Chapter 21
I shower first. Standing in the bathtub, using a handheld showerhead to wash away the remnants of pond grime. Despite the poor water pressure and the awkward position, it’s the best thing I’ve experienced all day. Right next to seeing Nate shirtless on the dock with water running over his tanned skin.
Which is incredibly confusing.
I use half of the complimentary sample-size shampoo bottle and nearly all of the miniature soap before remembering that Nate needs to hop in the shower later. I rinse my hair and scrub my skin until there are no traces of the pond left.
It’s not quite as satisfying to put on the grocery store clothes again, but I do it. A pair of clean underwear and the camisole I’d bought. And then, I wrap the bathrobe I found hanging in the room around myself. The pants and the sweatshirt I was wearing earlier smell faintly like the pond, and I leave them folded beside the sink.
When I crack open the bathroom door to the room, I notice Nate sitting on the corner chair. There’s a plate of food beside him.
“You went to the restaurant?” I ask.
His eyes are unreadable, and his smile is nowhere to be seen. “I tried, but they were closed. Edith made us some toast and tea.”
“Oh, that was nice of her.”
He stands and runs a hand through his hair. The frown is immediate, like he realized just how dirty he is. “Yeah. Have at it. I’ll grab a shower.”
The bathroom door closes behind him, and I’m left in the comfortable silence of the cozy hotel room. This place is beautifully decorated, with a fireplace across from the four-poster bed. The pretty bedspread and matching ornamental pillows draw my eye, and I grab the plate with toast and sink cross-legged onto the softness of the mattress.
Nerves have been somersaulting my stomach since Edith led us to this room. And now, hearing the water in the shower, knowing Nate is washing off… naked… and he’s going to come out here after…
To sleep in the same bed as me.
I shouldn’t like the idea quite as much as I do. I have no right to, no claim to, no decency to.
On the small side table is a bag of rice. Our phones are still submerged in the grains. I chew on a piece of toast and consider turning mine back on. But if it’s still wet, that might fry it completely… and what would I do with the phone anyway?
We’re not getting out of here until the morning.
I drink chamomile tea and focus on taking regular breaths. Last weekend’s kisses had been easy enough to ignore today. We focused on the estate, on having fun, then on the drive. Now, I feel like they are all I can think about.
The door to the bathroom opens. Nate walks out with only a towel wrapped around his waist. My throat turns dry when I’m presented with that magnificent broad chest. And then he turns around. Faces the dresser. I spot the droplets of water along his spine and across the muscles of his shoulder blades. Rivulets trickle from his damp hair; this wet, his brown strands look almost black.
Nate glances over his shoulder. “Eat all of that. I finished my piece already.”
I swallow. Barely. “You’re sure?”
“Yes.” He rummages through one of the plastic bags. Pulls out another T-shirt from the two-pack he bought and puts it on. Grabs a clean pair of boxer briefs and disappears back into the bathroom.
I chew mechanically. Put the plate away.
Then, he returns, wearing nothing but that T-shirt and a pair of boxer briefs. A navy-colored set, as if they are meant to be.
His legs look muscled.
Of course, they’d be. I’ve seen his upper body.
I reach for the bedcover and focus on that single action rather than looking at Nate.
“I’ll grab the chair,” he says.
I look up at where he’s lowering the window shades. “What? That looks so uncomfortable.”
“It’ll be fine.”
I shake my head. “That’s ridiculous, come on. I can’t sleep comfortably knowing you’re… not. There’s enough room here for us both.”
He pauses, hands stilling on the half-lowered blinds. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. It’s only for a few hours, anyway.”
I slip beneath the covers and chuck my robe across the room. The bed is a bit too soft, but it’s warm, and the pillow is wonderfully fluffy behind my head. It’s been almost a full minute of me situating myself, and the silence in the room grows more apparent.
“All right, then,” he finally says.
I look up at the ceiling as Nate climbs in bed. With no TV, no phone, no book, I don’t know what to do. Other than lie here and feel the undulations of the mattress as he settles into place.
We both lie there without saying anything as the moment stretches.
“I like this place,” I manage after a while.
He runs a hand over his face. “Only you could say that and sound sincere.”
“You don’t? It’s so cute, and historical, and the lady was so nice to us. Look at the crown molding.”
“This place is ready to fall apart.”
