Page 28 of That Weekend in Paris
She smiles. “Well, maybe this is a good time to start.”
Conscience tugs at me as I tick through visual reminders of the commitments on my calendar. My stomach dips a bit at the thought of blowing off names who have been important to my career. The old fear of making a choice that decimates everything I’ve worked for pulls at me, and I wonder if some part of me wants to blow it all up. And I wonder if what I really do want is out.
“If you’re sure,” I find myself saying.
“I’m sure,” she says.
We’re facing each other just short of the closed door. My intention of leaving recedes from immediate reach. Instead, I’m looking at her mouth, remembering with sudden clarity how many times I’ve thought about what it would be like to kiss her.
I suddenly need to know.
Want sends a flare of heat through my stomach. It radiates up to my chest, and I sway an inch closer. Her eyes are open, and she’s looking directly at me, as if waiting to see what my intent is.
I show her, dipping in to brush my lips against hers.
Touching her triggers the admission that I have wanted this beyond conscious memory. My logical brain shuts down and need takes over. I reach for her, my hands on her waist.She loops her arms around my neck, a soft whoosh of breath telling me she’s thought about this, too. “Klein.”
My name on her lips dials up the heat inside me, and I sink my mouth onto hers, kissing her full and deep while I press my body into hers, making no secret of how much I want her. We kiss like that, hot, heavy, intent, until I realize that pretty soon there won’t be any turning back from where we’re headed. And there’s a bed a few yards away.
I pull back, looking down into her want-dazed eyes, feeling a deep and undeniable satisfaction that I have put it there. “I don’t guess there would be any point in denying how much I want to stay, would there?”
“Um.” She laughs a light laugh. “Probably not.”
“Okay, then,” I say. I run a hand through my hair,backing toward the door. “I’ll be heading to my room.”
She’s still standing against the wall, her lips parted, moist from our kissing. “You sure?”
“I’m pretty sure you’ll thank me for it in the morning.”
“Hmm.” In that lone syllable, I can tell she disagrees.
But I know I’m right. Whatever is going to be between Dillon and me, it isn’t going to be casual. “So what time are we heading out?”
She glances at her watch. “You up for a short night?”
“At this point, yeah.”
“I’ll set my alarm for a few hours from now and get us a rental car.”
“We’re really doing this.”
It’s not a question, so I say, “We’re really doing this.”
And for the first time in longer than I want to admit, I’m looking forward to what is ahead.
Klein
“Stab the body and it heals, but injure the heart and the wound lasts a lifetime.”
?Mineko Iwasaki
I WAKE UP to the crack of light ducking in through the hem of the hotel room’s heavy curtains.
Not sure what time it is, I throw myself out of bed, head for the bathroom and brush my teeth. I reach for my supplement box and take this morning’s allotted vitamins with a bottle of water. I then pick up the phone in the bedroom and order a pot of coffee from room service, determined to wake up.
I open the curtains,blinking against the sudden onslaught of sunlight. I crack the window, the sound of Paris traffic humming through the opening. I’m hit withinstant memory of what had happened before I left Dillon’s room. I remember what it felt like to kiss her. How I had wanted so much more. And then I think about Riley, and guilt splashes across me like a bucket of water in the face.
I feel tarnished, as if I’ve done something so wrong that I don’t deserve to entertain the notion of being with someone like Dillon.
