Everly
EVERLY
“Just a little more, .”
I turned my face to the side. “I’ve had enough.”
Nico sighed and set the bowl of half-finished chicken soup on the nightstand. “You are the most stubborn female I’ve ever had the misfortune to come across.”
I smiled, but it was weak given the flu had ravaged my body. The fever had finally broken last night. I recalled snippets since Nico brought me to his home, but honestly, for the vast majority of the last few days, I’d been completely out of it. Apparently, according to Nico’s doctor friend, I’d come down with a particularly virulent strain, especially considering the flu season had barely begun. Because of how much it’d knocked me, she’d taken a blood sample, and it’d come back that I had an iron deficiency, which explained why I’d felt a bit run-down for a few weeks.
“I want a shower,” I said, pulling at my nightgown. “I feel icky.”
“You look icky,” Nico said with a crooked grin.
“I might be too weak to retaliate now, but that won’t last forever, and I have a long memory.”
He chuckled. “I’ll look forward to that day whenever it comes.” Folding back the covers, he slipped his hands under my knees and around my shoulders.
“What are you doing?” I demanded.
“Taking you for a shower.”
I shoved at his chest, but it was like a fly trying to move a boulder. “You are not watching me shower.”
He strode into the bathroom and set me down on top of the toilet seat. “It’s either shower with me in the room so I can make sure you don’t fall and crack your head wide open, or no shower for you. Your choice.”
“No,” I insisted.
As attracted as I was to Nico, something I’d made no secret of these past few weeks, we’d only kissed once, and that had come from a place of anger. I was not ready for him to see me naked.
“Fine,” he said. “I’ll change your sheets while you shower, but I’m leaving the door open.” He grinned at me. “I wouldn’t worry, anyway. I’ve already seen you naked.”
My mouth popped open. “What?”
“I had to undress you and change your nightwear regularly. You probably don’t remember.” He winked. “But boy, I remember.”
Heat rushed to my face, and I growled. “Just keep your eyes to yourself, okay?”
His smile widened. “Yes, ma’am.”
I pulled my nightgown over my head and stepped into a shower stall bigger than my entire bathroom.
Nico’s seen me naked.
Pushing embarrassment to one side, I lowered my head and groaned with pleasure as hot water ran down my back. I felt a touch dizzy, but nowhere near bad enough to ask for Nico’s help. I braced my hand on the wall to steady myself and picked up the shampoo bottle, only then realizing it was my brand. My bottle. Nico must have packed it on the day he brought me here.
My skin tingled at the idea that he cared enough to bring me and Rhett to his home and spend the last few days watching over me while the fever raged. If he hadn’t turned up at my house when he did, I wasn’t sure how I’d have coped, especially as the illness took hold. I could hardly have asked Dorothy to keep Rhett all this time, and I’d been in no fit state to take care of him.
The day Nico kissed me, I’d stormed out in anger over what I perceived to be some kind of pity kiss, but today in particular, I’d seen the way he looked at me, the way his eyes tracked every move I made. I might not have a huge amount of experience with men—Paul had been my first serious boyfriend and the only man I’d slept with—but I knew enough to recognize when a man found a woman attractive.
What I still didn’t understand was what had changed? Why had Nico kissed me that day after making it clear he wasn’t interested?
I guess there was only one way to find out for sure: ask him.
After five minutes of standing under the scalding spray, I felt a lot more human. I wrapped my hair in a towel and swathed myself in another. I opened the shower door and stepped back into the bathroom, then peered into the bedroom. Nico had his back to me while he stuffed a pillow into a fresh pillowcase.
“I survived,” I called out.
He glanced over his shoulder. “Feeling better?”
I nodded. “Much.” I walked over to the sink. My toothbrush and toothpaste were sitting on the counter.
“Thanks for bringing my things.”
He wandered over and propped his shoulder up against the doorjamb. “You’re welcome.”
I squeezed toothpaste onto my brush, conscious of Nico standing close enough that I could feel the heat from his body. My abdomen twisted, and I squished my thighs together, hoping to relieve the growing ache between my legs. Clearly, a nasty run-in with a flu virus hadn’t diminished my desire for the man standing to my left.
“I’ll finish changing your sheets, and then we’ll get you back into bed,” Nico said, his tone deep and husky. A faint tinge of red touched his normally tanned cheeks, and his eyes wandered over my bare shoulders and flicked past the hint of cleavage peeking out from the top of the towel. His feet shuffled closer as if he couldn’t stop them following their own path.
I ran my tongue over my lips, and his eyes went there. He swallowed, muttered, “Fuck it,” and pulled me into his arms. My toothbrush clattered into the sink.
Unlike the first time he kissed me, where he’d been rough and demanding, this time his lips were gentle, exploratory, treating me as if I might break. I reached up and wrapped my arms around his neck, the stretch loosening the towel. I felt it shift, and then it dropped to the floor, leaving me naked and pressed up against a virile, highly aroused man.
As fast as he’d come on to me, he let me go. He raked a hand through his hair and kept his eyes averted. “Shit, sorry.”
I bent down and retrieved the towel, wrapping it around me again. “For what?”
He shook his head. “You’re sick, and here I am taking advantage.”
“I’m feeling a lot better after that kiss,” I said, grinning. “That’s healing medicine right there.”
