Chapter 28
KNOLAN
While the walk back to the motel was short, it felt like it took forever, and during it, I was aware of every inch of space between us.
We stopped in the small parking lot outside the rooms. I was trying to figure out how to ask her back to my room when she turned to face me and I realized, in the light of the streetlamp, that I could easily fall for this woman.
There was no version of this in which I said no, but I found I wanted to say something true instead of just moving forward. “I want to,” I said. “I want to be clear about that. I also want to be clear that I’m not assuming anything about what tonight is.”
She looked at me steadily. “Neither am I.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” she said.
Room 113 looked just like mine and like mine it was doing its best. It had a good bed made with dark nautical linens, a reading lamp that gave off pale yellow light, and a window she’d already closed the curtains over.
She turned the lamp on but not the overhead light, and dropped her jacket over the chair back.
The room then took on the quality of a space people had decided to inhabit rather than just sleep in.
“How long are you planning to stay in town?” I asked, following her further into the room.
She stopped walking and turned. I nearly walked into her. As a result, I was closer than I had intended, but neither of us stepped back.
“I’m not sure. I’ve got a lot going on right now, and I’m sort of running on instinct,” she said.
“Instinct is good,” I said, gently placing my hands on either side of her face.
“Very,” she said on an exhale.
Tilting her head up slightly so she was looking at me with those gold-centered green eyes, and then I kissed her.
It wasn’t a tentative kiss. I’d spent most of the evening being careful to maintain an appropriate distance and I’d used all of my patience.
I kissed her with a ferocity I didn’t know I was capable of.
She returned my kiss just as fiercely. She parted her lips and I took the opportunity to deepen the kiss, sliding my tongue into her mouth.
She met my tongue with hers, her hands found the front of my shirt, her palms smoothed over my muscles, up my chest and wound around my neck.
I felt her emotions spike. This time I didn’t tune them out.
I dropped my mental shields and let them in.
I felt her desire, strong and uncomplicated, but underneath there was something more, something larger and more complex. Something she had no intention of acknowledging. I know because I felt the same.
Through our emotional tether, I let her feel exactly what she was doing to me. The combination of the sensations she was eliciting in me and the emotions pouring off us was almost too much.
We pulled back slightly, an inch, not more.
We stared at each other, and for a moment neither of us spoke. Then, in a voice soft and breathy, she said, “Wow. That was…”
“Yes, it was, “ I replied.