Chapter 17
17
Nick
T he poor girl looked shaken. I could hear the wheels turning in her head. And maybe this was a little cruel of me, but damn it, how the hell was I supposed to react when I get a call at night that she’s stranded herself in a parking lot?
“You’re kidding,” she said.
“About what?”
“The spanking.”
“Am I?” I lifted an eyebrow and she scowled at me, like she did when she was a kid and I wouldn’t play by her rules.
Was I going to confess to the occasional fantasy of putting this Nora over my knee and whacking her ass for making me feel all the feels – I was not. I was having a hard time coming to grips with it myself.
“Why in the world did you head out to Chester when you work for a mechanic and you have an over-protective father who is going to give you endless shit for doing this on your own?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and I looked down. Followed the movement, like some pervy dude. But I was helpless. All I wanted to do was watch her, see her. Her breasts curved so sweetly under that sweater she wore and I had to turn away from her and grip the steering wheel so I wouldn’t do something crazy like reach out and touch her. Pull her from that seat to my lap.
I waited for the guilt and shame to wash over me, but surprisingly it didn’t come this time. Part of my brain had come around really quickly to this new reality where I saw Nora as a woman and not a little girl.
And part of my body was very happy about that.
I coughed and shifted in my seat
“Is it so hard to believe that I could do this on my own? I’m an adult. Adults buy cars. I don’t need my daddy or my boss to make these decisions for me. You were taking too long and Dad is busy with a million other things, including his non-adult children, who actually need him. Just because I fucked up my life doesn’t mean I’m going to fuck up every decision I make in life after that.”
I turned my head in the direction of the Chevy that was currently hanging off the back of my tow. As if the car told a different story.
“It’s a good car,” she insisted. “I’m sure it’s something as stupid as it needs a new battery.”
I’d tried jumping it, but the car had been deader than a door nail.
“Everyone in this town is making me think…” her voice trailed off.
“What?”
“Like I’m the world’s biggest idiot. And I’m sick of it, Nick. I fell for a professional con man. Half this town would do the same.”
“Okay, fair enough. You go inside and I’ll haul the car to the garage and take a look first thing in the morning.”
“Nick-”
“No buts. I’m not having you out at night driving an unreliable car. If you think I would, you don’t know me as well as you told Wyatt you knew me.”
“Fine.” She huffed out a breath, like she’d conceded so much and I was wearing on her very last nerve. But she didn’t get out of the car. Which meant she wanted to talk about something else and I would bet a million dollars it had to do with my half-brother.
“So…Wyatt was hanging with you at your place?”
“I think he’s lonely without his ex-wife-slash fiancé around,” I said.
“Or maybe he likes your company.”
“Don’t read too much into it. It’s not like we’re performing blood brother ceremonies.”
Although I had talked to him about Nora. What was that if not a blood brother experience?
“You can let them in, you know,” she said.
“Sure,” I said with a laugh.
She touched my face and it was enough to make my breath stop. I let her tilt my face towards her so she could look me right in the eye. She smiled as if to say there you are and cupped my jaw in her hand.
It was always how she touched me when she had something to say she wanted me to hear. Because she knew, even to this day, making direct eye contact with people wasn’t easy for me.
An old lingering habit from growing up with an abusive father. The less I looked at him, the more I hoped he wouldn’t see me. The more I believed he wouldn’t hurt me.
Nora never let me get away with that. She always made sure to put her palm on my cheek so I couldn’t turn my head away. But it had been six years since she’d touched me like this and I felt my heart kick against my ribs. My blood thump through my veins.
There might have been another dick twitch.
Jesus, man, get it together.
“You can let them in,” she said.
“I don’t need more family,” I protested. “I have my own brother and sister.”
“Yes, of course you do. Mads and Julian are amazing and you adore them. But they’re so much younger. Charlie was more like a best friend growing up than a sibling. There’s something about having that friend that has to love you no matter what. No matter how badly you screw up, they’re just always going to be there and understand you at a different level.”
