Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
NATE
Park City, Utah
She’s soaking wet and sputtering obscenities, but I don’t think she’d want me to set her down so her nakedness would be on full display.
Instead I just hold her cradled against my chest. In the mirror, I watch the curve of her body between my arms, noting the scars that skim across her skin.
I’ve seen them already in the Sports Illustrated shoot she did after she’d healed from her accident, but seeing those scars in person is somehow different. More real. More my fault than ever.
The guilt is still there, tugging at me, but my traitorous cock only notices her bare skin, her ragged breathing, the way I can see her breast pressed against my chest in the mirror. The guilt and the lust war with each other as I hold her, surprised that she hasn’t leaped out of my arms yet.
Finally she opens her eyes, looks right at me, and asks, “What the fuck, Nate?”
“What just happened?”
“I was taking a relaxing bath and you yanked me out of it, and now I’m freezing . . . and naked.” She manages to sound both pissed off and breathless at the same time.
I make sure I don’t glance down at her body, just keep my eyes focused on her face.
It’s only about a foot from my own, and her eyes are focused on my lips, like she’s trying to make sense of what I’ll say before I even say it.
“You called my name,” I remind her. She sounded like she was in pain.
“Then when I knocked to check on you, you didn’t answer and I was afraid something was wrong.
When I opened the door, you were thrashing around under the water. I thought you were drowning.”
The flush starts in her chest and creeps swiftly up her neck to her cheeks. I’ve never understood how anyone with such an olive complexion could turn pink so quickly.
“Drowning. In a bathtub. Really?” She lowers her eyebrows along with her voice, like the idea is ridiculous. “I didn’t call your name, and I wasn’t thrashing around. I was just washing myself off.”
I raise my eyebrow because she’s a terrible liar. Always has been. “You’re not going to convince me that I barged in and interrupted your bath unprovoked.”
She doesn’t say anything, just stares at my lips a beat too long before raising her eyes to mine with that defiant look she’s been practicing a whole lot since I’ve been in Park City.
This is going nowhere, quick—there’s no way she’s going to tell me why she called me in there, and no way I’m going to believe I imagined it—so I decide to drop it rather than have this result in a fight. “I’ll grab you a towel.”
“I wasn’t done bathing. I haven’t even washed my hair yet.”
For a split second, I imagine stripping my clothes off and walking into that shower with her.
But I know she’s not ready for that, even though I’m equally confident that she’s burying a whole lot of longing.
I can feel her desire, like a vine that’s growing between and around us, pulling us closer together.
But she’s not ready to acknowledge its presence yet, so I grab a towel off the wall and shake it open before stepping up to the vanity.
I wrap it around her shoulders and set her down, facing me.
“You sure you’re okay?” I ask as I wrap the towel around her, pleased that she doesn’t screech and move to cover herself when I’m facing her.
She’s flushed and wet, the towel covers her breasts where her hand clasps both sides together.
Her legs are spread apart and I’m standing between them.
It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, but shit it’s been so long.
I’m trying to remain unaffected by seeing her like this, but it isn’t working—which will be exceedingly obvious to her if she glances down.
It’s like I’m a teenage boy again, lusting after her, knowing we belong together but trying to take it slow until she’s ready.
Funny how history repeats itself. And just like back then, I’m sure that tonight I’ll be getting myself off to visions of her naked and moving beneath me, or on top of me, or . . .
“I’m fine.” Her words are crisp, but there’s no heat in her eyes. She’s not mad. The distance I see in her gaze makes me wonder if she’s remembering us together too.
“Maybe you can wash your hair in the shower? Not sure I trust you in the tub again.”
“I’ll be fine. This time, I’m locking the door though.”
“Suit yourself,” I say, but I can’t stop my lips from turning up at the corner because, of course, a locked door wouldn’t stop me if I need to get inside.
She opens her mouth to reply, but a knock on the door to the suite cuts her off.
I turn around and pull the plug in the tub. “I’ll get dinner ready. Be quick in the shower or you’ll have cold mac and cheese.” I keep my back to her as I rush out the door so she won’t notice the tent in the front of my sweats.
