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“Jenna,” he said sternly. “What crazy things are you thinking right now?”
“You don’t want to know. Go ahead. What did you want to talk about?”
He closed his eyes briefly, as if summoning either patience or courage. Or both. Or something else. Maybe a demon. God. Just say it. My brain is going in circles here.
“I want you to know that I’m serious about this. Us.”
“Serious?” She could feel her eyes going wide and her face flushing. “What do you mean?”
“I’m not going into this casually. It’s real for me.”
What did that mean? Real? Serious? He didn’t mean…he couldn’t mean get back together. Impossible. What if they screwed it up again? They couldn’t take that chance.
She opened her mouth, not entirely sure what words would come out, but he spoke first.
“Before you come at me with a million questions, the answer is, I don’t have all the answers. I just know I’m serious. Whatever that looks like, we can figure it out together.”
Something was missing here. She couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but it felt like they’d skipped a step. Why were they all of a sudden talking about “figuring things out” when they were supposed to be having fun in bed?
She didn’t want to hash things out. If they talked too much, they might stumble on an obstacle they couldn’t figure out. And then she’d be back where she started, sex-starved and craving him.
“Can’t we just get into bed and see how we feel afterwards?”
He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, looking troubled. “I just think we should be really clear and honest with each other, for the sake of the boys.”
“Okay, then let’s be clear.” She put a hand on his chest and pushed him toward the bed. “I have no idea what this means, us going to bed. But I want you and you want me. I don’t expect anything. Neither should you. The only thing we need to do is protect the boys. They don’t need to know anything yet, because this could go anywhere or nowhere. But it’s definitely going nowhere unless you get that Elton John robe off your body immediately.”
He laughed, shaking his head, but he didn’t resist when she untied the gold rope at the waist of his robe. Underneath, he wore nothing. Not even boxers. And lord almighty, she’d forgotten what a beautiful piece of man-art he was.
“Then I’ll be honest too,” he said. “I don’t know where it’s going, but I know where I want it to go.”
“Is it somewhere where we can just have sex and not talk so much?”
“Not exactly, but—”
She sealed his mouth with a kiss. There was a point at which talking didn’t necessarily clarify things. The mind had a way of gathering clutter, like a magnet attracting tin cans. Bodies, on the other hand…that was pure. Pure desire. Pure attraction. Pure physical need.
After a short hesitation, which felt like an eternity to her, he seemed to make up his mind. He crushed her mouth with his, using both hands to cradle her head. His hands were so strong, his grip so tender, his mouth so hungry…her head spun and she had to grip his shoulders to stay steady.
With one hand, he untied the ribbon that held her nightgown together. After the silk parted, he cupped her breast with his hand. Warm rough skin against her nipple. Her flesh filling his palm. She gasped from the delirious joy of it. They were doing this. They were doing this.
“You’d better steal this nightgown,” he murmured against her lips. “Either that or I’m buying you one just like it. I nearly came in my robe when I saw you.”
“If you do that, you’ll have to steal the robe too.”
He chuckled and lowered his head to drop kisses along her neck. He moved more slowly than she expected, more slowly than he used to. His deliberate pace told her he was savoring it more, as if each kiss was the most important one in the world. As if he found every inch of her skin worthy of his entire focus and attention.
Billy had always been a considerate lover. They’d learned together how to please each other, and they had always done so. He’d never left her hanging. But there was something different now. She got the sense that each moment of contact held worlds inside it. Emotion, appreciation, gratitude, an entire story of growing up and changing and learning.
That was probably just her imagination doing what it always did—going wild and confusing the hell out of her.
He reached her clavicle, and drew his tongue along the sweep of it. His warm breath on her skin made her eyelids flutter. “Billy,” she whispered.
“Hmmm.”
But she couldn’t put her question into words. What’s behind that tenderness? What are you feeling? What’s in your heart?
He slid the silky robe away from her shoulders and continued his parade of kisses down the middle of her chest. She should have been cold, standing there in the barely heated room. But she wasn’t, not with the heat they were generating.
