“Can I tell you a secret?”
I nod, afraid of moving too much and breaking whatever spell we’re under. I want to stay right here, forever, if possible, wrapped up in everything Fenton Abbott.
“This is why I carried you out of Ruma.”
“I don’t understand . . .”
He stands, twirling me around lazily to face him. I lean against the railing and he clutches the board on either side of me again, capturing me in his bubble.
“I missed you the last couple of days, Brynne. I took you to Ruma so we would be forced to talk, get what you wanted to say out of the way. But as soon as that was done, I wanted to bring you here. To my home. To have you all to myself.”
His words caress me, flip on switches inside me I didn’t know could be turned. It seems unreal that he is looking at me and saying that, but he is and I lap it up.
“I missed you too.”
“I wasn’t prepared to not be able to not think about you,” he confesses. “I watched you walk into your house after you told me not to follow you and it did a number on me. I figured then that it was just a burn to my ego and I’d be laughing about it the next day. But I didn’t.”
“I told you not to follow me because you told me you’d be too busy to see me again. I’m a big girl. I don’t need an easy brush-off.”
“It wasn’t a brush-off.”
“No, it was,” I laugh. “And I still haven’t figured out why or what changed your mind . . .”
He gazes over my shoulder at the dark water, the lines around his eyes deepening. “It’s a long story, one I don’t really care to discuss.”
Pulling his eyes back to mine, he studies me. “You’re important to me. I know I’ve never felt this way about another person before, so I don’t know what it means. I just know you’re more than a weekend distraction or a dinner date—”
“Or a fuck buddy,” I grin.
“You know I hate that term.”
I shrug, making him roll his eyes.
He continues, “I’m having a hard time figuring out where to go with this, if that makes sense.”
“It makes total sense. I don’t know either. One minute I’m lying in my bed, imagining it’s your fingers going inside me—”
“Don’t . . .” he growls.
“And the next minute,” I grin, “I’m preparing myself to never talk to you again.”
The truth spins into the universe, knocking us both around a little. He shifts his weight foot-to-foot and I just stand as still as I can, waiting for him to respond. I know my answer to the unsaid question: I want to get to know him. I want to know what he likes for dinner, what kind of ice cream he likes, how he unwinds in the evening. But I’m not going to show my hand yet, not before he does.
“If everything were equal, if there were no extenuating circumstances, what would you want to see between us?” he asks, his tone gravelly.
“I’m not sure . . .”
“You aren’t sure?”
Guilt burns through me because that’s not true. And as his shoulders slump, just a hint of a drop, it makes me feel like an asshole.
“No, I am sure,” I breathe. “I’d want to spend time with you. As much as I can. I would want to get to know you, make you smile, make you laugh. Make you dinner and then undress you and help you relax.”
I’m pressed against him before I know it. His chin sits on top of my head, his heart thundering in his chest. He doesn’t let go, just speaks with me still in his arms.
“I don’t know what it is about you and I know we will have to take it slow. But I want to take it, Brynne.”
“Take it where?”
“To wherever it leads. I don’t want to feel like I can’t call you. I don’t want to go a day without seeing you or being afraid to piss you off if I show up. I want to feel justified in wanting to protect you and calling you mine. Not in some trophy way or in some barbaric way either. Just being proud that a man like me could manage to snag a girl like you.”
“Oh, Fenton,” I say, trying, and failing, to not swoon.
“The easiest thing I’ve ever done in my life is feel this way about you, rudo.”
I run my hand down the side of his cheek, the stubble coarse against my skin. “I’d love to see where this goes. I’ve never wanted anything more.”
His hand clasps over my wrist, holding mine to his face. He drags it to his mouth and plants a kiss in my palm. “You’ve put things in perspective for me.”
He slips off his jacket and tosses it onto a chair. My fingers find his tie and begin undoing the intricate knot.
I feel the heaviness of his gaze, the heat of his breath as I slip the silk from around his neck and add it to the jacket. Beginning to unfasten the buttons down his chest, I can feel his heartbeat rumbling.
“I still have things I want to say,” he breathes.
“Not now.”
The shirt slips off his broad shoulders, the stars making his skin nearly glow. My fingers dip beneath the waistband of his dress pants and his breath hitches in his throat.
“Brynne . . .”