Great. She needed a way out, didn’t she? He needed to give her an easy way out if she wanted it.
“If you don’t feel the same—”
“I might,” Justine blurted, silencing him at once.
“You might what?”
“I might feel the same.”
Now they were getting somewhere. He felt an inner smile coming on, but he worked to keep it at bay. “When I said those things to your granddad—I know I’d just met you—but the observations were true. I do love those things about you. It’s why I wanted to keep spending time with you.”
He reached for her hand, lacing his fingers through hers once he found it, and reminded himself that those words—I might feel the same—could just mean exactly what he hoped they did. So he went back to where he’d started.
“I told you my family invited me to go to their cabin, to stay there for the week. What I didn’t tell you is that they invited you too. We’d have separate rooms, and they—unlike our situation here—do not think we’re engaged.”
Justine cupped her other hand over his. “How did they know about me?” she asked.
“I told my grandma that there was a girl in town that I was in to.”
“You’re in to me?” He could hear the smile in her voice, and dang did he love it.
“Yes, princess,” he said. “I am.”
She let out an audible sigh.
“This is the part where you tell me that you—”
“Might feel the same. I already did.”
He chuckled under his breath. “I’d very much like it if you’d come with me. But, if you’d rather not, I can decline the offer and stay here with you.”
“You would do that?” She sniffed, and cradled his hand more tenderly now, trailing her fingertips over his wrist.
“If it meant we could spend more time together, yes. But only if you want that, of course. And then there’s a third option.”
“What is it?”
“The third option is I go to the cabin this week, meet you back here for the tree-lighting so we don’t disappoint the town, and then I go my own way. You tell your granddad we broke up or…whatever, when the time is right.”
“I hate that option,” she assured, scooting in closer now.
Thank heavens. A sigh passed through his lips. His limbs went lax.
“Okay,” he breathed. “Did one of the other options appeal to you?”
She sniffed again, moving in even closer until their folded legs were entwined. Her hands moved to his neck as her scent poured over him. He released a shallow breath, unwilling to disrupt whatever wonderful thing she was doing to him.
Which, at the moment, was bringing her lips very close to his hand. “I’d love to go to your family’s with you,” she said. “I wouldn’t want you to miss that in a million years. And…” He sensed a shyness in her voice as she died off.
“And I really didn’t want to spend this week without you, either.” She leaned into him then, welcoming Burke’s touch as he moved a hand to her hip. With the other hand, he glided his fingers up the back of her neck, teasing the silky skin beneath it.
With aching difficulty, Burke had let several opportunities to kiss her pass him by that day, telling himself that if it was no more than a sham to her, he wouldn’t pressure her for more. He thought back on that moment in her kitchen, his longing to kiss her with no one around. The great disappointment he’d felt when she’d put things to a halt.
Now, with her lips just a breath space away, that longing came back full force, an urgency for a kiss that was theirs alone.
Encouraged by her words, Burke moved in with more certainty this time. Justine welcomed his kiss with slightly parted lips, a fact that pulled a whimper from deep in his throat. He tilted his head and kissed her again, ever aware of the fact that she wanted this as much as he did. That this wasn’t an act, and that now, they’d get to explore the powerful draw he felt toward her.
Not too fast, came an inner voice.
Burke brought things to a slow with a series of short, playful kisses, willing himself to listen to that voice. He was a gentleman after all. And if he were honest, Burke sensed another reason to take things slow—fear. Whether he was afraid of messing things up or worried about falling too deep, he wasn’t sure.