“I’m fine,” I say, but his touch on my shoulder gives me a different idea. I shudder a little. “I just want to get out of here.” I don’t want him to think I’m too recovered. If he does, he might end up not touching me anymore. I don’t want this contact to stop. It’s like the place where his skin touches mine is on fire.
He responds immediately to my shudder, drawing me in closer and slipping his arm around my shoulders. “I’ll walk you back to the hotel,” he says. He lifts a hand in thanks once again to the waiter – now much more composed once again – and receives a nod in return. The man even smiles gently at me, as if to say that we’ve survived the ordeal together and can now relax.
The cold of the night air makes me gasp as we step outside. I hadn’t really noticed how long we’d been inside for, evening has come and gone, and it’s fully dark out with a huge drop in temperature compared to earlier. I start to wish I had packed a thicker coat, drawing my thin jacket around myself and shivering.
“You’re cold?” Oz asks, glancing at me tucked under his arm.
I nod. “A brisk walk should help,” I say.
He says nothing but draws his arm away from me. I almost want to complain, but it’s not like I can say out loud that I only want his arm around me more than anything else.
But then my despair turns to relief – and something more, too. Because he’s not just drawing away from me. He’s taking off his coat.
Taking it off and putting it around my shoulders.
“Oh, gosh – you don’t have to…” I start, even though it feels amazing to have the garment fueled by the heat of his body draped around me. My hands go up to the lapels to hold it in place, keeping it close over my shoulders. Instantly, any kind of shiver I might have been feeling is gone. Not just because I have the coat to keep me warm now, but also because a flush is heating me up from the inside.
It’s almost like having his body wrapped around mine, in a way. And that thought has me turning pink from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
“I don’t want you to get cold,” he says, with a certain stoic gruffness, like he won’t hear any argument after this. “I’m used to the temperature here.”
Walking down the street with him now, with his coat around my shoulders, I can’t help but smile to myself. This is everything I wanted. Too bad it required a run-in with some less than savory characters to make it happen – but I’m just enjoying the moment now. I don’t know if it’s going to get any better than this. It would definitely be hard for it to improve, given that I don’t think Oz is ever going to be interested in what I really want.
He’s just too much of a gentleman to let anything happen to me – and too good a guy to let me walk down the street cold.
When we reach the hotel, that same disappointment starts to settle in me again, however. The thought that the night is over. Not just the night, but probably this whole experience. When am I ever going to see him after this?
It was just by chance that we got to see each other here. Well, a little chance, a little design – after all, if I hadn’t chosen to come here myself, then it never could have happened. But I didn’t expect it. That means this is just a bonus. I’ve got to try to keep that in mind. Anything that I’ve shared with Oz today has been a bonus – and so long as I look at it like that, maybe it won’t be so hard to let go.
When we head inside the warmth of the lobby, I reluctantly slip Oz’s coat from my shoulders and hold it out to him. He takes it without a word and folds it over his arm, but when I look up at him expecting him to say goodbye, he just gestures towards the elevator and waits.
I turn and press the button, waiting for it to come. “You don’t have to wait with me,” I say, even though I do want him to wait with me but I don’t want him to feel obliged.
“I’m walking you to your door,” he says. “After what happened earlier, what kind of man would I be to just abandon you in the lobby?”
A smile curves my lips in spite of myself. “I wouldn’t think any less of you.”
“Well, you should,” Oz says, scowling. The elevator arrives and we step inside the small space. “What kind of boys are you running around with back at home because they obviously don’t treat you right.”