25

“Well, hello to you, too. Damn it, Nick, you scared me,” I said. I felt a flash of guilt for the time spent with Greg but then shook it off. I hadn’t done anything wrong, and I was not going to feel as if I had.

“Who was he, Annabelle?”

“What do you care?” I asked. Yes, I was clearly spoiling for a fight. “I haven’t heard from you in days. As far as I know, whatever was happening between us is deader than dead, meaning I do not have to answer to you . . .”

He crossed the floor toward me with a predatory grace that made it hard for me to concentrate. Those hazel eyes of his were positively wicked. He was wearing an unbuttoned dress shirt over a tank top that looked as if he’d just thrown it on. Jeans and sneakers completed the look. I glanced down and noted that the sneakers were untied, so it was clear he’d been in a hurry to get over here.

“Who was he, Annabelle?” he asked.

He was standing right in front of me. I refused to give up any ground, so I crossed my arms over my chest and stared up at him. “Why do you care?”

His eyes flashed. He started moving forward. This time I did back up. Damn it. Until I felt the wall at my back. He immediately braced a hand on each side of me.

“I am not a very good sharer,” he said. His voice was low and deep and scraped across my senses, making them raw with want. “And until this thing between us is dusted and done, you’re mine.”

Okay, so we weren’t done? That sent a thrill through me that my independent, liberated self was totally appalled by. I decided the only way to enjoy it fully was to own it and make it mine.

I pushed off the wall, pressing myself against him while I twined my arms around his neck and said, “Which means you’re mine.”

“Duh,” he replied. I would have laughed, but then he kissed me and it was everything.

We’d been apart only a few days but it felt like a lifetime. We latched on to each other with a fierceness that was almost violent. I was mad at him for shutting me out, and I’m sure he was furious with me for meddling in his life. None of that mattered at the moment.

We kissed hard and hot with teeth and tongue. My entire body broke out in a sweat, and I yanked his shirt off and tossed it aside. I let my hands glide over his shoulders—my gosh, his muscles had muscles—and down his arms. When I would have reached for his waist to pull off his tank top, he brushed my hands aside and in one ferocious tug he unsnapped my dress from top to bottom. So hot!

A soft meow sounded and Nick glanced over his shoulder to see Sir, lying across the top of the couch watching us, the end of his tail flicking as if he couldn’t decide if this was a game or something that required an intervention. Nick chuckled and then turned and tugged me toward the bedroom. We fell on the bed in a tangle of limbs and half-undone clothes.

It felt so good, so right, to be with him again. I wanted to touch and taste him everywhere, but he was ahead of me. He tugged off my dress, unfastened my bra, and pulled off my undies before I’d even gotten my bearings.

When I glanced down, I realized I still had my leopard print boots on. When I would have kicked them off, he shook his head. “Those stay.”

He sat on the edge of the bed and pulled me into his lap, positioning me so that I straddled him. The feel of his jeans beneath my bare thighs was incredibly erotic, and my head started to buzz with lust.

From this vantage point, his hands could reach every part of my naked person and he took full advantage while I dug my fingers into his hair and kissed him as if he were offering me the breath of life.

His wicked fingers pinched my nipples and then he lowered his head, forcing me to arch my back while he soothed the ache with his tongue. His hands moved to my thighs, and he gently nudged my legs farther apart. His thumb stroked the very center of me, and I almost leapt right out of his lap, so sensitive was my body to his touch.

He whispered soothing words while he continued to stroke me, then he ran his mouth from my breasts to my throat and up to linger in the sweet spot just behind my ear. I felt as if I were on fire. I couldn’t remember my name or the date or even what country I lived in. I was just a frenzied ball of need. Unable to take much more, I reached between us and unzipped his pants, pushing the opening apart until he was fully accessible.

I reached into my nightstand for protection, and slid the sheath over him, feeling him arch as he became even thicker in my hand.

“Now, Nick, now,” I pleaded. I sensed he was trying to resist me to make it last, so I leaned in close and whispered in his ear. “I want you inside me now.”

A grunt was his only response as he lifted me up and then entered me on one spectacular thrust. Perfection.

This. This was like nothing I had ever known with anyone else. We fit perfectly, we moved together instinctively, and when he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in tight while still rocking his hips up against me, I tightened into a knot of sensation that with just the flick of his thumb, he unraveled in a thousand directions all at once. It was a pleasure so intense, it was almost painful, and when he joined me, the sensation doubled and left me gasping as I rode out each shock wave until the end.

In the aftermath, I rested with my head on his shoulder with his arm around the small of my back. His fingers traced patterns on my hip, and I thought I might purr as loudly as Sir if Nick kept it up.

“So who was your dinner date?” he asked.

“Greg DeVane,” I said.

“Ex-husband number two?” he asked.

I was surprised he remembered his name and tried to gauge how he was feeling by his tone, but his voice was even, betraying no emotion other than mild curiosity.

“His father has retired out here, and he was in town to visit him,” I explained.

“Ah.” He pressed a kiss against my hair. It was a comforting gesture, and I wondered if he thought I was upset about seeing my ex again.

“It was good to see him,” I said. “We didn’t part on the best of terms before.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m also sorry that I showed up in the doorway, looking like a jealous lunatic.”

I smiled, feeling the heat of his skin beneath my cheek. “It’s okay. I would have felt the same if the situation was reversed. And I’m sorry about Friday night. I didn’t mean any harm.”