“No it’s not,” I say. “Isn’t the decor in here nice?”
“It looks about seventy years behind the times.”
“But that’s the point.” I turn on my side, facing him. “It’s meant to evoke memories of a different era.”
“No one who stays here can remember the eighteen-fifties.”
I roll my eyes. “You know what I mean.”
“I like when you do that,” he says. “And yes. I know what you mean.”
His eyes are unreadable again, in this dimly lit room, but there’s a slight tilt to his lips.
“Like what when I do it?”
“Roll your eyes at me.”
I blink. “I do that?”
“Yes, quite frequently, actually, when you’re exasperated.” His smile widens at my expression. “Don’t stop doing it.”
“Wow. I didn’t realize I was.”
“Makes it even better,” he says. He turns onto his side, too, and now we’re facing each other over the expanse of the pillow between us.
I wet my lips. Let the silence stretch and envelop us. “I’m sorry about your car. I know she means a lot to you.”
His eyes narrow. “Yeah. It was my mistake. But we’ll get her fixed up.”
“Does everyone in your family like cars?”
“Not really.” His voice is questioning. “Where did that come from?”
“Nowhere. I’m just trying to figure you out,” I say. “Maybe you like cars because it’s something you do only for yourself. Something only you like?”
“Maybe,” he says easily, “or maybe it’s because they go really, really fast.”
I laugh. It cuts through some of the tension that’s keeping my body taut, lying here so close to him. If I move just a foot or two, I could touch him.
“Yeah, you’re right. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he says. “I like it when you try to understand me.”
The words are quiet in the near-darkness. They fill my chest with warmth, and that feeling once again settles deep inside. That bone-deep knowledge—he hasn’t had much of that in his life.
“Perhaps there’s a small part of what you said that’s also true,” he says. “Dad likes cars well enough, but never fully. Not wholeheartedly. I like to actually drive them. My father, my brother, and now my sister, too… They all use car services. That makes sense in New York, to a certain degree, of course. But I don’t think I could give up my independence.”
“Oh,” I breathe. That makes so much sense. What he’s told me, what I’ve heard of his family. He wants as much control as he can get.
Nate’s smile slants. “Yeah, I just realized how out of touch that sounded.”
“That’s not what… oh, about your family using personal drivers?”
“Yes.”
“I already know you’re rich, Connovan,” I say teasingly. “The cat is out of the bag.”
He chuckles softly. “Damn. Here I thought I’ve been good at pretending.”
“I think you gave it away within the first… two minutes.”
“Of meeting me?”
“Mm-hmm.”
He’s silent, and turns over to lie on his back. I look at the strong profile and the unblinking eyes looking at the ceiling. “You mean the very first time, in that college bar? Four years ago?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“What do you remember about that night?” he asks.
I swallow. We’re getting close to that box, the one locked and stashed on a shelf somewhere. But here, in the darkness, with him, it feels easier to talk. “I remember you joining us… Dean and I… after a few minutes. You were much more reserved than Dean.”
He gives a dry laugh. “Yes. He was in a mood that night.”
“You were more polite, too. But the rich thing… Your suits that gave it away,” I say.
“Plenty of guys wear suits to New York bars.”
“Not like yours and Dean’s.”
He turns his head to look at me. “You were captivating that night.”
“I was?” My eyebrows rise. I’d been twenty-four, feeling alone in the big city, unsure about my next career move, and trying to enjoy a fun night out. Dean made certain it became one. He’d been a whirlwind, a hurricane, arriving into my life and sweeping me away with him.
“Yes,” he says. “You were wearing a red sweater, and a black headband. You commented on the music. Said it didn’t have the right beat for a bar environment. It was a curious thing to say.”
“I can’t believe you remember that.”
“You know me,” he says quietly. “I have a very good memory.”
My mind flashes to the morning he’d seen me topless. To me urging him to forget about what he saw, while in the back of my mind, knowing that he has a photographic memory. Heat spreads from my chest and singes my cheeks.
He really does remember everything.
Silence settles over the darkened room. I don’t know what time it is, but maybe going to sleep isn’t a bad idea.
But I don’t feel tired.
I feel too animated, like there’s a live wire running straight through me.
Across the bed, I hear Nate’s soft and steady breaths, and feel his unnatural stillness.
