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GETTING NATE TO HELP FINISH things worked better than Becca could have planned. Instead of having the awkward your place or mine prelude to the night of wild sex she was hoping for, she got him to help her take the presents back to her place—her momma and daddy looked too tired to deal with any of it, and there was no way she’d trust her brothers with the job. It took all the cousins still standing to help load the gifts into the Southerland Security van she’d commandeered from her brother, but it meant they only needed to make one trip. As an employee of her brother’s company, Nate was cleared to drive the company vehicle. Not that she’d have let that stop her anyway, but it made things a little easier.
Nate followed her to her place, a little cottage on the edge of the city. It had been a carriage house a generation earlier and remodeled into a two-bedroom apartment a few years ago. The location worked for Becca’s law firm and Amanda’s guide business, and the charm of the original architecture suited both of them.
“We can put them in here.” Becca pushed open the door to Amanda’s room, fighting back the bit of melancholy she felt seeing her sister’s mostly empty room. Amanda and Michael had been playing house for months. Her sister spent more nights at his place than here with Becca, but there was still something about seeing the room stripped bare that tugged at Becca’s heart.
“Are you okay?” Nate straightened from setting the stack of presents he’d been carrying on the floor and came to stand at her side.
He didn’t reach for her or push. He simply waited for her to decide what to share. That quiet acceptance more than anything made her want to open up to him.
“It’s silly. I knew she was moving out. I’ve known for months. Almost since she first met Michael. I could tell they belonged together. I guess it’s all just getting a little more real. I’m fine.”
“Of course you are.” His words were so matter of fact and unexpected; she blinked up at him. “That doesn’t mean you’re not going to feel the loss. Unless you and your sister aren’t as close as your brothers. But watching you guys, it seems like the opposite is true. I wasn’t even sure that was possible.”
Thinking of the man standing in front of her, the man who’d handled caring for her little second cousins like a pro, knowing he realized and seemed to value how close she and her family were warmed something inside her. It wasn’t like any of them went out of their way to hide it. She doubted they could if they wanted to, but it was still nice to be seen.
She was the one to reach out, to let her hand rest on his arm as she looked up at him, her gaze meeting his dark, kind eyes.
“If you don’t mind, I could use some help riding this sugar buzz.”
She’d never heard it called that before, but the two of them together burning off some calories is what she’d been planning for since she let him lead on the dance floor.
“Maybe you could make some coffee while I get the rest of the presents?”
Her brain stuttered for a moment, grasping at the meaning of his words. The man wanted coffee. Not the direction she’d expected, but proof that falling asleep wasn’t on his immediate list. That was something, at least.
“I can help you with the rest of them,” she said when she managed to get her brain and words aligned.
“Not in those.” He glanced down her legs, his lips curving in an appreciative smile. “After everything you did to get ready for this and the kind of day you’ve had, I’m amazed you’re still standing. Let me do this.” His gaze met hers and his words held more than the immediate promise of carrying in the rest of the presents.
“Okay.” She nodded her agreement and his answering smile made her want to say yes to anything he asked. A risky impulse.
This man, with his warm hands, open smile, and kind heart, was dangerous. It would be too easy for her to trust him with more than she should, to go farther than she intended. Gabe’s words came back to her and she had a moment’s worry that Nate might not have been telling her the whole truth about why her brother felt the need to look out for him. There were a lot of things she wanted to do with Nate, but hurting him definitely wasn’t one of them.
She stepped out of her shoes, groaning with pleasure as she flexed her toes in the carpet. She wore heels all the time, both for work and pleasure, but Nate was right. She’d been wearing these since early this morning and her feet ached. Their first encounter that day had been with her sandals slung over her finger instead of on her feet. The one where she’d practically fallen into him and ended up with her hands on his hips. No wonder he thought she needed to take them off.
Pushing the button to start the coffeemaker, she dug in the cabinet for clean mugs. The Tears of the Patriarchy mug she drank her morning coffee out of every day might not send the right message. Or maybe it was exactly right. Seeing how he reacted to it might be fun. She picked a Make It Happen mug for herself and the Patriarchy mug for him and filled two cups with coffee. Neither she nor her sister was much of a cook. Food might be hit or miss, but there was always coffee in the house.
