“You’re here with me,” he reminded her, holding her gloved hand within his as they went inside the hotel and headed to the elevator bank that would take them to the restaurant.
“Exactly.”
When he glanced her way, she was smiling like a kid at Christmas. Warmth spread all the way through him.
“You’re good for my ego.”
She cut her eyes upward. “As if your ego needs stroking.”
“It has been a while.”
To which she turned to him with wide, accusatory eyes. “Whose fault is that? Not mine, because I’m willing. You’re the one who’s moving at a tortoise pace.”
He laughed and bent to kiss her forehead. “It’s going to be all the sweeter when we do, Sarah.”
“For the record, sweet isn’t the adjective I want to use to describe sex. Make a note of it.”
The feeling inside Jude went from warm to inferno. “What adjective do you prefer?”
“Hot? Carnal? Sweaty? Needy? Intense? Desperate?”
Jude groaned at the images her words incited. “You make me want to forget our reservation.”
Her eyes burned. “Nothing says we can’t.”
“Except that I want to show you the city.”
“City Schmitty,” she mouthed, drawing his gaze to her lips. “Seen one skyline you’ve seen them all.”
Jude smiled, reminding himself he would have this woman, those lips on his body, his lips on her body.
Sarah’s tune changed as they ate their dinner in the revolving restaurant. She gushed over the view and talked a mile a minute as she often did in true New York style.
“I do love a good view,” she praised. “And it’s a good thing I’m cooking again tomorrow evening because otherwise I’m not going to fit into my new clothes.”
Jude sat back and listened, thinking she had a long way to go before she wouldn’t fit into her clothes, but he appreciated the thought of her not wearing any.
Sex would change everything. If they’d had sex early on, Sarah wouldn’t have known the real him, wouldn’t have recognized that she was special. Neither would she have believed him if he’d tried to tell her.
There had been too many women. None of them mattered. All had been a means to an end that hadn’t worked. Because none of them had changed the past or filled the hole in his chest. None of them had been Nina.
He took the bite of dessert Sarah offered and was struck with a truth. He didn’t want Sarah to be Nina.
He wanted her to be Sarah.
Which stunned him a little. A lot.
He didn’t need to go slow. Not anymore. Sarah knew him. The real Jude. The flawed Davenport firefighter. She liked him. Wanted him. Was smiling at him as if he was the center of her world.
Only her smile had twisted into a frown and she eyed him suspiciously. “Jude? Are you paying attention to me?”
Staring into her eyes with a clarity he hadn’t felt in years, he said, “Absolutely.”
Not convinced, she challenged, “What did I just say?”
“That you want to go home and make love to me and use lots of vivid adjectives to describe the experience when I’ve finished having you all the ways I’ve dreamed of.”
Her jaw dropped. “I didn’t say that.”