Chapter 31
Thirty-One
As soon as Nash’s truck pulls out of the driveway, I tighten a towel around my chest, pinch a bottle of shampoo under my arm, and tiptoe across the gravel to the three-sided shower stall. Towel on the hook, I start the water and step under the stream before it’s fully warmed.
At the same time a roll of thunder rumbles in the distance, I scrub shampoo into my scalp.
My focus is on ending things with Jonathan.
It’ll be hard. And sad. But seeing how frustrated he was when I decided to come here and how dismissive he’s been since, part of me wonders if he’ll even fight me.
Maybe he sees we aren’t a fit as much as I do.
Other than his pride taking a hit, it might not even bother him.
He says we’re good together—we are—but is good together ever the cause of a heartbreak?
The water is finally hot—hot enough it burns my skin—and for a minute, I zone out and let every thought go down the drain as I close my eyes. With the next rumble of thunder, I slam the faucet off.
“Imagine my surprise,” a deep voice says. “When I got two blocks on my way to get blueberries and saw your car already parked.”
I turn—naked and afraid—to see Nash filling the open side of the shower stall like an actual door. His long arms, partially covered by a fitted grey T-shirt—damn him—grab the edge of the walls, barricading me in.
“Morning, Rue.” The smirk dancing across his lips makes his morning sound more like now what have we here?
I say a silent prayer for death but don’t flinch nor cover myself. On the contrary, I pull my shoulders back and lift my chin.
“Morning, Nash.” I say it like this is nothing out of the ordinary or at all humiliating. Like me naked in his outdoor shower isn’t the slightest bit shocking. Like I didn’t spend half the night fantasizing about his hands or all morning leering at his body.
When he says, “You’re naked,” I know he’s not letting me off the hook.
I lift my chin. “I am.”
“And in my yard.”
“Am I? Hm. Must have taken a wrong turn.”
His gaze drops from my face to my body. And like his eyes have a tangible touch, every spot they land on responds. My nipples harden, my stomach tightens, and every muscle below my belly button clenches so tightly it aches.
His eyes snap back to mine. “Must have.”
“Well, I’ll just be going.” I reach under his arm for my towel, but he blocks me, shifting his weight and leaning against the opening. Bastard.
He folds his arms over his chest. “What are you doing here?”
“Showering.”
He’s even: “Try again.”
I’m combative: “Showering.”
“Bullshit.”
Dammit.
Our eyes lock but I refuse to respond. Because though I have every intention of telling him about my financial situation—eventually—this degrading scenario is not how it’s supposed to happen.
I cock my chin. “I fell in a puddle on my morning walk.”
He pushes off the wall and takes a predatory step toward me.
And another.
Barely enough room for air to fit between us, he puts his palm on my bare chest, his thumb and forefinger wrapping around the sides of my neck. When he pushes me hard enough my back hits the wall, I suck in a sharp breath.
I say, “Nash,” because I don’t know what else to say. Because he’s Nash. Because I’m naked and he’s holding me in a demanding way that might be lighting me up like the power grid for the entire city of Charleston.
I’m either one-hundred percent terrified or extremely turned on.
When he positions himself so his legs spread mine apart and his hips pin me in place along with his palm, I rule out being terrified.
The look in his eyes means one thing: He wants what I want.
“What. Are. You. Doing. Here?” he asks, punctuating each word.
I swallow, pushing my toes into the concrete like it will get me somewhere only to find myself closer to his eye level. “Showering.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
His stare peels me apart; I have to tell him. If I don’t, he’ll make me stand here naked all day, and that might end in me doing something I’ll love him for before hating myself.
“Dammit, Rue. Wh—”
“Because I’ve been sleeping in the not-guesthouse on the futon.” The words tumble out of my mouth like a drunken line of dominoes. “Because I don’t have any money. There’s no coin-collecting client. My mom got wrapped up in an internet scam—the doctor said likely due to the tumor—and we’re broke.”
At my confession, his expression softens, and he drops his hand from my chest and takes a single step back.
“I have $17.32. That’s why I’m looking for the gold.”
“What?” He’s dumbfounded. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Dammit, Rue,” he snaps. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I turn my head away from him, silently begging myself not to cry.
“Why di—”
“Because you were fine!” I shout. “Because you left me, and you went on to have this perfect life. A business. A house. Without me. While I stayed in Fontain and my life fell apart. Without you.” I let out a full, frustrated breath.
