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Chapter 22
The taste of her still in his mouth, the scent of her body ingrained in him , her body wrapped in his arms, Jordan wondered how he was going to board that flight to D.C. the next day when his heart was no longer his own.
The flight. It was a reality check that added to the long line of other realities that he had to face with this green-eyed surprise.
He pressed Hope closer against him and breathed in her auburn hair that was tousled across his chest. Reality would have to wait a little longer. He needed savoring this moment.
“Chemistry-ly speaking, what just happened here?” he asked, smiling at the prospect of a lecture that might follow this question.
Hope tilted her head up and saw his smile.
“You’re asking for real?”
“For real.” He kissed the freckled bridge of her nose.
“Dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, to name a few hormones. We’re flooded. They’re like opiates to the receptors in our brains, and just like opiates, they’ll soon subside.”
“Romantic.” He smirked at her. “And then what happens, at least according to science?”
“It varies.”
“Can we raise the levels again?”
“We can. Some studies show that …” She didn’t finish the sentence and blushed.
“That what?”
“That, like opiates, they’re addictive.” Her cheeks glowed, and her smile was that awkward one he had seen before, as she hurried to rest her head back on his chest.
He loved that smile. This woman was full of surprises. If he had to be honest with himself, he hadn’t expected the wild version of her that he had just experienced—he was pretty sure that his back was thoroughly scratched. Then again, he shouldn’t have been surprised, given how often she had lost control of the feelings that reflected in her eyes and the words that dropped from her mouth. Her body reacted to his like a loose cannon and drove him to the brink.
But what caught him off guard the most was the explosion of feeling he had experienced, along with the physical. It surpassed anything he had ever felt before. And she was right. It was addictive.
He veered his head and caught her mouth in a kiss. “Can science explain why I don’t want to go?” he half-whispered against her lips. Were unintended, premature truths dropping out of his mouth uncontrollably now, too?
Hope raised herself again and leaned her cheek on her elbow. A mess of emotions collided in the green forest of her eyes. She was slaying him with those.
He reached and swept back the bangs that had fallen into her eyes.
“Didn’t you just take on a new project and pack up the house?”
“I did, but I can do some of the work from here. And I need the space to be away from there.”
“Why?”
He gritted his teeth. Could she handle even part of the truth?
“It could be rewarding. Not just financially, I mean in many other ways. But it can also take over you, over your soul. There are so many covert and conflicting interests. Words can mean one thing one day and another the next until you don’t know what’s and who’s real anymore. Until you doubt yourself. It’s like poison—you think you get used to it, but it’s killing you slowly from the inside.”
“And still you go back.”
“That’s why I need the space—to keep myself real.”
She scrutinized him, but her gaze was soft. Could he tell her more? The whole truth?
As if she had sensed his inner thoughts, Hope’s next question unsettled him.
“How was it working for Sharon Rush?”
