“Jack,” she whispers.
I gaze at her, wondering how it’s possible to be feeling as strongly about a woman I only met this evening.
She tilts her chin up slightly, and it’s all the invitation I need. I cup her face in my hands and kiss her again. She sinks against me, as if she’s surrendering to me, and my cock presses urgently against the zip of my trousers.
Her delicate fingers hook into my shirt, her fingertips skirting my chest. It’s too much and not enough at the same time.
Again, she pulls away first.
My chest rises and falls. It’s just a kiss. But it feels like everything. Or the start of everything.
“I really like you,” I say, before I can stop myself.
She grins at me. “I really like you.” She shakes her head. “It feels like I’ve known you… more than just a few hours.”
“It really does. Like there’s history between us.”
She nods in agreement. “I don’t think I ever believed in past lives before,” she says. “But it’s like I know you. And you know me.”
She’s echoing my exact thoughts. I sit on the side of the fountain and pull her onto my lap. If I could unzip myself and pull her inside me, I don’t think she’d be close enough.
I don’t think I could know her long enough to ever feel satiated.
I never want to let her go.
Eventually, after kissing for days, we head out of the park. When we get to the road, she won’t let me see her back to her hotel. I don’t invite her back to my place. I don’t want this to be about anything but what it is between us. And it’s so much more than sex. Yes, I’m attracted to her. It might be a month before my hard-on subsides, but I don’t want tonight to be muddied by going to my apartment. What we’ve shared tonight is connection and that transcends a night naked in my bed.
Although if she suggested it, I’m not sure I’d be able to say no.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say, when she rolls down the window of her taxi. She wouldn’t let me order her an Uber, so I handed the driver fifty dollars and told him to get her back safely. “I’ll be waiting on the curb.”
“See you tomorrow.” She smiles and presses her fingers to her lips and blows me a kiss.
It hits me right in the heart.
FIVE
Iris
I wake to my phone ringing. I sit up and grab it from my nightstand just as the screen goes dark. I’ve missed it.
Then I remember what happened last night.
The ballet.
Central Park.
Jack.
And how Jack and I didn’t swap numbers.
Jack.
Jack.
Jack.
I can’t help but smile, just from thinking about him. About how I’m going to see him again this morning. About the way he sat next to me at the ballet. He never really explained that. I make a mental note to ask him about it.
