6. Nate
6
NATE
R achel glanced at me and bit her lip again. It was torture, seeing her intimidated and aware of me.
She couldn’t know that she was sending me too many signals. That kittenish look of attraction. Then the furrowed-brow expression of indecision. Then another heated glance that suggested she wasn’t thinking of something pure. Back to a frown and shake of her head.
She wanted me. I felt it in the air, and it was impossible to ignore.
“Shoot. I gotta get this.” Julie held up her ringing cell phone and winced before she walked out of the room. “We’ll talk about this later, Rach,” she said in parting.
Being left with Rachel, alone, felt dangerous. It also felt too damned good to want it to stop.
I sighed, grabbing a chair and turning it around to straddle it. Facing the short blonde who still sported a fair bit of a blush, I cleared my throat and willed myself to find the right words to tell her.
I want you.
No, that didn’t sum it up fully.
I want to bend you over this table and fill your sweet little cunt.
Too graphic.
What if you move on with me?
That sounded too much like a commitment.
Instead, the flare of jealousy that burned through me prompted me to double-check. “You’re not interested in Eric, specifically?”
I was pissed that the asshole was moving in on her. He was a classic ladies’ man around here. And even though it’d been years since I’d seen Rachel, I knew she deserved better than a ladies’ man using her—even for a holiday fling. Casual sex was fun, but Eric would cheapen the experience for her. I knew the kind of player he was, and I wanted better for her.
“No.” She shook her head. Slowly, she traced her finger back and forth on her knee. It seemed like a fidget, yet not. “I’m just…” She sighed and pierced me with a vulnerable look. “Clueless.”
My stomach growled at that moment, breaking up the seriousness of the moment. She smiled a bit, and I chuckled. “How about lunch?” I stood up, resisting the urge to offer her my hand for her to stand with me. Chivalry wasn’t dead, but if she wanted to insist on being so clueless, I didn’t want to confuse her any further.
“What?”
“I want to take you to lunch.”
“Like… TDH wanted to take me to dinner?”
I furrowed my brow. “TDH?”
“Shit.” She stood and slapped her hand over her eyes. “Eric. I, uh, I didn’t remember his name. Or I didn’t pay attention when I first met him. Tall, dark, and handsome. TDH.”
“You renamed him an acronym?”
“Why not?” She shrugged.
“Then wouldn’t he have been TDAH?”
“Tada?” she joked.
I laughed. “Come on. A working lunch. We’ll talk.”
I expected a protest, but when her stomach growled too, I knew she’d see reason.
We didn’t go far, just to the café on the first floor. As soon as we had a table, I launched right back into her interest, or lack of interest, in TDAH. But the claim that she wanted to move on with a holiday fling… I had just considered that last week when I spoke with her brother. That I could offer her a holiday fling and boost her spirits. It was almost Kismet that she’d say it out loud.
“If you had a boyfriend, this Kyle guy, how can you claim to be clueless?”
She licked her lips, taunting me. “I?—”
A server came up and interrupted. We both ordered, drinks and our lunches, then she explained. “I grew up next door to Kyle. His family and mine are close.” She frowned, pausing as she sipped water. “Don’t you know this already? From being friends with Brandon?”
I shook my head. “You were so much younger, Rach. I was living here, in New York, when you were in high school and all that.”
She nodded.
“I remember your neighbors. And that your mom was best friends with the woman next door.”
She scowled and blew out a huge breath. “Yeah. Emily Jones. Kyle’s mom. She’s as upset as my mom is that Kyle and I aren’t together anymore.”
“Just that you’re not together? Not that he dumped you?” I frowned. “It seems like it’d be instinct for a mother to want to defend her daughter from a guy breaking her heart.”
“I… I don’t know if my heart was really broken. If it was love. If it could have been love.”
“Because you’re too young to tell the difference?”
She smirked. “No.” She sighed again. “Anyway, my mom and his mom have basically assumed we’d marry and pop out tons of grandkids. I don’t know. They always joked that we’d be together. Then in junior high, we ‘went steady’ and then in high school, we dated.”
“I’m following you that far, but still not seeing how you’re clueless.” If she had been with this guy for five years or so… She had to learn a thing or two about how to make a man—her man—happy.
“After we graduated, he moved further away for college. I went to the community college closer to Rockton.”
“Ah. Long distance?”
She nodded. “So I never had to really flirt to get his attention. We knew each other so well already and we were right next door. Then I never had to compete to, like, keep his attention. I was all he knew, and vice-versa.”
“Yet you insist you’re na?ve and clueless about men.”
“I am.” She licked her lips again. “We had more of a…” She framed a vague shape with her hands. It gave me no clues what she was saying or gesturing, and I wondered if she was venting, talking with her hands but not sure how to. “Tame relationship.”
I stared at her, deadpan. “Tame?”
“I’ve never been kissed.”
My brows shot up high.
“Not like a real kiss.”
I mimed making out with the air, holding someone’s head to mine. “Like that?”
She tossed her straw wrapper at me, laughing. “Don’t make fun.”
“I’m not!”
“I’m…” She cringed.
“You’re a virgin.” That was about as tame as it could go.
Her cringe deepened as she nodded. “ That’s how I’m clueless. And I…” She lowered her gaze, tapping her fingers on the table. That downcast look made her look coy, innocent, and so much more tempting that I could hardly stand it. Hearing that she was untouched made me a little wild, somehow. Like she needed guidance. Like she might want my guidance.
The food arrived then, giving her a break, but I gently prevented her from reaching for her wrap. I slid the food aside and cleared my throat. “You’re a virgin,” I repeated, keeping my voice low, “but you want to jump on to this idea that having a holiday fling is the way to go about this?”
“Yeah. Like Julie said. Why not?” She dragged her plate closer and picked up her wrap.
“How about why?” I challenged. It seemed she wanted to talk and eat at the same time, and that was fine with me. Just so long as she didn’t leave me hanging and end the conversation there.
After she swallowed a bite, she shrugged. “What do you mean, why?”
“Why would hooking up with some player like TDAH make things any better?”
She didn’t hesitate. “I’ve been wondering for years what it would feel like. I’ve been wanting a man to show me how good it can feel.”
Oh, fuck me. I could. I’d push her to come so hard, she wouldn’t know which way was up or down. Pleasure waited for her. Hours of it. From me. All she had to do was ask.
“I kept thinking Kyle was just shy. Or he wanted to wait until marriage. Or I don’t know. I lost hope a few years ago, thinking something was wrong with me so he didn’t act on it.”
I choked on my food in my rush to dispel that idea. “No.” I coughed more, clearing my throat. “No, Rachel. There is nothing wrong with you.”
“Good.” She smiled a bit, almost shyly. “Then maybe my Christmas wish can come true.”
“Your wish to find a man who can make you feel good.” It should’ve been a question, but I stated it dryly, wishing she weren’t serious about hooking up with just any old prick who looked her way. That wasn’t good enough for her. She deserved to be cherished. Worshiped.
“Yes.” She looked me dead in the eye, daring me not to believe her.
I did. I one hundred percent, wholeheartedly did believe that she wanted this to happen. And that it would. She was too smart and sexy not to get some, even without putting any effort into it.
I wanted to make her Christmas wish come true—with me.
The spontaneous idea had already hit me, and now, she’d handed me the opportunity to act on it. I couldn’t have asked for a better gift to unwrap.
A slow smile stretched my face, and I wondered how delicately I should word this.
“What?” she asked, narrowing her eyes with suspicion. “What’s that smile for?”
You. And the idea of us.