Chapter 32
“Do I have to?” Nate asks. He’s leaning against the doorframe to his bathroom—so much larger than mine—and stares at the tub as it fills like it’s a snake poised to strike.
I dip my hand in the bath water. It’s the perfect temperature. “Yes. And if you hate the experience, you’ll get to gloat forever.”
He looks at me, and that curved smile that transforms his face is back. I love seeing it. Along with the teasing glint in his eyes that is present more and more often when he looks at me.
Something about those stares of his makes my chest warm.
Nate reaches for the buttons of his shirt. He’d gotten in from work just twenty minutes ago, and I was quick to grab him for a bath. Dragging him up the two flights and stairs and through the bedroom I’d only briefly seen before.
“What’s that?” he asks while shrugging out of his shirt. Broad chest on full display, and I almost drop the bottle of bubble bath liquid I’m pouring into the stream.
“Oh. It’s soap. I love the scent, and it will make the water foamy.”
He unfastens the buckle of his belt. “I’m an idiot,” he says, “for not immediately realizing this would mean I’m naked around you.”
“Did you take a bath fully clothed last time?” I tease. “That’s why you didn’t enjoy it. You weren’t doing it right!”
He smiles. “Oh, that explains it.”
“Stick to the Excel sheets and cars.”
“I don’t work in Excel,” he says, “but I’ll take the latter any day of the week.”
I look down at the tub, the swirling soap, and the quickly forming bubbles. The water is almost halfway up by now, and the steamy air is getting heavy with the floral scent.
“You didn’t… has he contacted you since Sunday?” I ask. It’s Tuesday, and it’s been two days since the showdown outside the townhouse. Guilt and fury has been swirling inside me ever since, my mind vacillating between the two.
Nate’s hand comes under my chin, and he tilts my head up. I’m sitting on the edge of the tub, and with his height, he’s looming over me, but his face is thoughtful. “Are you worried about him coming back?”
I swallow. “A little bit. He knows where I live now.”
“I’ll hire security.”
That makes me chuckle. “No, no, I don’t think that will be necessary. His ego is… well, it was always fairly fragile. He measured himself against you a lot. Now, knowing that you and I are…”
Nate’s lips tip up at the corners, and his thumb strokes across my cheek. “We are…?”
“Well, you know. Involved.”
“That’s right. Involved,” he says. “He won’t bother you again. Let me know if he does, and I’ll handle him.”
“Yeah,” I say, but guilt churns in my stomach. I try to shake it off and gesture at the water. “Come on. It’s time.”
Nate grumbles, but he does what I ask. Steps out of his boxers and sinks into the almost-too-hot water. A low groan escapes him, and I sit down by the head of the free-standing tub. I’ve already rolled up and placed a towel there for him to rest his head against.
I’m here to win an argument, after all.
Nate’s eyes meet mine. “You’re still worried about it.”
He knows me too well. I sigh and look down at my hands on my lap. “No. Not really, more that… Well, I destroyed your friendship, didn’t I? It does bother me how Dean spoke to you. I know he was jealous, but you two have been friends since college, and here I am?—”
“Harper,” Nate says. “Let me get this right. You’re feeling guilty about being the reason Dean and I will likely never speak again?”
Spoken so starkly, it feels like a punch to the gut.
I nod.
“Don’t be. Not even a bit. I will never feel bad about losing him as a friend.”
“You won’t?”
“No,” Nate says. “He showed his true colors the other day. Besides, do you think I would want to be friends with him after hearing how he treated you?”
“Then I’m the one who turned you against him,” I say.
Nate rests his head back on the towel and drapes his arms along the porcelain edges of the tub. “No. You just opened my eyes to a relationship I’ve already been feeling shaky about.”
I blink a few times. “You were? Every time I saw you in New York before you moved, and then after… although it was less often… you seemed so happy. Like you liked Dean. I never noticed anything otherwise.”
He closes his eyes, and I notice color seeping into his cheeks. It must be from the rising steam heating the air around us. “I was good at hiding it.”
“Oh,” I say.
“And I’d take having you over being friends with him every day of the week.”
The words slide over my skin, slipping through my limbs. Having me. Happiness unfurls, chasing away the guilt. Is that how he sees it? Does he have me? Do I have him?
We still haven’t defined anything. Haven’t spoken about us. I’m not sure if I can quite yet… but I’m getting there. All I know is, there’s no one I want to spend my time with more than Nate.
“I’m going to wash your hair,” I say instead and reach for the shampoo.
Nate cracks an eyelid open. “You’re going to do what?”
“I promise you’ll like it.” I scoot closer to the tub and run a hand through his hair. “And if you still hate having a bath in thirty minutes, you’ll win this debate forever. Remember?”
