What He Really Feels (He Feels Trilogy) (27 page)

When they arrived at the wine bar, Dan waited until Lindsay had seen the neon sign displaying the title of the bar. And then, just as the limo pulled out in front, Dan said, “Y is for YORK Wine Bar.”

I had left my apartment just after I had gotten the text from Dan that they were getting ready to leave Lindsay’s. I headed straight for York, and I waited at the bar for her. I ordered us each a glass of champagne, because I knew that there would be celebrating after she decided to take me back. I listened to the slow tune on the piano; it wasn’t overwhelmingly loud, but it was loud enough to encourage a few couples to hit the small dance floor.

I never, not even for a second, thought that she wouldn’t show.

My only option was to be confident, because if I wasn’t, if I let negative thoughts invade for even a second, I’d be screwed. I’d get too nervous and I wouldn’t be able to do what I needed to do, which was to get her back.

Dan texted me when they were about five minutes away, and the second the text came through, I became a nervous wreck. I downed my glass of champagne in one gulp, and then I started in on the one I had ordered for her. I ordered another glass so there’d be one waiting for her when she arrived.

The champagne did little to calm my nerves. The place wasn’t very crowded; it was a Tuesday night, after all, so I figured that she’d easily spot me the moment she walked in the door, where my eyes were trained as I anxiously awaited her arrival.

I saw her walk in the door and glance around nervously. Her eyes met mine from the doorway, and my rampant nerves suddenly settled at the sight of her.

I stood and locked eyes with her, and she made her way toward me.

When she arrived, I went in for a hug, but she held me off. I leaned in and kissed her cheek anyway, and there was the familiar citrus scent. I felt transported to a picnic in a field on a warm summer day just by smelling her. I saw her chest heave on a sigh.

She took a seat on the stool next to the one I had vacated when she walked in. I sat, too, and I handed her the glass of champagne.

“Travis,” she began. My name rolling off of her tongue was glorious. “I only came to tell you to stop. Today was completely over the top. My kitchen looks like a flower shop.”

I grinned. She was angry, but damn, she was beautiful.

And she had kept the flowers.

“I feel like you coming here has to mean more than just telling me to stop,” I said.

“Your card said that you wouldn’t take no for an answer. I have to be honest; I didn’t want to see you.”

“Why not?” I asked. I was maintaining my confidence on the outside, but I was totally panicked on the inside.

How was it possible that all of my hard work that day didn’t even make a dent?

“Because I knew that seeing you would only confuse me.” Her voice was soft, meant only for me to hear. If that.

I leaned in closer to her. “And does it confuse you?”

She blinked and closed her eyes for a moment as she inhaled, and then she opened her eyes and swallowed hard. “Your fucking scent confuses me. Everything about you confuses me.”

“The feeling’s mutual.”

“Why are you going to all of this trouble?” She took a sip of her champagne, and then she set the glass back on the bar and stared at it.

“Lindsay.
Gorgeous. I think I need to explain my W card.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that I said I needed to tell you in person what I really feel.”

She glanced over at me, her eyes narrowed.
“And?”

“And I have never been good at expressing myself. But with you, everything has just felt so right from the very start. What I’m feeling… it’s out of this world, Lindsay.” I leaned in close to her again, so my breath was warm against her ear. “It’s unreal. It’s crazy and wild and uncontrollable. It’s too soon and too much and too overwhelming.”

She leaned back cautiously, away from me, and looked me in the eyes. “What happened on Sunday?”

I gazed at her, and she looked away. “I called Julianne like you told me to. We talked. I realized a lot about what I felt for you. And then she told me that she had gotten engaged.”

She sucked in a sharp breath, and I pulled her chin so she had to look in my eyes.

“I was upset. I went to the beach to clear my head and got lost in thought. I was a selfish asshole who was too wrapped up in my own rage to think about anything else. I drank myself into oblivion and woke up the next day feeling like shit. And then I saw the messages from you and realized just how stupid I was.”

She pulled away from me, yanking her chin out of my grasp. My explanation wasn’t working. I had to do something, and fast.

“
When I saw your texts, I was so afraid that it was over between us. But I realized that it could
never
be over between us. I know that you are it for me. You were the one that I was destined to find not once, but twice. And Julianne, I realized, means nothing to me anymore. She will always be my friend, but my feelings for you are so… different from the feelings I had for her. Stronger.”

I knew my tone was pleading by that point, but I didn’t care. She had to know the whole story. And I also realized that I had essentially told her I loved her without saying the words. I told her that my feelings for her were stronger than the feelings I had for the woman I had loved for most of my life. That had to mean something to her. I wasn’t ready to say the actual words yet, and she wasn’t ready to hear them yet, but we were both there. Well, I was. I wasn’t sure about her anymore.

She was quiet as she took another sip of her champagne.

“Say something, Lindsay. Please.”

She took a deep breath. “I’m not a jealous person, Travis. But you have to hear what you just said to me.”

“What?” I was confused. I had just basically confessed that I loved her. Didn’t she hear that?

“You said that you stood me up because you were upset about another woman.”

“Did you miss the rest of what I said, though?”

She shook her head. “I heard it all. But the bottom line is that you put your own feelings ahead of mine. The right thing to do would’ve been to call me. To lean on me. But instead, you handled it on your own, and that’s part of what broke up my last relationship. I can’t get back into something like that again.”

She stood up to leave, but I stopped her by standing and grabbing her arms, hauling her into me. “Dance with me,” I murmured.
“One dance. Don’t leave me yet.”

