“How come you never talk about it? Italy, I mean.”
He swirled the wine in his glass as if considering the question. “I don’t talk about a lot of things,” he finally said.
“No, I guess you don’t. Why not?”
“I like to look forward, not back. And that was just another time in my life that’s over and done.”
“Bad?”
“No. Good, actually.” The way he said it made me think that the realization surprised him. As if there were far too few good periods lurking in his past.
“I’ve always thought it would be exciting to live in another country. Italy’s not on my list, but I have a fantasy of living in Paris for a year. I want to see all the seasons change on the Champs-Elysées.”
“And are you alone in this fantasy?”
I took a long sip of my wine, my eyes on Cole. “No,” I said simply.
He leaned back on the couch, then patted his legs. I stretched out, my feet on his lap, a glass of wine in my hands. I glanced at the rug where he’d made me come, and couldn’t help but think how quickly things had shifted from scorching hot to sweet.
“You have to pay attention around here,” Cole said, apparently reading my mind. “Things move awfully fast.”
“They do indeed.”
“I’ll tell you about Italy someday.”
I peered at him. “I thought you didn’t look back.”
“I thought you wanted to know.”
“I do,” I said. What I didn’t add was, I want to know everything. But I think he heard that last part, anyway.
We sat that way for a moment, all soft and comfortable. He held his wine in one hand and stroked my calf with his other. It felt warm and sweet and I should have known it was too good to last.
It wasn’t obvious—I’m not even sure I could point to a particular thing. But the pressure of his touch changed, and the tenderness took on a hesitant quality. I got the feeling he was a man who believed that a storm was coming, and feared that it would rip the ground out from under him.
“Will you tell me what’s the matter?”
He’d been looking at his hand on my leg, the contrast of his dark skin and my too-pale legs. By the end of summer, I’d be the same golden brown as a waffle, but this early in the season I was still winter white. Now he lifted his head to look at me directly.
“This is nice,” he said.
“I can see why that would bother you.”
“I like seeing you this way, the contentment so thick around you I could paint it. And I like touching you, being close to you.”
“I like it, too.” I couldn’t manage to hide the wary note in my voice.
“You were right when you said you could handle it. Tonight—all this. Everything since you walked through my door. You’ve been everything I wanted and more than I could expect.”
I licked my lips. He was saying all the right things, and yet cold fingers of fear were creeping up my spine.
“You handled it,” he said again. “But what about the rest of it?”
“Don’t do that. Don’t assume you know things. You don’t.”
“Don’t I?”
My temper flared. “No, you don’t. You tried to scare me away earlier—talking about wanting the pain, wanting to hurt me.”