Page 46 of The Awakening of Nina Fontaine

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The restof their conversation was lighthearted by comparison. Liam ordered short rib hash and devoured it without pretense while Nina chose an omelette with a caper hollandaise so good it made her want to lick the plate. Liam told her about a project he was considering in Morocco, then asked about her job at the gallery. She’d only worked there once — a couple hours Saturday morning before she’d begun the long process of getting ready for the Amfar Gala — since their first date, but they slipped easily into a discussion about the trials and benefits of being an artist in the modern era, the challenges of making enough money to support a gallery like Edmonia’s, and a hipster culture that had produced more people who wanted to embrace the lifestyle of a photographer than those who actually wanted to takepictures.

He was once again engaging and easy to talk to, and Nina found herself forgetting they were on a date. She hadn’t realized how much her worry about the age difference had prevented her from enjoying her interactions with him in the past. Now that they’d talked about it, Nina made a conscious decision not to dwell on it, a decision that removed what felt like a twenty-pound weight from her shoulders. Without it, she was able to be in the moment with Liam, to appreciate the excitement of connecting with someone on such a naturallevel.

After brunch they wandered the neighborhood to work off their food, stepping into a handful of boutiques and antique stores and browsing a used bookstore. Nina lingered over an old, worn copy of Anna Karenina while Liam left her side to pursue the art section. It was the kind of day she never could have had with Peter — he would have been bored inside five minutes, wearing his long-suffering martyrdom like a soggy blanket — and for the first time she wondered if she and Peter had ever been well-suited.

She thought back to their meeting in college, trying to conjure the lusty, emotional passion that had accompanied her every thought ofhim.

She couldn’t. Revisiting their shared past was like watching a movie of two people she didn’t recognize — Peter funny and sweet, Nina a perfect mirror to reflect the qualities he mostadmired.

She hadn’t known herself well enough to even look for someone who might be a good match for her, let alone know it when she saw it. Maybe she’d just been carried away on the hormones engineered by nature to insure the propagation of thespecies.

Maybe they’d never been a match in the truestsense.

This was something new — wandering the city hand in hand with Liam, splitting up inside the bookstore without comment, going their separate ways, neither of them reliant on the other for entertainment or company, equally content sharing an unusual find and standing alone in the dusty stacks, lost in their ownworlds.

She’d been flipping through the classics for nearly a half hour when he came upon her, lost in Tolstoy. He showed genuine interest in what she was reading, inspecting the 1944 publication date and commenting on the beautiful watercolor illustrations sprinkled throughout thebook.

She put it back on the shelf and they exited the store with a wave to the woman behind thecounter.

It was almost warm outside, the sun shining on streets clear of snow and ice. Nina felt lighthearted, filled with a sudden burst of gratitude as they made their way to thesubway.

This was her life now. Not a vacation or a temporary respite from the quiet house in Larchmont, Peter’s weighted silence, the hours filled with tasks that in hindsight had been repetitive and monotonous, but her real life. She would have as many days like this as she wanted, as she would allow, and she suddenly wanted to allow a lot more ofthem.

It was late afternoon when they exited the subway and started for her apartment, but the time of day in no way alleviated the impulse to ask Liam upstairs. Instead of imagining his body against hers in the dark, she saw it lit by the setting sun, imagined them laying in her bed as nightfell.

She considered it as they came to a stop outside her apartment, then discarded the idea. Giving herself permission to see where things went with Liam — and with Jack Morgan — didn’t mean she was ready to jump into something physical. That’s what had gotten her in trouble with Peter when she’d been at the whim of her hormones and the false certainty ofyouth.

But she wasn’t in college anymore. She knew better now, and while she was opening up to the idea of taking chances, of allowing herself new experiences, the possibility of being intimate with someone was stilloverwhelming.

“You’re not going to invite me up, are you?” Liam asked with a good-naturedgrin.

She smiled and shook her head, rocking on her heels and looking at her feet. “It’s not that I don’t want to. It’sjust…”

He slipped his hands into the hair at the back of her head and tipped her face so that she was looking at him. His eyes were bright, a smile teasing the corners of hismouth.

I must be crazy not to take this man to my bed thisinstant.

“There’s no rush,” he said. “We’ll take it slow. You call theshots.”

His hands were velvety and strong on her face. They were hands that had carried a camera through every continent on earth, hands that had moved downed brush in small villages, that had handed out candy to kids trailing him in the slums of Calcutta, and yet she had no doubt they would touch her tenderly, that they would explore her body with the same care and attentiveness he used to document stories with hispictures.

She nodded. “Thanks.”

“Although that doesn’t mean I’m not dying to kiss you,” he said, his gaze locked onhers.

“It doesn’t mean I’d say no to it either,” she saidsoftly.

His expression grew serious, his gaze more intense as the words left hermouth.

He closed what little distance still separated them until his chest was touchinghers.

She shouldn’t have worried about what it would be like to kiss someone else, about what to do if the situation arose. Her hands went around his waist automatically, like they’d been there a million times before. He angled her head, still cradled in his hands, and scanned her face, hesitating over her cheeks and mouth before returning to hereyes.

He bent his head and touched his lips to hers, the pressure gentle but firm, and she relaxed into his body, let him sink into her lips. His tongue in her mouth was a gentle exploration, an unasked question for which her body had all theanswers.

Heat moved through her like a desert wind, soft and powerful, blowing life into corners that had been too long locked away. The exploration of his tongue sent desire coursing through her veins like rogue flames. She was immediately wet, immediately desperate to feel him insideher.

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