His hand splays over my face, then moves down to smooth against my throat. It slides between my breasts and back up again, trailing to the base of my neck and repeating, each pass to my chest tugging at the front of my blouse.
His arm winds around my waist, gripping me and pressing me tight against his muscular body. I gasp when his teeth nip behind my ear and his movements grow more intense. He’s not touching my intimate parts, but I need him to—goodness, they’re practically screaming for his attention.
Unlike his, my hands aren’t so shy. They stroke up and down his torso, pulling at the buttons of his collared shirt. With every pass of his mouth, I grow more daring, needing to set his skin free and feel it against my palms—to reinforce that he’s real, and that this isn’t merely a dream.
I moan again when his chest shoves against mine, pinning me to the wall with his weight. But when he grips my backside and lifts me from the floor, it’s all I can do not to beg him to take me to bed, just like I did all those years ago.
And yet as I muster the courage to ask him inside, my feet return to the floor and his weight eases off me.
He steps back, falling against the opposite wall and breathing hard. Not that I blame him. As it is, I can’t control my racing heart or the harsh rise and fall of my chest.
Curran continues to stare at me. “Holy shit,” he says.
Ah, yeah.
I adjust my glasses and try to smooth my wild hair. I don’t need a mirror to know it’s a useless gesture.
“Sorry,” he says.
My hands fall away slowly. “What?”
He jerks his head to the side and mutters a curse. When he faces me once more, a slew of emotions riddle his features. I can’t make out all of them, but I do recognize the most prominent: remorse. It’s one I’m familiar with, and the one that destroys me to find in his face.
“I shouldn’t have done that. You’re my charge.”
“But I wanted you to,” I confess. “You didn’t force me. I wanted…this.”
Curran mumbles another curse. I meant to reassure him, but somehow I upset him more. “I should go,” he says.
I wish you wouldn’t, I want to tell him. But of course, I don’t. Not when he flat out told me he regrets our kiss. So instead, I nod stoically and reach for my purse. My fingers slip over my keys several times before I finally grasp them. Somehow, I manage to slip the key into the deadbolt on my first try.
Curran places his hand over mine before I can turn the knob. “Wait, me first.”
“It’s not necessary,” I say to the door.
“Yes it is, Tess. I meant it when I said I wouldn’t let anything happen to you.”
But you already did.
For all intents and purposes, and in every way possible, Curran did a real number on me. Maybe he didn’t mean to, but with him, I feel everything in its greatest extreme—happiness, humor, and now, sadness. He leaves me embracing every emotion, even when I fight not to.
I want to tell him as much, my need to practically thrashing its way out of me. Yet this isn’t the right time. For now, I need to let him go. I can’t have him if he won’t have me.
I step back and allow him ahead of me, wondering if I did something wrong. Yes, I’m his charge, but if he really wants me, should it matter?
“I’ll be quick,” he says, as if to make me feel better.
In truth, it only makes me feel worse.
I wait in the small hall, barely moving, until Curran finishes his sweep.
“All clear,” he says.
“Thank you,” I tell him, quietly.
He releases a heavy breath. “I shouldn’t have done that to you,” he tells me again. “I’m sorry.”
I look at him then, trying my best not to cry. “I am, too.”
Another hint of emotion marches along his features before his “cop” face returns and erases any clue to what he’s feeling. “I’ll be outside if you need me until Lu gets here. I’ll see you tomorrow, all right?”
Curran marches past me when I say nothing more, shutting the door tight behind him. But it’s not until I flip the deadbolt that I hear his heavy footsteps stomp in the direction of the elevator.
I am sorry.
Sorry that Curran didn’t spend the night.
Curran