Falling Into You (21 page)

He
pulls
away and I’m breathing heavily
and wondering why he would want to stop
.
I withdra
w back into myself just a little
.

“You’re beautiful,” he says simply. “I just need a minute.”
He kisses my forehead and
then
we’re touching again, even though he’s careful to put more distance between us.

What is that supposed to mean?
I’m
not beautiful, not like the girls in the magazines or even the girls that were throwing themselves at him on the balcony last night. I want to check a mirror, to make sure that my fairy godmother didn’t visit and magically rearrange my features in the middle of the night, but that would require pulling myself away from him and I’m not willing to do that, even for the faint hope of a magical transformation.

When I finally pull back
from him
, he grabs my
hand and brings it into his lap
,
wrapping my fingers up with his. W
e sit for a long minute as I
struggle to breathe
.

“I want you.
”
It’s a fairly simple statement that is in total contradiction to his earlier words.
But
I can work with that. I inch closer.

“No,” he says, pushing me away gently again. “Not like this.”
His face is contorted and
full of hunger and need for me. I
t lends me
a temporary burst of confidence
. 

I laugh
.
“What? You go ahead and attack me and then you decide that’s it? That hardly seems fair, don’t you think?”

He looks concerned for a second, but then he laughs softly
and lets
his fingers linger on my cheek. “I don’t think I would call it an attack if the victim is willing.”

“How do you know I was willing?” I teased. “You’re not actually James Ross
with the impenetrable façade of coolness
, you know.
You’re n
ot a real movie star yet.
There might be some way that I could resist your charms.”

He’s cocky now, self-assured. “I’m pretty sure you were willing. But I think that calls for another test.”

I stand up, because I’m more comfortable with the verbal sparring than with the not talking, but h
e catches me again and pulls me back into his arms for another kiss. What I don’t say is that the Chris’s charms are much mo
re appealing than James Ross’s. T
here’s nothing that I would deny him.
He must know that by now.

“I want you,” he repeats as we stand in the middle of the room. “
But
I’ve made some mistakes with
girls
in the past…”

I really don’t
need
to think about that right now. I remember the gaggle of gigglers from the night before and I have to suppress a little chuckle and the knot of
jealousy
that the image conjures.

“It’
s ok. I don’t need to hear about any of that. This
…”

I gesture between us.
“It doesn’t have to be anything. I mean, I had a
really perfect day
and we can just leave it at that if that’s what you’re thinking and you can just…
”

I’m shaking my head in confusion.
He wants me, he just doesn’t want me.
I’m trying to give him a way out of the situation,
because it’s becoming
clearer
that maybe this was all a huge mistake.
“I mean, you’re obviously incredible and this has been like, the best day ever, and all of that. Whatever you want, I mean, I’m happy to just hang out or whatever. Or, we could…”

He grabs my hair and yanks me to him.
Even though I’ve never been good at the whole romance thing, hi
s intent is unmistakable
.

“And, then,
there are always ot
her things.
” I
try to conjure
up
my best seductive tone.
I’m offering. T
he slight catch of his breath tells me that he knows it.

“No
.” It’s
another
long
minute
before he
speaks again
. “
I want more than that
.
”

I’m confused. I’m clearly not understanding what’s going on here. There’s heat between us,
an
undeniable chemistry that I’m definitely not imagining. I’ve never been so comfortable with someone that I’m also
ridiculously
attracted to.
Did he want sex? Friendship?
Nothing? Was there a hidden camera somewhere?

He answers my question
s
with his next words. “
I want another New York day
with you. I want a dozen more days with you.
I want
you.
I am not about to screw it all up because I have some fucked-up desire to rip every last piece of your clothing off and shred it to pieces. I’ve been down that road, and I don’t want to repeat those mist
akes here. I want more than that
.”

His voice is husky and urgent. H
e’s serious.
I decide to ignore the shredding of clothes comment,
even though
little flickers of heat are running through my body. I don’t want to spoil this moment, either
.
I just want to bask in the glow of his smile for a few more hours or days or weeks and not think about anything else.

But the practical part of me
knows that
we are from two very different worlds and that
whatever it was between the two of us wasn’t a forever kind of thing
. I would go home to Ohio, to my very nice and very Midwestern
mother
, and then back to school, and he would go on being
James Ross and Chris Jensen, movie star. I could put a stop to all of this right now, and it would end better for me.
I’m
only setting myself up for unavoidable
heartbreak
.

Obviously, the practical part of me loses the battle.

I would have to be crazy to turn him down, to forget about the heat in our kisses and the look in his eye when he told me that I was beautiful. I’m willing to take this feeling for as long as I can get it.

