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Kristen is unlike any woman I’ve met. She’s strong and persistent; driven and resilient; kind and compassionate; and deeply vulnerable. In the conversations we’ve stolen over the last year, she’s opened herself up and shared her dreams, the mistakes she’s made with the people in her life, her fears of being rejected by her father, and some of the hurt she’s experienced at his hands. She’s also talked about her boyfriends with me and asked all kinds of questions about how guys think.
She’s not afraid to search beneath the surface. It’s this part of her that pulls me in the most.
“I heard you and Shelby broke up. Are you okay?”
Kristen and I have never exchanged numbers, we’re not friends on social media, and we don’t see each other outside of these minutes we steal. It’s become an unspoken agreement; we keep these moments between us and we don’t take them back into our lives.
Except, I do.
I suspected I wanted more with her from the moment she told me she was searching for her prince but wouldn’t rely on him for things like returning her shoes. IknewI wanted more when she told me she wanted to help women rise.
I couldn’t do anything with those feelings though because I was six months into a relationship that I thought was going somewhere. And Kristen was in a relationship too. I’m not the kind of guy to cheat on a woman or cut in on another man, so I went back to my life and let her go back to hers. When my relationship broke up a few weeks later, I took time off dating to figure some things out. A couple of months later, I looked Kristen up on social media and discovered she was dating another guy. She looked happy, so I let her be.
Our timing has been off all year. Each time we’ve run into the other, at least one of us has been dating someone. We’ve become one long missed connection.
“Shelby and I were never going to be long term,” I say.
“How’s your father taking the news?” She gives me a knowing look. I’ve spoken about my presidency ambitions with her, along with my father’s expectations, so she knows his expectations of me marrying a woman who can contribute to our political aspirations.
“As well as you’re assuming.”
She places her hand on my arm. “I’m sorry. Even if someone wasn’t going to be long term, it doesn’t mean they didn’t leave their mark on your heart.”
Kristen’s touch heats my veins like it always does. And just like every other time she’s reached for me, I’m held hostage by her.
I feel closer and more connected to Kristen than to women I’ve spent far more time with. When she puts her hands on me, it’s like she’s touching parts of me that have never been touched. Parts I’m desperate for her to touch over and over.
I glance down at her hand. At her fingernails that are covered in bling. They seem out of character for her. She likes getting dressed up but never this much.
“Do you like my crystals?” she asks as I inspect them.
I meet her gaze. “Do you?”
Kristen’s mouth curls up into a smile. “No, but you already know that, don’t you?”
“Why are you wearing them, then?”
“Well”—she twirls, showing me the back of her dress—“they match the crystals all over my dress.”
“Fuck.” The curse falls roughly from my lips, slowing Kristen all the way down. Her movements, her gaze, her breaths.
The front of her floor-length dress already has my attention with the way it clings to her curves and leaves her shoulders bare. It’s secured around her neck with a thin strap and reveals a hint of cleavage where some of the fabric is cut out. But the back of the dress is a whole other story. There’s nothing covering her skin but a few glittery straps that help hold the dress up, and it scoops low, only just covering the top of her ass. An ass that she clearly works hard for, and one I would kill to get my hands on.
“So, you don’t like my crystals but you like my dress,” she says, her voice low and breathy.
I drag my eyes from her body. “It’s not the dress I like, Kristen.”
Neither of us have hidden our attraction, but besides the way we look at each other, we’ve never openly acknowledged it. I don’t have it in me anymore to keep my thoughts to myself.
She’s lost for words for a moment, and when she does find them she doesn’t acknowledge what I said. “My sister convinced me to get the bling on my nails. She loves it, but I’m not so sure.”
I want to move into her.
I want to put my hands on her.
I want to tell her I’m done with missed connections.
But I don’t.
