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Her eyes shot back to his. “Why would you do that to yourself?”
“I needed to feel something.”
She closed her eyes briefly. Then she glanced down to where the tattoos disappeared into the waistband of his leathers.
“Why?” she asked.
“Just where I was at the time.”
“And now?”
There was a long pause. And then his lids lowered to half-mast. “Yeah… I need to feel something now.”
So do I, she thought. But as she looked at his biceps, the cognitive whiplash was insane.
“I don’t understand how… any of this is real,” she whispered. “How you… are real.”
In response, Nate just pushed himself back against the pillows, and put both hands behind his shaved head, his pecs and shoulders filling up half the wall it seemed, his abdominal muscles flexing in a series of ridges.
“That’s a cue, by the way,” she prompted.
“For what,” he asked.
“For you to talk.” When he still didn’t answer, she shrugged and sat on the edge of the mattress. “You want to do this as charades?”
His exhale was long and slow. “Are you ruining the mood on purpose or…?”
“Is there a mood?”
“Well, I wasn’t going after a foot massage,” he said dryly. “Unless you’re volunteering or have a kink you want to explore with me. In which case, I’m down.”
Nalla didn’t want to laugh. And did anyway. “You’re funny.”
“And you’re beautiful.”
She reached up and touched her frazzled hair. “I’m a mess, and I smell like campfire.”
Those eyes of his traveled around her face. “It has nothing to do with what you look like. And everything to do with who you are.”
“I bet you say that to all the girls.”
“Only the ones that go rucking, and use me as their sack.”
“That sounds dirty,” she said as she laughed again.
Down below, from what sounded like the living room, voices percolated up, and there was the orchestral introduction of a movie studio logo—or maybe it was HBO.
Nate looked at the bedroom door like he was hoping it was locked. Then he refocused on her.
“Do you want to kiss me again?” she asked softly. “Even if it’s not good timing.”
The stark hunger came back to his face and he unlatched his hands and reached out to capture one of hers. When he gave a tug, she went along with it, leaning onto his chest and feeling the contours of his strong body under her own.
“Yeah, I want to kiss you some more,” he said as his eyes lingered on her lips. “But it’s not a good idea.”
“Are you mated?”
“God, fuck no.”
