If I Were You (Inside Out #1)(51)

Discomfort does nothing to stop my reaction to this man. He is truly gorgeous. I drink him in like fine wine, savoring every detail. He’s wearing the biker boots he’d been wearing at the coffee shop and his shirt has a Harley logo on it. His jaw is unshaven, shadowed with a sexy stubble, his longish dirty blond hair slightly damp, framing his handsome face. And his eyes, those intelligent, unreadable eyes, glisten green and gold in the sunlight.

He’s staring at me too, his expression stark and unreadable. I will him to speak, to say one of his witty, light comments I find so soothing. He doesn’t and I am about a hair away from launching into the rambling habit I’m determined to leave behind in this new life of mine.

“Hi,” I say when the silence drives me crazy, but hey, I’ve contained myself to one word. Progress is happening.

He leans against the window, clearly unworried about it breaking as I had been the night before. Well, for a short bit. I’d forgotten my fears pretty darn quickly when he’d started touching me. My body heats with the memory of him pressing me against that very same glass, and I remember the night before with feverish clarity—his hands, his fingers, his mouth. My breast are suddenly heavy, my nipples aching. My cheeks burn with the impact of my thoughts.

Chris, on the other hand, remains more stone than man with tension banding around him. It whips and twists around the room, and begins to suffocate me, and old faithful becomes my only defense. I begin the dreaded rambling. “I, ah, it’s morning, but you know that since its daylight and well, it seems that…I…didn’t go home.”

Several heavy seconds pass and I swear I can hear the hand on his watch tick, before he asks, “Did you want to go home, Sara?”

His question takes me off guard and I have no idea how to answer. I am officially off-kilter. Had I? Well no. I’d been thoroughly pleasured and I’d all but passed out from pure female bliss. Would I have, had I woken up sooner? No. I wasn’t in any rush to leave Chris, but I’m afraid Mister ‘I’m Not The Guy You Take Home To Mom And Dad’ will overreact to such a confession. “I…don’t know.”

“I didn’t.” His voice is soft, and he scrubs his face and looks upset by this declaration, before contradicting his own reaction by looking me in the eyes and clearly stating, “I didn’t want you to go home, Sara.”

I am confused and happy by this news, but…wait. I shouldn’t be happy. Should I? This is a fling, an affair, and he will jet off to Paris and we will be history. I’m supposed to be living for the moment, enjoying what I can, keeping it light.

“You didn’t want me to go?” I ask, unable to stop myself from seeking confirmation, from craving more from this man — the question is ‘more’ what? Pleasure, I promise myself. This is about pleasure.

He studies me for such a long time; I fear I might ramble again, but thankfully, he saves us both my undoing. “I don’t bring women to my apartment, Sara,” he informs me, his tone hard, gravelly, almost angry. “I don’t have sex without condoms and I don’t ask about their pasts. And I sure as hell don’t talk about mine.”

Of all the things he’s just said, I hone in on the one of the least consequences considering I’m supposed to be trying to keep this about a sexy fling. Nevertheless, I do it anyway. My brows furrow. Is he really inferring he’s talked to me about his past? Because if he is, and he considers what he’s told me about, then I assume any real information I might garner would be downright criminal.

I study him and there is a fizzle of discomfort expanding and taking shape inside me. He seems really upset, as if…is he blaming me for making him do things he doesn’t want to do? He is. I can see it in his face. Oh good gosh. He’s blaming me. A hot spot in the center of my chest begins to burn.

I drop my feet and clutch the blanket. “I should go.”

“Please don’t.” His voice is soft, but it halts me with the raw vulnerability in its depths. There is true distress etched in his handsome face, as I imagine I must have on mine as well.

“You’re confusing me, Chris.”

“That makes two of us, baby,” he says, and pushes off the window. “Give me just a minute.” And just like that, he heads past me and up the sunken living room stairs, leaving me where I’m sitting.

What? Where is he going? I twist to watch him disappear down a hallway. Brows furrowed all over again, I face forward and search for my clothes without luck. His shirt isn’t anywhere nearby either. I’m captive. I can’t leave. Do I want to leave? I think maybe I should. Or maybe I shouldn’t. This man has me in in a whirlwind of…feelings? Emotions? Passion. That’s a safe word. Or is it?

Footsteps sound behind me and Chris hurries down the steps and is in front of me in a snap. He is squatting in front of me, close, and he smells woodsy and fresh and to my complete surprise he is sliding a navy cotton robe about three sizes too big around my shoulders. There is a protective quality to his actions and I am not sure I have ever felt more delicately female than in this moment. Never safer than with a man who is virtually a complete stranger, never with a man I’d almost called my husband. The rightness of this man and of walking away from my past, resonates through me. That decision brought me here.

I’m still clutching the blanket and Chris glances down and back up, wordlessly urging me to let it fall. A low burn is expanding in my belly, sliding through my limbs. I want him. I want him in a way I barely recognize as within the realm of my capacity.