Then I opened the door, and he was standing there, and I had no further doubts. He had come because he wanted me, like I wanted him. I could see it in his eyes the moment our gazes met.
He was slightly out of breath, and cracked some joke about a higher floor being unavailable when we moved in, but I couldn’t process any of it over the sound of the blood rushing to my brain.
Neil was here, on the threshold of my apartment, looking apologetic and waiting for me to say something. All my words completely deserted me.
“Um... come in.” I stepped back, and closed the door behind him.
“I’m sorry to come by so late, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep without speaking to you.”
So, we were getting straight to the heart of the matter, then. I had anticipated some uncomfortable small talk, during which I could try to feel out what he’d come to say. Now I didn’t know what to do, or where to put my hands. I curled my fingers into the sleeves of my sweater.
“At lunch today, I may have given you the impression—”
“That we didn’t have a chance in hell of anything happening between us?” I supplied for him. I thought it might make him laugh. It didn’t.
“I must admit, the age difference between us does make me uncomfortable. It made me uncomfortable back then, as well. I’m not the kind of man who needs to date younger women to be happy. It’s not a status symbol for me. And I’m not the kind of person who picks up strangers in airports, either.”
“Neither am I,” I said, maybe a little defensively.
His face fell, and he took a slow step toward me. “I wouldn’t care if you were. What I’m trying to say is, this is completely new to me. I spent that night with you six years ago because I genuinely liked you, Sophie. You were so cute and direct and a bit odd. And we did have an awfully good time together.” He smiled tentatively. “It does trouble me that you’re the same age as my daughter. But you’re not my daughter. And that night was... it was one of the best nights of my life.”
I was about to respond with something pithy, but he closed the small gap between us and pulled me into his arms. My feet tangled with his, but he somehow kept us upright. Our gazes locked for a fraction of a second, and my mouth opened with a surprised gasp just as his lips met mine.
Chapter Five
Neil Elwood was kissing me, and it was every bit as good as my highly detailed memories. His soft lips coaxed mine apart. His tongue swept in and darted along the edges of my teeth. He held me with a splayed hand at my lower back, an arm around my shoulders. Pulled up tight to his chest, I gripped the lapels of his black wool coat and held on. There was little else I could do. It was like the man exuded some kind of pheromone that made my central nervous system go offline. Standing without wobbling was not an option. It didn’t help that it had been so long since the last time I’d been kissed, I’d almost forgotten how to do it properly. I tore our mouths apart and, with a noisy gulp of air, inhaled the scent of him, the faint trace of his cologne and the wooden cask ghost of whiskey.
And that was my clue. “Have you been drinking?”
“Quite a lot,” he admitted sheepishly. “Otherwise I wouldn’t have had the courage to come over here.”
“And when the hangover hits you, you’ll probably regret that you had the courage.” I pressed my palms to his chest and pushed back a step. “As romantic and like-the-movies as you may have imagined this whole scenario, you’ve jerked me around so much in the last twenty-four hours that I don’t even know how to respond.”
Apparently, drunken honesty was contagious. And thank god for that, because I could have easily been swept along in what he wanted, without a single thought to the consequences. That made Neil a very dangerous man for me to be around.
He looked crestfallen. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have... I just wasn’t sure how we’d left it. And I would like, very much, to see if there’s anything between us.”
“I think it’s pretty obvious that there is.” There was no point in denying that anymore. “But I’m not sure it’s going to work.”
“It isn’t that I’m looking for a serious relationship,” he continued, watching me warily. I wondered if he thought he’d hurt my feelings by not holding onto some tortured, unrequited love for me.
I had to put that notion to bed, right away. Christ, had I just thought about bed? No, serious relationships, that’s what we were discussing. Keep it together, Scaife. You can’t be stupid about this.