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To touch her again.
To kiss her without lace rimming her lips.
To confirm what I already knew: that Love was going to be the woman who changed me.
She’d just never given me that chance to prove it to her.
But now, all these years later, she came back into my life. The same woman who had me thinking about her day and night. The woman who mesmerized me with her brilliance.
Her charisma, passion.
Sexiness.
And incomprehensible beauty.
Did I know it was her? Fuck, that was something I didn’t think I could ever answer, but now there was relief that I no longer had to wonder why this gorgeous woman felt so familiar.
I would have done things much differently had I been in her position.
But at twenty-two years old, already buried with a shit ton of responsibility from her employer, trying to finish up her undergraduate degree, and having just lost her mother, she made the decision that felt best for her. At that age, I didn’t know what it was like to feel alone in this world, to have to fully support myself financially. Just because I would have made different decisions, that didn’t mean I was going to punish her for hers.
We all made mistakes; we all lived with some level of regret.
Drake’s just happened to affect my life.
But fuck, it was hard to wrap my head around the fact that two prominent women had taken up most of the real estate in my mind.
And now ...
They were one.
“Why tell you all of this?” she repeated, as though she needed to hear my question again. “I just wanted you to know. I wanted you to hear it from me before you figured it out on your own.” She licked her lips, shaking her head slightly. “This is so much, Easton. I don’t know what it all means or how to even process our kiss from the other night. I’m at Hooked, directing a vital role at your company, working beneath you, and I love my job more than anything. It’s just”—she stopped to breathe—“a lot, like I said.”
“We don’t have to figure out anything right now.”
She nodded gently.
“I just need to know one thing.” I wasn’t going to reach for her hand; I didn’t want my touch to influence her decision. “I need toknow if you have any feelings for me. If this is something—if I’m something—you want. I’m not saying we have to move straight into a relationship or dive head in. I’m not saying this has to instantly turn into something extremely heavy. What I’m saying is”—I felt my voice lower to a growl—“if I lean in to kiss you, would you let me have your lips or would you stop me?”
Emotion slid into her eyes.
“I’ve waited over five years to touch you again, Drake. First with Love. Now ... you.” I rested my arms on the table, my sleeves not high enough, so I pushed them to my elbows. “I don’t know how much longer I can wait, because that kiss ...” My voice drifted off. “It wasn’t nearly enough.”
She glanced down, her hands moving into her lap.
Her face was hidden, not allowing me to read it.
Fuck, it might as well have been covered in lace.
I didn’t know what she was thinking.
How she was feeling.
I just knew what I felt, and I hoped it was enough.
“Easton ...” she whispered, wrapping her arms around her stomach, eventually glancing up at me. “I don’t know that I have any answers right now, but I do know one thing.”
I waited.
