Chapter 20 #3
Finally, Nate pulls away. “We should probably go talk to Marco about how this is all going to go down. Because now that I have you, I’m not giving you up to pretend you’re his girlfriend. I literally can’t watch you kiss him one more time.”
“Even though you know it means nothing?”
“Would you want to watch me kiss some other girl, even if it meant nothing?”
I consider how I’ve felt seeing him with his arm around a supermodel or snow bunnies draped all over him in social media posts, the way the female fans looked at him at the autograph night last month. I’ve never even seen him kiss someone else, and my hackles are up at the thought.
I’m sure my face must say it all because Nate says, “Yeah, you understand.”
We get dressed quickly and Nate watches as I throw my hair up in a loose bun on top of my head. There’s a look in his eyes, some combination of happiness and sadness and worry.
“What?” I ask as I finish wrapping the second elastic around the mess of hair I didn’t even bother to brush before finger-combing it into place.
“I’ve just missed this.”
“Yeah, because I’m so sexy in my pajamas with my morning breath and bed head.” I roll my eyes.
“You have no idea,” he says, the look on his face is absolutely predatory as he takes a few large steps across the room and curls his arm around my lower back.
“You literally have no idea.” The words are whispered, like a promise or a threat.
And maybe it’s both—the promise of what we can have together and the threat of the many ways he plans to use my body in the coming days, several of which I heard about in detail last night because as in control as Nate usually is, he can’t quite control his mouth in the bedroom.
His lips graze mine, but I bring my palm to his chest as I pull back.
“Nate, if you start this now we’re not making it out there to talk to Christian and Marco.
And the only thing more embarrassing than them knowing how we spent last night would be them waiting in the kitchen for us, knowing why it’s taking us so long to get out there.
Besides, these doors are hardly soundproof,” I say, tilting my chin toward the 200-year-old wooden door.
“Fine.” He sighs. “But tonight we’re sleeping somewhere more private.”
“As you wish.” I wink, then take his hand and pull him toward the bedroom door, already thinking about being alone and naked with him as soon as possible.
I can hear Marco and Christian talking as we make our way down the hallway toward the kitchen, and their voices halt when the floorboard squeaks under my foot just outside the arched doorway near the stove.
When we pass through it, they are sitting close together on the bench under the picture window, steaming mugs of espresso on the table in front of them.
I’m used to seeing them like this, comfortably intimate, but I can feel Nate stiffen beside me. “Sorry,” he mutters when Marco raises an eyebrow at him. “I’m still getting used to this information. For years you’ve flirted with Jax at every opportunity, so you can imagine this is . . . unexpected.”
“I flirt with her because I adore her,” Marco says, rubbing his hand along Christian’s thigh. “Just not the same way you do, clearly.”
Nate nods, and I pull him over to the espresso machine and take his order, then send him over to the table with Marco and Christian while I get to work on our drinks.
I can see the grimace on his face as he sits, and it takes him a moment to get settled comfortably in the chair.
His back is bothering him more than he’s letting on.
“Your intentions are good this time?” Marco asks. “You’re not going to hurt her again?”
“I’m standing right here,” I call out, unnecessarily loud. “You don’t need to talk about me like I’m invisible.”
Nate pushes his chair sideways, the wooden spindles sliding along the terra-cotta tiles, so that he’s got Marco and Christian on his right, and me on his left. “My intentions have always been good. Everything I’ve done, I’ve done to get us to this point.”
“What point is that?” Marco asks.
“The point where we’re mature enough to make good decisions about our relationship, and don’t have the same challenges we had when Jackson was racing.”
“What about the challenges of you racing?” Christian asks. “You and I both know it’s not easy being the significant other of a racer. And now that’s what you’re asking of Jackson.”
I glance over my shoulder in time to see Nate shrug. “Racing is secondary to me.”
“What does that mean?” I ask him as I tamp the espresso grounds into the filter handle and hit the button to start brewing before swinging my eyes back to him.
“I told you that I came back for you.” He pauses and runs a hand through his sleep ruffled hair, like he’s a little embarrassed and doesn’t want to have this conversation in front of Marco and Christian.
“I’m happy to be racing again, but it’s not my livelihood and it doesn’t have to be my career if it doesn’t work for both of us. ”
“You’d stop racing for me?” I ask, my voice low and breathy from the shock. I don’t ask because I want him to quit for me, I ask because it changes assumptions I had about our lives heading in different directions with me strategizing an exit plan and him still on the team.