Sweet Sinful Nights

“Consider that a yes.” She smiled broadly. “Get out of here, Nichols. You’ll miss your flight.”

He bent down and claimed her lips one final time, lingering on her sweet taste, hoping it stayed with him until he could touch her again in a few days.

If anyone had asked him a few weeks ago if he’d ever see the love of his life again, much less kiss her, he’d have given a resounding no. Fate had been teaching him a lesson up until then. Don’t walk away from the greatest thing you’ve ever known, you stupid idiot.

Fate had been beating that one into his head. Relentlessly. Like water torture.

Then, he’d been granted a reprieve.

He took one last kiss for the road. “I’ll see you in San Francisco then.”

The little flecks of gold in her emerald eyes nearly sparkled. “When? When will you arrive?”

She sounded so damn eager to see him, too, and for the first time since he’d started chasing her again, he truly felt as if he was close to catching her, wrapping his arms around her, and holding her for always. Maybe she was on the same wavelength, too.

“I’ll book my flight as soon as possible. I’ll text you the details.”

She scrunched up the corner of her lips. “Hmm. I wonder if I should keep making you wait more. For the thing you really want.”

He grumbled in protest, then relented. “The thing I want is you. I will wait for you as long as I have to,” he said, then took a beat. A pause for effect. “But preferably not much longer.”

She laughed. “We’ll see what kind of mood I’m in when you get to San Francisco.”

“Then it will be my job to get you in the mood to spread those legs, wrap them around my back, and dig in your heels,” he said, trailing his fingers between her breasts, savoring the last arch of her back as she responded to his touch.

She looked so vulnerable. So open. So ready for him. She’d given her body to him so freely during the last few weeks. And the more she gave of the physical, the more she seemed to be opening her heart to him again.

As she met his eyes, he was reminded once more of that stay of execution he’d been granted. The amnesty from his past mistakes. He couldn’t let her slip away again.

He ran his thumb over her chin, and pressed his finger over her lips. “Don’t say anything. It’s my turn, and I want to leave you with this. I’m crazy for you. Completely, absolutely, thoroughly crazy about you.”

Her eyes glittered, and on that note he walked away.

But this time, he was coming back.

He was leaving having said the right words, instead of the wrong ones. Even though they barely scratched the surface of all he felt for her.

*

She wasn’t going to listen to his orders not to say anything.

She might have put him through his paces, made him jump through a few hoops, but she wasn’t going to let him be the only one of them to take a risk.

He was changing, and hell, so was she.

“Brent!”

He stopped at the door. His hand gripped the knob. He turned to look at her. She read nervousness in his gaze, hope in his stance.

“I feel the same,” she said, her heart pounding hard against her chest, trying to leap to him.

With tonight cut off at the knees, now was so clearly not the time to dig deep and tunnel all through the past to the most broken parts of them. But she could start this way—by telling him that she was falling, too. Somehow they’d shifted from him trying to prove himself, to her wanting to show she was worthy of him, too. Worthy of all his affection, of his tender gestures, of his humor, and of his heart.

She knew him well. He was easy. He was simple in the best of ways. All he’d ever wanted was to know her. To understand her past, to help her, to be the one she could lean on. When they were together before, he’d struggled mightily with her need to keep some things buried. While she’d have to find a better time—when they had time—to serve up the story of how her life had capsized in a London hospital, she could give him this much tonight—these words, these feelings that had raced well beyond the physical and claimed a portion of her heart.

“I’m crazy for you, too,” she added.

Then she let him go, the sound of the door snapping closed sealing off the night. She’d replay it as she drifted off into bed. All of it. From the wow to the crazy for you, and every toe-curling, heart-beating, blood-pounding moment in between. Even their fight in the elevator. Because some things might change, but some would remain the same.

They were fire.

*

She woke up to a text message. A dirty, naughty one that sent a hot shiver through her body.

I can still taste you.

Then a sweet one. Text me when you wake up, sunshine. I have something for you.

She wrote back instantly. I’m up, and glad to hear you enjoyed your dessert last night.