His gaze snapped to mine, and his dimple appeared as his lips curved at the edges. “I still shouldn’t have done it.”
I raised my eyes to the ceiling. “I won’t break from one little kiss, Nico.”
“You’re not well,” he replied doggedly. “I’ll finish changing the sheets and then leave you to rest.”
I ground my teeth together. I didn’t want to rest. I wanted him to finish what he’d started.
That determined set to his jaw sent a clear message I wouldn’t get my wish.
The following afternoon, Nico and I strolled down the path that ran parallel to the beach. I tilted my face up to the sun, soaking up the warmth. “God, it feels good to be outside. I almost feel normal.”
“Just make sure to tell me if you get tired,” Nico said. “We won’t go far.”
“Yes, Mother,” I said.
He grinned down at me. “Are you taking the piss?”
“Maybe.” I nibbled on my lip and gazed at him wistfully. Since Nico had kissed me in his bathroom yesterday morning, he’d avoided any kind of close contact, and it was driving me crazy. We’d both given up any pretense that we weren’t hugely attracted to one another, but he insisted on keeping up this stupid distance between us in some misplaced act of chivalry.
I didn’t want chivalry. I wanted raw, hungry, rough. It was right there, simmering beneath the surface. All I had to do was find a way to take the lid off and boom! He’d explode, and I’d bask in the fallout.
Time to up the flirting.
“Stop,” he groaned, his eyes on my mouth. “I’m trying really fucking hard here.”
“Don’t bother on my account.” I fluttered my eyelashes in an overexaggerated fashion. “Although, I like the idea of you trying hard.”
He drew in a ragged breath and looked at me with hooded eyes. “Fuck, . What’re you trying to do to me?”
“Seduce you,” I baldly stated, the time for playing around well and truly over. “Then again, if you’re not interested…” I nibbled on my thumbnail.
A growl erupted from his chest, possessive and manly. He encased me in a ring of steel, his arms locked around my waist, his mouth on mine. A couple of guys cycling past wolf-whistled, but I didn’t care. Goosebumps pebbled my arms. God, this man had so many kinds of kisses. Heated and angry, soft and gentle, sexy and spine-tingling. I couldn’t pick my favorite. I wanted them all.
He tore his mouth from mine, his lips tracing a path down my neck.
“Let’s go back to your place,” I begged. I wanted to climb him like a ladder with one destination: ecstasy.
His lips captured mine again, and his hands cupped my ass, pulling me flush to his body, his erection a rod of steel against my belly.
“Get a room!” a local beachgoer shouted.
“Sounds like a plan,” I said, my lips still connected to Nico’s.
“We can’t.”
His words poured cold water over me.
Just when I thought we were getting somewhere.
“Why not?” I demanded, a petulant tone to my voice that had his lips twitching.
“Firstly, you’re married, and even though your husband fucked off, it doesn’t change the fact. Call me old-fashioned, but it just feels wrong. Have you thought about starting divorce proceedings? You wouldn’t have any trouble, I’m sure, given he abandoned you and Rhett. And secondly, you’ve barely recovered from a serious illness. You need time to regain your strength.”
Shit. I forgot I’d never told him I wasn’t actually married, that I used the title “Mrs.” for Rhett’s benefit.
I peeked up at him. “Confession time. Paul and I aren’t married.”
His eyes rounded, his forehead creasing. “What?”
I wrinkled my nose. “I thought he might ask me after Rhett was born, but he never did, and if I broached it, he’d brush it off as if it were no big thing.”
“But… you said, that first day we met. And you call yourself Mrs. Lawson.”
“I tell everyone that because it’s easier for Rhett.” I rubbed my lips together. “I don’t want my son having horrible names thrown at him on the playground.”
Nico raked both hands through his hair, keeping them there. “I could murder you.”
“Not quite the response I hoped for,” I said.
He cupped my face in his large hands and kissed me. “If I’d known you were single, I’d have had a crack at you long before now.”
“A man with principles.” I fake-shuddered. “Christ, that’s a turn-on.”
He groaned, the sound low, reverberating through his chest.
“ Now can we go back to your place?”
He gave me a wry smile, and his dimple appeared. “Check your watch.”
I frowned but did as he asked. “Ah, crap.” Thirty minutes until I had to go pick Rhett up from school.
Nico laughed. “You took the words out of my mouth.” He dropped a quick peck on my lips. “Besides, I don’t want to jump into bed with you.”
“Because?” I queried, tamping down that jolt, the one that feared rejection, despite what he’d said.
Nico winked. “I think it’s only right and proper that we go on at least one date first.”
I slammed my palm into his shoulder. “That’s mean. I thought you were turning me down.”
He raked me from head to toe with a gaze heated enough to set me on fire. “I’ve seen what’s beneath those clothes, remember? I’d have to be gay or a monk to turn down an offer of a rumble between the sheets with you. And for the avoidance of doubt, I’m neither of those things.”
I blushed, but not from embarrassment.
He leaned down and touched his lips to my ear. “How about when Rhett’s in bed tonight, I get my favorite restaurant to deliver a delicious meal for two, and after we’ve eaten some good food and drunk a little fine wine, I let you seduce me?”
My stomach clenched, and I was back to clamping my thighs together again. Pointless, considering it brought me no relief. Only one thing would satisfy the ache between my legs now.
“Sounds perfect,” I rasped.