Chapter 24
KATE
My hand slid from Nate’s wrist to the front of his shirt, gripping the fabric to hold him to me. One second, we’d been standing in my foyer with tension crackling between us, and the next, his mouth had crashed onto mine.
Or mine crashed onto his. I honestly didn’t know. All I knew right now was that he couldn’t be just a friend and I needed him to know it, but words had evaded me and actions spoke louder anyway.
This kiss, for example, spoke freaking volumes. It was overwhelming in its intensity, hungry and once again laced with a degree of inevitability that made it feel so damn right, I didn’t even try to fight it.
I gasped into his mouth and he took the opportunity to deepen the kiss.
One hand bracketed my jaw while the other slid firmly around my waist. The strength in his grip sent a rush of heat through me, reminding me of all those times I’d seen the lean definition in his muscle and hadn’t been able to touch him to see if he felt as hard as he looked.
When I instinctively stepped closer, he let out a sound so hot, it made me moan softly. This was totally crossing a line. Several lines, actually.
Bright, glaring, neon warning signs flashed through my mind, reminding me of five years of carefully maintained boundaries.
Five years of waiting and remaining loyal, all of it obliterated by what I was doing right now, but none of it mattered when Nate’s hands tightened and he lifted me clean off the floor.
I let out a startled laugh, but it quickly dissolved into another breathless moan as he carried me the few steps to the couch. He lowered me onto it, following instantly. Bracing one arm beside my shoulder, he leaned over me, his eyes dark and searching for just a beat before he kissed me again.
My fingers slid into his hair and his reaction to my tightening grip was immediate. His body pressed closer, his arousal blatantly obvious. More sparks shot through me, my brain turning to mush and certain other parts of me taking the wheel.
His free hand skimmed along my side, sending goosebumps racing across my skin.
The heat of his palm burned through the thin fabric of my dress, comforting and disorienting all at once.
My head kept trying to catch up, to remind me this was a terrible idea, but every attempt it made was obliterated by Nate’s lips.
They trailed from my mouth to the corner of my jaw. My head tipped back instinctively, giving him access I didn’t remember wanting to grant, and the sensation of his breath ghosting along my throat made my entire body arch toward him.
“Nate.” His name slipped out sounding more like surrender than protest.
He stilled for a fraction of a second, his hand squeezing my waist. For a moment, I thought he might pull back. That maybe he’d remembered how dangerous this was and had realized that we should put a stop to it.
Instead, his mouth dragged lower. The nip of his teeth against my skin and the caresses of his tongue were deliberate and devastating. My fingers clenched in his hair and he groaned, nipping just a little harder before kissing away the sting.
Everything blurred into sensation after that.
His hands moved with growing urgency and mine were unsteady as they roamed across his back and shoulders, mapping the solid strength beneath his shirt.
Every shift of his weight and every brush of his mouth against my skin pulled another thread loose inside me until I wasn’t sure there was anything left holding me together.
After so many years, my body was starved for this kind of touch, but the fact that it was Nate took it to a whole other level.
The clean, spicy scent of him and the weight of his body on mine had had my panties soaked in an instant, the rest of it just adding to the force of the need building deep within.
I moaned when his hand slid along my thigh, but he hesitated for half a heartbeat. Like he was silently debating asking permission. The moment I shifted closer, the hesitation vanished. Heat coiled low in my stomach and another soft, helpless sound escaped me before I could stop it.
The sound seemed to undo him completely.
Nate’s breathing got ragged, his forehead dropping briefly against my shoulder like he was trying to steady himself and failing spectacularly.
The intimacy of it, the loss of control, and the way he wasn’t the polished, composed, or careful Nate Westwood anymore, made my heart soar.
I wasn’t sure when that stupid organ had gotten involved, but it was too late to retreat or to pretend this was impulsive, meaningless, or something we could neatly file away later as a mistake.
Because it didn’t feel like a mistake. It felt like gravity and no one could fight that. My hands slid to his face and I guided him back to me, kissing him hard and murmuring quietly in between.
“It’s okay, Nate. I want this. I want you.”
He let out a low groan. Those blue eyes locked on mine for just a second before he nodded and twined his fingers into my hair.
His lips crashed into mine with renewed hunger.
He settled his weight more fully on top of me, his hips fitting between mine in a way that made me feel every inch of him against my very overheated core.
As soon as it happened, instinct took over from logic. Nate wanted me just as much as I wanted him and I arched into him, desperately needing friction. My heart was racing, the anticipation coiling inside growing painfully tight, and somehow, he seemed to know it.
Adjusting the position of his body, he slid a hand up the inside of my thigh again with absolutely zero hesitation this time.
His fingertips skimmed the front panel of my panties and I nearly screamed with relief, only managing to hold it back because his tongue stroked against mine at the exact same moment.
As he swept the fabric aside, his fingers hooked around it, his knuckles brushing against my slick folds. He muttered a curse into my mouth, but I didn’t let him speak, just kissing him harder instead.
I never thought I’d be grateful to Nathaniel Westwood for anything. Ever. But when he moved his hand to where I needed it most without making me wait another second, I could’ve kissed him. You know, if I wasn’t already doing it.
My muscles locked as his fingers slid through me, teasing my entrance for just a beat before he pushed one inside. He shifted on top of me again, giving himself space to bring his thumb to my clit.