“That’s you,” I said quietly.
Her pretty mouth turned down and she dropped her hand from my face. “I’m sorry.”
“For going to a used car lot without me?”
“For shutting you out. After my birthday. I just didn’t know how to deal with my feelings and be the same person with you.”
“I’m sorry I expected you to,” I said, surprising her. Surprising myself. “What happened that night wasn’t something that should have been swept under the rug. You,” the words offered yourself to me echoed through my brain but I bit them back. “Were so honest and so brave and vulnerable. I shut you down because I didn’t know how to deal with my feelings either.”
This time I reached out, to cup her cheek, because I wanted to look into her eyes and never stop doing it. Because I wanted her to see me.
“I’ve missed you,” I confessed. “I’ve missed you so much.”
Tears welled in her eyes.
“You want to kiss me again,” she whispered.
“I don’t want to,” I said, and disbelief and a flicker of pain sparked in her eyes. “I have to.”
I leaned into her space, tentatively, slowly, giving her every opportunity to reject this. Out of revenge for my rejection, or because she’d simply lost interest in me, or because she knew like I did that this was probably going to end in disaster.
But she wasn’t stopping me. Instead her hand was on my arm, making a fist in my shirt. Like she was holding onto the only thing steady in a world gone upside down and I knew that feeling all too well.
I kissed her lips. And it was like gasoline on embers. My fingers curled into her hair, along her scalp, as if I could hold her prisoner. Her lips parted and I didn’t hesitate to taste her. My tongue in her mouth, breathing her air. Her hands pulled at me, and if it weren’t for the center console, I’d have her in my lap. My dick throbbed. Pressed so hard against the zipper of my jeans it felt like it might tear through the material.
She made a low sound in her throat and I backed off.
Too much. Too fast. What the hell was I thinking?
“Nora-”
She yanked me to her, kissing me as hard as I’d been kissing her. Like she couldn’t get enough. This was Nora. She was the reason I knew what love was, and she was holding on to me like she was dangling over a cliff and I was her only hope to live.
Which is why the knock on the passenger window and the burst of light in my face scared the ever-loving shit out of me.
“Hey there, Nick,” Sheriff Bobby said through the glass, standing on the other side of the truck door with a wry smile on his face. “Sorry to uh…interrupt you, but I wasn’t sure what your tow truck was doing parked outside the Barnes residence. Oh hey there, Nora. Nice to see you.”
“ILOSTMYCONTACTINMYEYEANDNICKWASHELPINGMEFINDIT!” she shouted at the top of her lungs.
“What was that?” Bobby asked.
“Really? Contact lens?” I muttered under my breath.
“Go with it,” she said between gritted teeth.
I hit the button on the console to roll down the window. “I was dropping Nora off because her car died and she…she lost her contact in her eye and I was helping her find it?”
Bobby nodded. “Solid option. Not the first time I’ve heard it, but utterly plausible. Unless of course, I’ve known you your whole life Nora, and I know you don’t wear contacts.”
“They’re for color enhancement,” she squeaked out. “It’s a French thing.”
“You’ve got to love the French,” Bobby chuckled. “I’m guessing you two kids want to keep this under wraps from Roy?”
“Keep what under wraps?” I asked Sheriff Bobby with a tone in my voice that reminded him I could take him for every penny at every poker game from now until next year if he didn’t keep quiet about this.
“Gotcha,” he said with a wink. “Nice car you got there, Nora. Don’t forget to stop by the bakery now and again. Mari wants to hear all about your experiences with French pastries.”
He walked off and a second later his squad car drove past us down the quiet residential beach community.
Nora collapsed against the door, her head in her hands.
“That was close,” Nora breathed.
I shook my head. “Not even a little. He knows what we were doing.”
“What the fuck were we doing?” she groaned.
I ran my hands over my face like I could hold the memory of her, the feel, the taste. It was burned into me. My brain. My body.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Sorry?” she asked carefully, like she was a bomb about to go off. “Nick, so help me God, if you think you can dick around with my heart after everything I’ve been through-”
“Sorry that Sheriff Bobby found us. Not that we…not that we kissed. I’m not sorry for that. I could never be sorry for that.”