“Are you tired?” I whisper.
“Not particularly,” he murmurs back. “Do you want to go to sleep?”
“I think it would be a good idea.” I pull the cover higher up, almost to my chin. My hair is still damp from earlier, and now that the warmth of the shower has bled out, the cold is pressing against my scalp. “It’s a bit chilly in here.”
“Drafty. Just like it was in the eighteen-fifties.”
“Hater,” I whisper back.
He chuckles. “I could go look for more blankets.”
“No, it’s fine. The bed will heat up soon enough.”
“Mm-hmm. It should.”
“Aren’t you cold?”
There’s a beat of silence. “No. I’m really not.”
“Oh.”
Silence again, and then he sighs. Shifts closer until the body heat radiating from him is too delicious to avoid leaning into. “Come here. Get warm.”
“You’re sure?”
His reply is a hand on my shoulder, turning me on my side, and then the slide of his tall body as it fits neatly behind mine. That same hand then moves down to my hip, stopping there.
“Yes,” he says against my neck. “Is this okay?”
He’s warm and big next to me, and I wiggle closer until we’re touching from calf to shoulder. “God yes. You’re so warm.”
“Told you.”
His heated breath fans against my neck. I reach up and push my wet hair to the top of the pillow, needing more of his warmth. His hand on my hip feels large and scorching, and with me not wearing pajama pants, just panties, his ring and pinky fingers rest directly on the bare skin of my thigh.
That tiny touch feels volcanic.
For a few long minutes, we lie like that. Touching everywhere, and neither of us any closer to relaxing. I wriggle a bit, trying to sink further onto the pillow and nearer to the body at my back.
“Still not tired?” Nate murmurs. His breath ghosts over the shell of my ear, and the pressure from the hand on my hip tightens. Just slightly.
“Trying to get there.”
“What do you usually do at home?”
“Read a book,” I say. “Or… sometimes…”
“Use the vibrator you bought,” he states.
Heat pulses through me at the words. “I was going to say watch TV on my laptop.” My whispered words sound breathless. I swallow hard. “But… yes. Sometimes, I do that.”
The hand on my hip glides, just ever so slightly, across my skin. The sound is audible in the space between us. “I see.”
“What do you do?” I ask.
“Read sometimes.”
“But not usually.”
“No,” he says, fingers now feathering over my stomach. “Not usually.”
“So what’s the usual routine?”
His warm chuckle brushes over my neck, and I shiver at the pleasure of it. “Well, I don’t need a vibrator, but…”
“Oh.”
“Mm-hmm.”
I arch deeper into his hold. The hand on my stomach is stroking slow, lazy circles. Setting every cell of my skin on edge, and I want him to touch more of me. I tip my head back, mouth close to his, and start tugging my camisole up.
“Your hands are warm.”
“Yeah?” His hand follows the receding hemline of my cami, up my ribs, until fingers brush the underside of my breast. My breath whooshes out as those fingers brush once, twice, until his palm closes entirely over my left breast.
“Very warm,” I confirm on an exhale.
“Glad to be of service.” His voice is muffled against my head, and his thumb keeps stroking. The peak of my nipple. It hardens between two of his fingers, and liquid fire spreads from the touch, racing down to between my thighs. The darkness and heat envelop me completely, but I hear myself breathing, too loud in the quiet room.
“Nate,” I whisper.
His lips brush along my neck, his hand still tweaking my nipple. “Harper,” he whispers back.
I grind against him behind me. I want his hand to continue. To touch more of me.
Nate chuckles. “I see. You really do need me to play the vibrator part. Well…” His hand brushes over my breast once more before sliding in tight little circles down my ribcage and stomach to the elastic of my panties. Deft fingers play with the band for a second while my heart thuds a thunderous beat in my chest, and then he dives below the fabric.
His fingers stroke between my legs. All of my attention zeros in on that touch and the goosebumps rising in the wake of fingertips ghosting over my flesh.
“Oh,” he mumbles. “I see.”
See what? But I’m too focused on the feeling of his hand there,and I shift my top leg to give him better access. His fingers stroke along the full length of my folds, and I shiver when he brushes my clit.
“Turn onto your back,” he tells me. His voice comes out raspy.
He shifts, and I move with him until I’m on my back with my legs bent and my feet flat against the mattress.