My hips nearly flew off the couch when he touched it. The pleasure was so intense that I started whimpering. Nate groaned into our kisses, his own body tense in a way that told me he was very much on edge himself.
Without even thinking about it, I ran my hand to his fly and flicked open the button of his slacks, relieved he wasn’t wearing a belt for me to deal with right now. I felt his hand on my wrist, probably to stop me, but our kisses were too frenzied for either of us to formulate words.
I tugged at his zipper, not being graceful about it when I finally got to slide my hand into his pants. God, I’d been wanting to touch him for so long, but at the very least since I’d first seen the bulge under those sweats he’d been wearing when I’d moved in.
As my fingertips skated along the hot length of his shaft, his hips bucked and he sucked in a breath so sharp, it broke our kiss. “Kate, fuck.”
“Don’t tell me to stop.” I wasn’t sure if it was an instruction or a plea, but I rolled with it anyway. “I want this, Nate. So bad.”
His breathing shuddered and he nodded and kissed me again, punctuating each word with a press of his lips to mine, to my throat, and to my collarbone. “I don’t want you to stop, Kate. Please don’t fucking stop.”
I wrapped my fist around him in response, rolling my hips into his hand when he started moving again.
This was vaguely reminiscent of fooling around back in high school, when no one really knew what they were doing and didn’t want to take it too far, except for the fact that Nate knew exactly what he was doing, and frankly, so did I.
The real similarity was that we wouldn’t let it go too far. Well, not more than we already have.
Pleasure streaked through me with every pass of his finger around my clit and I stroked him faster, sliding the pad of my thumb over his tip and moaning when it came away damp.
In a pile of tangled limbs on the couch, we kept kissing, stroking, and working each other closer to the edge, and when I tensed, so did he.
The orgasm smacked into me like that thunderstorm the other night, intense and loud, a force of nature unto its own. Nate moaned my name as his hips thrust one last time. My toes curled and my entire body felt like it was levitating when I felt him follow after me.
For a few breathless seconds, the world shrank to just the two of us, sharing air while our heartbeats knocked wildly against our ribs. I was still trembling when Nate let go of me. His movements weren’t abrupt and his expression wasn’t cold, but everything about it was decisive.
He pulled back just enough to look into my eyes, his gaze open in a way I’d never seen before.
I saw the desire in it, the confusion and maybe even something too close to vulnerability flickering there.
His breathing was still uneven as he swallowed hard.
His jaw tightened like he was forcing himself to remember the reality of our situation.
Slowly, carefully, he pushed himself upright, running a hand through his hair before clearing his throat. “I, uh, I’ve got to go, but I’ll see you tomorrow. We’re taking the jet to New York. For the party. I’ll… you can ride to the airstrip with me.”
The words felt painfully formal after everything that had just happened, but he sat there for a half a second longer, his gaze darting back to mine like he was sneaking a peek at something he wasn’t sure he was allowed to have.
Then he stood, discreetly zipping himself back up before giving me a nod and then turning to cross the room to the front door in just a few long strides.
It clicked shut behind him seconds later, the quiet that followed pressing in on me like a physical weight.
I stayed on the couch, my lips still tingling, my pulse refusing to slow, and the terrifying certainty settling deep in my chest that whatever this was between us, it had grown far bigger than either of us had planned for.
I’m falling for him.
It was wrong. I knew it was wrong, splitting myself like this, emotionally, morally, and catastrophically between two people who held entirely different parts of me.
Yet Nate was here. He was real. Solid. Complicated. Infuriating and devastatingly present, and he was making all those carefully constructed walls inside me crumble like sandcastles under a rising tide.
And he wants me. At least, I think he does.
The uncertainty twisted sharply in my stomach, but I knew that wanting someone in the heat of the moment and wanting them in the cold clarity afterward were two very different things. Nate had pulled away first, remembering reality and immediately acting on it.
My gaze drifted to my purse sitting crookedly on the coffee table and a slow, creeping dread curled through me. I leaned forward and fished my phone out.
Okay, that’s great and all, but what about CB?
My secret. My meticulously compartmentalized other life. The version of me that existed in typed messages, late-night calls, and promises built on anonymity and distance. Five years of something that had felt safe precisely because it lived outside the chaos of my real world.
I stared at the black screen. My reflection was faintly visible across the glass, betraying my flushed cheeks and swollen lips while my hair fell messily around my face, evidence I couldn’t hide. I looked like someone who’d just crossed a line she’d sworn she’d never even approach.
“Damn it,” I muttered under my breath.
Setting the phone down on the cushion beside me, I drew in a breath and slowly released it. Honestly, I was terrified of what I had to say to him, so I just sat there for a few seconds instead, staring at nothing with my pulse thudding in my ears.
All the while, my mind helpfully replayed what it’d felt like to be with Nate like that. The man I would be marrying soon.
On a frustrated exhale, I finally grabbed the phone again, my fingers moving of their own accord as muscle memory guided me through familiar steps to open a new message window. The cursor blinked patiently. I started typing, the words coming out slower than they ever had before.
More careful. Less playful. Every sentence felt like it weighed twice as much as it should. I paused halfway through, doubt clawing its way up my spine and urging me to delete everything, but I couldn’t do that.
It was time.
When I was done, I reread what I’d written and my chest ached with the knowledge that this message wouldn’t fix anything. It was actually going to make things worse, but I hit send anyway.
Because out of the two men I loved, I was only committing the rest of my life to one.