“Thirty minutes in this water,” he mutters, but he dips his head obligingly under the surface for me.
“How you suffer for me,” I tease and rest his head back against the edge of the tub.
His hair is a few inches in length, and I start lathering it with shampoo. Use both my hands to massage his scalp.
I’ve never done this for anyone. This whole idea started on a whim, something fun for us to do. But this feels almost meditative.
Nate keeps his eyes closed and forehead smooth—no furrows mar his serene expression—but there’s no smile on his lips, either. He sighs softly.
“Not so bad, is it?” I whisper and slide my hands to the back of his head. Dig into the muscles of his neck.
“No.” His deep voice is languid. “But I think that’s less about the bath and more about you.”
I smile. “Let’s say it’s a fifty-fifty effort.”
By the time I’m done, he looks relaxed enough to be half-asleep, his hands gripping the edges of the tub. But he dips his head again for me when I ask.
“Nate,” I ask, picking up the soap. “Can’t you tell me something… something you don’t usually tell other people?”
He slides his warm gaze to mine. “I am not particularly fond of pistachios.”
I burst out laughing, and he smiles, pleased with himself. “That’s not what I meant!”
“But that’s something I usually keep under lock and key.”
I dip my hand into the water, splashing him. “Can you be serious for a moment?”
“I can, if I must,” he says. Leans back against the towel and looks at me with half-lidded eyes. “Okay… you want my secrets?”
I grab the loofah and pour soap onto it. “I want to get to know you better.”
“Mm-hmm. I tell you something… and you take off another piece of clothing.”
My eyes widen. “This is about you enjoying a bath.”
“Of course it is,” he says, face perfectly innocent. “And isn’t having a beautiful view crucial for an enjoyable bath?”
“You’re insatiable,” I say, but I’m smiling.
“I warned you I would be, once we started this,” he says. He lifts his hand off the tub’s rim and wraps his fingers around one of my curls. “And you’ve already managed to get me naked. The bath was just an excuse, right?”
I roll my eyes. “You’re such a guy. Okay. I’m game.”
“Of course you are,” he says warmly and leans his head back against the edge. “You’re game for everything. Okay. You want me to bare my soul here, alongside my body? While I’m defenseless in soapy water?”
He looks up at the ceiling and thinks for a moment. The previously smooth forehead gets a new crease. “You know that my father has been giving me more attention in the last six months than he has in the past ten years, and all of it is because my sister and brother have shut him out.”
I blink at him. “Yeah.”
“I’m not upset about it. It’s just a fact. But I think it’s because he wants me to act as a mediator.”
“That’s not a role you should have to play.”
He shrugs. “I’m the middle child. It’s the role I was born to play.”
My fingers find the buttons of my cardigan and undo them. I shrug out of the garment and throw it back toward the open door leading to his bedroom. Only the camisole and skirt left.
And my underwear and bra.
Nate smiles. “Good girl.”
“I can’t believe we’re negotiating on this,” I murmur, but I’m smiling, too.
“I can.”
Picking up the loofah once again, I gesture for Nate to lean forward. Start soaping the broad muscles of his back. I know he runs and lifts weights, but he must have been doing that consistently for twenty years or more. His body is shaped like an athlete’s. Taut skin and strong muscles.
My next question is easier to ask to his shoulder blades than to his face. “Dean… once mentioned that you had been engaged? Before I knew either of you, but that it didn’t work out.”
Nate shrugs. “Dean ran his mouth a lot, I’m learning.”
“Was that a secret?”
“No,” he says and braces his arms against his bent knees. Water sloshes softly against the edges of the tub. “It’s just not something I talk about often.”
“Is it sensitive?”
“Not particularly,” he says, sounding genuine. Not bitter. “It was a long time ago. Yeah, I was engaged to a woman I met at work in my mid-twenties. We dated, moved in together, got engaged. It ended… What is it now? Seven years ago. I was thirty-one at the time.”
“What happened?”
“She decided she wasn’t in love with me anymore,” he says.
My hand jerks across the expanse of his back. “Oh. I’m sorry.”
He chuckles. “God, don’t be. That wasn’t meant to be. I don’t regret it.”
“That’s a very healthy way of looking at things,” I say softly and start kneading the muscles of his shoulders.
Nate groans, and his head falls forward. “Jesus, Harper. I don’t know what I’ve done to deserve this.”
“Maybe you don’t need to do anything to deserve it. Maybe you just need to be you,” I say.
He’s quiet for a long moment, and then he chuckles dryly. “That goes against the entire Connovan ideology.”
“Your dad didn’t raise you like that?”
“I think,” he says, “that’s another question. And you still need to remove a piece of clothing for your last one.”