“That’s it.” His free arm slides under my neck and over, forearm resting on my chest. And through it all, he never stops touching me. Fingers beneath the fabric of my panties, mapping me. Teasing me.
“Is this what you do at home?” he asks. “In the guest bedroom…”
“Sometimes,” I breathe. He’s found the hard nub of my clit and is rubbing it in firm, tight circles. It sends heat pounding through me, and I arch into his touch.
“You like that.”
“Mm-hmm.”
He makes a deep, pleased sound and takes his hand away. I open my mouth to protest when I feel it at my hip instead, gripping the fabric. I help him push my panties down. They end up halfway over my thighs.
“There, baby. I need to be able to touch all of you.” His voice is hoarse, and deeper somehow, here in the darkness where I can’t quite make out his face.
His fingers circle for a long time. So long that I start to go boneless, floating on the waves of pleasure not quite intense enough to get me over the crest. I turn my face into his shoulder. His skin is warm and firm and smells like soap. The same soap I almost used up.
“I need to get inside you. I want to feel you squeezing around me,” he murmurs, running his fingers down my sensitive skin. He slides one into me, curving it, and I sigh at the sensation. “Fuck, your pussy feels good.”
Another fierce blush spreads across my cheeks. His voice, the voice I’ve come to know so well, saying those things… speaking them against my temple. He adds another finger to the first. It’s the most delicious feeling, the faintest of burns, as he caresses me on the inside.
“I’m not vibrating, am I?” he asks.
It’s so surprising that a small laugh bursts out of me. “No. But I like it anyway.”
“Like it?” He uses his thumb to press on my clit, and a small yelp escapes me. “I want to do better than that. Tell me what you’d do.”
“I’d do… I’d do… what you’re doing.”
“Yeah?”
It’s hard to get the words out. Hard when he’s fucking me slowly with his fingers, curving them inside in a way I’ve never really experienced before, and using his thumb on my clit. “Mm-hmm. I mainly focus… just on my…”
“Tell me, baby.”
The word comes out in a hush. “My clit.”
“Most effective way to make yourself come.” His voice is in my ear, and it feels deliciously decadent to have it there. Guiding me through all of it.
The soles of my feet press down on the mattress. “Yes.”
“When you just want to go to sleep.”
“Oh… yes.”
His curling fingers are working a part inside of me that hasn’t been explored before. Never been focused on. It feels different and good, and utterly exotic. Deeper, somehow, than any pleasure I ever felt. The kind that always radiated from my clit.
“You’re so soft here,” he murmurs. His breath is coming fast, too, and I love the sound of that, and the raspiness in his voice. I close my eyes and focus on the sensations. “Soft like silk, and so warm. Fuck, you’re warm. I love doing this… rubbing your clit. It’s so swollen. I can’t vibrate, baby, but I can do this, and I can?—”
My orgasm takes us both by surprise. It starts with a small gasp, and then pleasure overtakes me, radiating from his touch, his fingers, from deep within me. Where he had stroked steadily.
I arch my back, and the arm around my chest tightens, holding me securely, and it’s all I can do not to moan. I have to bite down on my tongue to keep it from coming out.
Nate strokes me through all of it. His fingers skilled and slick now, moving along my pussy, little shots of electric energy traveling in ripples along my skin. So sensitive.
“That was good. That was so good,” he murmurs. Are those his lips against my ear? I want to turn and look, to turn and meet them, but I can barely move. I feel boneless. “You came so beautifully. You squeezed tight around my fingers, too, when you did.”
“Did I?”
“Oh yes.” His hand slides along my inner thigh, until he finds my panties, tugging them up with gentle movements until I’m covered once again. “You did so good.”
The praise makes me feel hot again. Dean never said things like that. No guy I’d ever been with said things like that.
There’s something hard against my hip.
As soon as I become aware of it, it’s impossible to notice anything but that. In the warm afterglow of my orgasm, he’s the only thing I can think of. It.
“Nate,” I breathe.
His hand is brushing slow circles around my hip bone again, the way he had in the beginning. Returned to its original position. “Yes?”
“You’re hard.”
He’s quiet for a long, heated moment. Then he shifts away and the pressure against my hip is gone. “Yeah. That tends to happen.”
“Let me help you, too.”
“That’s not necessary.”
