I set my glass down. “You’ve thought this through.”
“I have.”
“Of course you have.” I paused, because the next words felt larger than real estate. “I know a few places that might work. And someone who can help you find the right one.”
His gaze held mine. “Good.”
Then it flicked to my mouth. “I’ve thought through more than where I’m going to live, Juliette.”
My fingers went still on the stem of my glass. A perfectly respectable snapper sat in front of me, and I had no memory of chewing it.
We didn't linger over dessert.
There were several excellent reasons to stay seated like a civilized adult. The wine was good. The view was better. My entrée deserved closure.
None of those reasons survived Nick’s hand at the small of my back.
He guided me through the restaurant with one hand at my back and enough quiet control to make every private thought dangerously easy.
At my front door, Nick waited while I unlocked it, not crowding me or touching me, but standing close enough for the heat of him to argue with every intelligent decision I had made that day.
“Juliette.”
His gaze dropped to my mouth, then came back to my eyes.
“Open the damn door.”
Inside, the house held the faint scent of lemon polish, old paper, and the jasmine candle I had blown out before leaving. Moonlight fell across the entryway tile. My strappy heels sounded too loud.
Nick stepped in behind me and closed the door. I set my clutch and keys on the console table, turned, and found his hand resting on the deadbolt. He looked too large in my hallway, too steady and too real, no longer a voice on the phone or a memory from South Africa.
After that, the house, the evening, and the last month narrowed to his mouth. I walked back to him, close enough to see the pulse move at the base of his throat. “Lock it.”
His hand went still.
“Juliette.”
“You said you wanted me behind a door you were allowed to lock.”
The click of the deadbolt sounded obscene in my quiet house.
A breath left him.
Then he was on me.
He didn’t rush, because even hungry, Nick was never careless. His hands framed my face, palms rough against my skin, as his mouth took mine with a month of wanting behind it. He pushed me back until my spine met the plaster wall beside the door.
Even now, he stopped short of pinning me. He held himself back in the inch of space between our bodies and in the way his breath hit my skin, hot and uneven. One hand braced against the wall beside my head, fingers sliding into my hair but never trapping me.
The last inch was a choice.
I grabbed his shirt and dragged him across the line.
That control held for one more breath, and then it snapped. The kiss went deeper, rougher, as his weight finally settled against me. One hand dropped to my waist, anchoring me, while the other remained white-knuckled against the wall. The house shrank to the heat of his palm through my dress, the rough glide of his jaw against my skin, and the salt-wine taste of his mouth.
A sound left me, half gasp and half his name, as his hands closed around my thighs and lifted. My back scraped the wall, and then I was eye-level with him, my dress rucked to my hips, my legs parting on instinct.
He didn't set me down. Instead, he shifted my weight and hooked one leg over his shoulder, then the other. “Nick—”
