Page 54 of The Decadent Gift (The Gift 3)
“If you want to go up, it’s not too early. But what if we were to finish our drinks and then decide?”
She nodded, then whispered, “Of course.” She looked down, biting her lip, and I worried that she took that as a rejection.
So I reached across the table and laid my hand on her arm, a spark of pleasure rushing through my body at the touch. Her skin was hot, as if she’d blushed all the way to her fingertips.
“Sidney, that wasn’t a no,” I explained. “That was a ‘let’s pretend you’re not paying for my time.’ I don’t want to rush”—I didn’t want to be on the clock at all, I was realizing—“and maybe you want to sort some things out yourself.”
Her glance came at me sideways this time. Always dancing, her green eyes. Even when she seemed a little peeved. “I know you didn’t just say that I don’t know my own mind,” she said, her tone strong.
“I wouldn’t dare.” Tracing my thumb over the skin of her arm, I made sure I had her attention. “It’s just that last year, you weren’t ready. That wasn’t your speed.”
“Last year,” she said sharply, “I’d just found out my asshole boyfriend had been cheating on me with half of Phoenix.” Some of the sting in those words seemed to be aimed at me, perhaps for presuming to know her mind. “So, I was having a few trust and intimacy issues,” she added.
“Understandable.” My tone was as unprovoking as I could make it. “And I didn’t mean to suggest that you don’t know what you want. That’s not what I meant at all. What I meant was I wanted to make sure going upstairs was exactly what you wanted. Here,” I said, dusting a fingertip over her temple. “And here.” I touched her chest ever so lightly. “And everywhere.” I took the liberty to run my hand along her waist, feeling her shudder into my touch.
When I reached her waist, she took my hand, clasping it. “Thank you for saying that. And let me speak my mind fully too. Because the thing is,” she said, stopping to take a breath, “I’ve been thinking about that night for a year, wondering if I’d made a mistake. You listened to me ramble, and you were kind and funny, and I really enjoyed talking to you. Most of all, you seemed to see me. No matter who else you’d been with, I felt important to you then. That’s a gift, making people feel cared for when you’ve just met.”
That might have been the most a woman has said about me—me, not my looks or my skill or my stamina—in all the time I’d been doing this.
“It seems like you saw me that night too,” I said, lacing our fingers more tightly together.
“We’re impressive,” she said with a gleam in her eye, “seeing that much when we didn’t even get naked.”
“Amazing what you can see when you’re truly looking at everything,” I said, our gazes locked as the air between us seemed charged, electric.
“Yes, everything,” she repeated, then licked her lips.
And it seemed we were both ready.
It seemed she was ready to take a chance she wasn’t ready to take a year ago.
And I wanted to take a different type of chance.
A chance at someone seeing beyond what they’d paid for.
We finished our drinks and made our unhurried way to the elevators, talking about the city, our new jobs, the rescue dog she wanted to adopt.
As we neared her door and she took out her key card, my heart hammered. I couldn’t go in there as an escort. I had to tell her. Had to let her know this was different.
I drew her to a stop, turning her to face me and brushing her cheek with my fingers. “Sidney from Phoenix, the woman I couldn’t get out of my mind, I don’t want this to be a job.”
She covered my fingers with hers, pressing them to her soft skin, her eyes locked with mine. “Then don’t think of it as your job, and I won’t think of it that way either.”
I slid my other hand into her hair, cradling her head and bringing her close. “It seems so simple when you put it that way.”
“Well,” she whispered when our lips were a breath apart, “it’s not rocket science.”
That settled it. I had to punish her mouth with a kiss.
* * *
I woke up with the feeling someone was staring at me.
Sidney, once from Phoenix, now from here.
She lay on her stomach, her chin on her hands, watching me with sleepy eyes. “I can’t quite believe you did that.”
I stretched my arms over my head. “You’re going to have to narrow down what ‘that’ is. There are a lot of variables.”
“You stayed the night.”
“Is that okay?” It had felt so damn good to close my eyes with her snuggled against me, dynamite couldn’t have blasted me out of this bed.
