“That,” I say, still catching my breath, “is what your hands can do to me. I need you to remember this.”
“I’ll never forget.” His mouth curves against my shoulder. “Come here,” he says, and he turns my chin until my mouth meets his.
This kiss is different from every other one tonight. The desperate edge is gone. The tenderness of it after the intensity makes my chest ache.
When we pull apart, his forehead stays against my temple. His kiss is the softest thing that has happened in this bathroom, his mouth moving against mine like we have all the time in the world. We don’t. Visiting hours always have an expiration date. But right now, sitting on his lap with his breath warm on my face, I let myself pretend.
His hands loosen on my back. I climb off his lap to clean up, my legs shaky. The tile is cold under my bare feet and the fluorescent light is doing its absolute worst. None of it matters.
I try to make myself presentable again at the sink. I fix my jeans and splash water on my face while Mickey watches me from his chair. I glance at us in the mirror. Both shirtless. Both a mess.
“We need to put our shirts back on,” I say, grabbing mine from the counter. I hop down and pick his up from the floor, then toss it to him.
I pull mine over my head and spend forty-five seconds wrestling my hair into something that doesn’t scream‘I let a man wreck me against a bathroom sink’. Then I unlock the door and check the room.
“All clear,” I say, like we’re in a heist movie.
“You watch too many movies,” he says, but he’s smiling.
He wheels out of the bathroom and I follow. The pizza box is still sitting on the tray table where I left it, but nothing is the same. We both know it. Neither of us has to say it.
“I’m starving,” I say. “How about you? Apparently, doing the dirty in a bathroom works up an appetite.”
“Apparently,” he says, and the grin on his face is so wide and so new that I want to photograph it.
I can’t resist leaning down to grab his face and kissing him again. Just because I can. “I can definitely get used to this,” I tell him. “Be forewarned. I’m not going to be able to keep my hands off you. Or my mouth.”
“Looking forward to it,” he says.
I open the pizza box and load up a paper plate with pizza for him.
“How did you know my favorite pizza toppings?” he asks.
I roll my eyes at him. “Seriously? You think I don’t know all kinds of things about you by now? Especially what you like to eat?”
“That’s another reason I’m the lucky one,” he says.
We don’t talk much while we eat. The pizza is good and his knee is touching the side of my thigh. Every few bites he looks at me with a grin that guts me, and I grin back.
After dinner he reaches for my hand. Both of his around one of mine. His thumb on my knuckles. He lifts it and presses his lips against my fingers.
“What time do you have to leave tomorrow?” he asks.
“Early. I’ve got a vendor call tomorrow evening and an early morning venue walk through the day after. I need to allow plenty of time since Miami traffic doesn’t negotiate. I don’t want to talk about tomorrow yet.”
“Then we won’t,” he says.
“I want to talk about tonight. About what just happened in that bathroom. Because I need you to know that wasn’t impulsive. I’ve been thinking about kissing you forever. My hands were shaking. Did you notice?”
“I noticed.”
“Were yours?”
“Yeah,” he says. “But I wasn’t going to let you see that.”
“I saw it anyway. When you reached for my face. Your fingers were trembling.” I squeeze his hand. “I’m glad they were. It means all this scares you too.”
“It scares the hell out of me.”
