“Hey, I never want you to keep this to yourself. Look what it’s done, eating you up.”
He reaches out to hold my hand. He caresses the skin between my thumb and finger and up to my wrist and back. I let him touch me like that though I have the urge to squirm.
If I close my eyes, though, Nate’s touch is like a hundred feathers sweeping up and down my body, sweeping away my pain and my rage and my everything, until all I believe in is the bliss from the sensation. When I open my eyes, there’s peace in his eyes, too.
“It’s just …” He swallows a breath, and it looks more like he’s swallowing a lump. “It’s just so hard to hear your mum stuff up all the good in her life, all her kids’ lives, when she has it. She has the opportunity to have so much good in her life and you guys with her.”
“She won’t know what she’s got until it’s too late.”
Don’t get me wrong, Nate, his sister and dad loved Nate’s mum. She was this petite, small woman with warm brown eyes, and the most perfect wavy auburn hair I’ve ever seen. But like all things, you can’t truly appreciate what good you have until it’s measured by the bad. And in Nate’s case, it was very, very bad.
“Eh, she doesn’t get it. May never get it. I’m over trying. All that concerns me is saving enough to support Seth and Tristan. If she goes down, I’m damn well holding on to those twins with a death grip. Their childhood won’t suffer, too.”
Nate is nodding, but I doubt he’s agreeing with my words. His dreamy expression shouts “trance” to me. He untwines from my hand and, staring at something near my shoulder, says, “Your …”
He trails off and reaches to grab my hair—what he must be looking at. He lays a strip of it in his palm and traces the curves down to the ends that rest at my cleavage, and Kalli, the girl of steel, melts in an instant with the thought of those fingers so close to her breasts.
Behind his lips his tongue swirls, and I’m overcome with thoughts of what that would feel like, too.
“This too.” I watch his finger rise, a whisper on my lips, a faint wind blowing across the skin.
It’s almost too much. Almost too much to just sit here and let him undo my control as want pulses at me to do something. In a moment, my eyes frantically search him and I find my torture: a sculpted chest, where I can see where his collarbone makes a V.
“I can’t decide if it’s your hair or your lips but I’d like to photograph you for my shoot. I need to put together a portfolio for one of my classes and you’ve given me an idea for a theme.”
Suddenly needing to do something with his hands, Nate gathers his mug, fumbling until he gets a grip and sips, smiling politely with his eyes. Where the froth and the cinnamon stick to his lips, he traces them away with his tongue. If it weren’t for the sullen mood, the sexual tension, and now whatever this is, I would have coated my lips with cinnamon so he could lick me clean, too.
“So you’d like me to strip naked so you can take some shots?” I say. “Just to clarify.”
Some girl I’ve seen before in class shoots me an evil look from another table, a deservedly disgusted stare for my filthy mouth. I’m not one for caring, so I shoo her away with my eyes and she darts back to her friend immediately.
“God, Kall Bell.” Nate groans, a guttural sound.
“Did you want to start this ‘project’ now?”
“Y … yeah, ‘kay.”
“Okay.” I gather our cups for the approaching waitress. Nate insists on paying the bill when they bring the cheque, then we start to leave. But we’re not. Nate hasn’t moved, he’s just pressing keys on his phone, the other hand under the table.
“Nate, you lazy ass. My naked body calls.”
As I’m about to ask why he’s ignoring me, he stands up, his hands moving away from his crotch. Although I don’t “do” private settings, this is definitely too public for what I need to do to him.
“Just needed to make an adjustment.”
Oh, fuck.
7
After parting, I rock up at Nate’s door in a coat stopping a few inches above my knees, a thick belt cinched at my waist, and heels. It’s quite cold, so this is totally acceptable. What wouldn’t be acceptable is if I took off the coat before Nate answered, waiting for him only in my black-lace G and push-up. His roommate is there so I don’t for Nate’s sake.
Gulping, he says, “Um, come in. Just watch your step. I’ll grab my equipment.”
I’m used to weaving around my friends’ dorms. Scout and her roomie are pretty good, but they’re about the only ones.