She sighed wearily as she looked everywhere but at me. “Fine,” she muttered. “It’s not like I can leave anyway since I didn’t drive here.”

I grabbed her hand in mine and led her to the dance floor. A lazy tune played on the piano, and I pulled her into my arms. She wrapped her arms around me, too, and it felt like a goodbye.

Panic iced my veins.

I didn’t know what else to do.

I held her in my arms, my confidence shot. All I wanted was to hold her this way forever. We just belonged together; she was short and petite and beautiful, and I towered over her, but we were a perfect fit. I held her against me a little tighter, and she rested her cheek against my heart, which was beating erratically so close to her. I leaned down and kissed the top of her head, and she cuddled into me.

“This was why I didn’t want to come,” she murmured.

“Why?” I whispered, placing my fingers under her chin and forcing her to look at me again.

“Because I lose control when I'm around you,” she said, gazing into my eyes as tears filled hers. “I can’t think straight, and I can’t resist you.”

I looked intently back into her eyes. One tear escaped, and I wiped it away with my thumb. I leaned my head down, resting my forehead against hers.

“I can’t resist you, either,” I said. My lips brushed against her nose, and then she leaned back, allowing me access to her lips. My mouth crashed down over hers, and that’s when I knew that we were going to be okay.

She moaned into me, and I was ready to rip her dress off of her body, but we were in a public place in the middle of a dance floor. I forced myself to pull back first before things went too far. She sighed, this time in happiness, and she snuggled a little closer to me.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered into her hair. “I promise it’ll never happen again. You will always come first. Always.”

She looked up at me, and then she smiled. The smile reassured me that I hadn’t misread the situation. She had forgiven me, and we were going to be okay.

“So what’s the Z?” she asked.

“No Z. Z means the end. This is just the beginning for us.”

She leaned up to kiss me. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” she murmured against my lips.

“Deal,” I grinned. I took care of the tab and texted Dan, who was still waiting in the limo just in case things went wrong and Lindsay needed a ride home.

He met me at the entrance to the bar and took my car keys so he could head home in my car and Lindsay and I could enjoy a romantic limo ride back to my place.

I got into the back and pressed the button for the privacy glass, and as soon as it was up all the way, Lindsay was straddling my lap, her legs on either side of mine as she cradled my face in her hands.

“I missed you,” she whispered.

“I missed you more,” I said.

Her lips found mine, and this time, we didn’t have to stop.

I arched my hips up into her, and she moaned when she felt how hard I was for her. Her hands found my chest, and I wrapped myself around her, knowing that this time I would be
careful with her. This time, I wouldn’t make some stupid mistake that could cost me the most important relationship of my life.

I slid my hands up her thighs, under her dress, up to her hips. She moaned as I gripped her to me, and I was glad I’d given Jorge twenty extra bucks to take the long way home.

I was vaguely aware that we had about fifteen minutes until we’d be back at my place.

That would be plenty of time for me.

It had been far too long since I’d held Lindsay in my arms.

I found the edge of her panties and slipped my finger inside, slowly feeling my way to her core as her tongue slid against mine. She arched back when I plunged two fingers into her, throwing her head back as she yelled out, not caring that we were in the back of a limo.
When we were together, neither one of us had any inhibitions at all.

She grasped my erection through my pants, and she pumped in time to the rhythm my fingers set. I knew we were running out of time, but I suddenly
had
to be inside of her. I had to know that everything was okay between us, and her giving that to me was a confirmation that we were back on track.

I pulled my fingers out of her and I went for my belt buckle. She helped me, and then she unzipped my fly and unbuttoned my pants. She reached in, and I fell out, hot and heavy across her elegant hands. She licked her lips as her eyes met mine, and the little flick of her tongue was so fucking sexy that I nearly lost my mind.

She aimed my head at her entrance and pulled her panties aside, and then she lowered herself down onto me. We both stilled at my entry, and I felt her tighten around me as she took me all the way inside of her.

I was back where I belonged.

She grasped my shoulders for balance and then she moved up before pushing back down. She was taking her time, and it was driving me fucking insane. I wanted it hard and fast because we were almost back to my apartment. I needed the release before we got back. I was getting close, and I knew that she was, too, but she took her time, slowly lifting before thrusting back downward, pausing as she felt me fill her, and then lifting back up to repeat her rhythm.

“Travis,” she said on a moan. “You feel so fucking
good inside of me.”

I loved it when she talked dirty.

I was so into what we were doing that I nearly didn’t notice that the car had rolled to a stop just outside the doors of my building.

Fuck.

That was the fastest damn limo ride of my life.

“We’re back,” I murmured, kissing her lips softly before helping her to the seat next to me. She smoothed the bottom of her dress as I pulled my rock hard dick glistening with remnants of my time inside of her back into my pants and fixed my belt, and I could see even in the darkness that her cheeks were flushed.

She looked fantastically fuckable in that moment.

“You ready?” I asked, and she nodded. I got out of the limo first and held my hand out to help Lindsay out, too.

My groin ached as I thanked Jorge for his help, and Lindsay started laughing.

“So your name’s not Xavier?” she asked him.

He chuckled. “No. But this guy gave me twenty bucks to say it was.”

Lindsay threw her head back and laughed, and I chuckled, too. “X is a really hard letter,” I defended myself.

I had texted Dan earlier to let him know that Jules was staying in our guest room, and Jules was aware that I was going to be coming back with Lindsay. She had volunteered to lock herself in the guest room so as not to cause any more problems. It helped to know that everyone was on my side, rooting for me and helping in any way they could to get Lindsay back in my arms where she belonged.