All night, he’d been touching me. Just tiny brushes and caresses.
Flutters of fingertips that sped my heart in a needy kind of anticipation.
It was as if he were issuing little promises—assuring me I was interesting and beautiful and he wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
I took a sip of red wine, still unable to fathom I was actually sitting across from this man. “It was wonderful. I think I’ve had more fun tonight than I have in a long, long time. I wish I could tell you how much that means to me.”
His brow quirked. “Says the girl who basically made me beg to get a little bit of time with her.”
Thank God it was dim where we were seated at the back of the upscale restaurant. Because I could feel the heat rise to my cheeks. The way he managed to slip right under my skin with that easy smile, the man nothing but seduction where he casually rested in the high-backed upholstered chair.
One big hand was wrapped around the crystal tumbler he’d been sipping from all evening, the other still caressing my knee.
Back and forth.
Back and forth.
Embers flickering to life in the deepest parts of me.
I wondered if he had the first clue each stroke wound me higher. Higher and higher until it felt as if I was floating with the stars. Or maybe he knew exactly what he was doing.
“I guess sometimes we all need a little push,” I admitted quietly.
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Well, I guess it should be me saying thank you for giving you that little push.”
I tucked my bottom lip between my teeth, trying to figure out what to do with the magnitude of this man. “I’m just glad you were the one to do it.”
He sat back a little, head tilting to the side as he offered a casual expression. “What about last Friday? It seems like your friends don’t hesitate to have a little fun.”
I laughed lightly. “No, they definitely don’t. Jenna is always trying to drag me out.”
“Why don’t you let her?”
It was the first time Kale had let our conversation traipse in the direction of personal. His eyes narrowed, studying me with a new kind of severity through the flicker of the candles that lapped and licked at the center of the table.
It cast that strong jaw in shadows, that turquoise gaze glinting in the flame.
During dinner, we’d kept to safe subjects. Reminiscing about growing up. My life in Texas. His in Gingham Lakes. I told him how I’d been a total drama geek in high school, living my life for the next play, while he’d laughed the sweetest kind of laugh and told me nerds were always the best before he’d gone on to tell me he’d won first place in the Alabama State Science Fair all four years of high school.
I guessed nerds really were the best.
Now, beneath his scrutiny, I felt compelled.
I felt looser and freer than I had felt in so long. Before I could stop it, I was pushing right past the promise I’d made to myself that tonight was just for me and I was leaving everything else behind.
The words dropped like a bomb from my mouth, my frustration and bitterness bleeding free.
“I doubt very much my husband would approve of that.”
I watched as the admission penetrated Kale.
As he jerked back as if he’d been kicked in the gut.
The breath knocked out of him as he resituated everything he’d thought about me in his head. Eyes going wide before his jaw clenched tight. Slowly coming to the realization that when I told him my life was complicated, I meant it.
My life was in transition, a hard, painful transition. In the end, it would be the best decision I’d ever made. I just had to make it through to the other side.
Where I was didn’t change the reality of what was happening right then, though. It didn’t change the fight I had ahead of me.
I cleared my throat, knowing I’d made a mistake by telling him that way.
That was the problem when you started to feel comfortable with someone. When you started liking them in a way you couldn’t allow. You started telling them things you shouldn’t trust them with. Letting them go deeper than you should.
I tossed my fabric napkin on the table. “We should probably get going. It’s getting late. The day starts really early for me.”
It was stupid of me to even think this was okay when I had no idea the lengths Dane might go to. I searched for a breath, feeling like a complete fool. All I’d wanted was one night. I should have known not even that was possible.
I pushed from the small, round table, giving him my back, unable to face him.
Not after I’d sent our night spiraling.