She’d watch Nate fix his coffee at the reception—milk, no sugar. She held her breath while she opened the door to the refrigerator and prayed for milk that hadn’t crossed over to cheese. She drank too much coffee to put anything in it and still fit in her clothes, but Amanda liked hot chocolate made with milk and spent enough time rock climbing to more than justify the extra calories. She found a carton of two percent on the top shelf and took a cautious sniff. Score.
She put a splash of milk in his coffee, grabbed both cups, and met Nate as he was closing the door to Amanda’s room.
“I think this is the way you like it.” She handed him the coffee, watching his expression as he read the writing on the mug. She wasn’t sure what she expected but it wasn’t his deep, rich laughter.
“Well, this is kind of perfect.” Still smiling at her over the rim of the mug, he took a sip. “As is this. Thanks.”
“It’s a small thing compared to everything you did to help out today. I don’t know how to thank you.” She motioned to the sofa and waited for him to sit before settling beside him. Not close enough to be awkward if she’d somehow misread things, but not the whole way to the opposite end. “Seriously, I don’t know what I’d have done without you.” She tucked her legs underneath her and took a sip of her coffee, waiting for his response.
She was clear about what she wanted to happen, but she was also clear she didn’t want to be the one doing the pursuing. In her experience, equality between the sexes didn’t negate the need for the man to be the one leading. It worked for her, too. She could more than hold her own against any man in the courtroom, but in the bedroom, she preferred not to be the driving force—no pun intended—at least not to start. Ironic, considering his comment when they were dancing.
“You don’t have to thank me. It’s why I was there, and it was my pleasure. And when Matilda rules the world, I ought to be guaranteed some kind of favoritism.”
She laughed at his accurate characterization of her petite second cousin, and then shifted, readjusting her feet so she could flex her toes again.
“Here. Let me.” He reached for her ankle and she froze, uncertain for a moment what he was doing. Then he took her aching foot in his strong hand and ran his thumb up her arch and it didn’t matter what he had planned. She’d willingly follow wherever he led. Assuming she could avoid drooling long enough to keep from scaring him off.
“Oh God,” she said as he hit a particularly good spot. Her eyes drifted closed, and she struggled to keep from sagging back into the couch cushions. “I’d tell you to stop, but I think I might cry if you listened to me. Where did you learn to do that?”
He was quiet for long enough she opened her eyes to see what kept him from answering. He looked so sheepish, she started to sit up. His hand gripping her ankle stopped her.
“Promise you won’t laugh?”
“No way. I’m not making that promise. But if you keep doing that I promise not to tease you too badly about whatever it is.” His thumb stroked up her arch to the ball of her foot and she worried for a moment that she might actually purr. “And I won’t tell my brothers.”
“Deal,” he said, cradling her foot in his lap, close enough to his thigh that she thought for a fraction of a second what it would be like to stretch her toes out to stroke him too.
He hit another particularly good spot, and she abandoned all rational thought. For as long as his hands were on her foot, he owned her. She wasn’t moving until he stopped touching her.
“My grandma worked in a factory that made those plastic Tupperware knockoffs. She was on her feet all day, on concrete. By the time she got home, she could barely stand. I used to rub her feet after dinner.”
“That’s sweet and kind of...”
“Creepy. I know. The contradiction is real, but my gran gave me everything. There wasn’t much I could give back to her. This was such a small thing,” he said, hitting a spot on the ball of her foot that made her toes curl.
His sheepishness telling the story and his obvious love for his grandmother made Becca like him even more. Nate hadn’t turned out at all like she’d expected.
“You lived with her?” She wanted him to keep talking and to keep touching her.
“My parents died in a car accident when I was six. Gran took me in.”
“I’m so sorry.” She looked into his dark eyes and got a glimpse of the sad little boy he must have been, his whole world changed in an instant.
