Sinful Love (Sinful Nights #4) - Lauren Blakely Page 0,43

voice over the next few calls and letters, and he’d told her, “Talking to you is one of the few things that makes me feel okay.”

Okay.

Such a small, flat word. But it was all he wanted, and it was enough. To feel okay. Somehow, she’d given that to him. Perhaps she was doing the same now, helping him see that it was indeed okay to not want to be his mother’s son.

“You sure?” he asked, and his voice was laced with nerves, like he desperately needed her reassurance.

She cupped his cheek and spoke confidently. “Yes. You’re a man without a mother. And it’s okay to be that way. It’s like she died, too, and your mourning for her just took a different shape.”

His eyes locked onto hers, and he relaxed further. “Sometimes I wondered if I was too hard on her. Too angry. Too unforgiving. But then she admitted to Ryan that she did it. I don’t need to forgive her.”

“Some things are unforgivable. Obviously, this is one of those things,” she said, letting her hand drift down from his face to rest on his leg. “Do you still miss your dad?”

“Sure. Of course. But you get used to it. It becomes part of your life, doesn’t it? The missing,” he said, as the flight attendants unbuckled and began to move about the cabin.

She nodded, and though he hadn’t said her husband’s name, she knew what he was getting at.

“Do you miss Julien?” he asked. Point blank. Direct. The elephant in the room.

She swallowed, her heart rising up to her throat and sticking there. “Sometimes I do,” she admitted quietly, looking down at the armrest, the inflight magazine, the screen on the back of the seat in front of her. Then she gazed into Michael’s eyes, clear and fixed on her. “But not right now.”

The crackle of the speaker interrupted their talk as the attendant announced that they were free to turn on computers and other approved devices. Neither she nor he made a move to do so.

Instead, they talked. They talked as they flew over Colorado, then Kansas, past Illinois and Ohio, through water and club soda, through the afternoon lunch service, and through the movies that others watched. He told her about his family, catching her up on his brothers and sister. She remembered them all from when they were younger, and she savored every detail he shared. His sister’s pregnancy was going well, and she was expecting a baby boy; Ryan was engaged to a beautiful philanthropist who made him happier than Michael had ever seen him; and his youngest brother, Colin, had started up a serious relationship with a social worker who had a teenage son. She loved the details, ate them up like fine, dark chocolate, as she pictured the Paige-Princes—now the Sloans—in their new lives, healing from the damage that had ripped them apart years ago.

“What about you?” she asked, meeting his cool blue gaze. “They all sound so happy. So settled. Are you happy, too?”

The corner of his lips curved up, the barest lopsided grin. “I’m happy now.”

Now.

The word echoed. Reminding her that now was all anyone ever had. This moment. Make the most of it. Go for more than okay, and do it right now. No guilt—only pleasure, only passion, only the present.

She threaded her hand into the back of his hair, feeling those soft, dark strands on her flesh, and he groaned. Low, barely audible. Just for her.

“Come closer and kiss me,” she murmured, and he obliged, dipping his head and kissing her like they were the only two people on the plane—flying across the sky, leaving Vegas far behind, and heading to a new adventure.

* * *

Michael Sloan had always been perfectly content to fly commercial. First class was great, but he’d never longed for a private jet. Not that he’d have minded one, but it was along the lines of a yacht or a mansion—nice to admire in a magazine, but wholly unnecessary for his happiness.

That was no longer the case. A private jet was the only thing in the world he wanted right now. No, want was too small a word for it. He fucking craved it like air. Because this kiss was different. It was as hot as all their others, but it was something more, too. It was crazed and beautiful. It was hungry and full of regret. For years gone by. For missed connections. For the past and for the present. It was as if