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I can’t finish the sentence. It’s as if my tongue ties itself.
“It did,” he says passionately. “Knowing you’d never been with another man. I won’t lie. It turned me on.”
“Why?” I ask.
His jaw pulses and his temples do the same.
“A man doesn’t always know why something excites him,” he says after a pause, and I want to scream.
What sort of answer is that?
“One of us should be strong,” he goes on. “End this now.”
While we can, is the unspoken thing.
I think. I hope. Like he’s as compelled as I am.
“It should be me. I’m almost twice your age.”
“Why does that matter?” I snap, sitting up.
“I’m the older man. You’re the younger woman. It’s a tale as old as time, and few people disagree about the moral. I’m the one taking advantage here.”
I clench my fists, shaking my head. “No, I don’t agree with that at all. I could’ve stopped you any time I wanted earlier. I didn’t because I was as caught up in the moment as you were. If I wanted to stop, I could. If I told you to pull the car over and let me out, you’d do it, wouldn’t you?”
“As long as I knew you’d be safe,” he says.
“I mean… you’re not going to force me to do anything, are you?”
“Of course not.”
“So there you go. Or what is it… you don’t think I’m mature enough?”
It’s like my crush is bursting out in my words, guiding them, making me almost yell with the force of it.
“I don’t know,” Bryson says. “I don’t knowyou, Harper, not very well. I’d like to, though.”
“Let me tell you,” I reply. “I’m not a little kid. I haven’t got my head in the clouds. You didn’ttake advantageof me. The pleasure, the guilt, all of it. We share it.”
He nods, glancing at me, a conflicted expression on his captivating face.
“You know that makes this more difficult. If you’d told me you weren’t sure, you regret it, something like that…”
“But I don’t. I won’t lie.”
He sighs. “Neither will I.”
More silence. More driving.
The city lights are calling to us as we join the bridge, as Bryson deftly handles the vehicle. Each time he touches the wheel or the gear, I wish it was my body instead.
“So what you’re saying is you don’t think I’m too much of an old man for you, huh?”
He speaks with irony, making me smile, and then—before I can overthink myself out of it—I reach over and playfully jab him.
“You’re not an old man. If anything, I like our age gap. It’s the least of our problems.”
We’re talking as though a relationship is a prospect, not just a crazed clashing of lust, though we haven’t discussed it and I’ve got no clue if he would want it.
