Not as much as he liked the light in her eyes. “I’m good with it, yeah,” he said.
“I think I want to be sober for this,” she said, and tugged her wrist free from his to set the bottle on the table. But she didn’t say anything else. She didn’t bring Jack into the conversation, or her grandmother, or set any other parameters, much less boundaries. Instead, she looked him right in the eye and let the silence flow between them like the wine in the bottle, something on a physical level getting asked and answered.
“Shall we?”
He pushed back his chair and went to stand behind hers, then put his hand at the small of her back to escort her from the bar, through the lobby staffed by a sleepy night clerk, just let his hand hover at her waist while they waited for the elevator, close enough to feel heat radiating through the thin cardigan and T-shirt. But heat wasn’t the only thing radiating from her. Tension, tight muscles, and nerves made her twitchy.
“I should take a shower,” she said conversationally as the elevator doors opened.
“Don’t,” he said. He braced his feet and folded his arms across his chest. The scent of her body, strong and musky, rose from her, twice as dizzying in the close confines of the tiny elevator. “I like it.”
Leaning against the wall across from him, she had one hand on the brass railing, the other loosely cupping her phone. When the doors opened on their floor, she looked down the hallway, then back at him. “I really should … just … check on Grannie,” she said, apologetically.
And that was the end of that.
“Sure,” he said, trying not to feel disappointed that he wasn’t getting something he shouldn’t have asked for in the first place, something that wasn’t his to have.
He let himself into his room. Out of habit he scanned the corners, floor and ceiling, then flicked on the light in the closet-sized bathroom. Empty. His toiletry kit sat on the counter, his duffle bag on the chest of drawers. He could be gone from this room in seconds. Not like his apartment in Istanbul. That would take minutes to evacuate. Two minutes. Maybe.
The room didn’t even smell like him. Had he become the kind of person who didn’t even leave behind enough molecules to register in the air?
He reached between his shoulder blades and pulled his shirt over his head, then tossed it at the foot of the bed for easy access the next morning. He had his hands on his belt buckle when a soft knock came at his door.
Maybe that wasn’t the end of that.
He peered through the peephole. Rose stood on the other side, her head tilted to the side, the soft fall of her hair tucked behind her ear. He opened the door, and watched her gaze flick over him, shoulders, abs, the waistband of his shorts visible just above the waistband of his cargo pants. “I thought checking on Grannie was code for changing your mind,” he said.
One eyebrow shot up. “I’ll tell you if I change my mind. Anyway, why would I? We’re both consenting adults. Do you have condoms?”
Jack had clearly told her zip about life in the SEALs. As if he went anywhere without condoms. “I have condoms,” he said seriously.
“Let’s do this,” she said, and stepped past him.
By the time he closed and locked the door, she’d kicked off her shoes and tossed her sweater on the dresser. “Whoa, whoa,” he said, reaching for the hands at her T-shirt hem.
“You really don’t have to, you know, romance me,” she said.
He smiled. “I’m not going to romance you,” he said. “Let’s just slow things down a little.”
The hotel was eerily quiet around them, the only thing audible in the room his breathing, deep and regular, and hers, a little shallower, lighter, getting shallower and lighter when he stepped right into her space and used chest and hips to back her into the wall. She projected big—he didn’t realize how small she was until he got close enough to feel her stomach graze his with each breath. He looked down into her face, then watched her straighten and peer right back up at him.