My shoulders tense as answers rattle through my brain.
You.
More.
Let’s keep doing this.
I’m falling for you.
I part my lips, tempted to throw caution to the wind and blurt out any or all of the above. Tell her that I need her to enroll for another semester of lessons because I’m not anywhere close to ready to let her go.
But I’ve never said those words before, so I fall back on old habits, waving a dismissive hand. “Just thinking about Monday.”
She nods knowingly. “Ah, the board meeting. Of course.”
But that’s not why I’m thinking of Monday at all.
We’re quieter as we finish our walk, and the air cools off rapidly. By the time we make it back into Manhattan, the sun is sinking behind the horizon, leaving a bitter wind in its wake. I call a car service—Gary isn’t working this weekend—and CJ and I wait inside a coffee shop till a black town car pulls up five minutes later.
Once inside, I say hello to the driver then raise the partition, taking CJ’s hands in mine to warm them up. I rub my palms against hers.
When she lifts her face and meets my eyes, my heart beats faster.
“Hey, you,” she says softly. “I had so much fun today.”
“Me, too. The best time.”
“I’ll miss this,” she whispers, and with those words something inside my chest cracks. It’s out of nowhere, but not unexpected.
It’s been happening all week long. Since she approached me at brunch. Since the night at the St. Regis. Since she settled into my home.
But it was simmering beneath the surface well before that. When I look back on the last two years, this woman has been here, right beside me, every step of the way. She’s seen me at the toughest times and the greatest times.
We’ve endured loss together, and now, somehow, we’ve found ourselves on the other side of grief and in each other’s arms.
And when I look into her eyes, that’s where I want to be. With her.
I drop my forehead to hers and whisper her name. It’s all I can say. I don’t know how to give voice to anything more than this. I never have. I’ve never felt this. I’ve never fallen so hard, so fast, and so truly for a woman.
All I know is how to touch her, so I use a language I’m fluent in, pressing my lips gently to hers in a tender kiss that I hope tells her what I can’t speak aloud. She has to feel it, too, has to know that what’s happening between us is worth investing so much more than seven days.
I move my hands under her shirt then down her yoga pants, peeling them off. “I want to watch you ride me in the car.”
A wicked grin spreads on her face. “Is this a lesson in seduction?”
I shake my head adamantly. “No. It’s not a lesson. It’s what I want. It’s all I want. You’re all I want.”
“You’re all I want, too.”
I push down my jeans, find a condom in my wallet, and roll it down my length as the car weaves through Saturday evening traffic.
Nervousness flashes in her eyes as she glances at the window.
“No one can see us,” I reassure her.
She nods then holds my face. “And I don’t care if they do.”
My heart thumps hard. She’s become so daring. Or maybe she was all along. Maybe she just needed someone to turn the key, to unlock her. God, how I want to be the only one who has that key.