It’s ten minutes before the shower goes off, and another ten before she opens that bathroom door. She’s trying to piss me off, but she’s playing the wrong game; I’ve been waiting on her since I was seventeen, twenty minutes is nothing.
Walking toward me in flannel pajama pants and a waffle knit T-shirt, with her hair in a French braid and nothing on her face but her trademark watermelon lip balm, she looks so young and fresh-faced—nothing like the woman I ran into on the elevator Friday night.
But my reaction is just as primal. This version of her is my Jackson.
Casual, comfortable, like a favorite blanket or a worn-in sweatshirt, and all I want is to tangle myself up in her hair, her limbs, her lips.
I clear my throat when she comes to a stop on the other side of the island, trying not to spend too much energy figuring out if she’s wearing a bra. I’m pretty sure she isn’t.
“I think you promised me dinner?” She sounds tentative, like she’s not sure what to say after the bathtub incident.
But she doesn’t sound mad, which is a relief.
Or is it? At least when she’s mad she’s showing some emotion rather than locking everything inside so I have to guess at how she’s feeling.
“Just keeping everything warm.” I turn to the counter behind me and grab the two dishes, still covered in the metal lids they arrived with when room service delivered them.
Jackson slides onto the barstool as I set the plate in front of her, and I have to bite my tongue not to mention how easily we’re falling into our old routine of me taking care of her.
She picks at her mac and cheese, taking small bites and trying to pretend I’m not here while I devour my double veggie burger.
After that workout followed by the yoga session, I was about to eat my own arm if she didn’t come out soon.
When my veggie burger is consumed and the silence has stretched on longer than is comfortable, I ask, “You want to talk about what just happened in there?” and nod toward the bathroom across the living area.
She meets my gaze for a millisecond, but that’s all it takes for me to see the heat flash in those emerald eyes, the desire not well enough masked. She looks back down at her food. “Not particularly.”
And that’s when I know. What I heard wasn’t the strangled sound of her calling my name in distress.
It was the sound of her moaning my name.
Which means that whatever she was doing in that tub, she was thinking of me .
. . of us. My body reacts to this realization before my mind even finishes wrapping itself around the idea.
“Why not?” I ask, leaning a little closer to her.
“Why do I not want to talk about how you just invaded my privacy? How you picked me up, naked, out of my bath? Gee, Nate, why would I not want to talk about it? Maybe because it goes so far beyond the boundaries of our purely professional relationship? Maybe because it violates my boyfriend’s trust? Maybe because I feel violated?”
And this is not going where I’d hoped it would go. She can’t even be honest with herself.
“I’m sorry. I really did think you called my name because something was wrong.”
“Well, I didn’t,” she says, her eyes flaring in defiance.
“Just so you know, I don’t believe you. But I’ll change the subject since you’re so obviously uncomfortable.
” I drop my eyes to her chest as she heaves a sigh of relief.
The top two buttons of her waffle knit T-shirt are open, revealing the smooth, olive skin below her neck.
She has the softest skin I’ve ever felt, and my mouth is salivating at the need to remember the way she tastes.
But that too will have to wait. “My dad wanted me to tell you he says ‘hello.’”
She levels her gaze at me, her face unreadable once again.
I hate that she has the ability to do that now.
That mask is not who she is, and wearing it is not something she was capable of back when we were dating.
How did you learn to hide your emotions like that?
I want to ask her. Necessity, most likely.
I hate to think that I’m the cause, but it’s probably true.
“How is he doing?” It sounds like it pains her to ask. She looks away, spearing a few more pieces of pasta and taking another bite.
“He’s good. I mean, not great, but he’s doing okay. Throwing himself into work all the time.”
“Still in commercial real estate?”
“Yep,” I confirm. “He’s been after me to come work with him for years.”
“And you don’t want to?” She sounds genuinely curious.
“That’s not really the business I see myself in,” I say, unwilling to give her too many details about my own real estate investing business.
There are too many variables up in the air right now.
I want to wait until I’ve locked down my latest acquisition.
I sure as hell hope she’s thrilled when she finds out, because the alternative is that she’ll never speak to me again.
If I’m being honest, it worries me that I don’t know whether she’ll love it or hate it.
“I’m sure he just wants you closer,” she says. “Is he lonely?”