His silence is excruciating. He’s staring at me, his eyes full of emotion, but I’m not a mind reader. Is anything I’m saying affecting him? He can’t possibly think I’d lie about this, can he?
“Say something,” I implore him. “Please, I don’t care what it is. Yell at me, curse at me, tell me you hate me, I’ll sit here and take it if—”
My words cut off when he steps forward, taking my face in his hands and crashing his lips against mine. The force of it backs me up several steps, my spine hitting the wall behind me, but the discomfort barely registers because I’m so overwhelmed with emotion, so overcome with relief and hope and hunger for him. I cling to him, kissing him back passionately, thoroughly, roughly, desperate to show him how much I love him—but this time as me, with no secrecy or deceit standing in our way.
It’s like all our restraint, all the lust we’ve kept banked is unleashed in a torrent, the dam broken, his mouth claiming mine as his hands slide possessively over my skin, moving anywhere and everywhere, like he doesn’t know where to start. I fist my hands in his shirt, wishing I could get my paws on the bare skin of his torso, but he’s so tightly bound up in his suit and tie that I can’t defile him the way I want to. I want to rip his shirt open at the placket and send buttons flying. I want to savagely muss his hair until it looks like it’s never seen a brush. I want to shuck off his pants and see if what’s underneath is as impressive up close as it feels pressed against my stomach. I want to climb his body like it’s my own personal jungle gym.
I whimper into his mouth. All of my long-suppressed sexual energy needs an outlet, and the clock has timed out on my patience. My body is locked between him and this wall and it is not working for me. I need to be let loose, wild and untethered, free to ravage him the way I’ve longed to for months.
I think he must crack my unspoken code because one minute I’m nibbling his neck and panting into his ear and the next we’re in a hotel room, like it’s Bewitched and all I have to do is wiggle my nose to magically teleport myself to another location. （Realistically, it likely had more to do with my impatient hands fumbling at his belt buckle and his desire to keep us from being arrested for lewd and lascivious conduct, but, you know, details.）
My arms are wrapped around his midsection from behind, my cheek pressed between his shoulder blades as he keys us into the room. I let go of him so he can shrug off his jacket, then head to the window, pushing aside the heavy drapes so I can take in the view. There’s nothing quite like the city at night: bright and dazzling, with glittering lights as far as the eye can see. “Wow,” I murmur.
“My thoughts exactly.”
I turn and catch his eye, flushing slightly when I realize he’s been watching me. I set my purse down on the desk in the corner and pat at my hair, my artfully undone updo now just undone, with pieces pulled loose from their bobby pins, a casualty of our frantic urgency and his greedy hands. I’m feeling shy all of a sudden, self-conscious . . . or perhaps it’s more like unprepared. Normally I’d plan a night like this down to the tiniest detail, preselecting the perfect aphrodisiacal meal, sultry background music, and lacy lingerie set designed to make him forget his own name.
As usual with Jack, though, nothing goes the way I think it will.
He smiles and holds out a hand. “C’mere.” He always seems to be able to read my mood.
When I take his hand he immediately pulls me into his arms, and I melt into him, resting my head against the shelf of his shoulder.
“Hi,” he says softly, his nose nuzzling a path along my cheekbone, and I hum in response. “What are you thinking about?” His lips tickle my earlobe, sending goosebumps straight to my toes.
“That I wish I wasn’t wearing chicken cutlets.”
His mouth stills in its path. “I’m sorry?”
“You know, the kind of bra you have to wear with a low-back dress? Also known as sticky boobs?” He pulls away, looking perplexed. If this freaks him out, it’s a good thing I’m not wearing one of Betty’s bullet bras. “Never mind. I just meant I don’t have lacy underthings ready to wow you.”
He drops his forehead to my shoulder and laughs into my skin.
“What’s so funny?”
“You are.” He presses a soft kiss to my clavicle before straightening. “Cassie, this whole time I thought you were a virgin.”
What?! I flush with embarrassment, feeling doubly self-conscious now—though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. With how skittish I’ve been, why wouldn’t he think that? “You did seem extraordinarily patient.”
“I thought you were working up the nerve to tell me. I even practiced acting surprised.”
I chuckle at the thought before a new concern takes its place. “Are you . . . disappointed that I’m not?” I ask hesitantly. It taps into my greatest fear, that he might actually prefer the pure and perfect Betty version of me to the real me.
His eyes search my face. “Are you kidding? Of course not.”
“It’s just that you haven’t seemed to mind taking things slow, so I thought maybe . . . stop laughing!” I swat his chest as he laughs huskily. “Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about, okay? There are plenty of men out there who go for the sweet and innocent type.”
His eyes twinkle with humor. “Hi, were you there the night we met? I don’t think anybody’s mistaking you for ‘sweet and innocent.’？”
I pinch his bicep through his sleeve. “Are you trying to run me out of here?”
He grabs my hand and clasps it to his chest before growing serious. “It was never about fast or slow. Cassie, my only goal was to keep you with me.” He swallows, his other hand flexing on my hip. “From the very beginning I knew something was different about you. Or about us, I guess. I couldn’t explain it. I still can’t explain it, really. I just knew it felt right, to be with you. You felt it too, didn’t you?”
I swallow past the lump in my throat, managing a nod.
“But I also knew that one wrong move on my part would scare you off, so I decided early on I was just going to follow your lead. I’d take whatever you were willing to give and wait as long as it took for you to feel comfortable with me.” He squeezes my hand, his gaze charting a heated course all over my face. “And I think my plan worked out pretty well, don’t you?”
His confession steals the breath from my lungs.
“Do you remember when we were in my kitchen, that first night you came over?” he continues, saving me from having to speak, which is a good thing because I have no idea what to say. Words, normally my currency of choice, have completely deserted me. “You were jumpy and hilarious and just . . . so damn beautiful. I couldn’t stop staring at you. And I remember watching you across the kitchen and thinking, What can I do to make sure she stays? I’d give anything for her to just . . . stay.” He huffs a short breath. “I still think it every time I look at you. I’m in love with you too, you know. I’ve been in love with you.”
My throat is raw with unshed tears as I stare up at him, so steadfast and ardent and handsome, more handsome than any man has the right to be. He’s bathed in moonlight, the planes of his face cast in shadow, the pinprick reflections of the city lights sparkling in his blue-black eyes. It’s unfathomable to me that there are people behind every one of those lit windows, living and breathing and going about their lives while my world is so seismically shifting on its foundations. I’m standing on a fault line, the magnitude of his revelations like an earthquake, upending everything I thought I knew.