’m not exactly tearing up the sky.’ She laughed. ‘I’m too scared to move out of my safe little orbit.’
‘You just need the right motivation. Watch out.’ A flick of his wrist turned the sharp-winged hawk back towards the eel and he cut it back and forth on her tail like a predator toying with its prey. Its two long ribbons streamed like twin vapour-trails behind.
‘Quit it!’ Aimee grumbled, laughing.
‘Make me.’
She kicked into top gear then, weaving her kite ahead of his, trying to anticipate whatever stunt he’d pull next, her frown pronounced as she concentrated on besting him. She wasn’t bad, but half an hour’s experience was never going to beat a lifetime love of the skies, and he had plenty of easy time to glance back at what the eel’s pilot was doing.
A light sheen of sweat glistened on Aimee’s golden forehead and determination blazed in her heaven-lifted gaze. His eyes dropped to her full mouth. Lingered.
‘Does biting your lip help?’ he teased.
The guilty lip sprang free and she smiled, broad and brilliant, but didn’t take her eyes off his hawk. ‘Yes. It improves my aerodynamics.’
Immediately his mind was filled with thoughts and images that she’d have been horrified to know he harboured. He shook them loose and disguised them with a laugh. ‘Interesting technique.’
Above, Sam wound his hawk in tight circles around the eel, trapping it in the spiral of the twin-tails, but she broke free and let herself soar high above him, before circling back around and down to meet him from the side. He dodged away and twisted back, to race the eel through the sky.
The two of them moved in parallel, tightly synchronised, and Sam’s glance ping-ponged down to see what Aimee’s hands were going to do next before shooting back up to watch his hawk respond.
Where she ducked, he dived. When she turned he was right there with her, mirroring her every move.
Her radiant gaze grew large as the beauty and sensuality of the airshow overtook her. Her lips fell open and she sighed. He felt it in his gut more than heard it. Sam took his chance, tightening his strings and bringing the headstrong hawk back under tight control, curling close around the eel but never quite tangling with it. The two kites danced in dreamy synchronicity across the blue canvas sky.
Wild, open, limitless. A place where anything, any future, was possible. His breath grew short.
For one brief moment he raced the hawk ahead of her, hovered in space as her eel caught up, and then twisted in freefall to touch it in a slow-motion aerial kiss before falling away in a showy controlled dive.
Beside him, Aimee gasped.
He steered the hawk back into an ascent and his focus flicked to her, met her gaze head-on. Wide-eyed. Flushed.
Utterly dismayed.
He fumbled his climb, and the strings were yanked meanly from Aimee’s hands as the two kites tangled, tipped, and plummeted in a twisted mess to the hard ground in the distance, their sensual skirmish terminally interrupted.
I’ll take whatever you’ll give me.
That was what he’d said back at the little cafeteria, and he’d meant it to be kind. Some sort of compromise between what he wanted—to really get to know her—and what she needed—to keep a safe emotional gulf between them. But all it did was hurt and mirror her own patheticism back to her. Not even a real word—but it summed her situation up perfectly so she was going with it. She was taking whatever he would give her.
How had she found herself in this situation—again? She marched resolutely back towards the car, her chest balled tight around her anger and pain.
Anger at herself.
Pain because he’d never be able to touch her for real.
What was she prepared to give him? Everything. But she wanted everything in return. Not a friend. Not a shopping buddy. She wanted someone she could curl up with at night, see the wonders of the world with, and whose brain she could mine for useless information. She wanted someone to admire and appreciate and get jealous over. She wanted someone to wander the markets with or sail a boat or fly a kite. Or cheer for at an awards ceremony. All perfectly legitimately.
She wanted someone like Sam. She deserved someone like Sam. And it was a bit of a first in her life to be thinking that way. But all those things were way, way more than he was free to give.
And so Sam playing kissing-kites had done nothing but mess with her head and cut her deep down inside where she never let anyone go.
‘Aimee … Stop.’
‘Someone will steal your kites,’ she threw back over her stiff shoulder, picking up pace as the park got smaller behind them.
‘They’ll have to untangle them first.’
Her smile stretched her skin tight. Even his sharp wit got up her nose. Why couldn’t he be an egotist? Or as thick as two planks? Was he not even the slightest bit muddled by what had just happened back in the skies? By that little aerial seduction?
Did he not even have the decency to be vaguely rattled?
‘Aimee. Please.’
Her feet slowed. Shuffled. Stopped. But she didn’t turn around. Either he’d see how mad she was or he’d see the confusion in her eyes, and she didn’t want either. She clenched her fists. ‘I’ve got somewhere