Chapter 12 #3
Shiloh looks slightly dismayed at this but rallies, murmuring an agreement to Ewan and saying his goodbyes to me and Nils.
We split off to our vehicles. I check over my shoulder as I snap my seat belt into place, making sure the painting won’t move during the drive home.
It’s wedged pretty firmly against the back of my seat, though, very close to being too long for the space.
I think I’m going to have to move painting the bedroom up my list of projects—I can’t wait to hang these up on the wall.
“I don’t think Ew-ew-ewan is a very good cook,” Nils says softly as I back out of my space and turn onto the road. I laugh.
“No, I don’t think so either. Sometimes Shiloh asks me for recipes because he likes to cook, but I don’t think it’s safe the other way around.
Ewan is a throw-it-all-together-and-hope-it-works sort of cook.
Which is fine, but you have to sort of know what you’re doing.
And I’m pretty sure Ewan doesn’t.” Nils chuckles under his breath.
“Shiloh told me he was going to have to hide the spices. No spice use for Ewan until he can be trusted with them.”
Nils holds his hand out to me, waiting until I slide my fingers between his to give me a little squeeze.
The holding hands is new just this week and feels as shiny and good as a lucky penny.
When we reach my house, I feel his fingers loosen as I bring the vehicle to a stop.
Instead of letting him go, I use our linked hands to tug him gently toward my side of the car.
I kiss him once on the mouth and once on the back of the hand before I let him go and put the vehicle in park.
Nils, ever the patient one, waits until I turn the car off to gently touch my chin, directing my face back toward him.
His lips are cold and chapped, cheek scratchy with stubble where it brushes against my skin.
We don’t make it far into the house—painting forgotten in the car—before I’ve backed him up against the wall and have my hands on his face.
Nils’ fingers, cold from outside, sneak under my layers to find skin.
I shiver when he cups my ribs, breath catching in the thin space between our mouths.
Nils, in the way of a person who is good at everything they do, is an excellent kisser.
I slide my thumbs from his nose across his cheekbones.
Nils, silently watching me, presses his fingers to my skin, hands firm like he’s holding me up.
His irises are so dark brown they look like extensions of his pupils, liquid pools of black coffee.
I watch his eyes close as I lean in to kiss him again, senses caught between the smell of winter and grease, and the taste of salt on his lips.
I could stand here all day, holding Nils against the wall and being held in return.
It has been so, so long since I’ve welcomed the touch of someone else, so long since I’ve felt I could trust it.
I breathe softly as Nils pulls away, nose skating across my jawline and down my neck.
His hands slide down to my waist, fingers dipping just slightly below the line of my jeans.
There are approximately four dozen things I’d like to say right now, but I worry if I do that, I won’t be able to stop.
Excitement, nerves, happiness—all of it is expressed the same way with me.
But I wait for Nils, desperately trying not to wiggle when his very slow, very careful exploration tickles a little bit, trying to stay silent when he tilts his head and goes exploring on the other side of my neck.
I try very hard to stay still when his thumb sneaks far enough below the waistband of my pants to make me shiver.
“No-o-o-t flowers,” Nils comments softly, voice shaky, lips close to my ear.
I stand there, hands still cupped around his neck and jaw where they’d started, and try to figure out what the heck he’s talking about.
Usually, I’d know exactly what he was saying.
Usually, we weren’t making out before I was expected to converse.
“Oh, right, the…perfume?” I ask, chest burning hot as I figure it out.
I would never wear it to work. Usually, I wouldn’t even wear it when I know I’ll be around other people.
Perfume and pretty things are for the privacy of my own home.
They’re for me to enjoy because very few other people seem to.
“Mm-hm,” Nils agrees, leaning back so his head is against the wall and I can see that beautiful face.
“I don’t wear it at work.” Nils’ thumb creeps inward. I inhale, belly sucking in as that touch slips across my navel. He watches me, gaze so hard on my face I can feel more pressure from his eyes than his hands. “But I could put it on more, if you’d like. For you.”
A very small smile curves the corners of Nils’ mouth at that.
For me reflected back at me in the heat of his eyes and the tensing of his hands on my waist. Every part of my body is hot right now, and I’m wishing I’d had the foresight to strip my jacket off the moment we walked in the door.
Nils, every bit as competent at reading body language as I am, slips his hands out from underneath my clothes and reaches for the zipper on my jacket.
He takes it off, waiting for me to move away far enough for him to hang it in the hall closet.
His own follows, joining mine in a visual display of domesticity that burns like fire in my chest.
Moment broken, I take a deep inhale and get a good whiff of myself.
Cringing, I take another step back. Even though it’s plenty cold outside, I was sweating all day, and that sweat was simmering under three layers of winter clothing.
I stink. I’m actually thinking I might smell worse than Nils, even though we were working less than a handful of feet from one another.
He smells like engine and ocean and man. I smell like an armpit.
“Okay, so, I think I’m going to go shower.
Because I stink. And then maybe we can keep doing this.
Further into the house, perhaps, and on a softer surface.
After the shower.” I wave a hand toward the stairs.
Nils tilts his head to the side and smiles at me.
It’s that smile—playful and sweet and only a third as serious as his usually are—that I blame for what comes out of my mouth next. “Do you want to watch?”
If I thought the smile was sweet before, it’s not any longer. Now those brown eyes glint with something a little sharper, the air a touch thicker around us.
Do you want to watch? I repeat to myself in mute disbelief.
Regardless of what porn might portray, showering isn’t sexy.
At least not when you’re showering for the actual purpose of getting clean.
Which, I am. And now, what? Nils is going to sit on the vanity and get a front-row seat to how I clean my junk?
“Uhm,” I start, trying to think of a way to convince him to give me five minutes of alone time in the shower before he comes into the bathroom.
I could make that work. Clean the important bits and then put on a little show for the rest. But Nils stops me, hand on my face and thumb pressing underneath my chin, tilting it so he can kiss me.