“I didn’t want you to know that I let my business fall apart, missed the fact my mom had a tumor, and have a kid who—” I cut myself off.
“Who what?”
I take two breaths. “Deserves better.”
In our silence, the sky once again warns us with a rumble of thunder.
Six inches between us, he angles his head so our eyes meet.
“You think I’ve been happy without you? That every time I wrote one of those postcards I wasn’t hoping you’d do exactly what I was telling you to do?
That I didn’t want the reason you never sent the papers to be because you weren’t sure we were done either?
Or I didn’t talk myself out of showing up at Old Vines a million times because I didn’t think I’d survive you telling me to leave again?
” He pauses, our eyes battling. “That it’s easy for me to stand here and look at you like this and not be allowed to touch you the way that I want? ”
“And Emma?” I challenge. “You’re telling me that you’ve just been sitting here and not using those condoms in your nightstand?”
He looks me square in the eyes. “I’m telling you that just because I haven’t spent every night alone doesn’t mean I haven’t been waiting for my wife.”
And just like that, my world flips. He’s given me clues. He’s said it without. But there it is: He’s been waiting. For me. Remy was right, Nash has been writing me postcards for eight years because he loves me.
My “what?” is barely above a whisper.
“You think you come back to me after all these years and I’m not going to do whatever I can to keep you?
Think that all of this”—he sweeps his hand through the air, gesturing toward his house—“isn’t for you?
Yes, she and I were seeing each other. But she was ready for more, and if you weren’t coming back, I thought it was time to try. That’s why I sent the last postcard.”
He pauses, and we breathe. Inhaling and exhaling every truth shared.
“I heard every word you said and spent the last eight years trying to forget you but doing nothing but waiting for the just-in-case day you did what I wanted, Rue.”
With that confession, and even if we are never more than we were, he owns me. Not only can I not marry Jonathan, I’ll never be able to marry anyone.
“You waited for me.”
I need to hear it again.
“Yes.”
With that yes, my need turns to wants.
I want his body pressed against mine.
I want my fingertips to trace the new scruff-covered lines of his jaw and his to trace the soft lines of my hips.
I want him to suck every finger.
I want to slip his pants down and drop to my knees.
And when we can’t wait any longer, I want him so deep inside me that I scream, while he says everything I haven’t heard him say for the last eight years.
Then I want to disappear into him so I never have to hear him say goodbye again.
Eyes wide open, I can see every second of it. Can feel him everywhere even though he isn’t.
And yet, I am engaged, and all I can say is: “I have a fiancé.”
“I have a wife,” he counters.
“I have a fiancé,” I repeat, hoping one of us hears it.
He doesn’t back away or relent. “You have a husband.”
“I. Have. A. Fiancé.”
His jaw clenches. “And what if you didn’t?”
My mouth won’t let me lie, so I say nothing.
“If it was just us, would you want me to touch you?”
I’m a horrible person because I want to say yes.
He intuitively reads my silence, asking, “Where?”
“Where?” It irks me. “Where do you think, Nash?”
His fisted knuckles whiten, but he doesn’t match the fight in my voice. “Show me.”
“Show you?”
He licks his lips. “Yes.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Because you want to.”
I remember I’m naked and scoff. “No. You want me to.”
“I do,” he admits easily, closing the already small gap between us.
“I want to see you come apart the way I’ve thought of for the last eight years”—my lips part—“but even more than that, I want to see you do something because you want to do it. Not because it’s what you should do for everyone else.
Not because you’re broke or your mom needs surgery.
Not because you have a fiancé or a husband.
Because you want to. Even if you shouldn’t. ”
I’m quiet.
“If it’s not what you want then don’t do it.” He takes a single step back, and at the look on his face, I nearly collapse. There’s sincerity but there’s also so much want. A palpable yearning between us.
This must be what it’s like to be possessed, because instead of slapping him across the face like I should, I keep my eyes locked on his.
He’s right. I want him. I want him so badly I’m aching and shaking.
I want him in any capacity I can have him, and right now, that’s him by way of me, so I take it.
“I’d want your hands here,” I admit, bringing my hands to my neck and dragging my fingertips down the side of it. They dance across my chest and skim my breasts. “And here.”
Chills race across my skin from my touch and his eyes.
His throat bobs with a slow swallow.
“I’d need to taste you,” he says. “Would you want that?”