“Different flavors, and they can all be delicious when tasted with the right person.” I want to taste them all with you. “But yes, one’s natural tendencies do have a way of defining what one sees as normal.”
“You tried a so-called normal relationship once. With Melanie.”
Yes, if we were going to have a relationship, I had to talk about Melanie.
“Yes.” I took a bite of a roll and chewed it while I thought. “With Melanie. It was a miserable failure.” I flinched, remembering how I’d hurt Melanie. Not as badly as I’d hurt Abby, but I’d still hurt her. “We failed for several reasons—Melanie is not a natural submissive, and I couldn’t repress my dominant nature.” I thought back to the night she found me in my playroom. “But she didn’t want to admit we couldn’t work. I never understood that.”
Never understood why she had to go crying to Todd and Elaina. Why she felt the need to interrupt what I was trying to tell Abby at the engagement party.
“For what it’s worth,” Abby said, “she seems to be over you now.”
I wondered again what the two of them had talked about at the party. However, if Abby thought Melanie was over me, it really didn’t matter.
“Thank God,” I said.
I girded myself and asked, “Are you?”
She looked at me with the most beautiful longing in her eyes. “No.”
Relief, excitement, anticipation, and hope surged through me.
“Thank God,” I answered again simply.
I reached across the table and took her hand. “Nor I, you,” I said, because it wasn’t enough for me to know how she felt—I had to be honest with her. Let her know how I felt.
Our eyes met, and I felt the chains of my past start to loosen. If we had made it this far, perhaps we could make it a little bit farther.
“I’ll do whatever it takes to earn your trust back, Abby. For however long it takes.” I took a deep breath and forced out my next question as I stroked her knuckles. “Will you let me?”
“Yes.”
I felt like jumping onto the table. Instead, I squeezed her hand and let it go. “Thank you.”
We were going to do it. We would work through this and find our way—together.
I wanted to talk to her for hours.
The damned waiter came back to the table.
“Have you ever made sushi?” Abby asked.
Okay, we could talk about sushi.
“No. I never have, but I’ve always wanted to learn.”
The waiter took my glass and refilled it. “We have classes. Next Thursday night. Seven o’clock.”
Abby looked at me.
Should we? her eyes asked.
Like a date? A regular date? To get to know each other?
Yes, of course. Anything to be near her. I almost said as much, but then I heard Paul’s voice in my head: Every step from here still has to be up to her.
I raised an eyebrow at her. Your call. You decide.
“Let’s do it,” she said.
She agreed. She wanted to try. I decided then and there to ask her to the play on Saturday.
My opportunity came as we were leaving the restaurant.
“Abby,” I said, helping her with her coat. “Kyle’s in his school play. Opening night is Saturday and he asked me to attend. Will you come with me?”
I tried to read her expression, but couldn’t decide what she thought.
“What time?”
“I can pick you up at five,” I said. “We could have dinner before the show?”
Before today, she hadn’t wanted me to pick her up or meet her at her apartment. Had our conversations and confessions changed that?
“Five it is.”
After she left, I called Sara and told her I’d be working from home the rest of the afternoon. I drove to my estate with one purpose and, after dealing with Apollo’s neurotic sniffing once again and letting him outside, I walked down the hallway.
I stood outside the double doors and closed my eyes. It was time. It had been long enough. The past was the past and today was the day I would leave it behind for the last time.
I took a deep breath, opened the doors, and stepped into my library for the first time in weeks.
Saturday finally arrived following what had to be some of the longest days of my life. I wondered if Felicia would be around, but Jackson told me she’d be at his place for the evening.
I ignored his “I told you so” attitude.
The date with Abby could not have gone better. She was beautiful, enchanting, and quite the conversationalist. She invited me to the Dickinson reading and I accepted without thinking twice.
For the record, her favorite meal was braised leg of lamb, and when she was twelve, she’d wanted a bike for Christmas.
I knew Kyle wouldn’t have a huge part in the play, but when he stepped out on the stage for the first time as a chorus member and saw me sitting in the audience . . . words couldn’t describe the pride I felt. He’d come so far from the sickly boy I’d met not too long ago, and he’d worked so hard to have an active life.
I tried my best all night not to accidentally touch or brush against Abby. In keeping with what Paul said, I wanted her to dictate our physical relationship. My only moment of indecision came when I dropped her off at her apartment. Should I try to kiss her?
“Thank you for inviting me,” she said as we stood at her door. “I had a really nice time.”
“I was glad to have you with me. The evening wouldn’t have been the same without you.” I couldn’t help myself—I took her hand. “I’ll see you Thursday night.”
I looked into her eyes. May I kiss you? I wanted to ask.
Not yet. Let her make the first step.
But what if she doesn’t?
She didn’t.
I smiled at her and turned to leave.
“Nathaniel,” she said after I took a few steps away.My heart pounded, but I turned to face her. She walked to me and I stood still, waiting, unable to keep my eyes from the vision approaching me. Did she want . . .?
Would she . . .?