“Demanding,” I murmur, but I reach for the hem of my camisole. Whip it clean off, leaving me in only a skirt and panties.
Nate leans back against the tub and gestures for me to move so he can see me. I shuffle to the right, loofah in hand, and give a little ta-da.
His smile widens, eyes sweeping over my collarbones, breasts, and stomach.
“My favorite art piece,” he murmurs, arms draping over the edges of the tub. “Perfection.”
“You’re biased.”
“Entirely,” he agrees.
I dip the loofah under the water and then run it across his chest. His eyes are warm on me. “Right. No, we weren’t raised thinking that ‘good was good enough.’ Rest was wicked, failure was unacceptable, and the goal was always to make Contron the best it could be. I knew exactly where I would be working since I was ten.”
I glance up at him. He doesn’t sound bitter… but how can he not be? “That sounds hard.”
He shrugs, and the surface of the water ripples. It’s still mostly covered in bubbles. “It was. But I was very privileged. We all were. I can’t complain that I got a chance at a career many people work their entire lives for.”
“You’re allowed to complain. It’s your life.”
“Mm-hmm. Well, complaining is another thing Connovans don’t do. Unless you’re my father, of course. He’s allowed to complain about our performances as much as he wants.”
“That’s unfair.”
“Life is unfair,” he says. “Another of Dad’s favorite slogans.”
“Okay, I’m not liking this man,” I say with a frown. Beneath the water, I’m using the loofah across his stomach and abs.
Nate looks content, his eyes lazy. “You’re not the first. But he also instilled the value of hard work, education, perseverance.”
“You work a lot, that’s true.”
“I worked even more before you moved in.” He nods to my skirt, a smile on his face. “Off.”
I grumble about him being so needy but wiggle out of the skirt happily. Having him so close, so naked, so large, and so distinctly male is intoxicating. So is getting to touch him wherever I want and however I want.
“Jesus,” Nate says as I sink to my knees again beside the tub. “You’re so pretty. Always have been.”
“Always?” I ask. Find the loofah and start along his legs. “Even when we were just friends and I was Dean’s girlfriend?”
His voice is surprisingly serious when he replies. “Always.”
“Oh.” I try not to get ahead of myself. Had he always…? I didn’t know he’d been attracted to me before a few weeks ago.
Before we moved in together and became friends.
“Don’t worry,” he says, and his voice is light again. “You don’t need to confess that you found me devastatingly handsome on our first meeting.”
I chuckle and run the loofah up his knee. “You’re not fishing for compliments. Nope.”
“I would never.”
“Of course you were handsome. You’ve always been good-looking,” I say and let my loofah run up his thigh. To the only spot I haven’t washed, yet.
Nate exhales sharply. “Well. We got there in the end.”
“I have one more question,” I say, moving the loofah around his thighs, his hips, his lower abs.
Nate grits his teeth. “Then the bra is coming off.”
“Think you can focus if it’s off?”
“I’ll do my damndest,” he mutters.
I reach behind me and undo the clasp. Slide the straps down my shoulders and slowly, slowly, let the cups fall, leaving me bare.
Nate curses, his eyes turn dark and focused on my tits.
It makes me smile. “You’re looking like you’ve never seen me naked before.”
“I’ll never be done looking,” he says.
I let the loofah drop to the tiled floor and lean against the tub, pushing my breasts up against the edge. The bubbles have mostly disappeared now, and I clearly see his erection beneath the water, resting against his stomach.
I reach down and grip him.
His breathing catches, and his hands tighten on the rim of the tub. “You have the best fucking hands in the world.”
“I do?”
“Mm-hmm. Best fucking everything.” He leans his head against the rolled-up towel and looks at me with lust-filled eyes. “Ask the question, Harper. Whatever it is.”
He’s hard in my palm, and grows harder still as I stroke him. I love the feel of him in my hand—heavy, silky, and hot. Have since the very beginning.
And I love the way he looks when I hold him. Like I have his life in my hands. Like I’m the only thing he can think about.
“If you thought I was pretty since, well…”
“For years,” he mutters. “Yes.”
I feel too hot. From the warm water, his cock in my palm, his eyes on me. The only cool thing is the porcelain against my chest. “Does that mean you’ve been wanting to do this, too? For years?”
The question hangs in the steamy, scented air.
He doesn’t blink. Doesn’t look away from my gaze.
“Yes,” he says. “I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you.”
My hand tightens around him on instinct, and my breath hitches.
He groans. Reaches out to grab me. “Now come here. You’re getting into this tub with me, and in return, I’ll finally agree that baths are superior.”
“I’m still wearing my panties!” But I scramble into the hot water and into his arms.
He pulls me close. “Don’t worry,” he says. “I think we’ll be able to get those off.”