Nights With Him(78)
“She knows about us, right?”
He nodded. “She wants me to date again,” he said, the words coming out easily. Everything was becoming increasingly easy to say to her. Maybe it was her warmth, her lack of judgment, her kindness that made talking to her simple. Even about things he didn’t usually share.
“Because of Aubrey?”
Like this topic. “Yeah.”
“I think that’s common with widowers. The family always wants to set the man up with a new woman not too long after and vice versa. There’s a whole subset of the romance novel genre with widower heroes.”
He cringed inside, gritting his teeth. Okay, maybe it wasn’t so easy when he hadn’t come clean with all the details. When she still operated under the illusion the rest of the world had about him. “Yup. I know all about that.”
“Remember when you told me at dinner that you don’t really miss her anymore? Is that why you came to me in the first place? To be able to move on and let go of all that missing?” she asked, her voice quiet to keep the conversation private. The low hum of the airplane flying through the night was like a shield; their words were just for them.
But how could he answer her without lying? He was tired of being weighed down with guilt, and with the public’s misperceptions about his emotional state, or lack thereof. Obviously, he’d been devastated by Aubrey’s death. He wasn’t a cruel asshole who had no feelings. He was broken when it happened, and in the days and months that followed, he missed her in the way you miss a close friend. But he wasn’t grieving a lost love, a significant other.
He didn’t want to waste a single ounce of energy with Michelle on anything but the truth. He couldn’t lie to her, not when she was so patently open with him about so many things. He shook his head. “No.”
She raised an eyebrow. “No?”
“It’s not missing that I came to you for. It was other feelings. Guilt. Regret,” he said, biting out the honest words.
She shot him a sympathetic smile, cupped his cheek in one hand. “It’s normal to feel all that as well. I hope you’re starting to let go of that too,” she said, then ran her thumb across his lips, almost as if she were wiping away the rest of the conversation, exonerating him of the need to expand on what he’d said. He’d managed not to lie; but he hadn’t revealed the whole truth. That would have to do for now. It was a step. A small one, but it brought him closer to this woman who always seemed able to share her whole self.
Well, except overnight.
“Besides, it’s hard for me to think of anyone but you,” he said, and it was freeing to say something that was incontrovertibly true. He kept his gaze on her the whole time, searching her eyes for her reaction. The expression in them matched the one in his, making his heart thump harder against his chest.
“I feel the same,” she whispered, and it was as if a layer of the ice he’d encased his heart in split wide open, letting loose what lay beneath. He could feel that damn organ trying to wriggle free from the chill he’d wrapped it in.
“That guy you mentioned the first night we went to dinner?” he asked, and she nodded, so he kept going. “Do you still think about him? You said you were in love with him for ten years.” Maybe he was playing the shrink now, asking her questions about her past. But it wasn’t a question borne from a game, or pretend therapy. He was asking as the man who wanted her all to himself. Who didn’t want to share space in her head or her heart with anyone else. The more he had of her, the more he wanted. And he wanted it all.
She shook her head, her lips curving up in a smile. “You’re the only one I think about now, Jack.”
He cupped the back of her head, pulled her close, his lips brushing hers. “I want you so much. I don’t know how to go this whole flight without being inside you.”
She laughed. “You are a two-track man.”
He laughed too. “I told you so.”
“But aren’t you the one who taught me about holding back?”
“Yes. Ignore all I’ve ever said on that.”
“Just think about how amazing it will be when we finally make it to the hotel,” she said in a sexy purr.
A low rumble worked its way up his chest as he pictured her naked, spread out on white sheets for him. “I want to walk into a hotel room and find you with your hand between your legs.”
“That might happen. But there’s something else I want to do while we’re in Paris,” she said, taking time with each word then pulling back to meet his eyes. Her teeth were pressed into her lower lip, the only sign she was nervous.