Chapter 23 Nate
NATE
The maintenance log had been open in front of me for twenty minutes and I hadn’t written a single word.
Maya’s wrecked voice curled through my head instead, turning my brain to static.
‘Please... Don’t stop,’ she’d gasped out.
The memory of her weight in my lap hijacked my senses. Her thighs gripping mine. Her broken gasp when she came apart against me, her fingers digging into my shoulders hard enough to leave marks.
I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. A completely normal day at the station, and I was sitting here vibrating like a live wire.
All that searing heat was bad enough, but the aftermath was worse.
She’d pulled back slowly, her breathing still ragged, and brushed a soft kiss against my lips. Then she’d stood up, water streaming down her body, looking down at me with a smile so satisfied it should have been illegal.
“There you go,” she’d said, wringing water from her hair like she hadn’t just shattered me into a thousand pieces. “A little prequel for you.”
Then she’d waded toward the bank, her wet singlet plastered to every curve, leaving me sitting in the water like a man struck by lightning. I’d had to follow her up the narrow, rocky track, all that glorious skin right there.
I’d practically swallowed my own tongue when she glanced over her shoulder, cheeks flushed. “You okay?”
She knew damn well I was far from okay.
“Yep,” was all I could say in reply.
A single syllable. A decorated army captain reduced to a single syllable by a woman in wet underwear.
A prequel. She’d called it a prequel. Which meant there was a main event, and she fully intended to get there. And I was supposed to what? Just wrap myself up in this haze of lust until it sent me crazy?
My dick twitched, and I shifted in the seat, huffing out a breath of pure irritation.
“You know that pen works better when it touches the paper, right?”
Brody dropped into the chair across from me, his coffee mug in hand, boots propped on the edge of the desk like he owned the place. Which, to be fair, he kind of did.
“I’m working on it.”
“You’ve been working on it since I got here.” He took a slow sip of coffee, watching me over the rim with lazy amusement. That meant trouble was coming, and he was going to enjoy every second of delivering it. “Rough night?”
“Nope. Slept fine,” I lied.
“Uh huh.” He set his mug down and laced his fingers behind his head, settling in like a man who had nowhere to be and all day to get there. “So that thing at Lacey’s on Friday night. That was something.”
I kept my eyes on the maintenance log. “What thing?”
“The thing where you and Maya practically set the dance floor on fire in front of God and everyone, and then you bolted out the door like the building was coming down. That thing.”
“I didn’t bolt.”
“You bolted. I watched you bolt. I was deeply entertained by the bolting.” He tilted his chair back on two legs, a grin spreading across his face. “And then Maya went after you, which was even better. What happened in the parking lot?”
“Nothing happened in the parking lot.”
“See, the thing about you lying to me is that I’ve known you since we were six, and you’ve never once been able to pull it off.” He let the chair drop forward with a thud. “Your left eye does this tiny squint thing. It’s very cute. Very telling.”
I looked up from the log and gave him a flat stare. “Nothing. Happened.”
Brody held my gaze for a beat, that shit-eating grin still firmly in place, and then he shrugged with the exaggerated nonchalance of a man who was absolutely not dropping the subject.
“Sure, man. Nothing happened. You just danced with your best friend’s sister like you were auditioning for a role in a movie I’d definitely watch.
Then she chased you into the parking lot and you peeled out of there like you’d robbed a bank.
Meanwhile she came back inside looking like the cat that got the fucking cream.
Completely normal Friday night behavior. ”
I picked up the pen again, mostly to prevent myself from strangling him. “Are you done?”
“Not even close.” He leaned forward, elbows on the desk, his tone conspiratorial. “I’ve got twenty bucks riding on this with Hannah, so I need you to understand that your answer here has financial implications.”
“You’re betting on my personal life.”
“I’m betting on the obvious. There’s a difference.” He picked up his mug again, took another sip, and gestured at me with it. “You look different, you know that? Since Friday. Like someone took the stick out of your ass and replaced it with something much more interesting.”
“I’m going to need you to stop talking.”
“Ah well, we don’t always get what we want, Nathaniel.”
I threw the pen down, shoved back from the desk, and headed for the coffee maker, Brody’s laughter echoing behind me.
Since work was impossible and shutting Brody up was a lost cause, I could at least have caffeine while my mind fell apart.
Brody went back to his own desk, his stare burning a hole between my shoulder blades. Determined not to look at him, I carried my mug across to the big window facing the park.
On a clear day, the view stretched all the way to the ridge where Maya and I had kissed for the first time, which was either poetic or cruel depending on my mood.
Right now, though, heavy mist and shadow swallowed the ridge completely.
The sky to the north had changed. What had been a clear, bright morning was now bruised and heavy, dark clouds massing along the mountain line with a level of speed that meant business.
The coffee mug paused halfway to my mouth.
I knew weather and what I was seeing made the back of my neck prickle. That front was moving fast, and it had teeth.
“Brody.” My voice was low, intense. “Where’s Maya?”
Something in my tone must have landed, because when I turned from the window, the grin had dropped off his face.
“Northern boundary. Fence repairs.” He checked his watch. “She was due back about half an hour ago.”