“A part of me did wonder how you got out of the building so fast. At least now I know if it ever happens again, I should checkall the good hiding spots before I assume you’re gone.” The playfulness in his voice is lighthearted.
There he is—my Al. It pleases me to get this glance at him again. Harrison is often so serious that when I get treated to this more easygoing side, it makes me especially happy.
“I should have told you this already, but the way I left that morning had nothing to do with you. You were perfect. You made me forget for a little while how devastated I was when I walked into that bar.” My voice is low-pitched.
I mean it to be comforting, but his body tenses slightly against mine.
“The… the sadness that morning. Did you regret what happened between us?” His voice cracks a few times, and though I suspect he’s seasoned at hiding when he’s in pain, a hint of hurt still rises to the surface when he speaks. I’m desperate to banish that.
I squirm until he loosens his hold on me, and then I twist my body until I’m facing him.
“No,” I whisper. “No to all of that. That night, every moment of it, was spectacular. I didn’t—don’t, I guess—have a lot of experience with sex, but that night with you blew every other time out of the water.”
He grins, and it’s a combination of genuine joy with a touch of cockiness. I smile back at him, but then turn my gaze away.
“But then in the morning, the realities from the day before—the things that brought me to the bar in the first place—slammed back into me and…and that…”
I can’t get the last few words to leave my mouth. Maybe because I wish they weren’t true, but they are.
Harrison touches me under my chin and tilts my head up until my eyes meet his. Then he takes the same hand and cups the back of my head. It’s so tender, so affectionate, that I’m afraid to move, lest he stop doing it.
“And what, Bets? What else made you so sad?”
“That we couldn’t staythem.The people we were that night. I-I really liked us. I liked how I felt. The woman I was that night—the whole night, not just for the naked parts—I’m not sure I’d ever been her before. It broke my heart a little when morning came, and I had to say goodbye to herandto you.”
“Why?” he asks.
I tilt my head and feel my forehead wrinkle in confusion about what he means.
“Why did you feel like you had to say goodbye to either of us?”
A shiver runs through me at the sadness I hear in his words, and Harrison reaches down and pulls the blankets up more. I don’t bother to tell him that I’m not cold. That done, he rests his hand on my shoulder, and I instantly miss it touching the back of my head. I’m not sure why I like that so much, but I do. In a moment of boldness, I grasp his forearm and move it, so his hand cups my head again. There’s the trace of a smile at the corner of his lips and understanding in his eyes.
“Because I’m not her. I wish I could be, but I can’t. I got to be her for one amazing night, but that’s not my real life. I had to leave because you deserve someone like her. It would have been selfish of me to stay.”
Harrison doesn’t reply, but he holds on to me while he rotates onto his back. We end up with half of my body on top of his, and my head resting on his chest. We lie like that and several minutes pass in silence.
“I disagree.” I jolt when he says the words because I figured we were done talking for the night.
Now it’s my turn to remain quiet, mostly because I’m trying to gauge what he’s attempting to communicate.
“I disagree when you say you’re not her. She was witty, determined, and fearless.” I snort at that. “What? It’s true.You’re still all those things, and more. You don’t have to agree with me right now. It doesn’t matter because I liked you a lot that night, and I like you just as much—maybe more—now.”
My breathing picks up with his words. I’m not sure what to say, but it doesn’t matter because he’s not through talking.
“I’m going to go all in here and tell you the whole truth.” He pauses, as if to give me a chance to tell him I don’t want to know. “I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the day we met. Not for even one single day. There has to be a reason for that. I want to be your friend, yes, but I also want to see if we could be something more. I can’t get it out of my head that we were never meant to be just one night.”
My heart pounds against my chest wall.
“Oh, and believe me, there’s no way a hundred men could stop me from kissing you if I knew for sure that you feel even a fraction of what I do for you. If I weren’t worried you’d allow it because you’re trying to push away the emotions of today, I’d never be able to hold back.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Harrison
When Delaney lifts her head off my chest and gazes at me, there’s something in her eyes that reminds me of our night together. She surprises me when she presses her lips to mine. She’s trembling ever so slightly, and I don’t remember her doing so when she initiated our kiss at the hotel. In fairness, there was probably more than a bit of liquid courage in her veins that night.
At first, we’re still as statues with our lips touching each other’s, but not moving. I don’t want to push her, but when she opens her mouth a tiny bit, I take the invitation and allow my tongue to gently test whether she wants more. She moans and separates her lips further when I sweep over them and just inside her mouth. The kiss is soft and sensual, but then it rapidly turns desperate and deepens.
