Thirteen #3
“Really?” That made her feel better. Jake hated what he called her overreactions, and toward the end of their relationship, she’d found herself watching for the little inhale he’d take whenever she started talking.
The worst was that Jake didn’t know he was doing it.
It was his subconscious way of preparing himself to deal with her.
As she’d become quieter for him, Jake had become happier with her, and then she’d felt like she was disappearing.
Enough of Jake. Nico ran his hand through his hair and she focused on what he was wearing.
Unlike his tidy day look, Nico was dressed for comfort in long shorts and an old pale-blue shirt with the collar frayed and stretched.
Valerie had never done a pull-up in her life, but she liked those sloping muscles on the side of a man’s neck that looked so bitable.
The shirt also dipped down over his chest and Valerie was not complaining at all. Not one bit.
However, Nico had not braved the coyotes to be her midnight snack. He glanced out the window. “The night magnified the forest sounds. All I could think about was how dark the lake got and how small and vulnerable people are against nature.”
That brought her attention back to the issue at hand, namely the myriad ways the untamed world could deliver the coup de grace. “I hadn’t started worrying about lake monsters because I was too focused on being eaten by coyotes, but thank you for the reminder.”
“It’s rare for coyotes to attack, and they have plenty of food. Lake monsters tend to be more unpredictable.”
His matter-of-fact answer made her laugh and then relax. He was right. She was in no immediate danger.
“Good to know.” She took another look at him. “What do you have there?”
Nico dropped a pile of bedding. “I brought it to sleep on the floor in case you wanted company.”
“What? You don’t have to do that.” Her weak protest was pro forma because her stomach unclenched at the idea of companionship.
It was tragic that she needed a safety buddy, but the howls tapped into a primal part of her brain that remembered what it was like to be alone and exposed as the coyo-wolves prowled.
“I want to, if you don’t mind.”
“Are you sure? I feel bad about you sleeping on the floor.” Should she offer the bed?
With her? She eyed his arms and those lips and God, those eyes, and reluctantly decided it would be a bad idea.
It might make him uncomfortable, since they were technically here for work reasons and she was a cuddler in her sleep.
“It’s not a problem.” He looked down and she realized that she’d have to tidy up her clothes to make him some space.
“Just a sec.” She threw everything in a pile and felt Nico’s dismay at the mess. “I’ll sort it all in the morning,” she assured him.
“Do you have more clothes than when you arrived?” he asked as she moved Penny’s box of sartorial treasures.
“Penny offered me some outfits from her closet, remember?” She pointed to them. “Why do you think I was looking good today?”
Nico had been frowning at the box as if Pandora had just slammed the lid down. But now he looked up as if her last sentence confused him. “You always look good,” he said.
“Oh.” The simple way he said it, like it was an unassailable truth, made Valerie feel a little off-balance. She swallowed down the joke she was about to make about clothes and…something. Instead, she said, “Thank you.”
He held her gaze a moment longer and she was the one to break the connection, her cheeks heating. She hadn’t realized how small the bunkie was until Nico was standing here with her.
Or until he tried to lay out his duvet. With all the bags, there wasn’t enough space for him to stretch out. “Nico, you barely fit. I can sleep on the floor.”
“No.”
Another volley of howls pierced the darkness, and her next offer, that they go to his bunkie so he could be comfortable, died in her throat. No way was she going outside. “Then sleep in the bed with me. There’s plenty of room.”
He glanced up. “Are you sure?”
“I don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind if you don’t mind.”
She laughed. “Looks like neither of us minds. Come on then.”
Feeling a nervous thrill that Nico would be, however chastely, in bed with her, Valerie climbed up and over the rumpled sheets to the far side.
Nico followed. Then he frowned, reached down, and dragged up a pair of her lacy underwear.
“Hey, I was looking for those. Thanks.” She felt the heat rush up her neck and snatched them away. “They’re clean,” she assured him.
Nico only nodded and handed over the matching bra, which he had apparently fished out as well.
He didn’t make eye contact and she would have teased him except: (1).
He’d had the bad luck to find her tiniest pair.
(2) She didn’t think he’d be into a discussion on her love of fancy lingerie.
(3) Her embarrassment had morphed into a desperate impulse to offer to show him how it looked on, with a request for him to take it off her.
Because she had not thought this through.
If she had, she would have known having Nico in the velvety night, in touching distance, in her bed, would cause some issues with her self-control.
She could picture it perfectly. His mouth on hers and his hand teasing her in the darkness.
She could be as loud as she wanted in this isolated cabin.
She was about to close her eyes to build on this a bit more when she realized Nico was lying ramrod straight.
Right. They were basically colleagues, albeit on a very weird work project. It would be hugely inappropriate for her to proposition him, especially when he’d been kind enough to brave the coyotes. In fact, it was probably crossing a line to fantasize about him when he was right there.
“Good night,” she forced herself to say.
“Good night, Valerie.”
Then, somehow, despite the howls and Nico lying so close beside her, she drifted off, doing her best to keep her hands to her sides and praying she didn’t dream anything embarrassing.