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“If you brought a guy home, I’d be on the first plane to Paris.” I can hear the growly edge in his voice and it has a direct line to my clit.
“Really, now? Should we test that theory?” I tease, and my pussy clenches at the thought of his jealousy.
“Let’s not.”
“Emma wants to go out tomorrow,” I tell him.
“Mmmhmm.”
“I think she wants to get laid.”
“Do you?”
I could torture him but he did just say he’s in love with me, so I decide to throw him a bone. “Yes, but the guy I’m interested in isn’t exactly available.”
I hear him exhale. “Is that so? Should I be worried about this guy?”
I snort in response. “That’s an awfully loaded question. Are you having an existential crisis?”
“Daily.”
I chew on my bottom lip as I try to think of something witty to say but I come up empty. “I can’t stop thinking about you either,” I tell him, referencing his comment from earlier. “But I can’t help feeling that I’m being stupid. That maybe this is just a right person, wrong time thing but we aren’t respecting it by still talking and flirting while you’re married. Especially now that it sounds like your wife is a bit of a ticking time bomb. What if she finds out you’re still talking to me? Does she know I’m here? If you have to come here, is that going to be tough for you?”
“I don’t care about what’s tough for me, Marissa. I care about you. And I hate that I can’t be with you. I hate that there may come a time when you’ll be over this because you’ll get tired of waiting. You’re twenty-one and gorgeous and smart and far too fucking charming and mature for someone your age, and I know there are men just waiting for you to be over me.”
My eyes well up with tears and before I can stop it, one slides down my face. I haven’t let myself dwell on this situation with Chris. I hadn’t cried other than briefly on the way home after we talked in my car because what use was there in crying? It’s a shitty situation that I have no control over, but hearing him tell me he’s in love with me and there’s nothing we could do about it for at least a year makes my heart feel like it’s cracking in my chest. A year feels like an eternity. “It’s really not fair.”
“You’re telling me.”
I pull the cork out of the wine I opened last night and pour myself a glass. I take a healthy sip of it as I contemplate what I want to say next. “I don’t know that a year is enough time to get over you…so maybe you’re safe.”
He lets out a deep breath that sounds like relief. “Best news I’ve heard all day.”
“You know, if there ever comes a time that you’re single and unattached…how are we going to tell people at work?”
“Once Wes realizes that you and the woman I slept with at Owen’s wedding are the same woman, he’s going to know that I’m serious about you.”
I smile. “I did that much of a number on you, huh?”
“Did you.” He chuckles. “I never told you this but I took one of your hair pins that night. You had your hair up with these silver hair things. I took one off the nightstand while you were sleeping.”
My mouth drops in shock as I remember that I couldn’t find one of them when I was leaving his room that morning. “Wanted a souvenir, did you? What if that was a family heirloom!”
“Was it?”
“No,” I chuckle, “but that’s not the point!”
“I wanted something to remind me that it happened. That it was real. That you were real. I’ve been carrying it with me in my pocket ever since.”
I gasp. “What?”
“That’s how Beck found out about you. Aside from the fact that I couldn’t shut up about you. Whenever I had too much to drink, I’d take it out and mess with it.”
“Wow.”
“Still think I can’t be in love with you?”
My throat feels suddenly dry and I take a long sip of my wine before licking my lips. “No.”
