on tiptoe and brushed her lips against his cheek, her hand resting lightly on his shoulder. “Thanks. Whether you like to admit it or not, you’re really a very nice man.”
Her tenderness shook him. “Didn’t you call me a jerk not too long ago?”
“They’re not mutually exclusive. You can be that, too.”
The way she looked at him—as if he’d hung the moon—left his mouth dry and his heart pounding. She was wrong. She might think she knew him, but she didn’t. He was 99 percent jerk 99 percent of the time. She was rebounding big-time and painting him to be someone he wasn’t.
“You’re going to have to talk to Elliott, Tawny.”
“Technically I don’t have to do anything...but I suppose I will.”
“You’ll need closure on it or you’ll be tracking him down because you’ll have that Prozac addiction,” he said. She was too easy to be with. Too easy to tease.
“You know me too well.” She threw a dish towel at his head.
He caught it one-handed. “You seem to be handling it well.”
“I’m not prone to hysterics.”
He quirked an eyebrow, recalling the scene she’d made when he’d come back through the window earlier. She’d verged on hysteria. Over him. He was still reeling.
“Okay. Well, thinking you’re about to see someone you care—know—die, that’s a little different. But as a rule I don’t get hysterical.” She looked him over from head to toe, her gaze lingering at the front of his trousers. “And you’ve definitely helped ease my rejection pain.”
“Glad to be of service.” And he’d be up for more service if she didn’t stop eyeing his crotch that way.
“You may think, yeah, right, but I’m almost relieved. Not that Elliott’s gay and not that he decided to screw around on me—that’s a little tough to take—but I think both of us knew something wasn’t working. And then when I started having those dreams about you...well, it does sort of make a girl think she’s not quite ready to tie the knot.”
He was still floored he’d been the object of this woman’s fantasy—even if she had been unconscious at the time.
“Dreams are a pretty iffy indicator,” he said. “Would you have called it off if Elliott hadn’t gotten involved with someone else?”
She considered his question for a few seconds, her lips pursed, before she pushed her hair back from her face. “I don’t know. Probably. Hopefully. I don’t hate him, although I came pretty close when you told me. I’m less than impressed with his cheating and then dumping it on you to tell me.”
“Do you still love him? You obviously did at one point.” The question tied his belly in knots.
“I’m not sure.” She nudged the spot on her finger where her ring had been with her thumb. He was sure she didn’t realize what she was doing. “I did love him. Actually I think when I’m over being so pissed, I still do.” His stomach plummeted. “But I don’t love him the way I should to marry him. We have fun together, but there’s no real passion between us—” her gaze snared him, trapped him with the banked fires within their depth “—no intensity. Do you know what I mean?”
He looked away before she saw the answering fire in his eyes. “The mention of his name ties you up in knots? You’d go to hell and back again if you thought he needed you? The sound of his voice sends shivers through you? I know exactly what you mean.”
“Elliott and I don’t have that.”
Granted, she was a grown woman and could make her own decisions. But at one point she’d been sure enough to agree to marry Elliott. He knew firsthand she could be wildly emotional and illogical and he didn’t want to see her make a decision she’d later regret.
“Passion doesn’t last. It burns out and evolves into something else altogether,” he said, playing devil’s advocate.
“I’m not naive. I don’t think people still have that after twenty years. Or—who knows?—maybe they do. But you should definitely have it in the beginning. Love shouldn’t be totally comfortable, like an old pair of slippers. It should be like a pair of stilettos—sexy and exciting and worth the discomfort. And if that’s what Elliott’s found, more power to him.” She shrugged and smiled.
Her smile was so her—natural, irrepressible, sunny—he couldn’t help smiling in return.
“That’s an original. I’ve never heard love compared to a pair of stilettos.”
“I didn’t realize I felt this way until...well, I think it started with those dreams, and now