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“I'd never take advantage of you, Emma,” he finished for me. “Never. Ever. ”
“I know that, Marcus,” I said, biting my lip. “And I'd never come on to you like that. It was foolish of me, I only meant to kiss your cheek as a thank you.”
We were both quiet for a moment and a tense awkwardness hung in the air around us. I could still feel the tingling on my lips from where his had touched mine, and I wanted nothing more than to go back in for another kiss. I wanted to feel that again, and more, but I knew it was wrong.
“I should probably be going,” I said, standing up.
Marcus stood up too, at just the same time, and we collided. I landed in his arms as I fell into him, feeling even dumber than I already did. I stared up at him and he stared down at me, and for a moment, I thought he might kiss me again. There was something in me that desperately hoped he would.
Instead, he chuckled nervously as he straightened me out and helped me get back on my feet.
“You don't have to go,” he said, taking me by surprise. “Unless you want to, of course.”
Honestly? I didn't want to. I wanted to stay and see if maybe we'd kiss again, knowing that my chances of that happening weren't very good. Something had happened between us, some connection had been formed and I was curious to see if it actually went anywhere.
Obviously, I wouldn't have been as courageous or curious had it not been for the wine. But I was just going to roll with it.
“Okay,” I said and gave him a shy smile. “I'll stick around then. But I think we're going to need more wine.”
“I'll just bring out the bottle, how about that?”
“Sounds perfect,” I said.
CHAPTER NINE
MARCUS
Dammit, Marcus, what are you thinking? After the accidental kiss, you should have let her head home. There's no logical reason for you to be hanging out with her, to continue drinking, You're just asking for trouble.
But as I stepped outside with the bottle of wine in hand, I caught sight of her sitting there, the sunset in the background, and I was overwhelmed by how beautiful she was. And it wasn't just because she was twenty-one, blonde, and had an amazing body. It was a lot more than that. After all, I'd had my opportunities with women her age before and they'd never interested me, not like she interested me.
Her beauty was something different. Sure, she had the pretty blue eyes, the nice figure, the blonde hair, but she had a depth and a substance I was finding to be exceedingly rare of women of any age. Her laugh did things to me that I couldn't explain. And seeing her smile, especially when she was playing with my kids, melted my heart in ways I didn't know was possible.
She made me feel things I hadn't felt since Gina.
She's twenty-one, I cautioned myself. You're thirty-five. There was no way the two of us could possibly have all that much in common; surely not enough to sustain a relationship. I was somebody who needed to be challenged, stimulated. I needed somebody who was on par with me intellectually, somebody who could share experiences and actually carry on a sustained conversation.
As I ran over the checklist in my mind though, I knew that Emma ticked off most every single box I could think of. She was very intelligent. We actually did have much in common and even some shared experiences. We always had something to talk about, and she could talk about some very deep, very heavy topics. And she loved my kids – so, there was that.
Stop it, Marcus, I chided myself. She has her entire life ahead of her and your best days are probably already behind you. Don't screw things up with your neighbors because you have a boner for their daughter. And most of all, don't screw things up for her.
Except, it wasn't like that, at all. I knew that to be true, but it didn't mean it still didn't feel wrong. On so many levels, it did, but on others, it felt insanely right.
“Here you go,” I said, topping off her glass and pouring one for myself.
“Thank you,” she said, turning those beautiful blue eyes toward me.
“So back to our conversation from earlier,” she said. “Maybe you should consider changing careers.”
“Hush,” I said. “Can we not talk about work?”
She looked at me, a slightly disappointed expression on her face. I appreciated that she wanted to help, to offer her perspective and advice, but sitting there with her, the last thing I wanted to worry about was work. I wanted to focus on her. I wanted to figure out if there was any way on this planet that here could be an “us”.
“Then what should we talk about?” she asked, her lips parting to take a sip from her glass. “Oh, I know, how about that horrible woman you went out with the other night. Stacey, was it?”
I shook my head. “You're never going to let me live that down, are you?”
“Not in a million years,” she said.