“It was a long time ago. And I was lucky,” he said, giving her foot a squeeze. “I grew up with someone who loved me. Lots of kids don’t get that.”
Lots of kids did, but there wasn’t any reason for her to draw attention to his loss. Not when it seemed like he’d done the work to try to make peace with it.
“Enough about me. I know your brothers, and I think I may have met all of the rest of your family today, but I know almost nothing about you.”
She wanted to tell him. It was so far from the no-strings-attached direction she’d assumed the night was going, but with him sitting there watching her like she was a question he wanted to understand made her want to show him. She wanted him to see her.
“There’s not much to tell. Like you said, you’ve met my entire family. I’m crazy close to my pain-in-the-ass brothers. I’m so happy for my sister, and I love Michael, but I’m going to miss her so much.” Her voice caught on her last statement, and she squeezed her hands into fists to keep from doing something completely embarrassing, like crying in front of the man she’d started the night wanting to seduce. She must be more tired than she realized. It was the only reason she could imagine her emotions could have gotten so far out of control.
His hands kept up a steady pressure while he waited. His dark-eyed gaze was kind but almost cat-like in its steadiness. She had a feeling he could wait for a long time if he needed to.
“Why did you decide to become an attorney?” he asked when she’d been quiet for long enough to hope he’d forgotten his request. “That’s an amazing accomplishment. For a girl.”
It took a moment for his words to penetrate her foot rub-addled brain. As soon as they did, she struggled to sit up and found him watching her, a mischievous smile curving his lips in a way that made it clear he was yanking her chain.
“Ass,” she said, leaning back against the sofa cushions. The silky blue fabric of her dress hitched up and twisted around her thighs. She smiled to herself as she watched Nate’s gaze linger over her bare legs.
“Such language.” He ran his thumb up her arch, making her squirm. “And here I thought you were a lady.”
She let out a decidedly unladylike snort. “What in the world gave you that idea?”
“Your brothers talk about you and your sister like you’re some kind of delicate flowers.”
“You’re kidding, right?” She sat up for real this time, reluctantly tugging her foot free so she could face Nate. The idea of Gabe or Emerson giving anyone the impression that she and Amanda were some kind of fragile creatures seemed farfetched. She couldn’t help but wonder if Nate was telling the truth or at least exaggerating. Except what would be the point?
“Scout’s honor.” He held his fingers up in the Boy Scout salute she recognized from her childhood.
“You were a Scout?”
“You sound surprised, Duchess.”
“Is that why you call me Duchess? Because of something my brothers said?” In the beginning, his nickname for her grated on her nerves. By the end of the day, it seemed almost endearing. Almost. But she still wondered where he’d gotten it from. What he’d seen in her that made him think of lesser royalty.
“Part of the reason.”
She pinned him with her prosecutor gaze and waited for him to fill in the rest. In her experience, if you made space for people to talk, they generally did.
“Honestly, it was the way you walked into the police station like you owned the damn place. As if you assumed they’d jump to do your bidding. I’m man enough to admit I was concerned. Black man with a kid who looked more hoodlum than honor student, found carrying a weapon at the scene of an active shooting. I didn’t know what to expect, but it sure as hell didn’t look good. And then you strode through the door on a cloud of expensive-smelling perfume, looking like something out of a movie and talking to the detective like you were the one calling the shots instead of him. I wanted some of what you’d been having. And I took my first real breath in over two hours.”
It was naïve of her not to realize how being in jail must have made Nate feel. Getting locked up was traumatic for anyone, but for a black man caught in a compromising situation, the circumstances were even more dire. He hadn’t seemed scared when she showed up at the station, but in hindsight, that was probably as much bravado as anything else. She felt remiss for not realizing it sooner.
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Didn’t your military service help at all?” She knew from her brothers that Nate had been in the military. That and his job with her brothers should have been enough to clear him or at least buy him the benefit of the doubt.
“They didn’t wait long enough to find out. Forget I said anything. I’m not trying to relive the experience, and I’m never going to repeat it. I don’t blame the cops on the scene. They were just doing their jobs.”
