Panting with the burst of exertion, his brain firing on all cylinders, he caught up to her and slowed down at the last steps, moving to her, pulled by a force that drew him in. His front settled against her back, his tight cotton t-shirt brushing against the thin linen jacket she wore, the friction erotic and full, sensual.
As his palms touched her elbows, her arms at her side, he inhaled with precision, measuring her.
She did not move.
“Suzanne,” he murmured, chin close to a stray hair that curled out from her updo, resting against the fine, creamy line of her neck. With longer hair, the sharp, jutting bones of her jaw stood out, giving her the look of a Viking princess. In heels, she was exactly his height, setting him off-kilter. He wasn’t a short man. In fatigues she was always four to five inches shorter. In service dress, her shoes gave her a two-inch lift.
He liked being equal. Liked it a lot.
“Please,” she whispered, the word spiraling off into the dark night, as if the street lights beyond them were pulling her voice to them.
Taking her reaction as something other than rejection, he left his hands where they were, closing the inch gap between them. She was cool and regal, his hot, thick chest pressing into her back.
“Please what?” he asked, knowing this could go either way, but not caring, because right now—as each second ticked by—he had more internal calm than he’d had in ten years.
Even as desire burned bright inside him.
“Please don’t.”
He froze.
“Don’t what?” Tempted to step back, he held strong. Her please carried a weight to it, a meaning he needed to discern before acting. All impulse and no analysis would end this in a flash. Time was his friend. Patience.
Hesitation.
He had to go against instinct.
“Don’t start something you don’t intend to finish.”
Letting go of her arms, he circled her, facing the woman he’d loved so fiercely ten years ago that he’d let her go, to protect her.
From him.
Time had been so good to her, crazy makeup excepted. He reached up, half her face in shadow, the other half lit by a nearby streetlight, the effect like a Picasso painting, a Dalí, a surreal melding of the past and present, of good and evil, of yearning and rejection.
Their lips touched before he could think, restraint gone, impulse taking over and driving his body to hers, the ache of self-sacrifice finally—finally—too much to bear alone. She stepped into him, entering his orbit, and when her hands cupped his hips, pulling him close, he groaned, the sound a sigh ten years in the making.
For years, he’d shut himself off from questioning his decision. Compartmentalizing was how he survived, and Suzanne went into a little metal lockbox, a locker full of every memory, a place isolated into submission.
As she kissed him again, her mouth open, lips taking him in, his tongue finding solace and sweetness as it stroked hers, years washed away. What if that welded-shut box of emotion could be opened? What if it wasn’t Pandora’s box, but instead long-buried treasure?
Her kiss told him nothing.
And everything.
Roving fingers traced the lines of his shoulder blades, her palms riding up to cup the back of his neck. She made a sound of despair mixed with pleasure, which perfectly described his current state. She tasted so good. So real.
So forbidden.
And then she broke the kiss, stepping out of his arms, those same hands that had just played with his contours held palms out.
“Stop. Stop.” Was she talking to him, or herself?
“I stopped.” Didn’t want to, but he did.
“What is this, Gerald? You can’t just chase me down and kiss me like that.”
“You want me to kiss you a different way? Because that can be arranged.” He ran a thumb along her jawline, deeply amused and perplexed by the strange makeup.
“I want an explanation.”
“You want an explanation? You’re the one who interrupted my class and then went on a date with my ex-boss’s wife’s ex-boyfriend.”
“I need a Venn diagram to deconstruct that sentence, Gerald.”
“How about I draw you a flow chart after a drink?”
Her speculative glare gave him hope. She wasn’t saying no.
“Why now?”
“Because you found me.”
“Found you? I’ve known where you are for years. I didn’t find you. I was forced to encounter you.”
“Forced?”
“Yes,” she said with a vicious bitterness that came out as a hiss. “I’m not in the habit of tracking down men who propose to me and then walk away without explanation.”
“I would hope not. That would be a terrible hobby.”
She didn’t laugh.
“You don’t get to do this,” she said slowly, tumblers in her mind clicking with Swiss precision he could feel in his bones. “You can’t waltz back in my life, kiss me, and joke with me. Not after what you did.”
I was afraid I’d do even worse.
The thought slammed through him like a word weapon, cutting to the quick, slicing through layers of scar tissue built around his soul.
“Walking away was wrong,” he admitted. Ten years. He’d had ten years to prepare for this moment, to know what to say, except he’d never envisioned this. Not once. He’d assumed he would never see her again. That it was for the best.
Or so he’d assumed.
“Wrong? Wrong? You use these words, Gerald, like they have meaning. Do you have any idea how pathetic wrong sounds? How about walking away like that was inhumane? How about soul-crushing? How about—”