Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Delaney
Idon’t know how long we’ve been lying like this, but I’m calm, comfortable, and now relaxed enough that I think I can fall asleep, yet I don’t want to. I want to feel something more tonight. Something beyond sadness and anxiety, and there’s no denying the chemistry between Harrison and me.
Before I can overthink it, I flip myself over so that I’m facing him. I’m not even sure if he’s awake, but then his large hand finds my waist and splays across it. He leans towards me and presses a soft kiss to my forehead.
“Are you all right, Bets?” His voice is raspy, and I wonder if he had drifted to sleep and I woke him by moving.
“I’m okay. I’m always okay. I’m sorry you had to see me cry.”
“Hey, no. Don’t apologize for that. You’ve had a hell of a night, and I suspect that there’s more to it. You don’t have to talk about it, but know that if you ever want to, I want to listen. To be there for you.”
God, why does he have to be so perfect sometimes?
I say nothing for a time, then, “Harrison?”
“Yeah?”
“Will you kiss me?” I expect a resounding yes, but instead, his hesitation fills the air around us. I tuck my head down, wanting to disappear, even though he can’t see me in the dark.
“Oh, my God. I’m so sorry.” I scramble to pull away from him. “I’m gonna go back to the guest room—”
He reaches out and grips my waist to stop me.
“No, Bets. You’re misunderstanding me. I’m not hesitating because I don’t want to kiss you.
Fuck, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve thought about doing just that since I found you again.
But I also don’t want to be the asshole that takes advantage after you’ve had a shit few hours and are obviously feeling a lot of things tonight. ”
“I swear, it’s not about that, but please, I’m already embarrassed enough. My God, you’re my boss.” I wiggle in an attempt to scoot off the bed. He maintains his tender, but firm, hold on me.
“I’m not just your boss,” he growls. “We both know that.”
My lower belly flip-flops at his words.
When I cease trying to escape, he guides me back down onto the bed, and I rest on my side, facing away from him. He molds his body behind mine and wraps a strong arm around my waist and belly. Then he tenderly kisses the crown of my head and rests his chin on top of it.
“I imagine you’re feeling vulnerable right now, so I’m gonna tell you some of what’s been going on in my head, and maybe that’ll help you feel less uncomfortable. Does that work?”
I nod.
“First, I want you to know that I’ve not been with another woman since you.
I don’t want to, and I’m not even sure I could.
The thought of touching someone else, someone who isn’t you, literally makes me nauseous.
I’m not telling you that so you feel a need to disclose anything about your last few months.
Actually, I don’t want you to tell me if you were with someone else—”
“I wasn’t,” I say. I don’t like to interrupt, but I feel compelled to make sure he knows. I swear his next breath is deeper and more serene after my confession.
“I realize it doesn’t make sense since we only had one night together.
I’m aware there’s still so much for us to learn about the other, but that morning after, I was going to ask you if we could not end it.
If we could take a few steps back and get to know each other.
I haven’t met anyone else who has made me feel the way I did that night with you.
And if you think I’m grumpy now, you should’ve seen what a miserable son of a bitch I was between when you left and when you showed up in the office.
Especially after I lost you again at Henry and Tillie’s wedding. ”
His words remind me that I hid from him, and I unsuccessfully attempt to stifle a laugh.
“Ouch,” Harrison says. I stretch my neck in an effort to see his face without turning my entire body. When he comes into view, the light from the moon shining through the window is just enough for me to glimpse that he’s wearing a gorgeous smile. I nearly melt.
“No, I’m not laughing at you. Nothing you said was funny. It’s just, I kind of freaked out at the wedding.”
“I know, you left before I could get back in the kitchen. Layla held me up, giving me a scolding. She insisted I looked mad and scared you away.” A low laugh escapes him, and it’s sexy as hell.
“But I didn’t leave. That’s why I chuckled. I acted like a lunatic and hid in the pantry. Phyllis, the older lady you spoke to, she covered for me without even knowing why I ran in there in the first place.”
