“Who says you have to?” I kissed his head. “I’m fine with staying like this forever.” It felt like that magical hour when the clock moved toward midnight and you sensed that anything could happen the moment those two hands kissed at the top of the dial. “You’re staying, right?”
“I wouldn’t think of leaving you. Not after tonight.” He rested on top of me for another minute, then pulled out and disposed of the condom. He sat next to me on the bed and said, “Staying with you is a great idea.”
I sat up and ran my hand down his leg. “I’m full of good ideas. Just wait.”
Chapter Twenty
I didn’t need much convincing to get back in Ezra’s bed. But for all that he’d been so sweetly pliant underneath me, once the haze of lust had vanished, he bounced off the bed, took me by the hand, and led me to the bathroom.
Instead of turning on the water, he pushed me against the door. “I love how you smell, like oranges and cinnamon, and I hate to wash that away, but”—he pressed his smiling face into the crook of my neck and sniffed, then licked my madly beating pulse—“we need to clean up. Me especially.”
“And now me,” I said with a smile. “Look what you did.” I stepped aside and pointed at my belly, where he’d rubbed against me.
“Good.” His eyes sparkled. “We get to wash each other, then. Come on.” He opened the door to his large, tiled shower, and we stood under the warm spray. Ezra pumped liquid soap into his hands and swirled them over my torso. The cool scent he always wore filled the steamy air.
“And I get to smell like you. I love your smell.”
His mouth tipped up in a lazy smile as he soaped his stomach. The gleaming golden skin peeked out from between his fingers and the fluffy suds. “You do? Tell me more.”
“Mmhmm.” I slid my hands around his shoulders. “Fishing for compliments? We may be here a while.”
“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” He leaned forward and captured my mouth, and we stood kissing under the rainfall showerhead. He reached back and turned off the water, and in between drying off, we continued those mind-blowing kisses. “I’m glad you decided to stay and didn’t run off.”
“Run off?” I ran my hands through his thick damp hair. Without its sleek styling, it lay in golden waves around his face, and coupled with his amber, green-flecked eyes, he looked more lion-like than ever.
“I wasn’t sure. The last time…in your apartment…you acted like I was performing a service.” He blinked, looking less like the smooth-talking Ezra who teased his way through conversations and more vulnerable, almost hesitant.
“I was wrong.”
“About what?” We walked to the bedroom, Ezra handed me a T-shirt and boxers, and we dressed.
“You. Us. The way it used to be.”
“I think I’m going to need a drink for this explanation.” He nudged me. “I have a feeling you’re going to get all technical and doctor-y on me.”
My lips twitched. “Doctor-y? What’s that?”
His smile was ambiguous. “One sec.” He left me to go to the refrigerator, where he pulled out two beers. “Here you go.” Bottles in hand, we resumed our places on the couch—Ezra sitting in the middle and me resting against the arm. “Okay, Dr. Friedman. Give me the analysis.”
I set my bottle on the coffee table. “I’m trying to be serious here. I’ve been looking at our situation all wrong, and that’s why it hasn’t been working between us.”
An unexpectedly limber move from Ezra brought him to my side and his bottle joined mine. “Oh? I don’t know…” He carded his fingers through my hair, and my breath grew short. “I thought it was working pretty damn well just before.”
Damn the man.It was as if our having sex had opened the floodgates, and everything I’d been holding inside all those years spilled out. “I-I’m not saying that. What I meant is”—I gave him a stern glance and pulled his hands away from my head—“I was treating us like our emotions had remained stagnant. I wasn’t taking into account our life experiences and maturity.”
“As I predicted,” he murmured and leaned forward to brush his lips to mine. “Doctor-y.”
“And you’re distracting.” Ezra had me trapped between the armrest and his body, and from the gleam in his eyes, he knew it.
“I’ve been called worse,” Ezra teased.
“I know. By me.” Still holding his hands, I gave them a squeeze. “But do you understand what I’m trying to say? I wasn’t taking you seriously. All I knew was the Ezra of twenty-three years ago. Not the man you are today.”
His shoulders slumped in defeat. “And who is that? After the conversation with my mother, knowing how she deceived me…both of us, really, I don’t know anymore.” I flinched at the pain etched on his face. “Do you know how I feel? Like my legs have been knocked out from under me and I’m looking at the world upside down, flat on my back. Your disappearance from my life was like having a piece of me removed without anesthesia. It hurt so fucking bad.”
Somehow I pushed the words past my frozen lips. “I didn’t know.”
“You couldn’t. But it messed me up. If you could leave me, the person I’d loved so much, who knew the real, whole me, then anyone would. So why bother ever getting close? I figured they’d leave me too. Everything remained on the surface, light and easy to walk away from. I’ve had plenty of sex, but love?” Ezra shook his head. “Never. And now? How can I trust anyone? Who’s supposed to love you more than your parents—especially your mother? But you don’t lie to someone you love. You don’t deny the most essential part of them. You don’t set out to deliberately hurt the one you love.”