“That’s something at least, but I really am sorry. I should have realized earlier what you were feeling.” She felt like an idiot. She wasn’t clueless enough to think racial profiling didn’t exist. She’d just never been faced with it quite so clearly before.
The evening had taken a decidedly less sexy turn than she’d intended. She didn’t want him any less. If anything, spending time with Nate made him more attractive. But it definitely took him out of the one-night-stand, scratch-an-itch category and put him somewhere else. Somewhere serious in a way she wasn’t sure she was comfortable with.
“You never did tell me how you ended up in the alley with Jesse.” He’d given her the basics at the police station, but she’d been in a hurry and hadn’t asked him for more than what she needed to get him and the boy released. If they were heading away from sex—at least for the moment—and toward getting to know each other, this seemed as good a place as any to start.
“You met his mom.”
She thought back to the young woman with the tired eyes and nodded.
“She works double shifts at the power plant to support the two of them. It means Jesse is on his own a lot. He doesn’t have a great sense of self-preservation. I saw him heading out, rocking his junior gansta look, and knew it wouldn’t end well. When shit went south...” He met her gaze, looking a little sheepish, she could only imagine over his word choice.
“You know my brothers. I’m the one who taught them to curse.” Not entirely true, but not a lie. She’d always loved words—all of them. Curse words carried a little extra punch. She’d been using them, not in her parents’ presence but everywhere else, for as long as she could remember.
He tipped his head to the side, considering her, his dark eyes intent. “I’ll remember that. When shit went south,” he said, repeating his words from earlier, “the kid was going to be the first one to get caught. I didn’t want to have to explain that to his momma if I could do something about it. I just meant to follow him, scare him a bit, and drag his ass home. The shooting sent things on a different trajectory.”
“Understatement.” Neither of them had been charged, but under slightly different circumstances, she imagined that would change. “It was nice of you to look out for him like that.”
“People helped me out at that age. And,” he cocked an eyebrow at her, his lips curving in that wicked way that made it hard for her to look at anything else, “I’m a nice guy.”
“I think that’s true.” She thought for a moment, picturing angles and contemplating repercussions. And then she jumped in with both feet. “I was hoping you might kiss me.”
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JESUS, MARY AND JOSEPH. HOW was he supposed to keep his shit together with Becca sitting on the other end of the sofa, asking him to kiss her? Her eyes went soft with pleasure every time he ran his thumb up her arch. Putting that expression on her face was one of his new life goals.
Every time she moved, the silky slip of a dress moved with her, baring more of her long, toned legs. Shifting his attention to her head and neck wasn’t safer. He couldn’t do it without catching a glimpse of the thin strap of her dress resting against her collarbone. The strap that he wanted to slide off her shoulder so he could drag his nose along the pale skin of her neck, breathing in her scent. It had been driving him crazy every time he got close to her. He’d follow it with his lips, tasting and teasing her, until she sighed with pleasure. Lips parted, inviting him to claim them with his mouth.
There was no way he was coming back from that. If he let things go that far, he’d end up in the one-night-stand category. Under normal circumstances that might work for him, but not with his bosses’ sister. Not when he wasn’t sure what he wanted them to be to each other. Even if they ended up being together for more than one night—because honestly, he couldn’t imagine one night would be enough for either of them—they’d have a built-in shelf life. That ran counter to his goal.
He’d been feeling so smug with the foot rubbing thing. It let him touch her and make her feel good all while keeping her at a safe distance. They’d even drifted into getting to know each other territory. What was he supposed to do now? He couldn’t say he didn’t want to kiss her. First of all, it was a lie. He wanted to kiss her more than he wanted anything else. Oxygen was a close second at this point. Second, if he said he didn’t want to kiss her, he had absolutely no doubt he would never get the chance again.
But if he did kiss her, he’d be smack-dab in the middle of neck-sniffing territory, and he’d be doomed.
“You’re going to hurt yourself thinking that hard.” She pulled back, relaxing into the couch in a move that anyone else would see as comfortable confidence.
