Wincing from the rawness of the thought, she swallowed, leaning away from him, careful to conceal the sharp disappointment she felt inside. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt Neil. She’d sooner drown puppies or pull the wings off butterflies.
“So?” she asked brightly, forcing a pleasant mood. “What are we up to tonight?”
He grinned at her, pushing his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose and reaching into the back pocket of his black slacks. He held up two tickets.
“I was thinking…Shakespeare in the park.”
“Neil!” she exclaimed, feeling genuinely excited and guilty for her previous thoughts. Neil wasn’t boring. She’d mentioned on their previous date that she loved Shakespeare and here was Neil, thoughtful Neil, doing something chosen especially for her. He was solid and kind and dependable, and those were good things. Excellent things. “Which play?”
He waggled his eyebrows in a move that he probably thought was charming but made Libitz groan and sigh inside.
“A Midsummer’s Night Dream!”
With startling speed, her mind segued back to Kate’s wedding reception, to a deep, lightly accented French voice—Though she be but little, she is fierce!—J.C.’s lips on hers, his palm cupping the fullness of her breast, his fingers rolling her nipple, his erection straining against her drenched sex, his— “Libitz?” questioned Neil, reaching out to touch her arm.
“What?” she whispered, reaching up to palm her cheeks and drop her gaze to the floor.
Today Kate had invited her to a housewarming party over the upcoming Labor Day weekend. She and étienne were buying an estate not far from where étienne grew up, and Libitz promised that she would go down to Philly for the weekend to help set up Noelle’s nursery and spend some time with Kate.
After they’d hung up, for most of the afternoon, Libitz had been distracted by the idea that she’d be seeing J.C. again in a few short weeks. Moments of breathless anticipation and excitement would follow furious promises to herself not to go anywhere near J.C. unless it was absolutely beyond avoidance.
While perusing the first draft of her gallery’s new catalog for fall, she lost herself in memories of his tongue sliding against hers, the way it felt to be trapped in the strength of his embrace, his heart beating wildly under her flattened palms. Then, just as she was about to search for him on Facebook, she’d jerked the computer plug out of the wall so she couldn’t.
“Libitz? A Midsummer’s Night Dream?”
“No,” she answered softly, still distracted by a deluge of memories about a man she wanted to forget.
“No?”
She winced, lifting her eyes from her shoes and looking up at Neil as she lowered her hands. “I’m…sorry. I don’t—I don’t feel very well. My head aches…”
“You seemed fine a minute ago.”
She took a deep breath and sighed, tilting her head to the side, searching his kind brown eyes. “You’re too good for me, Neil.”
He stared back at her for an unexpectedly intense moment before reaching for her hand. “Give me a chance, Lib. Don’t cut me lose yet.”
The simple sweetness of his words impacted her, and she tried to smile for him but found she couldn’t. “But I should. I should cut you lose right now.”
He shook his head. “Don’t. Please don’t.”
Taking her other hand, he pulled her back against his chest, wrapping his arms around her and rubbing her back gently. “Forget the play. Let’s go get a bowl of spaghetti, huh? A glass of Chianti? You don’t even have to talk. I’ll talk. You can ignore me if you want.”
“What good would that be?” she asked, closing her eyes, finding herself calmed by the slow, even motion of his palm against her back.
“It’ll be good for me,” he said, “because you’ll be sitting across from me.”
She leaned back, looking into his hopeful face and feeling terrible that she was distracted by another man who was so woefully unequal to Neil.
“You’re too—”
“—good for you?” he finished. “No.”
Dropping his lips to hers, he kissed her gently for the first time. Lips to lips. No tongue. No demands. No passion. No control. Just a sweet touch of skin to skin to make her stop talking, to let her know that he wasn’t ready to let go of her after only three weeks of dating. “I don’t know if that’s true, but I’m willing to take the risk. You?”
How could she say no? He was sweet and sturdy, selfless and simple, kind and thoughtful. He was everything that every woman could ever want, and fuck, but she wished it was enough.
She nodded. “Sounds nice.”
He tore the tickets in half and placed the pieces on the edge of her desk. “Then let’s get going.”
***