She brushed her hair from her face and tugged down the hem of her sweater. “Nick, you are sending me so many mixed messages right now. You don’t want anything to happen, but then you kiss me. You’re sorry, but you’re not sorry. What is going on with you? I can’t-”
“I can’t lose you again,” I said, the words spilling out of me like they’d been waiting for their moment. “I can’t lose you again. The last six years were shit, Nora. Total shit. And you’re here now, making my life better. Brighter. If I lose you again, I won’t survive it.”
Never in my life had I been so honest. It took all my courage to look at her. Tears streamed down her cheeks and I moaned in my throat. No matter what I did, I hurt her.
“The stakes are so high,” I whispered.
She swiped the tears off her face and I wished I could hold her, but I was paralyzed between want and fear. She stiffened her shoulders – the grown ass woman who’d bought herself a car today.
“Will Sheriff Bobby keep his mouth shut? The last thing I need is more town gossip,” she said.
“If he doesn’t want to lose his shirt at poker every month,” I said. She pursed her lips, unamused. “He’s the town sheriff. He knows how to keep his mouth shut when it comes to people’s personal business.”
“Okay, then,” she reached for the door handle and accidentally hit the lock button.
“It’s the…”
She accidentally rolled down the window.
“Nora-”
“I’ve got it!” She shouted and finally got the door open. She stood on the sidewalk, framed by the open door of my tow truck. She looked mad and beautiful and moonlit. I was terrified of losing her.
“We are still going to Julie’s wedding because I bought a revenge dress and you must pay. What happens after that, we’ll just have to take it a day at a time. Deal?”
“What’s a revenge dress?”
Her smile was pure evil. “Oh, you’ll see.”
The Following Week
A revenge dress was a cock-tease. I learned this the hard way after picking up Nora at her parent’s house.
“Where are the sleeves?” I growled when she came down the stairs. I never should have given her all that ammunition. She smelled so fucking good and her hair was up but there were long pieces, perfectly curled, coming down around her ears and settling against the nape of her neck, where the skin was so…creamy.
I wanted to bite her there.
“What? I’m wearing straps,” she blinked up at me innocently. “They’re called spaghetti straps.”
“Is there a problem, Nick?” Roy asked from behind my shoulder. “You seem a little upset.”
I whirled around to face the man I considered a friend, a mentor and part of my extended family in Calico Cove. I did this even though I was partially erect behind my suit coat because his daughter’s shoulders were now exposed.
“Nope. All good. Just telling Nora she might want a coat to put over that dress. The temperature is really starting to drop.”
“Good point. Nora, you might want to wear a jacket so you don’t get chilled,” Roy deadpanned. “Oh wait, I forgot. You don’t take your father’s advice anymore.”
“Dad! Ugh. I thought you were over the car.”
The car had checked out. Once I replaced the battery, it had started fine, and, all things considered, if that same car had showed up in my garage it would have been the one I picked out for Nora. She had my blessing, but Roy, apparently, was still butt hurt for being left out of the process.
I could distract him by telling him I wanted to pick his daughter up around the waist, wrap her legs around me high and tight, push aside what I knew were going to be sexy French panties and fuck her silly.
That would probably refocus his anger.
I was losing my goddamned mind.
“What?” he grunted.
“What?” I asked.
“You look weird.”
I feel weird, I thought.
This past week, Nora and I had been cool. Professional. Each of us doing our job. My business had never been more organized, accounting up to date, and for the first time, I could leave the garage and head upstairs before eight at night.
And, she’d started making videos.
“Gimme your phone,” she’d said on Monday at lunch.
“Why?” I handed her my phone.
“I’m going to show…oh, you have an account. Nice.” She smiled at me and I reached for the phone. The only thing I had to hide from her were those saved videos and I wasn’t even sure why I felt compelled to hide them. They’d been a secret for so long, I didn’t know how to make them not a secret.
