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He’d know exactly what she meant. It wasn’t that he didn’t think he was good enough for her, but rather that she had this idea that people should partner with people like themselves.
And he wasn’t like her.
Then he looked up at her and she looked nervous, too. “Is it too much?” she asked, opening her hand slightly, gesturing to the set table. “I love fancy plates and stuff, but I don’t usually have people over, so I never get to use it.”
It was the word stuff that relaxed him. Marsie was precise. She would never use a generic word like stuff to refer to the nicely folded napkins and elegant flatware unless, like him, she was afraid of having her heart broken.
“It’s not too much,” he said, able to smile because he was no longer terrified. “I got us breakfast from Rise, so we’ve got fancy biscuits and doughnuts to go on your fancy plates. It’ll be great.”
“Okay,” she said, her nod short and still uncertain.
They both sat, and Jason waited while Marsie busied herself setting the food on a couple plates in the center of the table and pouring them both coffee. The creamer held real cream, and a small silver spoon rested in the sugar bowl. They each took half a biscuit sandwich and half a doughnut for their breakfast.
“Marsie?” Jason asked, and she looked up from her plate. “Are you okay? I mean, after last night?” He couldn’t eat a bite until he knew. No matter what happened, he didn’t want last night to have hurt her.
“I don’t know,” she said with a weak smile. “I guess that depends on how this conversation goes.”
“But I didn’t hurt you? Last night, you looked so frightened. You said you wanted space and I wanted to be able to give it to you, but you being scared scared me.”
“Well, that’s what we’re here to talk about today, right?” She put the uneaten doughnut back on the plate and dabbed at her hands with the napkin. The strength and directness he was used to hearing from her was back in her voice.
“Right. Where do we go from here?”
“Are you asking me, or are you reiterating the question we’re both trying to answer?”
“Both.” He would love it to be the former, and to have her answer first. But he wasn’t a coward. “I’ll say it first, though.”
He took a deep breath. “Last night was great. Better than great. It was amazing. I want more of it. But not just sex. I want more of you than just coffee in your office a couple times a week and maybe a lunch. I want a relationship. I want to see what we can be if we are more to each other.”
She picked up her doughnut and took a bite, getting pink frosting on her upper lip. He’d gotten one of the Cheerwine doughnuts because he liked Cheerwine, liked the bright pink frosting and thought she’d enjoy them. If they made this thing happen, he would bring her Cheerwine doughnuts every morning for the rest of their lives, just so he could lick the frosting off her lips.
Even better if she got some on her cheek.
She chewed slowly and deliberately, which should have bothered him, but didn’t. Marsie was buying time. He knew her well enough to know that—sometimes—she needed to think. And, like all things Marsie did, she thought with care and purpose.
If she spoke too quickly, from emotion, then he would be worried.
Finally, she swallowed, dabbed her hands on her napkin again, and said, “How do I know that isn’t the orgasm talking?”
“Um,” he stuttered. Frankly, her question had taken him by surprise, though it probably shouldn’t have. Trust Marsie to contemplate her way past the rest of the bullshit surrounding their conversation and get right to the heart of it.
Could she trust him?
If she was going to be blunt, he could be too. “I’ve had orgasms with other women. No matter their intensity, I’ve never sat in the afterglow thinking, this is it. This is the spark I was waiting for. That was just you.”
She pulled off a piece of doughnut and popped it in her mouth. She followed that bite with a long drink of coffee, her slender fingers wrapped around the delicate cup. The elegance of her hands were made for fragile china. She made her china look better. She made everything look better.
