I take a step closer and pull the scarf gently from her hands before it can become a tripping hazard.
“Tell me something, Tavey. When you bought this dress, what did you imagine? Really?”
“You, taking it off,” she insists, with a silentobviously.
I step closer, unable to keep myself from reaching for her. Not to take off the dress — not in any sense — but to ground us both. To cup her cheek and feel her skin under mine. To sear the moment into memory. Because this next bit is important. She might not remember much of tonight. I don’t know yet just how drunk she is and she might not either.
But I want her to remember this.
I lean in and kiss her. Not her lips, but close. Just to the left of her mouth. Close enough that I feel the heat of her breath on my cheek. I keep my mouth against her skin as I ask, “How did you imagine me taking it off? Slowly? Quickly? Were you standing in front of me, or were you already lying on the bed?”
I pull away enough to meet her gaze. Those startling blue-gray eyes of hers have gone impossibly wide. Her pupils are blown so wide her eyes look almost navy.
She doesn’t answer my question. Just shakes her head, like she’s trying to formulate a thought and can’t.
“Details matter, love. You know that.” I graze her cheek with another kiss because I’m desperate to taste her and this is the most I can allow myself tonight. “So until you can tell me exactly how you want me to take this dress off you, we’re going to wait. Okay?”
She gives the faintest nod.
“Because I want to get this right,” I finish. “Don’t you?”
She nods again, clears her throat, and this time manages a faint, “Yes.”
“Good girl.”
For a moment neither of us moves.
Then I exhale slowly through my nose and take adeliberate step back. Because if I don’t put some distance between us right now, I’m not going to be able to do what comes next.
What comes next is the right thing.
The right thing, in this moment, is the hardest thing I’ve done since BUD/S.
And I survived BUD/S.
“Okay,” I say, keeping my voice steady. “Here’s what’s going to happen. We’re going to find your pajamas. You’re going to change in the bathroom. Then you’re going to drink some water and take some Advil. And then you’re going to sleep.”
She blinks at me. Processing.
“Alone,” I add, because I can see her working up to the question.
“Alone,” she repeats flatly.
“For tonight.”
That lands differently. I can see it in the way her expression shifts — the flatness giving way to something more careful.
For tonight.
Not forever. Not a rejection. A timeline.
“Your pajamas,” I say, before she can overthink it. “Where’s your suitcase?”
She points at the rolling bag near the chair without a word, still watching me with those wideeyes that are doing absolutely nothing to help my restraint.
I crouch down and unzip it. Which — yes — is an intimate thing to do. Going through someone’s bag. But she’s not stopping me and the alternative is her tangled in her own luggage for the next twenty minutes.
I dig for a moment, pushing past the hanging bag contents, until my hand closes on something soft.
