A Silken Thread - Brenda Jackson [35]
When they reached her floor and the doors swooshed open, they both stepped out. He glanced over at her thinking he didn’t regret anything about tonight. He had enjoyed sitting at the table sharing drinks with her while they listened to the jazz, and he appreciated the conversation. He liked hearing her talk. She had a soft voice, the kind he could probably listen to for hours on end and not get tired of hearing.
And he had liked glancing across the table at her when she didn’t know he was looking. When he should not have been looking. He didn’t have the right, but he had done so anyway. And his chest had thumped deeply each time she had smiled with enjoyment when the band ended one number and began another.
He couldn’t help but wonder if what his brother had claimed all these years was true. Did every living human being have a soul mate? A person so attuned to another person that loving them, wanting to be with them, was just as vital as eating and breathing? At the moment he didn’t know. He truly couldn’t imagine such a thing.
He began looking straight ahead down the long, seemingly endless hallway, counting the doors they passed on their way to hers. When they reached their destination, he would say good-bye, tell her that he hoped she had a safe flight home and then turn to leave. Simple. Yet for him, for some reason it would be hard. Whatever time they had shared over the past twelve hours would be just a memory. A memory she might eventually banish from her mind, though he doubted he ever would.
“Thank you for walking me to my door,” she said when she came to a stop.
He halted his steps as well and glanced at her, saw her smile and at that moment his breath was nearly snatched right from his lungs. What was happening to him? Why was his heart beating so fast? What were these emotions that were surging inside of him and rapidly consuming him?
“Don’t mention it,” he heard himself say. “Have a safe flight back and hug that daughter of mine when you see her, will you?”
She chuckled as her face lit up, and the sound flitted through parts of his body. “Of course I will. You know, Wilson, you’re a good father.”
“I’ve always tried to be.” He paused a moment then said, “Good-bye, Rita.”
“Good-bye, Wilson.” She then used her pass key to unlock the door and he began to walk off.
He told himself to keep walking and not look back, and could attribute a number of things to the reason he suddenly stopped. It could have been the absence of the sound of the door opening and closing shut behind her, or the need to see her one last time even if it was just a glimpse of her fleeing back.
But when he turned, what he saw gave him pause. Had him groaning silently. Rita was looking directly at him and there was a need he saw in the depths of her eyes that probably matched his own. A need that was twenty years in the making for him. The smile was gone and the intense look shaping her mouth and the longing in the deep set of her gaze almost froze him in place.
And when she whispered his name in a soundless plea, one he would not have heard had he not seen her lips move, he began slowly walking back to her, not sure what he would do when he reached her.
That uncertainty was taken out of his hands and instinctively he pulled her into his arms and lowered his head. Taking her mouth was probably the easiest thing he’d ever done. And the tastiest. Their tongues tangled, dueled and intimately connected.
He leaned against the door and found it ajar, so without breaking the kiss he eased them both inside and closed the door behind them with his heel. Something flared through him, something he hadn’t felt in years, if ever. He was downright dizzy with passion. Hunger for her gnawed in the pit of his stomach, cutting a quick path to his groin.
He was fifty-nine years old, for heaven’s sake. Where did all this greed and fire come from? All this animal lust? And why was it coming out in full blast for this woman? He didn’t have time to dwell on those questions