“I know,” he said. He rolled so that he was on top of me. He looked down at me and smiled. That rogue dimple of his winked at me and I was done for. “Can we just put it behind us? All of it?”

“Yes,” I said. “Except there’s one thing I want to put out there for your consideration.”

He stilled. His hazel eyes held mine, and a wary look came over his features. “All right.”

“I want you to consider going to the gala with me,” I said.

He rolled back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. “Public events aren’t my thing. I would think after the Denny’s debacle you’d understand.”

“I do but this is different. It’s important. As Lexi’s brother, you need to give her your full support,” I said.

“I’ve been giving her my full support, and I’ll continue to do so.”

“I meant in public,” I said.

“Why? What difference does it make if I cut a check or show up at a party?” he asked. “Either way, she’s got a crew, her net-zero development is under construction, and it’s known in the community that Daire Industries is supporting her.”

“The gala is a pretty big night for me, too,” I said. “All of our—my—work will be on display. I don’t know if you know this, but I’m a pretty big deal.”

The teasing made his mouth curve up on one side, but I could see he was resistant to the idea of going to the gala. I knew I should let it go, but suddenly I heard Greg’s voice in my head—stop settling for the diamonds in the rough, Annabelle, you deserve so much more—and I knew he was right.

“It’s important to me that you go to the gala, Nick,” I said. I felt very brave and equally nervous. I wasn’t great at asking for what I wanted in a relationship—thus my default mode as a pleaser—but if Nick and I were going to have anything worth having, I needed to ask for what I needed, too.

He went still. “Are you telling me that the gala is a deal breaker?”

I thought about it. Did I want to be in a relationship with a man who barricaded himself on a huge estate, who didn’t engage with the world? No, I didn’t.

I met his gaze and said, “Yes.”

A flash of hurt crossed his face, and I almost recanted right there. It caused me physical pain to see him hurting, but I just lay there unable to move. With a sigh, he rolled away from me and sat on the edge of the bed. He ran a hand over his face as he slowly pulled on his clothes.

“I can’t be what you want, Annabelle,” he said.

So there was my answer. It shouldn’t have gutted me, but it did.

“You don’t want to think it over?” I asked. “Mull the possibility of going?”

“No,” he said. “I can’t. That world, those people, they all know me as an unstoppable force in this city. Everyone thinks I retired, hell, even my own sister has no idea that I’ve had a stroke, and I don’t want her to. Annabelle, I could keel over dead from another stroke at any moment, and the lack of control I have over it eats me alive, every waking moment.”

He shook his head as if he couldn’t believe this was his life.

“I have to live with that every day. I’m not going to ask my sister or you to live with it, too. And as for the world at large, I do not need their pity. Can you even imagine going to a black tie event not knowing if you were going to fall on your face? Christ, the humiliation would kill me.”

I sat up. I wrapped the bedsheets around me to keep warm, but I didn’t think anything could ward off the chill that was creeping through my veins. It felt as if icicles were forming on my heart, and I wondered if it was some self-protection mechanism of which I’d been unaware until this very moment. As if my heart knew that if it was encased in ice, it couldn’t be broken.

“So your image of yourself is more important to you than having your sister back in your life?”

“That’s not what I said,” he snapped.

“Yes, it is,” I argued.

He stood and started to walk away.

“You don’t understand,” he said. “And I can’t explain it to you.”

“Oh, I understand,” I said. The ice around my heart was suddenly being consumed by the fire of my temper. “You’re afraid.”

He snapped back around as if I’d struck him.

“Hell yes, I’m afraid,” he said. He spread his arms wide. “I almost died. One minute I was on top of the world and then wham! Everything was taken from me like that.” He snapped his fingers. “And it could happen again and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.”

He strode from the room, and I hopped off the bed and followed. We were not done. Not until I had my say. “That’s not what you’re afraid of.”

He whirled around and looked at me with one eyebrow higher than the other. “You’re joking, right?”

“No, I’m not,” I said. He picked his shirt up off the floor and shrugged into it. Sir was asleep on the red throw and didn’t even pop his head up at our raised voices.

“You’re afraid to let anyone in,” I said. “You say you were on top of the world but you were alone up there, Nick.”

He put his hands on his hips and stared at me. It felt like yelling at a brick wall, but I did it anyway because I’m thick like that.

“Now you have people in your life who care about you and what terrifies you even more than that is that you care about them, too.”

He shook his head, and I knew it was more him shaking me off than disagreeing. I kept going.

“Yes, you do,” I said. “You think I don’t know that Emily and Elijah and Abigail are better off for having you in their life. You think I don’t understand that the Sunshine House is yours? That it’s your way of trying to save kids from the same childhood trauma you suffered?”

“Why isn’t that enough?” he asked. “Why can’t I just make a difference in my own way, from a distance?”

“Because that’s not how being alive works. You have to stand up for the people you care about,” I said. “And not just as a checkbook. Lexi needs you. She needs her big brother at the most important event in her life. And I need you, too.”

“No, you don’t,” he said. He gestured to his body and said, “What can I possibly do for you, for any of you, Annabelle, if I drop dead tomorrow?”

“You could be with me today,” I countered. Then I decided to go all in. “Listen, I get that you’re scared. We’re all scared. I’m terrified by how much I love you, but I’m standing here, loving you anyway.”

“I never asked you to love me,” he growled. “Three months, that’s all this was supposed to be, and now it can’t even be that. I can’t be the man you want me to be, Annabelle. I just can’t.”

He turned and strode out the open door without looking back. Not once.