Free Beautiful Stranger by Ruth Wind

picked up the glass and drank down most of it at a gulp, only realizing when she stopped drinking that it was absolutely fabulous. “Oh,my gosh!” She held the glass up to the light. “That’s fantastic! I’ll have to get her recipe.”
    â€œThe secret is simple syrup instead of sugar.” He shifted, foot to foot, as if he were impatient, and she started to move away, when he said, “You know, that’s a very nice dress.”
    Marissa instantly found her hand fluttering up to cover the flesh the scoop neck revealed, remembering for the first time that she wasn’t draped in four yards of cloth, but a simple, straight, sleeveless sundress. Lazily and plainly, he let his gaze slide down her body, touching shoulders, breasts, legs.
    And Marissa found herself standing straighter, thinking of the collarbone that showed beneath her flesh, of the dip of her waist. She grinned. “Thank you.” She put down her glass. “And thank you for the limeade. I’ll get out of your way.”
    He walked with her, out on the porch, but somehow, when they landed on the porch, he was standing in front of her. She looked up at him, ready to say something polite, but their eyes sort of slammed together or something, and she forgot what she wanted to say.
    He was close. Close enough that she could see a trail of tiny, teardrop scars below his left eye, close enough she saw there was variation in the color of his eyes after all. What looked like unbroken black from a distance was really a very subtle gradation of cocoas. A few sun lines had settled into the corners of his eyes, and he appeared to have no beard at all, or else he’d shaved very, very closely.
    The teasing humor of a few moments ago was gone, and he regarded her gravely, his lower lip tucked under his upper. In the warm day, she suddenly felt that magnetic field crackling vividly between them again. Windcaught a long lock of his hair and it blew across his face, and she wanted to raise a hand to brush it away. He still didn’t break that stillness, only looked down at her with fierce intent, as if he wanted to use X-ray vision to see into her head.
    Finally she said, “What?”
    His eyes slipped, touched her mouth. Her heart skittered, and for a long, long moment, she thought he was going to kiss her. She had enough time to imagine what it might be like—how his wide mouth might taste, what his tongue would feel like, sliding against her lips—before he stepped sideways, almost as if he were avoiding a collision. “Thanks again,” he said roughly, and went around her and went inside.
    Â 
    When she got home, Marissa called her sister. Victoria picked up the phone on the fourth ring. “Gorram,” she said in their private language. “I was dreaming about you.”
    â€œWhat was I doing?”
    â€œI’m not sure,” she said, and Marissa heard her rustling pillows. “Something to do with electricity.” She yawned. “Blue. It was blue.”
    She wasn’t surprised. Their connection seemed heightened in sleep—as children, they’d often dreamed each other’s dreams. Now they seemed to dream each other’s thoughts, at least now and then. “It’s electromagnetic attraction. That man again.”
    â€œReally?” The word was guarded.
    â€œIt’s nothing. It’s not like we’re dating or anything. He’s just very sexy.”
    â€œAvailable?”
    â€œMmm. Not really.” She knew she was soft-pedaling it and her sister knew it, too. Because of their intenseconnection, they’d made a pact in their teens to keep love lives totally private, an area where they didn’t have to feel shadowed. It was hard, at times, but it was also necessary.
    â€œToo bad.”
    â€œIt is, kind of.”
    Victoria yawned. “Morrag,” she said, their word for good night, as Gorram was good morning. Most of the language