“I hope you have condoms,” she said. “Because I don’t.”
“I’ve got you covered.” His voice was rough. Unfamiliar. He leaned in and kissed her again, but it was more intense than the kiss they had shared in the square. This time, there was intent. Intent to take her upstairs, to take her clothes off, to take her.
So she embraced it, embraced him, wrapped her arms around his neck, and arched against his body like she was trying to get closer to him, as if she could ever be close enough. Suddenly it felt like she was on fire.
This was Zach Woods. He was touching her. He wanted her.
She wanted to tell everybody.
She also wanted to tell no one, because while it felt like an insane, amazing fantasy, it was also real. Shocking and intimate, and as scary as it was liberating.
“I . . . I don’t know if I . . . I don’t really know . . .”
“Be quiet.” His tone was firm but soft. “Just stop right there. Daisy McNamara, from the moment I met you, I thought you were one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen. But I was wrong. You’rethemost beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
“That can’t be true.”
“Sure it is. Some people think the city is beautiful, and some people think the mountains are beautiful. Beauty takes all different shapes. What gets to be the most beautiful, that’s in the eye of the beholder. To me, you are the pinnacle. This is my fantasy. You don’t have to do anything to fulfill it. Nothing but just be here being you. I’ve never had a real relationship. I got chewed up and spit out by the machine, and it took me a long time to figure out who I was again.”
“Is this theI can’t promise you anythingspeech?”
His eyes glinted in the light and made her stomach drop. “Not exactly.”
“It can be if you want. Because I can’t ... I can’t see past tonight.”
He held her face in his hands, comforting, electrifying. “That’s okay. I don’t need you to. But I also don’t need you to worry or think that you’re not going to please me. Because you already have.”
Everything he said was exactly right, was the sexiest it could be. That she wasenoughjust like she was, and she tried to believe it.
It was so hard when the man who was supposed to love you had gotten tired of you. But she wasn’t going to think about him. She wasn’t going to let him push away this moment.
Jonathan McNamara had taken enough moments in her life.
This was just her and Zach. Maybe it was the beginning of something. Maybe it was just tonight. But she wanted it to stand alone as something significant. She had done long term, and it had burned her badly. She knew better than to try to imagine happily ever after, because apparently twenty years didn’t guarantee it was a happily ever after. So tonight might as well be happily ever after for the night. She might as well give everything to it. She might as well take everything from it.
He kissed her again, and this time he devoured her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been kissed like this, if ever. Deep and slow, the friction created by their tongues maddening. He pulled her body against his, pressed her against the wall, let her feel how much he wanted her.
He wanted her.He wanted her.
He kissed her as he propelled her up the stairs, down the hall, to his bedroom. It was a huge room with a vaulted ceiling. A window on the back wall stretched from floor to ceiling, but there was no covering.
“There’s an internal shade,” he said. “But I just use that to block out the light. No one’s out there to see.”
So he could just walk around naked right in front of the windows. It was certainly an interesting mental image.
She was going to see him naked.
It was like getting hit by lightning. Because of course she understood what was going to happen, but the reality of it was sinking in deeper and deeper.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m so good,” she said. “I’m not really spontaneous usually, so this is kind of extreme for me.”
“We don’t have to do this tonight.” His brow furrowed with concern.
“No. I do. Because I want to. Because Ineedto.”
“It’s not going anywhere. It’ll keep.”
