“I had a session with Dr. Newman today over the Lullaby Killer shooting. I mentioned it to him.”
“He’s the department psychotherapist, right?”
“That’s right. I had to meet with him since shooting Jeffery Schiffer in that take down a few weeks ago.”
“Did it help?” Sidney asked, after a small pause. “Talking about the miscarriage?”
Isaac looked into her eyes.
“Actually, I think it did.”
She nodded and looked down at her plate again.
“Darlin’, I’m not suggesting you need to seek out a therapist, or even a grief counselor. But maybe just talking about it with a friend might help. Bree, or Jada. Maybe even talking to your brother, Simon.”
She closed her eyes, saying nothing.
“Just something to consider, okay?” Isaac said softly.
Sidney nodded and took a deep breath. Then she took a sip of her water, and Isaac knew he had to do something to steer this conversation in another direction. A better direction.
“Hey, I’ve been wondering…”
Isaac paused and repositioned in his chair. Why did asking this question make him unreasonably nervous?
“I mean… I don’t want to rush you or anything, but I just thought maybe we could um… well, if you wanted to, I mean…”
“Isaac?” Sidney’s tone was cautious, and she placed a hand on his wrist, making his skin tingle. “Whatever it is, just spit it out.”
Isaac took a breath, buoyed by her touch.
“Well, I was thinking maybe we could, you know, talk about… dates.”
“Dates?”
The confusion in her voice was mirrored in her eyes, and Isaac licked his lips before trying again.
“Yeah. Wedding dates.”
Her eyes lit up, and his nerves throttled back from danger mode.
“Oh! Dates.”
Isaac grinned. “Yeah. Dates.”
“Hmm. Well, you know, I have been thinking about that.”
She ran a single finger over the back of his hand and up his forearm, and that tingle zipped through his body and connected with his dick. He repositioned on his chair once more, for an entirely different reason.
“Really?” It was the only word he could get out.
“Um hmm,” Sidney hummed in response.
Isaac quietly cleared his throat.
“Feel like sharing any of those thoughts with me?”
The question was met with a slender probing foot sliding up his leg beneath the table in a sexy caress. His mind clouded, like fog rolling in off Lake Erie.
Was she purposely trying to get him worked up? Deliberately teasing him when she knew he couldn’t do anything about it?
Her foot rose higher, drifting up his inner thigh. Isaac pushed his empty plate away and leaned in closer, putting his elbows on the table and watching Sidney’s luscious lips as she spoke.
“Well, I was thinking that I don’t really want to wait a long time. I’d rather do it sooner than later.”
“Oh, I like that idea a whole lot.”
“Do you?”
“Hell yes. In fact, I’m all for flying to Vegas this weekend.”
Sidney laughed, and the timbre of it lit up the night for Isaac. He smiled hard, bathing in the richness of the sound.
“That’s a little sooner than I was thinking,” Sidney said with a smile.
“Ah. Can’t blame a man for trying.” Isaac reached out and touched her bouncy curls. “So, when were you thinking?”
“Well, ideally I’d like to say Spring. That would give us enough time to plan. But that’s nearly a year away and I don’t want to wait that long. On the other hand, I don’t need some elaborately planned church wedding with all the trimmings either. I had that the last time, and look how that turned out. There’s a lot to think about. I just don’t know.”
“Hmm.” Isaac could sense her uncertainty and he needed to resume his mission to put a smile on her face and chase away her sadness. He stood and walked over to the radio. “Well, just keep Vegas in mind while you’re deciding, okay?”
He turned on the radio, which was always tuned to their favorite R&B oldies station, and turned up the volume.
“What are you doing?”
Playful suspicion crinkled the corners of her eyes, and Isaac held out his hand to her.
“Asking you to dance.”
She smiled up at him.
“You’re volunteering to dance?”
Isaac grinned and nodded.
“But you don’t like to dance, Ike.”
“I like dancing with you.”
She took his hand just as Martha and the Vandellas began to sing about dancing in the streets, and Isaac led her to the middle of the room and began moving his body to the rhythm.
Dancing was something he’d only recently discovered he truly enjoyed doing. Normally, the very thought of flailing his body around to the music made him sick with worry. The chance of accidentally touching someone nearby was simply too great a risk. A fool’s folly.
But when it was just him and Sidney — just him and the one woman whose touch never caused him an ounce of pain — he could be as free with his body as he wanted to.
He spun around and shook his shoulders, making a funny face at her.
Sidney laughed and finally began to dance with him.
Fast songs and slow. From the Supremes to the Temptations, the O-Jays, and more, they boogied around the dining room for over half an hour. When Marvin Gaye started to belt out “Let’s Get it On,” Isaac pulled her into his arms and held her tight against his body as they swayed.
He stared down into her light champagne gem-colored eyes and saw so much — love, longing, his future. He loved this woman more than life. She was his world.
Slowly, his hand ran from the small of her back down over the curve of her ass. He leaned in and inhaled the spiced honeysuckle scent of her. His lips moved to the rim of her ear.
“I really want to make love to you right now.”
Something close to a whimper escaped her, and he looked down into her eyes once more.
“I want that too. But we can’t.”
“I know. Two weeks.”
He said the words with a hint of dread. How the hell he was going to make it two whole weeks he had no clue.
Sidney pulled back, and
