“Let’s go.” He’s beside me before I realize it, breaking me from my reverie.
Setting his hand low on my back, he guides me between our houses toward the street we’ll walk down to catch the train. Heat spills from his hand through my jacket. I feel his fingers curl in on my body, his palm sliding to my waist, then drawing me closer. Looking up at him, I’m breathless for a moment. His dark hair’s everywhere in the wind, the lamplight dancing down his thick brows and lashes, that strong nose and sensual mouth, the sharp line of his jaw. He’s so beautiful, it makes me ache.
Maybe I do feel ready for some kissing after all.
“So.” I clear my throat, biting my lip. “The kissing thing.”
He peers down at me. “The kissing thing.”
“I thought maybe I needed . . . a break, until we talked some things over, but . . .” My gaze drifts up to his, again. “I think maybe I was wrong.”
He lifts an eyebrow. “Maybe?”
“I’m undecided, so I say we settle this the old-fashioned way. If you win, you can kiss me, whenever you want. If I win, you won’t kiss me until I say.”
“Wait, win what—”
Gently pulling away from his arm wrapped around me, I call over my shoulder, pointing to the train stop, “Race ya.”
It’s the fastest I’ve ever seen him run.
* * *
—
For how fast we raced to the train stop, we’re just as slow walking to my apartment. Christopher hasn’t touched me since he beat me to the train stop.
Which, I will admit, I’m confused about.
Everything about the way he was looking at me at my parents’ during dinner, when he threw me over his shoulder in the yard, made me think the second he won he’d haul me into his arms and kiss me senseless.
But here we are, Christopher with his hands in his pockets, walking beside me, glancing my way every once in a while, watching me in that intent way of his.
Stopping outside my apartment, I turn to face him, fighting and losing the battle against a shiver. His brow furrows as he frowns, his hands rubbing up and down my arms. “You need a real winter jacket, Kate. Come on. Let’s get you inside.”
I let him turn me toward the building, my hands shaking with cold and nerves as I unlock the main door, which Christopher shuts securely behind us. I jog up the stairs to my apartment door and then start to unlock that one, too, then think twice, stopping myself.
Turning back, I clutch the doorknob and peer up at him.
Christopher tips his head, confused. “What’s going on?”
“Why haven’t you kissed me?” I ask him. “Even though you won the race.”
Holding my eyes, he steps closer, his hands traveling my arms again, drifting around my back, pulling me toward him. “I don’t want to take something you don’t want to give.”
I smile. “That’s a good answer.”
He arches an eyebrow. “I know it is. Which is exactly why your little race and wager was a ruse. Either way, I was at your mercy, Kate. I still am.”
“My mercy?”
Christopher lifts his hand, his knuckles softly grazing my cheek, down my throat. “You know how much I want you. I told you the only reason I left your bed last night was because of that goddamn migraine. Otherwise, Katerina, we’d still be there. I’d be learning every corner of your body, every single thing that makes you shake and beg and sigh.” His nose drifts into my hair and he breathes in, his mouth brushing the shell of my ear. “I’d have had you so many ways, so many times, you’d have lost track of them already.”
A trembling breath leaves me. “And . . . that’s what you want, still?”
He groans into my hair and presses a kiss there. “It’s all I want. You’re all I want.” His mouth drifts to my ear and nuzzles there, tracing my earlobe, sucking softly. I gasp and lean into him. “I’ve wanted you for a long time, Kate.”
My heart leaps—he’s wanted me the way I’ve wanted him.
But then it plummets—because it’s so hard to reconcile that while he says how deeply he desired me, he spent night after night sharing an intimacy with others that I’ve never even experienced. I don’t judge him for it, but I don’t understand it. I know why I want Christopher—why crossing that bridge of physical appreciation to a deeper desire has been so much swifter than it has been for others. He’s never been a stranger to me. Even when he made me angry, I knew him, the sound of his voice, the scent of his skin. I knew he loved my family and would do anything for them. I knew him, and in some way I think I knew how much he knew me, how much he saw me even though he didn’t understand me, even though—as he admitted that night he came and made pasta—my choices scared him.
There’s so much about each other that in simply sharing nearly our whole lives, we know—that’s familiar and understood. And yet there’s so much left to learn.
I’m scared of where and how to begin. But as someone who’s bungee jumped, skydived, who’s taken those terrifying, free-fall leaps, I know sometimes the fear doesn’t leave—bravery just joins it.
And I know this is one of those moments.
I swallow nervously, my hands coming up to his chest. “Do you remember, back when I was taking photos at work, when you said you could be patient, if I needed time to open up to you about certain things?”
He nods.
“So . . . my body needs that, too.”
He rears back, his eyes meeting mine. “Needs . . . time?”
“Yeah,” I say softly. “I know last night happened, but . . . that’s not typical.”
“No,” he agrees, his voice deep and rough. “No, it’s not.”
“Before we did that again, I’d . . .” I draw in a long breath, then blow it out, steadying myself. “I’d need time until I’m ready. Can you wait?”
“Of course,” he says quickly, his hands coming gently to my shoulders, soothing them. “Of course I can wait.”
“And you’d be with no one else while you waited?”
He looks deeply offended. “Kate, of course I wouldn’t. I told you, I just want you. I don’t want anyone else.”
Can it be that easy? “What if I’m not talking days of abstinence, Christopher? What if I’m talking weeks?”
I watch it sink in. “Weeks,” he finally says. He exhales slowly. “I can do weeks.”
“You can?”
He scrubs his face and sighs bleakly. “Considering I have been the past three weeks,” he says, the first nip of irritation threading through his voice. “Yes.”
“You have?”
“Yes. For the same reason I’m saying I’ll wait now. I wanted you and no one else, and I still do. Could you act a little less surprised?”
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Christopher sighs, pulling me close for a gentle hug. “I’m the one who should be sorry. I shouldn’t have snapped like that. It’s just . . . I want you to believe me.”
“I do believe you. I believe you mean it. I just don’t know if it means to you what it means to me.”
He sets his chin on my head and says quietly, “I don’t know what you’re saying, Kate.”
My nerves get the best of me for a moment, but I make myself take a deep breath, then say, “For me, physical intimacy needs to be . . . emotionally grounded. I don’t do casual sex. And unless I’m mistaken, that’s all you’ve ever done.”
Christopher pulls back, his jaw hard as he searches my eyes. “That’s true, yes. But casual isn’t what I want with you.” He swallows roughly, then lifts my hand and turns it so my palm faces him. He bends and presses a kiss there, his tongue brushing my skin so lightly, I almost don’t believe it happened. A shiver waves through me, and this time it’s got nothing to do with being cold.
“I’ll show you that. I’ll wait,” he says. “As long as you need me to.”
“Even if I need a month?” I venture, expecting him to laugh or choke, but he just brings my hand to his cheek, holding it there.
“A month,” he agrees. “If—”