Nico’s eyes were illuminated like warm honey puddles and Julie’s insides clenched with heat. All she could do was stare.
“We had better get you home.” Nico placed his hand on her lower back as they walked around his truck.
She licked her lips and ogled this guy who’d transformed under the shadow of night. If she was going to hold off waiting on fate and lose her granny panties in the process, seemed to her he’d be a great start.
Right about that moment, Julie would’ve given an arm and a leg—and quite possibly her left kidney—to know what was going through his handsome head as they walked the few steps to his truck in silence. Every bit the gentleman, he opened the passenger door for her.
“Can I help you up? It’s kind of a high step.”
Julie anchored one hand on the interior door handle and the other on the frame and gave herself a mental countdown. On three, she hooked her heel on the step rail and hoisted herself up. The second she heard the loud slash of fabric ripping, she cursed the unforgiving fit of her pencil skirt. When Julie tried it on earlier in the evening, she’d wondered why she hadn’t worn it more often. Why it had been banished to the back corner of the closet to collect dust mites and an awkwardly placed hanger crease.
It all came rushing back to her. The last time she’d worn it, her circulation cut off and her thighs were left raw from the constant rubbing.
Julie’s hands flew to her backside and remained there as she plopped down onto the front seat. Her mouth agape, she shook her head and squinted her disbelieving eyes.
“I give up. I can’t. I really can’t do this anymore,” she confessed.
Nico backed away. “Uh, if this is going to be anything like last night, I’m thinking I might need shatterproof glass.” His voice was teasing and full of humor.
When Julie failed to bite the bait, he pressed harder for a smile. “Am I going to be safe driving you home, or do you need some time alone with the steering wheel again?” He feigned exaggerated worry.
While he was cute and she appreciated his attempt to lighten the mood, it was frankly too little, too late based on the past few weeks of her life. “Nico, you don’t even know the half of it. I can’t take another thing going wrong. I literally can’t. Just take me home, please.”
“Really? You’re going to let a little thing like a rip in your skirt at the end of the evening get you down? Is that what I’m hearing you say?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, I am. You don’t know me and I don’t need your sweet little nice guy act right now. We had a nice night and I appreciate you taking me home and everything, but this is clearly a sign that the night is over. I just want to get home, that’s all.”
“You’re right about that. I don’t know you. And this…this is not who I thought you were at all.” His lashes seemed to have sprouted wings and flapped into a frenzy.
If she wasn’t so pissed, she might’ve dwelled on how cute it was.
Daggers sliced through what inkling of hope there was left for the night. A blank-faced Nico read right through her, but only nodded in return. She was judging him. Had been judging him since the gym.
He promptly rounded the truck and buckled himself into the driver’s seat where he sat completely erect, with no emotion visible on his hardened face.
“Where to?” he said without a cursory glance in her direction.
“Um…take the ninety-five to Durango and make a left.”
The drive took all of twenty minutes, but for Julie, lightning speed couldn’t have been any faster. If she was being honest with herself, it was wrong to take out her frustrations on Nico. He hadn’t done anything wrong. If she was being honest, he was the only good thing about the bust of a night, as Liz called it. But he was there. And now, three days in a row, he’d seen her at her worst. Wrong place, wrong time.
When the truck came to a slow roll at a red light a couple of blocks from her place, Julie peeked over at Nico. In fact, she peeked over two or three more times, but the stubborn ass refused to look back at her.
“Nico?” She’d meant to say it nicer, but irritation seeped into her tone. He was giving her the silent treatment?
Without turning his head, he muttered a tight response that echoed her own annoyance. “Yes?”
Under the glow of the red traffic light, the edges of his jaw formed a skeletal grimace. Something about it was wicked and a tinge sinister, but she realized that could be her overactive imagination at work. Rather than let it run away with her, she addressed it head on. “So, now you’re mad?”
“Nope. I’m just…taking you home like you asked.” A neon-red vein popped at his temple as they inched to a stop.
“Okay, but you’re not going to talk me the entire ride? That’s mature.”
“Says the girl who practically threw a tantrum because of a rip in her skirt.”
He was right, but it didn’t boil her blood any less. She was the one whose life had been flipped on its side and left spinning out of control. In her opinion, that gave her the right to be a little edgy. Most people would have spiraled a lot faster. So, screw him. Might as well lay all the cards on the table since the likelihood of seeing him again was about as slim as her soon-to-be-skinny thighs.
“What’s your deal?” She armored up for the battle.
He glanced over at Julie under the green glow and eased his right foot off of the brake. Opening his mouth, then promptly closing it again, he turned back toward the road.
“Fine. Don’t talk to me. It’s just as well, but I know you. Or, at least I know your kind.”
A smirk pulled at the right corner of his sexy little mouth as he shook his head. “Hmpf. Do tell.”
“I love this whole chivalry thing you’ve got going on. Almost had me fooled, too. But I heard you talking to Dane at the gym. All your ‘broken hearts’ and ‘bunch of kids’ waiting on you.” She searched his profile for any hints of denial, but there were none.
