“No,” she finally said. “I mean, you’re fun to tease too, but it’s… different.”
Different how?He wanted to howl the question, but instead she threw the conversation back at him.
“Erik.” Her voice was serious but gentle. “I need you to explain.”
He didn’t ask her to clarify. Releasing a long breath, he tipped his head to the sky and prepared to mine the most disappointing parts of himself. “I lied to you about being engaged to Gina. But I lied to my grandfather about it first.”
Josie said nothing, so he continued.
“I’ve known her since we were kids. Her parents weren’t the best, so she was at our place pretty often.” He paused to sort through his memories of the dysfunction that had filled every corner of Gina’s unhappy childhood home, particularly after she’d come out to her parents in high school. “Pops loved her. He wanted me to love her. And I do, but not the way he meant. I tried though.”
He lapsed into silence as images of his grandfather’s strong body wasting away in a hospital bed surfaced. “He spent his last weeks in the Mayo Clinic. Complications from a rare blood cancer.”
Josie’s head bobbed once as if she’d just slotted a puzzle piece into place. “That’s why you knew so much when I was making plans for Richard.”
“It’s not a great thing to be experienced in, believe me.” The sky above them was empty of stars thanks to the city’s light pollution. He’d never not find that disorienting. “The only thing he could focus on at the end was me. My future. He wanted me to forget about baking and move back to the farm. Marry Gina. Have a stable life. And never, ever live like my mother, chasing pointless, risky dreams. And I promised him I would.”
He clenched the metal railing, welcoming the scrape of rust on the underside against his fingers as remorse clogged his throat. He’d done everything his grandfather had begged him not to do. Sold the farm. Risked it all on a likely-to-fail new business. Set his sights on a woman who was Gina’s polar opposite in almost every way.
Josie shifted against the railing. “So you told a kind lie to a dying man you loved very much.”
He nodded, unable to speak.
“Has it occurred to you that you eased his final days, and that’s no reason to punish yourself for the rest of your life?”
Sure. Because forgiving himself was that easy. He risked a glance at her beautiful face and found her serious and unusually still in the silvery moonlight.
“And that day in your apartment?” she asked.
From one bad memory to another. He peeled his fingers off the railing and shoved them in his pockets. “I’m so sorry. I never meant to make you feel…”
“Unwanted?”
Her bereft tone tore at him. “Never that. Never, ever that.” He turned toward her. “You scare the shit out of me, woman.”
His honesty startled a laugh out of her. “What? How?”
The suit jacket suddenly felt three sizes too small. Truth telling made him feel even bulkier than usual.
“I’ve never met anyone like you.” He shook his head. “Nobody makes me feel the way you do.”
Her breathing quickened. “How, Erik?”
“How am I different than Jake?” He shot the question back, and she laughed softly.
“You make me feel…”
Her words trailed off, and a strange compulsion took over him. Before she could finish her thought, he cupped her jaw as words came spilling from his mouth, each one more revealing than the last. “Do you feel like trailing your lips all over my skin until you’ve explored every inch of me? Like a circuit will blow in your brain if you can’t kiss me again? Like you only spark to life when I’m around? Because that’s how you make me feel.”
She swallowed, and because he hadn’t moved his hand away, he felt every delicate twitch of her throat muscles.
“I didn’t think you were capable of speaking that many words in a row,” she said with a breathless laugh.
“Only with you,” he said. And inexplicably, he had still more words for her. “I want to feast on every word that tumbles from your mouth. I want your smiles all to myself. Your laughter should belong to me.” He brushed his thumb along her lower lip and inhaled hard when her tongue darted out to stroke along his skin. “I want to rip apart every man who touches you. Every man who even looks at you.”
“Even Jake?” Her breath trembled across his thumb, and he responded instantly.
“EspeciallyJake,” he growled, uncaring that his jealousy was oozing through the cracks in his crumbling defenses.