He’d spent enough time watching her to realize that she projected confidence when she was least likely to feel it. He had to say something fast before the whole night headed south.
“Forget I said anything. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”
“No!” The word was out of his mouth before he could think about it and with more force than he meant.
Becca’s eyes went wide in shock and then her lips curled up with just a hint of amusement, which he was pretty sure meant she was laughing at him. He wasn’t sure if that was better or worse, but she hadn’t kicked him out of her apartment and slammed the door in his face, so he’d still count it as a win. He was a grown-ass man. He usually had a hell of a lot more game than this. Something about this woman knocked him sideways.
“I mean, you didn’t make me uncomfortable. That’s not it.” She was going to ask him what it was, and he still didn’t have a good answer.
“Is it because of my brothers? I know working for them might make you feel awkward, but anything that happens between us is nobody’s business but yours and mine. No one ever has to know.”
Any relief he’d momentarily felt at being able to use his job as an out vanished as the rest of her words made their way into his lust-addled brain. She didn’t want to tell anyone about them. He’d be her dirty little secret. He was okay to kiss in her apartment, maybe even okay to take to bed, but not okay to tell her family about.
Even as he had the thought, he felt the wrongness of it. She hadn’t been hiding him at the wedding. She’d danced with him in front of all her relatives. She’d left with him—under the guise of taking the presents home, but still. It wasn’t like she’d been trying to hide him.
It didn’t matter. Coming so close to the time he’d been handcuffed and shoved into the back of a police car, it was more than he could stomach. He still felt the remnants of worthlessness from his time in the interrogation room. The way the detective treated him like he couldn’t be anything but a lying criminal. Nothing he’d done before mattered to the man. Not his time in the service, not his job, nothing but the color of his skin. It was the way he and Becca met. She’d treated him like a nuisance. Like he wasn’t worth her time.
His head might know it was bullshit, but somewhere in his heart, it felt too true to ignore. All the old self-doubt squeezed in around him.
“I don’t care who knows about us.” Not that there was an us or likely would be after his outburst. “I don’t have anything to prove, and I’m not trying to hide.” The words sounded harsh to his ear, but the sentiment felt honest at least, if misplaced.
Becca’s forehead creased, and she watched him as if she were trying to work her way through something. “I didn’t mean it like that. I certainly wasn’t trying to hide you. I just thought the thing with my brothers might make you uncomfortable.”
“It doesn’t matter.” He’d painted himself into a corner, and he had no idea how he was going to get himself out again. And he was angry. Not at her or even at the situation, really. The feeling was leftover. A toxic little bubble he couldn’t quite eliminate.
“Yes, it does,” she said, reaching over to cover his hand with her much smaller one. “I would never want to make you feel like that.”
He wanted to reach out and smooth the wrinkle in her forehead with the pad of his thumb, to kiss her and tell her it was his problem, not hers, but that way had its own dragons.
“I know. I overreacted.” Understatement of the year, but at least a little bit of truth he could give her. “It’s late. You must be tired. I know I am.” And an idiot who would be kicking himself from here to next Wednesday for messing things up so badly. “I should let you get some sleep. Thanks for the coffee.” He stood, and she simply watched him, her too-perceptive gaze making him want to squirm. He managed to stay still and avoid embarrassing himself further, but it was a pretty low bar.
After a moment, she stood and led the way to her front door. “Thank you for everything. You were a huge help today. I mean it.”
“It was my pleasure. I mean it.” Before he could do anything else to wreck things, he gripped her upper arms and held her while he leaned in to press his lips to her soft cheek. Breathing in her scent was almost enough to tip him over the edge, but he was determined to get out of her house without fucking things up more than he already had. Her eyes had gone soft at just the brush of his lips. He wanted a chance to see what an honest-to-God kiss would do. “Sleep tight, Becca. I’ll see you soon.”
He left her standing in her doorway, looking like she was working through puzzles in her head. He had no doubt she’d think about him again. Just not the way he wanted.