She didn’t look at the saved videos. She just made one of her own of the garage. I had a few high school students who came to work in the afternoons in what the guidance counselor called a co-op and I called babysitting.
She got them to do a dance to some popular song and they went for it. Smiling faces, smeared with a little grease. She panned over to me, not smiling, not dancing.
“Oh my God, it’s so good,” she said, and posted it.
Every day. One video about the shop. Nothing came of it. People liked it. Folks from Calico Cove commented. But it made her happy. And it made me happy to see her happy.
Everything was perfect, really. Except for the fantasies.
The one where I lifted her onto the hood of the Mustang I’d been working on, pushed her jeans down over her knees and fucked her so hard she screamed my name and ran her nails down my back. Only to make her go back to work, red faced, breathless and dripping my cum into her panties.
“Okay, now you’re fucking scaring me,” Roy said. “You’ve got serial killer face.”
“I’m not sure what that is,” I mumbled.
“We’ve got to go or we’ll miss the vows.”
“Unless she makes a run for it,” Vanessa said, coming out from the kitchen. “Not that I’m rooting for that.”
“Oooooh,” Bethany crooned as she followed her mother into the living room. “You look so pretty Nora! Don’t you think she looks pretty, Nick?”
“Beautiful, actually,” I said quietly. Although now I could feel both Vanessa and Roy’s eyes pinned on me.
“Girls,” Will snorted, hip checking his sister as he came into the room behind her. “They always have to be told how pretty they are. There’s this girl in my class – she’s so conceited.”
“Uh, oh. Does Will have a crush on a girl?” Nora asked, teasing her younger brother.
“No!” Will shouted, a bit too loudly for anyone to believe him. “I’m just saying, she thinks she’s all that, and every guy in my grade is all….” He made a love struck googly eyed face.
“Pro tip,” I told Will. “Play hard to get with this girl. They like the guys who don’t fawn all over them.”
“I told you, I don’t even like her!”
“ Will’s got a girlfriend ,” Bethany sang, which in turn led Will to chase her out of the living room until we heard faint screams coming from the back of the house.
“Hey! No running inside!” Roy barked.
“I better make sure she doesn’t hurt him,” Vanessa said. “You two have fun at the wedding.”
“Yep,” I said. “You want to get that coat, Nor?”
She smiled at me with all of her teeth and found a black trench coat in the closet that covered her from neck to knees. She tied the belt around her waist and I could finally breathe.
“Much better,” I said, only to find Roy standing next to me, staring me down. “What?”
“You still look like a serial killer.”
“But you know I’m not,” I reminded him.
“Do I?”
“Dad! Let’s go, Nick,” She pulled me outside the house and closed the front door behind her.
Halfway to the car, the same BMW as last time, I stopped her with a tug on her hand.
“I don’t…I don’t know how to do this. Be with you like this. I’m not really sure what to say or do.”
She had to understand that. I couldn’t relax. I couldn’t settle. All I felt was what might go wrong. And Roy’s fucking Dad-eyes drilling into my back warning me not to break her heart because she might leave again.
She blinked. “Just treat me how you would any other date.”
“But you’re not. Just any other date. I see you in that dress and I have…thoughts.”
“What kind of thoughts?”
“Dirty thoughts,” I admitted.
She bit her lower lip like she was considering my dilemma. “We’ve been so professional at work this past week.”
“Because I have to be, not because I want to be.”
“Hmm. Sounds like my revenge dress is working. Are you going to be a little turned on all night while you watch me have fun with my friends?”
I swallowed. “I think so. Yes.”
She beamed. No fake smile this time. “Excellent!”
“You’re happy that I’m going to suffer?” I grumbled and opened the car door for her.
“I’m happy that you’re going to suffer because of me,” she said, dipping inside. Then she leaned over the bench seat and unlocked the driver’s side door for me. “Now get in. This is going to be an amazing night for us, Nick.”