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“Maybe.” She tipped her head back, giving me a soft smile. “But this is right. If you’d gotten me new boots back then, I probably would have thrown them back in your face.”
Some of the high I’d been on left the building. “God, I was such an asshole.”
“You were, at the end. I mean, there’s no sense in denying that, right?”
“Right.”
She stroked my hair, giving the longer strands gentle tugs. “Can I use another one of my questions?”
“Of course. Anything you want to know, I’ll tell you. There’s no limit, Tali.”
“How did you know I was there that night at the 9:30 Club?”
“Do you really believe…” I shoved my fingers into her hair, moving it away from her face, “you could be in a room with me and I wouldn’t know? You were like a beacon, calling to me. I had to stop myself from jumping off the stage and grabbing you.”
“Ihatewhat you did to our song.”
“Yeah.” I kissed the edge of her bottom lip. “I did that from a dark place.”
“I didn’t want to be there that night. Nina and her girlfriend coerced me into it. They promised me you’d never know I was there.”
Huffing a dry laugh, I kissed the corner of her jaw. “I’m not surprised. The note you left me pretty much broke me. Telling me to have a beautiful life, like you never planned to be a part of it again. I already knew it, but to see it in your handwriting...”
I’d gone straight from the 9:30 Club to a meeting. I hadn’t been tempted to score, but when I got into that spiraling headspace, being surrounded by people in the program was the one thing that always pulled me out.
“I didn’t plan on seeing you again, Jude. That night, I went backstage, thinking we should talk. When I saw you on stage and heard that abomination of our song, it made me ache. And I realized I wouldn’t have been aching if I didn’t still care. But then, Claudia showed up, and I was done for good. I remembered why we had to be done.”
I kissed the arch of her dark eyebrow. “She wasn’t supposed to be there. She and Levin showed up out of the blue. And then you left.”
“I have to be really honest.” Her fingers wrapped around my wrists, pulling my hands from her hair and resting them on her thighs. “I know Claudia’s married and you’re not with her. I understand what I saw in Italy was two friends hugging after spending the day together with her family. Butsheis a sore spot for me I’m not sure will ever heal.”
That scared the shit out of me. The choices I made from pain and addiction were still haunting me. They were haunting Tali too. As much as I knew she was my final destination, I couldn’t will her to trust me and get over the shit I’d pulled.
I kissed her nose and eyelids. “I’m sorry.” I kissed her chin and earlobe. “I’ll work like hell to earn your trust.” I kissed her bottom lip and cheek. “I can’t undo what I’ve done, but I can prove I won’t do it again.”
As I went to kiss her other cheek, she turned her head and caught my lips with hers. We kissed with promises passing between us. Shared pain on the tips of our tongues. I held her face in my hands, and she kept me pressed against her with her legs around my waist.
I don’t know how long we kissed. Could’ve been minutes or hours. We both had work to do, but we needed this more. Nothing had been resolved; that would take more time than we had.
When I slid my tongue against Tali’s, I wasn’t trying to erase the past, but I also wasn’t getting stuck in the mire of it. I tasted the mouth of the thirty-four-year-old woman in my arms. My hands gripped the curves of a woman who was so fucking sure of herself and her place, she didn’t need me. She didn’t need any man. But she wanted me. She came to me willingly, lapped at my imperfections, and came back for seconds.
As much as I wanted to rush, I savoredthis. Tali’s plush mouth on mine, her soft body in my arms, and her thighs wrapped around me.
Pretty sure nothing had ever been sweeter than that.