I turn to my side, back in his orbit. His body is warm where it touches mine. “Don’t you want to come, as well?”
He gives a sharp exhale. “Harper.”
“What?” I lift onto my elbow. “That can’t be… comfortable. Does it ache to have a hard-on? I’ve always wondered.”
“Harper,” he repeats again, but this time he chuckles hoarsely. Drapes an arm over his face. “Only you would ask me that right now.”
“I’m curious.”
“Yes, it can ache. Right now it really fucking does.” For a second, I don’t think he’s breathing. I’m not sure I am, either. But then he speaks again. “If you truly want to…”
My hand is already resting on his shoulder. I slide it down over his chest, over the sliver of taut skin on his abdomen where his T-shirt has ridden up. To the elastic of his boxer briefs.
He helps fold the band down and out of the way, and then my fingers stroke his length. Resting thick and hot against his stomach.
A jolt shoots through me.
Curiosity, and the same warm, heavy feeling from earlier overwhelm me. I close my hand around him.
He hisses and pushes his head back on the pillow.
“You okay?” I breathe. My fingers are fisted around his cock, and I feel his pulse beneath the velvety skin.
“Yes,” he bites out. “I’m fine.”
“Sure?”
“Yes, Harp. Please. I need you to—” His words break off when I start to stroke. His breathing immediately hurries. The sound is harsh, and I revel in it. Revel in the strong length in my hand, in the silky softness of his head.
I can’t see him. Hidden beneath the cover, in the room that’s cast in darkness. But I feel him all the same.
And it’s exhilarating.
I stroke him firmly and listen to his sharp breaths. “You have to tell me, too,” I whisper. “What you like. What you normally do.”
“This… you’re doing great, Harp. You’re perfect.”
“Should I grip you harder?”
“You can,” he grinds out, “but it might kill me.”
I push up on an elbow. “What?”
He chuckles hoarsely. “Nothing. I’m going to come quickly tonight, baby.”
The endearment rolls off his tongue as easily as it did when it was his hand between my thighs. It sends warmth through me just as it did then.
His cock is thick, and it feels long as I stroke up the shaft. Incredibly smooth over the head. I trail my fingers down, following the vein, before finding his balls.
The man at my side goes rigid.
Gently, I play with them and settle back against the pillow. His skin is soft and warm, and the breaths that were heavy earlier are coming out labored now.
“This okay?”
“Yes,” he grinds out. “You’re having fun with this.”
I smile into the darkness. “I definitely am.”
He swallows. The sound is audible. I tease him for a while longer before returning to his shaft, quivering against his stomach. It’s such a delicious weight. Seductive. I didn’t realize I would miss sex, or miss touching a man like this, but I have.
I stroke him harder this time. Firmer. Nate’s breathing ratchets further, and I listen to it, to him, to the sound of my hand around him beneath the paisley-print bedcover. He sounds like he’s dying; and he sounds like he never wants me to stop.
“Talk to me,” I whisper.
He gives a low groan. “Harper, I don’t even remember my own fucking name right now.”
“Oh.”
“I need to… shit. I’m so close. Don’t stop, baby. Keep going… yes… Fuck.” He grabs his T-shirt and pulls it up to his neck, the movement disrupting the cover, and it’s just in time. He comes in pulses I can feel; his cock twitching, spurting up his stomach.
I continue to stroke him and listen to his pained groans until he goes listless beside me. His cock is still heavy in my hand, still shuddering slightly. I keep up my gentle caress, and Nate gives a hoarse laugh. Reaches down to pull my hand away, but softens the blow of rejection by twining his fingers with mine.
“Sensitive?” I ask.
“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He runs his free hand through his hair and sighs. “It’s a miracle I remembered the fucking T-shirt in the last second. We’re done with accidents for today. Stay here.”
He disappears into the bathroom, and I hear water running. Seconds later, he returns, and the mattress undulates yet again as he slips into place.
Nate doesn’t hesitate. Turns toward me immediately and settles behind me just as he had earlier, with his hand on my hip.
He’s not wearing a T-shirt at all this time. His torso is hot against my cooled back.
“Warm now?” he murmurs against my ear.
I close my eyes. Relax into the warm curve of his body, touching me from calf to elbow, and don’t think at all. “Yes,” I say.
It doesn’t take me long to fall asleep.