be woman enough to say what I feel as I force myself to meet his eyes once more. ‘And you barely know me, or you wouldn’t have rung Olga without clearing it with me first.’
‘Point taken.’ He inclines his head, almost as though he thinks I’m being cute. ‘I’ll try to restrain some of my urges around you.’
‘Try or will?’
‘What do you think?’
‘That’s just it. I don’t know what to think, beyond the fact that I’m here by some kind of cosmic accident after what happened between us back in March. But as for what happens now.’ My words dry up, my mind beginning to race.
‘Why are you thinking about this ending before it has even begun?’
‘Maybe I worry that this is what you do. That you’ll creep out again when I fall asleep.’
‘You forget, this is my bed.’
‘Figuratively, then. You don’t really know me, and I don’t know you, and we’re both from such different places. Maybe this was a mistake. Maybe it shouldn’t have gone beyond that night back in March.’ As I’m saying this, that emotion welling? It turns to anxiety, to fight or flight. And guess whose legs are sliding from the bed . . .
Well, not mine as he lunges for me, and I find myself almost instantly under him, the change of position so fluid it’s almost as though it’s part of a choreographed dance.
‘Neither of us are going anywhere.’ His shoulders are so wide and so strong, his body bent over mine like an arc of sunlight spilling across the room.
‘For now.’ Why do my words sound like a dare?
‘You’re right. You don’t know me because if you did, you’d know how hard it was for me to leave you that night.’ My intake of breath is sharp, his body meeting mine, his weight balanced on his forearms. ‘You were so kind to me,’ he murmurs, pushing away my hair to cradle my face. ‘Kinder than I can ever remember anyone ever being. But I was only in town for that week, so it seemed kinder to leave that way. For one of us, at least.’
‘It was almost as though you’d been a dream.’ My heart rises to my throat along with the admission.
‘A dream. I like that. A dream made real once again.’
As his head dips, my response is almost a whisper against his lips as I try not to let myself get swept away. ‘If you’d stayed, I would’ve at least made you coffee before kicking you out.’
‘Not the coffee.’ His expression turns almost pained, though I’m pretty sure my giggles are more relief than amusement. Relief that he hasn’t challenged the way I try to protect myself. ‘I think we both recognised, even back then, that the night was special. But I promise it wasn’t disinterest that made me leave. It seemed so impossible. And you’re correct. I don’t lead an ordinary life. I decided you didn’t deserve to be dragged into it.’
‘Yet, here I am.’
‘Yes. Here you are.’ The green of his gaze is so vivid as it roams over me with a belly-licking kind of warmth. ‘And now that the gods and the cosmos have intervened, I’m not letting you go.’
‘You know what I think?’ I press my palm against the centre of his chest as he lowers his forehead to mine. ‘I think you’re kind of sweet.’
‘Sweet?’ he repeats, though his tone isn’t the same.
‘Kind of,’ I correct. No need for him to get a big head.
‘I don’t think anyone has ever referred to me in such a way.’
‘Not even your mom?’
‘Especially not her.’ There’s a story, though not one for today.
‘Well, I think you’re sweet. Especially when you’re pretending not to know people who pass you in the hallway.’
‘It wasn’t my finest moment,’ he agrees. ‘Forgive me, I was shocked.’
‘I think the word you’re looking for is asshole.’
‘I thought I was sweet.’ His words are delivered in a whisper to my neck. A whisper, a lick, a graze of his teeth, the kind of attentions that make me tremble under him.
‘You are sweet.’ I swallow deeply at the feel of his body pressed against mine. ‘You bought me a three-thousand-dollar coffee machine. A beautiful robe, which I now have the perfect apartment to glide around in while wearing it. And such beautiful flowers, and coffee, and a spa membership, which I hope you’ve gotten a refund on. But what I don’t understand is, why you thought to do all this for me? To send me these