As she positioned her next point on the tip of her tongue, she realized the truck had stopped and they were parked in an open spot two buildings down from hers.
This was it. She could hold back and walk away now, or say exactly what she meant, for the first time. The idea rolled around her head for a beat. Then, just as he had done, she opened her mouth, and closed it almost as quickly.
It was his turn to deal. “Please. Don’t stop on my account. I’m interested to know what else you think you know about me—about my kind—since you’ve got me all figured out,” he said, with the trace of a sneer in his voice.
“Uh…” She couldn’t see his face clearly in the darkness. Somehow, she imagined seeing his face would make it easier for her to unload on him. She wanted to look him in his eyes. On second thought, maybe looking him in those chocolate pools wouldn’t help.
“Julie, you’ve got the floor. Might as well use it.”
She slid her fingers into the door handle and hedged her body to him. Why not?
“What I really don’t get, is why you felt the need to lay it on all thick tonight. That whole manwhore/ladies’ man situation suits you, so why all the extra effort? Why whip out the chivalry card when you could’ve wiped your hands clean of me at the restaurant?”
When it was clear that Julie had spent her two cents, Nico worked in calculated moves to turn the engine off. The overhead lights illuminated the car with a soft white glow and finally she could see his face again. He made big work of reclining his seat, and propping his head up on his folded hands positioned on the headrest.
Air hitched in her throat and her breathing sped up. Good lord, he was good-looking. Not so much charming at the moment, but fuck. The way his heavy brows hung low over his hooded eyes and his square jaw curved with a muscular edge, it was too much. Every time she looked at him, she was back in traffic with those warm eyes looking down at her.
Followed deliciously by the slow motion shower fantasy.
She had to turn away from his full pink lips. Those kissable lips. She imagined all the things he could do to her with those dangerous weapons, and heat burned a trail from her lips down her throat to her neck to her breasts, before settling low and tight between her thighs with a hollow ache.
And in this big wide truck with the spacious back seat? God why couldn’t he just shut up and kiss her? Better yet, why couldn’t he be ugly?
“You about done?” he said, rousing her from her thoughts.
“Yeah…yes,” Julie corrected herself. Look him in the eye. How embarrassing. He must have seen her drooling over him for sure.
She sat up straighter, even though he likely hadn’t paid her too much attention. Clearly, he was oblivious to the NC-17 thoughts ransacking her mind at the moment. “Uh…yes,” she repeated herself once more, though it still had the rising inflection of a question.
She needed to work on saying things with conviction. She needed to be more assertive like her cousin, Sophia. Julie’s mom made it a point to mention it two or three hundred times. Why can’t you be more like your cousin? She knows how to say things like she means it, put herself together, put herself out there and make opportunities for herself, find a man. No matter what, it always boiled down to a man in her mom’s book.
“Good.” He closed his eyes.
“Good? That’s all you’re going to say?” She was the one who had dragged the night into hell date territory, but seriously? He didn’t even have the decency to deny it?
Placate me a little? Dammit, lie to me to save face.
“I’ll tell you exactly what I tell my kids: ‘ask the right questions and you’ll get the right answers.’ Since you’ve got all the answers before you’ve asked any questions, I’m good. Hope your night goes better than it has thus far.”
Her mouth slackened and her eyes widened. She couldn’t stop blinking as she set her hand on the door handle, both to steady herself and because she was ready to cut his whole self-righteous monologue short. His kids. Asshole. Ooh she could hear the smile in his voice, the smugness that bordered on goading.
This jerk was enjoying himself.
She was ready to hop out of his truck, too, but then, she made the self-destructive mistake of allowing her gaze to wander. As he stretched his legs and adjusted himself in the seat, she got a lofty view of the growing bulge in his pants.
He likes arguing with me. He’s turned on by this. And she was turned on by the proof that he was turned on.
She bit her bottom lip hard and tore her eyes away. She chastised herself for acting like the Horny Harriet she was. It had been two months since the break-up, but even longer since she’d had her pipes cleaned properly. Let’s just say, Patrick wasn’t the best plumber.
And as much as she enjoyed her trusty ten-speed rabbit, there weren’t enough batteries in the world. Electronic toys would never compare to the feel of warm, strong, deft hands learning the ins and outs of her body, working her into a painfully good frenzy.
“Shit,” she blurted out. Not because she was frustrated—not counting sexually frustrated—but as Nico released his arms from behind his head and placed them back on the steering wheel, Julie’s gaze maddeningly found his hands. His tawny, muscled, able hands.
Those kind of hands could definitely make her feel good.
She wasn’t just mad at him. She was mad that he’d ruined her chance of a glorious walk of shame. Her pink buds were flaring up. Ten minutes into their ride in his truck, and she was willing to overlook everything in exchange for a one-night friendship with benefits. She was sort of curious, and strangely hard up for him.
Nico reached for a button on his door panel and popped the locks.
Not now. Now, she was pissed. “What? Are you…dismissing me?” She cocked her head, laughing nervously.
“Not at all. I got you home safe, now I’m just bidding you and your ripped skirt farewell.”