“A part of me did wonder how you got out of the building so fast. At least now I know if it ever happens again, I should check all the good hiding spots before I assume you’re gone.” The playfulness in his voice is lighthearted.
There he is—my Al. It pleases me to get this glance at him again. Harrison is often so serious that when I get treated to this more easygoing side, it makes me especially happy.
“I should have told you this already, but the way I left that morning had nothing to do with you. You were perfect. You made me forget for a little while how devastated I was when I walked into that bar.” My voice is low-pitched.
I mean it to be comforting, but his body tenses slightly against mine.
“The… the sadness that morning. Did you regret what happened between us?” His voice cracks a few times, and though I suspect he’s seasoned at hiding when he’s in pain, a hint of hurt still rises to the surface when he speaks. I’m desperate to banish that.
I squirm until he loosens his hold on me, and then I twist my body until I’m facing him.
“No,” I whisper. “No to all of that. That night, every moment of it, was spectacular. I didn’t—don’t, I guess—have a lot of experience with sex, but that night with you blew every other time out of the water.”
He grins, and it’s a combination of genuine joy with a touch of cockiness. I smile back at him, but then turn my gaze away.
“But then in the morning, the realities from the day before—the things that brought me to the bar in the first place—slammed back into me and…and that…”
I can’t get the last few words to leave my mouth. Maybe because I wish they weren’t true, but they are.
Harrison touches me under my chin and tilts my head up until my eyes meet his. Then he takes the same hand and cups the back of my head. It’s so tender, so affectionate, that I’m afraid to move, lest he stop doing it.
“And what, Bets? What else made you so sad?”
“That we couldn’t stay them. The people we were that night.
I-I really liked us. I liked how I felt.
The woman I was that night—the whole night, not just for the naked parts—I’m not sure I’d ever been her before.
It broke my heart a little when morning came, and I had to say goodbye to her and to you. ”
“Why?” he asks.
I tilt my head and feel my forehead wrinkle in confusion about what he means.
“Why did you feel like you had to say goodbye to either of us?”
A shiver runs through me at the sadness I hear in his words, and Harrison reaches down and pulls the blankets up more.
I don’t bother to tell him that I’m not cold.
That done, he rests his hand on my shoulder, and I instantly miss it touching the back of my head.
I’m not sure why I like that so much, but I do.
In a moment of boldness, I grasp his forearm and move it, so his hand cups my head again.
There’s the trace of a smile at the corner of his lips and understanding in his eyes.
“Because I’m not her. I wish I could be, but I can’t. I got to be her for one amazing night, but that’s not my real life. I had to leave because you deserve someone like her. It would have been selfish of me to stay.”
Harrison doesn’t reply, but he holds on to me while he rotates onto his back. We end up with half of my body on top of his, and my head resting on his chest. We lie like that and several minutes pass in silence.
“I disagree.” I jolt when he says the words because I figured we were done talking for the night.
Now it’s my turn to remain quiet, mostly because I’m trying to gauge what he’s attempting to communicate.
“I disagree when you say you’re not her.
She was witty, determined, and fearless.
” I snort at that. “What? It’s true. You’re still all those things, and more.
You don’t have to agree with me right now.
It doesn’t matter because I liked you a lot that night, and I like you just as much—maybe more—now. ”
My breathing picks up with his words. I’m not sure what to say, but it doesn’t matter because he’s not through talking.
“I’m going to go all in here and tell you the whole truth.
” He pauses, as if to give me a chance to tell him I don’t want to know.
“I haven’t stopped thinking about you since the day we met.
Not for even one single day. There has to be a reason for that.
I want to be your friend, yes, but I also want to see if we could be something more.
I can’t get it out of my head that we were never meant to be just one night. ”
My heart pounds against my chest wall.
“Oh, and believe me, there’s no way a hundred men could stop me from kissing you if I knew for sure that you feel even a fraction of what I do for you. If I weren’t worried you’d allow it because you’re trying to push away the emotions of today, I’d never be able to hold back.”