I finally respond. “That’s probably a good thing, because these are
Sophia
’s clothes, and there’s no way I could ever afford to replace them
.”

“She would never miss them.”

“So true.”

I still haven’t responded to him wanting me (me!) and there’s
still
a question
between us.
I can tell that he needs my answer.

“I mean, you’re basically the only person I know here, so
I think
you’re stuck with me for the foreseeable future,” I add lightly. I’m trying to keep the fact that I’ve never wanted anything or anyone so badly in my entire life out of my voice.

His smile tells me that those were the right words.

I’m uneasy again, and I need to look away. I yawn and stretch out my arms. “You’ve got a lon
g day of hard work ahead of you.” I smile
at him. “You need your beauty
sleep
.”

He
’s
uncomfortable for a minute.
I remember his words about his
father. I remember his uncomfortable face as we stood in the lobby of his apartment building.

“You can stay here,” I
offer
.

A dangerous look comes into h
is eye. “That’s tempting, but…”

“No, no, no.
You’re determined to stay away from me,” I announce, grabbing his arm and dragging him to
my
room. I grab a couple of pillows from the bed and shove them in the middle. “See, you can have this side and I’ll take this one.”

The bed is now a mountain of pillows
, evenly divided in the middle to create little sleeping zones
.
It’s the same way Ben and I sleep when we go camping, I realize suddenly, staring at the pillows. Ben…I push all thoughts of him from my mind, and smile at Chris instead.

Chris
shakes his head slightly. “I’m not sure if that’s going to be enough
to keep me on my own side
.”

“
I can tell you some more embarrassing stories
. I promise, I have some that will definitely keep you on your side of the bed.”

“No!” he says harshly.
“Those little stories of yours make it worse. The one where you ripped your skirt trying to climb
the fence practically killed me.” He hides
his eyes
from me with his hand
. “The only thing I could think about was the ripped skirt and how I wanted to sweep you up and get the rest of it off.”

Maybe there’s an upside to being the least coordinated person on the planet after all.

“Well, I’m fairly certain that I can control myself.
I’ll have to pull out the old chastity belt or something, but we can manage.
”
I’m really not at all certain that I can control myself, but the temptation of having him in my bed is too great.
I grab a pair of soft pants and a t-shirt from
my suitcase an
d bring them into the bathroom after
tossing him my favorite oversized shirt
that had once been my father’s, which h
e
takes
it gratefully.

Once
I emerge from the bathroom,
he’s turned the light off and crawled into bed. I lift the covers and carefully shift the pillows so there’s room for me on “my side
.
”
H
e makes a guttural noise
and I can tell that he’s turned over.

“Good night,” I whisper.

“Good night.”

Exhausted and happy and still disbelieving that he’s actually in my bed, I curl onto my side and fall quickly into deep sleep. When I wake up hours later, he’s curled around me, covering my body with his own,
and the
pillows
are
strewn across the room. I nudge myself closer to him and fall back
into darkness
.

Chapter 14

CHRIS

The pillows lasted approximately five minutes.

I needed to make sure that she was an actual physical presence
, I told myself, so I wrapped myself around her in the most and least sexual way possible and consoled myself with the fact that I had made the right decision, despite her teasing and the fact that we could be basking in the afterglow of sex right now.

Stop, stop, stop, thinking about sex,
and that’s an impossible thought
as
I
see
her in my arms. She’s been fighting off sleep ever since
the sun
started peeking in the windows
, rocking a little bit to each side and tossing her head.
It’s the goddamn sexiest thing I have ever seen.

I’m counting sheep and trying to distract m
yself from my ever-growing hard-o
n when she turns to me. Total fail.
“Hey,”
she whispers
, looking at the pillows on the floor. Her eyes
are
full of laughter. “My foolproof plan didn’t exactly work, huh?”

“Not exactly.”

“Ahhh.” S
he
reaches up to touch her hair, wincing
. “I must
be
a total mess.”

Her hair is puffed out in
clouds
around her face, and little pieces stick out everywhere, and it is perfect. She is perfect.
I kiss her for a long minute and she covers her mouth immediately.

“Oh,
no.
I have total morning mouth.”
S
he jumps
up and run
s
to the bathroom and squeals. “Wow. Ok. So, it’s the total zombie look.”

“We could just stay in bed all day,” I suggest.

She peeks her head out from the bathroom. “Really?”

“Absolutely not. Too dangerous.”

She looks disappointed for a minute, but then excitement flashes across her face. “And we have to work on your script.”

That is the last thing I want to do. I want to spend the day showing her all of my favorite things about New York, all the little nooks and crannies that I spent the first sixteen years of my life finding. I want to share all if it with her.