But then, to my surprise, she doesn’t push me off or ask me what I’m doing. Instead, after just a moment, she relaxes. I could almost swear that she leans into my touch, shifting her weight towards me.
It seems that my plan is working better than I thought. It could be that there really is a chance of this happening tonight – and despite all my determined thoughts, I really wasn’t sure that I could get her to see it. The rightness of us.
But now, standing in the London Eye and looking out over the city, I feel like we might just be the only two people in the entire world. And it works so well it makes me ache. If it weren’t for the other people also riding in the gondola with us, I might rip her clothes off right now, and take her in front of the whole city. That thought makes me hard, and I have to focus very carefully on thoughts of business deals and boardrooms and elderly CEO’s to make it go away.
We spend the rest of the day doing the tourist thing, buying silly England souvenirs from one of the many tourist trap shops with all their Union Jack-printed goods, walking down famous streets, admiring the Tower and Parliament from the ground. Finally, it’s time to go for dinner; but instead, I suggest something else.
“It’s getting late,” I tell her, checking my watch. “I should probably take you back to your hotel.”
“Oh,” Casey says, looking momentarily disappointed. I’m sure she was expecting dinner – but I have other plans. “Yes, of course. I hadn’t even noticed the time.”
CHAPTER TEN
Casey
I thought it was all going so well – he put his arm around me on the Eye and it made me burn with desire – but when Edward suggests it’s time to go back to the hotel, I can’t help but feel bitterly disappointed. I suppose I was hoping to spend more time with him tonight – but if he has plans, I understand that we can’t be together for a full twenty-four hours.
Just like before, Edward puts me in a cab and then comes with me all the way to my door, carrying my bags full of souvenirs for me. I could manage them myself – I didn’t completely go all out – but it’s nice to have someone offer to do something nice for me. Not only that, but when I get to the door, I realize it’s also an excuse to invite him to come inside.
“Could you put the bags on the desk?” I ask him, holding the door open and trying to look coy.
“Of course,” Edward smiles, brushing past me and walking right into the room. I close the door behind him and, even if it only turns out to be for just a moment, I have what I wanted. Edward inside my room, just the two of us with a big empty bed.
I sit down on the edge of it, watching Edward as he puts the bags down and then glances around. “This isn’t too bad, is it?” he asks. “Is the bed comfortable?”
“I like it,” I say, feeling shyness threatening to overcome me as I gather my courage to add. “Why don’t you sit down and try it?”
Edward does, sitting right beside me. The soft mattress dips under both of our weights, bringing us just marginally closer together.
“Um,” I say, before my nerve fails me – because I have an idea of how he can stay longer, and maybe a way to get him to do more. “We didn’t get dinner. I’m going to order room service. You can stay and have something if you want?”
I’m almost certain he will say no, and I don’t dare turn my head to look at him, staring at my hands where they rest on top of my knees.
“That sounds good,” he says, reaching for the menu on the table. “We can’t have Michelin-starred food every night, right?”
“Right,” I laugh, a wave of relief washing over me. Could it really be that he’s willing to stay here and eat with me? I can hardly believe my ears. It might have been my idea, but I never really thought he would go for it.
We order something – I barely even know what, because all I can hear is the pounding of my own heart in my ears. I can’t take my eyes off him as he shrugs out of his jacket and sits in his long sleeve shirt, the muscles in his arms visible through the fabric. He sits so close to me, and I can’t think about anything except how much I want him.
But what am I supposed to do now? I know that I want something between us to start, but I don’t know how. I’ve never made any moves before, let alone the first. What should I do? Just grab hold of him? Say something? I’m lost in indecision, the heat growing in my belly as I think about what I want him to do to me, but unable to make it happen.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Edward
There’s a new energy between us. I can feel it, thrumming almost palpably. A new heat rising in the small space between us, like we’re two magnets being pulled together by an inescapable force. I set the phone back onto its holder and toss the menu back onto the table and then I can no longer ignore it. It’s there, and it’s real, just like I had hoped.
I turn to Casey and see it in her eyes, lidded and looking at me through her lashes; her mouth, just slightly parted as