Then she stood before me and touched my face. The touch of a goddess, the feel of her fingers as they traced my jaw and worked their way into my hair—how had I lived without her touch?
I hadn’t.
“Kiss me,” she said. “Kiss me and mean it.”
And mean it, she asked. Show me how you feel and don’t take it back.
Never, I knew. I would never again deny my feelings for her.
“Oh, Abby,” I said. I could live for three hundred years and would still not begin to understand the forgiveness she offered me.
I slipped my fingers under her chin and lifted her face. My eyes closed as I brought my lips to hers. I felt her need as soon as our lips touched. Felt her longing. How delicately it balanced and mirrored my own. Yet I took my time and savored the feel of her—her softness, the way she moved with me.
She stepped closer, and I drew her nearer. I parted my lips under hers as she deepened the kiss.
In that kiss, I told her everything. For once, I held nothing back, and in return, I felt her give herself once more to me. It was a gift I didn’t deserve, and I would treasure it for as long as she allowed. I would treasure her. Make her feel wanted and needed and loved.
I felt my body stir at her nearness, at her continued touch, and I pulled away. I didn’t want her to think I expected anything tonight. To be allowed to kiss her was enough.
I sighed against her lips. “Thank you.”
Thank you for your acceptance, your forgiveness, your willingness to allow me back in your life. Thank you for not giving up on me, on us, even though I had.
She looked up at me while I still cradled her in my arms. “You’re welcome.”
Chapter Thirty-six
I sat in the last row of the room, watching as she led the Emily Dickinson session. She mesmerized me as she read—poems on death, loss, and life. One in particular, “Come Slowly, Eden!” held me in a trance. She read it in a low, sultry voice, looking back at me as she spoke the last line.
“‘Come slowly, Eden!
Lips unused to thee,
Bashful, sip thy jasmines,
As the fainting bee,
Reaching late his flower,
Round her chamber hums,
Counts his nectars—enters,
And is lost in balms!’”
Who knew poetry could be such a turn-on?
I shifted in my seat as the reading ended. My plan to allow Abby to dictate our physical relationship felt right, but I wasn’t sure how much longer I’d last if she kept throwing things like that my way.
Still, when I left her for the evening, all I gave her was a soft, chaste kiss.
We learned how to make sushi the next night. I thoroughly enjoyed standing by her and learning something new. She stayed so near me, I could smell her light Abby scent. But more than that, we simply enjoyed being together, laughing when one of us messed up, delighting when it turned out correctly.
Our kiss that night was more passionate.
Jackson asked if we’d like to double date with him and Felicia the next weekend, and we hesitantly agreed. All four of us had a great time. Felicia talked warmly to me, and I saw her shooting Abby smug glances a few times. When she caught me looking, Abby simply rolled her eyes.
Apollo grew more and more agitated whenever I arrived home after being with Abby. I wanted badly to ask her to my house, but worried she might think I expected something physical from her.
Finally, about three weeks after we’d been to see Kyle’s play, I dropped by the library on a Thursday afternoon. I picked Thursday because I didn’t want to stop by on a Wednesday—too many memories for both of us.
Her eyes lit up as I walked into the library. “Nathaniel!”
I leaned across the desk and gave her a quick kiss. “How’s your day?”
“Good. Yours?”
“Better now.”
I couldn’t help but smile at the way her cheeks flushed slightly. I cleared my throat. “I wanted to see if you would mind coming to my house for dinner.”
She didn’t say anything.
“To see Apollo,” I said. “He misses you, and when he smells you on me—”
She held up her hand. “I understand. I would love to come over for dinner and to see Apollo. I’ve missed him.”
“Thank you.” She didn’t think any less of me for inviting her to my house—she’d accepted. Apollo would be so happy.
Although not as happy as I was.
Apollo was psychic—I was almost positive. He refused to stay in the house the next night. Instead he waited outside, practically dancing in his excitement. When Abby pulled up the drive in Felicia’s car, he started spinning in circles.
I hurried outside, leaving my post at a front window. “Apollo, please,” I said. He practically knocked her over in his quest to lick her all over. “You must forgive him, Abby. He’s been excited all day.”
She rubbed his head, and he stayed by her side as she walked up the stairs. “That makes two of us.”
I gave her a kiss when she reached me.
Afterward, she pulled on the towel in my hand. “What are you cooking?”
“Honey-almond chicken,” I said. Same as the first time.
“Mmm. My favorite.”
I remembered.
I opened the door. “Come inside. It’s nearly ready.”
We ate at the dining room table. I tried not to concentrate on how right it felt to have her in my house again. How she breathed life into the dark, dead spaces. I pondered again how I’d ever thought letting her leave would be the best course of action and gave silent thanks for her forgiveness.
Apollo, of course, sat on her feet throughout dinner.
I thought it would be a bit uncomfortable, eating at the table, as if the past would somehow steal away what we’d both been working so hard to build over the last few weeks. It wasn’t, though. I’m not sure we stopped talking at all the entire meal—it was a wonder we ate anything.