Why Not Tonight?

along the lines of same here, but her throat had swelled with emotion and the words wouldn’t come.

“All that brings me to what I don’t want. To what won’t make me happy. I don’t want to put an ocean between us. I don’t want to go three months without seeing you. The bottom line is that I let life separate us once before and it was a huge mistake. I’m not willing to let you get away again. I want to stay here. With you. There’s something between us. Something really good and special and I want to see where it leads. Now. Not three months from now.”

Her heart was pounding so hard she could hear the blood rushing in her ears. After clearing her throat to locate her voice, she managed to say, “But what about your trip?”

“I’m not going.”

Good lord, she needed to sit down. Oh, wait. She was sitting down. Fine. She needed a stretcher. “You’re giving up your dream-”

“No, I’m not. I’m just reworking it. The minute I stopped kidding myself about my ability to walk-or in this case fly-away from you, everything fell into place.”

He rose and walked to the chair where he’d draped his suit jacket, then slipped an envelope from the inside pocket. After moving to stand in front of her, he held out the envelope.

“I stopped at the airport on my way here. I traded in my ticket for two open-ended vouchers. The thought of three months alone in Europe no longer holds any appeal. But visiting for a week or two-with you-does.”

“You want me to go to Europe with you?”

“Yes. Whenever we can work it into our schedules.”

“And you’re sure about this?”

“Positive. You know that Olympic torch? That’s nothing compared to what I’m carrying for you.”

Adam reached out and clasped her shoulders, grimly noting that his hands weren’t quite steady. His gaze searched her face, hoping for a clue to her thoughts, but the only thing he saw for certain was that she looked sort of…dazed. And stunned.

Hell, was that good or bad? Why didn’t women come with instruction manuals? Clearing his throat, he said, “You’re uncharacteristically quiet. Care to tell me what you’re thinking?”

She blinked several times then looked at him through those big, melting, brown eyes that never failed to deliver a visceral impact.

“I was thinking that this is rather…ironic.”

“Ironic? Is that…good? Because I gotta tell ya, fabulous or terrific were definitely more what I’d hoped for.”

Not a trace of amusement flickered in her very serious gaze, and a very unpleasant knot gripped his stomach.

“Like you,” she said softly, “I spent the entire night thinking. Soul-searching. Trying to pinpoint precisely what I wanted. And like you, I finally figured it out, and had planned to tell you tonight at the airport. Nine years ago, I made a mistake by not laying all my cards on the table and I don’t want to make the same mistake now.”

After drawing a breath, she continued, “Back then, you made me feel things I’d never dreamed possible. Things I haven’t felt to that degree with anyone since. Things I’d basically given up on ever experiencing again. It was to the point where I almost believed I’d imagined I ever felt such…magic. But last night irrevocably proved it was no figment of my imagination.”

She squeezed his hands, and he returned the gesture. “I find what you told me ironic because it so closely mirrors what I want to tell you. I want to see where that magic might lead, and I’m willing to do whatever’s necessary to give it a chance.”

“Meaning what?”

“I understand you wanting, needing to leave Manhattan, and if things show signs of working out between us, well, I wouldn’t allow a house to come between us.”

He went completely still. “Are you saying you’d sell your house? Move?”

“If it came to that, yes. I don’t want to let life separate us again without knowing for sure what we might have together. Because I want, very much, to see where this might lead. Because you make me happy. In bed, out of bed. Just looking at you makes me happy. It always has. From the first day I met you.”

Relief whooshed through him and he expelled a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d held. A joy-filled laugh escaped him and he pulled her into his arms, hugging her close. “You know, right from day one of our friendship it was almost eerie how we were so often on the same wavelength.”

“Obviously we still are,” she said, smiling into his eyes.

“Thank God.” Pulling her closer, he kissed her deeply, possessively, every cell in his body coming alive. When he’d satisfied his need to explore her luscious mouth, he left her lips to trail hungry kisses down her soft, fragrant throat.

She arched her neck, giving him better access, and moaned. Tunneling her fingers through his hair, she said in a smoky voice, “I’ll give you five hours to cut that out.”

“Five?”

“Okay, six hours. But not a minute more.”

“Great.” Bending his knees, he swooped her into his arms and headed swiftly down the hallway. “I vote we seal this occasion with that nooner fantasy of yours, brown-eyed girl.”

Her smile could have lit a room during a blackout. “And there’s that same-wavelength thing again.”

Epilogue

Three months later…

MALLORY USED HER KEY to open the door of the fixer-upper Adam had recently purchased. This house was his second venture into his new career, the first having gone extremely well, netting him a nice profit when it had resold last week-also netting her a nice commission in the process.

Dust motes floated on the ribbons of late-afternoon sunlight pouring in the windows, and the rhythmic pop of a nail gun drifted up from the basement. A smile tugged at her lips. She knew exactly how he’d look-dusty, disheveled, gorgeous and sexy. How he managed to look gorgeous and sexy while being dusty and disheveled was one of those unfair advantages men just had over women. Her heart sped up with the knowledge that in less than one minute she’d be in his arms.

When they’d decided three months ago to see where their attraction might go, she’d been hopeful things would go well. She’d had no idea that things would go so extraordinarily well. Their relationship had bloomed into one of mutual respect and admiration. The awareness and sexual fire that smoldered between them continued to burn as hot as ever. She’d never known she could be this happy. This content. Or that she would fall this deeply in love. Again. With the same man. Only loving him even more now than the first time around.

Opening the basement door, she slowly descended the stairs. The nail-gun noise stopped, and Adam must have heard her footfalls because he came to the bottom of the stairs. Her heart sighed with pleasure at the sight of him.

“Hi, gorgeous,” he said. He smiled up at her, but she noticed that the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Funny, I was just about to say the same thing.”

He raised his brows and looked down at his dust-streaked T-shirt and his old faded jeans that bore a multitude of smudges. “I’m a mess.”

She stopped on the last step so that they were on eye level and, without the slightest thought to her black suit, looped her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him. “A gorgeous, sexy mess who’d better kiss me right now. Or else.”

He leaned back, evading her kiss. “Or else what?”

“Or else I won’t tell him about the handyman’s special that was just listed on the market today.”

“Done.” He kissed her in that toe-curling, knee-weakening way of his that never failed to leave her breathless. But something felt…different. As if he were distracted. Her suspicion was confirmed when he leaned back and their