“I talk to you every day,” he countered. The deep timbre of his voice sent a shudder through me that shot straight to my abdomen and tugged between my legs.

“Left foot, green.”

“So, you’re not going to tell me what’s bothering you?” I asked, fighting my body’s natural inclination to let gravity take hold.

“You first.”

“Right hand, green.”

“Nothing’s bothering me. You’re the one who barely speaks.”

“Left hand, red.”

I almost lost it that time, my fingers slipping when they landed in the circle. Balance was apparently not my thing.

“Dutch, if you are going to lie to me, why bother talking?”

I sucked in a sharp breath of air, then had to let it out again because I’d already started the heavy breathing thing. This game was so much harder than it looked. “I’m not lying. Why do you think something is bothering me?”

“Left hand, red.”

“Again?” I whined, trying to move my hand to a red circle within my reach, but Reyes beat me to it. I had to practically reach under him to get to a circle, our arms touching. I looked like I was ready to crab race. He looked like he was training for an MMA fight. His jeans fit snug across his waist. His loose gray T-shirt fell over a rippled abdomen, the hills and valleys creating soft shadows across the landscape of his torso.

He regarded me for a long moment before saying what was on his mind. “We haven’t talked about what happened in New York.”

“True,” I said, pretending not to struggle for air. “But I haven’t talked about it because you haven’t wanted to talk at all.”

“Right foot, red.”

“Seriously?” I had one chance of doing that without falling, but Reyes was closer to the circle I needed.

And yet he waited, giving me a chance to claim the circle first. That left him with no choice but to practically straddle me to get to the next one. By the time he finished, his face was so close to mine, I would hardly have to move should the next command be “Mouth, mouth.”

“Right hand, yellow.”

Damn.

“What makes you think I don’t want to talk?”

I decided to come squeaky clean. There was no sense in beating the bush to death any longer. We were married. If we couldn’t talk, we didn’t stand a chance. “I don’t know,” I said with as much of a shrug as my haphazard position would allow. “You pulled away. On the plane, I felt you pulling away.”

“We were on a plane. How far could I go?”

“Right foot, green.”

“Emotionally,” I said, sounding like all those women on reality TV shows who whine to their husbands about how they never open up. They never share their emotions. They never let them in.

No. I wasn’t that woman. At least I didn’t think I was until tonight.

“So, we are in a plane thirty thousand feet in the air and you feel me pulling away.”

“Left hand, yellow.”

My extremities were visibly shaking, and I wasn’t sure if it was the game or the company. “Something like that.”

“And what were your indications?”

“You were sulking.”

Hovering half over me, his powerful arms on one side of me, he tilted his head. “I’m the son of Satan. Sulking is in my blood.”

“This was different.” I thought back. I’d given him the window seat so I’d have to lean over him to look out. To breathe him in. To rub my shoulder against his. He’d stared out that window the entire trip. “You got quiet.”

He frowned, thinking back as well. “How would you know? You slept through the entire flight.”

“I went to sleep when I felt you pulling away. I couldn’t face it at that time.”

He froze, and while we weren’t quite as close physically as we had been, we were still close enough for our breaths to mingle. “Again, what were your indications that I was pulling away?”

He asked, but I couldn’t answer. I honestly didn’t know. Instinct? A gut feeling?

When I didn’t answer, he said, “Maybe you were projecting.”

“Projecting? You mean, maybe I was the one pulling away? Reyes, I had just gotten you back. I wanted to grab hold of your hair by the roots and never let go.”

I felt a ripple of emotion course through him. My closest guess would be abashment?

“What?” I asked.

“I didn’t want to push you.”