We’ve vibed every time we’ve been together.
That’s why we can’t seem to resist stealing every little moment.
I’m not sure I want to resist much longer.
Maybe he doesn’t want to either. “I loved reading your cues, Katie,” he says. “Figuring out your needs, and then delivering. That’s what made it so damn good.”
In the span of a few seconds, this conversation has shot from our childhood memories to why our intimacy rocks.
Our intimacy that we’re not having.
But tell that to my body. The shiver that runs down my chest and settles between my legs feels wildly intimate.
“You think so?” I ask, a little breathless as I stand next to the butter.
“Don’t you?” He sounds breathless too.
“Sometimes, but I also think we read each other’s cues out of bed too. Like the way we interact—that’s part of it. Part of why it’s so good,” I say.
This is hardly the place for this talk. But we’ve never been in the right place at the right time. Why should today be any different? Maybe I’m learning to embrace the moments with Harlan, to take them as they come.
When they come.
Even if I try to halt them with a pump of the business-minded brakes here or there, the moments don’t stop.
They keep happening, from seizing the night at the wedding seven years ago, to making the most of my anti-wedding night this past summer, to our yoga sessions, to lunch . . . to today.
He inches closer, latching onto my words. “I do think the way we are together is why the sex has been so damn good,” he says, and I am buzzing. “But everything with us is so good.”
My entire body hums with arousal and longing.
With need.
With hope that I can somehow rewrite the future. That I can discover an opening to what I want where I’m not hurting the people I work with. Where I’m not behaving like my mother in business.
I need to find that way.
And I need to find it soon.
I’m not even technically involved with this man, but it sure seems like I am.
Here goes the next thing—putting my feelings out there, taking the steps to let him know. I should be cautious about those things, but I can’t be bothered right now. “I can’t believe I’m saying this by the nine-dollar eggs, but I was really looking forward to seeing you again. To all of it. To everything.”
If I’m going to look for a way forward with him, it should start with speaking from the heart. So, I do. “I was looking forward to dinner and ice cream and foosball and sex, and also just . . . getting to know you more. I still am. I look forward to getting to know you more each day because I like everything I’ve already gotten to know,” I say, reaching for the side of the cold case like I need to hold on or I’ll stumble.
But I’m pretty sure I’ve already fallen.
21
Harlan
My head is spinning.
I feel woozy too, almost like I’ve been knocked hard out of bounds.
But I like this feeling. It’s new and different, but it’s all good. And I want more of it. “I was looking forward to spending more time with you,” I say softly. “I wanted all of it. The sex and the dates and just . . . you. I still do. I like you so much.”
My heart slams against my rib cage. I’m dangerously close to dropping this red basket on the floor, shoving her against the yogurt and eggs, and kissing the breath out of her, no matter what it brings.
For all our flirting, all our teasing, all of this red-hot sizzle, she’s onto something—the reason our first kiss went to my head. Hell, I can still remember how it felt to taste her lips for the first time.
Spectacular.
I like this woman.
I like her so damn much.
The last few weeks have fueled those feelings. The time with her not kissing, not touching, and not fucking has only fanned the flames.
Even though I can’t touch her, I can use my words like she just did. “Katie Madigan, I’m so into you, it’s kind of crazy.”
Her smile is one I want to remember for a long time. Here, by the organic eggs in the grocery store a few blocks from my home, she smiles like I’ve made her happy.
Just happy.
And isn’t that what a man should aim to do for the woman he wants? Treat her right and make her feel good? It’s that simple.
But whatever is happening between us isn’t simple. It’s complicated by downward dogs and deals with the team. A tryst would be risky, but much more for her than me. Whether I finish football now or in a few years, I’m at the end of my days. I’ve achieved the greatest highs in the game. Her career trajectory is rising, shooting higher every day.
I’d just be another jock who messed around with a trainer, a teacher, a woman stretching him. Though not the way I want to cap off a career, I’d be forgiven in a heartbeat.
She’d be the woman who slept with a client, and I don’t want that for her.
So she has to stay off-limits, and I have to stay hands off.
She sighs wistfully. “So now what?”
That’s a good question.
I drag my hand along the back of my neck then shoot her a rueful grin. “Want to go prep the monkey bread supplies?”
“I do,” she says.
We check out and head to my place. As we head up the steps, I’m keenly aware this isn’t the first time Katie has stepped into my home. The first was on her non-wedding night, when I brought her here to sleep with her.
But now she’s stepping inside playing a different role in my life.
A colleague of sorts? A teacher? A partner?
None of those terms feel right.
She’s coming into my home as a friend. Yes! That’s why I invited her over today. Katie’s a friend at the moment, and that’s why it feels like the perfect time for her to meet my daughter.
Bags in my hand, I unlock the door and hold it open for her. “After you,” I say in my best Southern gentleman voice.
“Why, thank you, sir,” she says in her Texas twang.
Once the door closes, we head straight for the kitchen.
“Tunes?” I ask as I unload the groceries.
“If it’s Ed Sheeran, Dolly Parton, and Adele, we’re golden.”
I chuckle. “How about I throw in some Frank Sinatra and Eric Clapton, and we can call it a day?”
She lifts the sugar from the bag, shakes her hips, and gives me an approving hum. “We’ll get along just fine, sir,” she says, still playing with the accent.
“Darling, we always have.” I hit shuffle on some tunes, and Ed Sheeran’s tones fill my home, making Katie happy, judging from the twinkle in her eyes. Then I drop the accent and say something that’s a little bit hard. “Hey, Katie.”
“Yeah?”
I square my shoulders. “I don’t introduce women to my daughter. It’s just not something I’ve done.” I swallow roughly as I lay the truth on the line like she did in the store.
I want her to know that this thing between us is becoming much more for me.
More than I expected.
More than it’s supposed to.
It’s turning into something that feels a little inevitable.