Unexpected Arrivals(60)
With no regard for consequences, I captured her face in my hands and tilted it up. Her eyes were filled with tears, and the smile told me they were of joy. My lids closed, and I bent down, meeting her lips with mine. There was no hesitation, no retreat—she joined me, parting to allow my tongue entrance. Each pass sent a tingle straight to my dick, and if I weren’t careful, he’d be standing at attention. Every cell in my body responded to her touch, her scent, her taste—I could feast a lifetime on Cora Chase.
The catcall from out in the distance broke the kiss, and she blushed a warm pink before she blotted at her mouth with her delicate fingers.
I picked up my bag, slung the strap over one shoulder, and rolled the other behind me.
She took my free hand. “We should get out of here.”
“Lead the way.” I’d follow her anywhere she wanted to go.
The two of us jabbered on like we hadn’t spent a day apart in eighteen months. Cora pointed out everything she could as we drove, yet I couldn’t take it all in fast enough. Once something caught my attention, she pointed in the other direction. And while nothing was off, it dawned on me that Cora lived in another world—one I knew nothing about.
Her flat was small, even in comparison to apartments in New York, although she’d made it her own. I’d never seen a single thing in the place, but I could have identified it all as hers. Girly and classy, with a hint of edge. Industrial feminine—I should coin that term. The kitchen was the size of my bathroom, the living room the size of my kitchen, and a queen bed took up the majority of the space in her one bedroom.
“It’s small compared to spaces in the States. In order to live close to work, I gave up certain luxuries. I’m comfortable here, though.” The graceful grin that hugged her cheeks made me swoon in a way only Cora could.
“It’s you. I like it.”
She took my bags and set them in the corner of her room before turning her head, suddenly appearing nervous. “So, should we go out? Stay in? Take a nap?”
I’d flown through the night, but even if I hadn’t, I’d be too wired to sleep. I only had ten days to remind Cora of why she belonged in the United States—I wasn’t wasting time napping…unless she was naked next to me.
“Can we go for a walk, talk? Keep it low-key today?” I’d struggled with whether or not to bring all this up on my first day; although, I also couldn’t wait until the last, either. There needed to be as much distance as possible between my confession and proposal.
“Absolutely. I can make dinner when we get back, and we can have wine and catch up. Just let me put on some tennis shoes.” She kissed my cheek before going to dig through her closet.
The two of us strolled hand in hand down the sidewalks of Paris. The streets were narrow and the architecture stunning, though nothing rivalled the company. She led me to a park, and our pace became much more casual. The wind whipped around us, yet the cold was nothing compared to the wet chill of New York in December.
“I’ve told you this a million times since we started talking again, but I’ve missed you, James.” Even though her attention was set off in the distance, her words were inviting.
“I’ve missed you, too. I feel like this is a dream I’ll wake up from and wonder how I’ll recover.”
“Doesn’t have to be.” The hope in her voice launched butterflies in my stomach.
I felt like a nervous teen out on our first date again. Except instead of the beach, we were in a park—and this time, I was at her mercy instead of her at mine.
“Do you miss us? As a couple.” With her last word, her eyes met mine.
“Every day.”
“I have a confession to make.” The sheepish look on her face made my stomach flop, and not in a good way. “I thought when I saw you again that I wouldn’t love you anymore.”
I hadn’t expected that. Neil had been right, or Hannah—whoever.
“I knew my heart would know. This may sound dumb, but I argued with my head and my heart for weeks before I left. My heart longed to stay with you; my head insisted I go. In the end, I convinced myself this would be best for both of us.”
“How could leaving someone you love be best for either of us?” There was no hiding the confusion or irritation from my voice.
She stopped and dropped my hand in favor of my cheek. The weak smile she offered did nothing to calm my ragged breath. “I needed to be certain I had lived for me. We’d been together since we were seventeen. I’d never even dated anyone else. You were my world.”
“And you were mine, so I don’t see why that was a bad thing.”
“It wasn’t.” Her brows rose, and her eyes glistened with unshed tears. “I just never wanted to resent or regret following you around the country. I never wanted to look back and wonder what if. I needed to know that at the end of the day, we both experienced what life had to offer and chose to come back together, not because we’d never tried anything else, but because we never wanted anything else.”
“I just wish you’d talked to me about it.”
“Would you have let me go willingly?”
The wind rustled through the trees, creating a static around us that offered me a moment to contemplate my answer. “Truthfully, no.”
“Please believe, I never wanted to leave. I always thought we’d find our way back together. But I couldn’t tell you that, or you wouldn’t have lived while I was gone…just existed.”