Unable to keep myself upright under the force of it, I swayed backward, wanting to fall forever.
Dan caught me. Standing abruptly, his strong arm reached around my waist and brought me against him. He held me and I clung to him, my fingers tangled in his jacket, feeling like I’d just run a million miles and was now enclosed in a perfect, Dan-scented cloud of awesome.
It took me a while—a long while—to emerge from the blissful fog. When I did I became aware of three things:
1. Dan was placing light, loving kisses on my neck, jaw, and cheeks, as though he were using his lips to feel my skin.
2. His arms were around me, his hands on my waist and back, and everything about the way he held me felt perfect. Absolutely perfect.
3. While I’d been lost to the frenzy of passion, I’d told Dan that I loved him.
It was this last realization that had me tensing, holding my breath, and wondering who was going to win between my racing heart and mind.
He must’ve felt the shift in me because his lips stalled on my neck, just behind my ear.
Straightening, his arms loosened so he could lean away and catch my gaze. On his face he wore a small, knowing, satisfied smile, and, apparently, our recent tryst had done nothing to bank the simmering desire in his eyes.
“Hey there, Kat.”
I stared at him, my mind calming. My heart also slowed, but each beat reverberated like a drum within me, my blood pumping thick and hot.
“Dan.”
“Yeah?” He pushed his fingers into my hair, closing his eyes and bending to place an achingly gentle kiss on my mouth.
“Dan,” I sucked in a breath, and then blurted, “I love you.”
The words were torn from me, from someplace wild and frenzied, and felt so raw and real that my throat burned.
His eyes opened, blinked, and he gazed at me, as though he found me curious. Or maybe he found what I’d said strange.
“What?”
“I love you.” I held fast to his jacket, feeling an odd sort of desperation that he know—right now—that I loved him, that I loved him so much, that he was my love.
His eyebrows pulled low as he stared at me. “Uh . . .” Reaching for my hands, he tried to loosen them, force me to release my death grip on his jacket. “Kat,” he laughed lightly, though there was no humor in the sound, more like irritation and bewilderment. “While I appreciate the thought, you don’t have to say that.”
I shook my head, the desperation that he know becoming a rising tide. “I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true. I lov—”
Dan stepped away, shaking his head firmly. “Okay, okay.” Now he looked truly perturbed. “Maybe let’s talk about this later? When the last few minutes aren’t your most recent memory of me.”
As I reached for him again, he stepped out of my radius and to the side. After a brief moment of hesitation, where he continued looking perturbed, he walked around the desk and to the conference table.
“Are you hungry?” His voice was higher than normal. He sounded strained.
And now I was confused. I blinked at him, at his back, because it was the only thing he was giving me.
Shaking my head, I slipped off the desk on to wobbly legs, pushing my skirt back over my hips as I watched him open the plastic bags and withdraw plastic takeaway containers.
“I didn’t know which kind you wanted, so I got you both,” he said, his voice no longer pitched high. He sounded like himself, just . . . distant.
Wait a minute.
Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute.
He didn’t believe me. Why didn’t he believe me? Had I done something wrong? What had I done wrong? And if I’d done something wrong, why hadn’t he told me?
Dread, like a cold hand, slithered up my spine, threatening to close around my throat. I beat it back.
No. You haven’t done anything wrong. You trust him, so trust him.
The desk and most of the room was between us when I lifted my voice to a near shout, “I love you.”
He tensed, his shoulders bunching, and he placed his hands on the conference table, leaning against it as his head dropped forward. Dan sighed again. It sounded frustrated.
Then he turned, crossing his arms, his chin lifted, and I was not prepared for the remoteness in his gaze. “You just had your first orgasm without alcohol, right?”
“So?” Mimicking his stance, I also crossed my arms, the desperation that he know I loved him became something else, a cold rock in my stomach gradually heating with anger. “So what?”
He shrugged, giving me a little bullshit smile, like I should connect the dots.
“So what?” I asked again, louder this time, sharper.
His eyes narrowed and his jaw ticked, more distance, more frustration. “So, you’re not thinking straight. You’re confusing what just happened with something deeper.”