Page 105 of Unwritten Rules

On getting through to her.

“I said get out!”

I lift her from her seat as she snarls, “Fuck off, Nathaniel. I’m not doing this.”

Another rumble of thunder draws our attention for a moment, but the storm doesn’t have a damn thing on the rage simmering inside my chest.

Rage at my own stupidity and downright cowardliness of not being the man of action I claim myself to be. Rage at having stood idly by, almost allowing the teachings of my father in regards to duty to take the one person I need above all others.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Hellcat?”

She turns wild, hurt eyes back to mine.

“Tell you what, Nathaniel? That I’m clearly a fucking idiot who mistakes attention for affection? Kindness for love? That I’ve had utterly meaningless sex with two men in an effort to fill the hole in my heart – the unfillable, Nathaniel Hawthorne-shaped hole?”

My heart clenches in my chest, rage filling every centimetre of my worthless body as she steps away, stumbling and falling on her ass before I can reach her.

“For fuck’s sake. Why couldn’t you just let me go? Why did you follow me back here? What can possibly be gained by having this conversation?” Rain pours over her, making her white cotton dress almost see-through as she throws her hands in the air. “I’m done, Nathaniel. I can’t do this. I can’t be your friend. Or your friend with benefits. Or your best friend’s little sister. I can’t be any of those things anymore.”

When she rises to stand under her own steam, I step closer, but she jerks back, palms facing me, keeping me at bay as though there’s an invisible barrier between us.

“No. Don’t touch me. I can’t do this…I won’t do this to myself any longer. I called you a liar earlier tonight, but you’re not the liar. I am.”

She backs further and further away, my rage beginning to turn to despair at the thought that I’ve finally done it. I’ve successfully pushed her away.

“I’ve been lying to myself to think that I can be your friend when I’m so fucking in love with you that I don’t know which way is up.”

She loves me?

The woman I love loves me in return, and suddenly everything else is inconsequential.

My head is spinning, the ground beneath my feet feels unsteady, and my heart is about to leap out of my chest, but nothing in this world has ever felt more right than this moment.

“Christ, I just can’t do this—”

Striding forward, I cut her off when I slam our mouths together, taking action at last.

Claiming the woman who lights my dark and calms my demons. Making her mine.

She opens her mouth to me, inviting my tongue to spar with hers roughly, but as time passes, my movements become more measured, more paced, and the slow ardour building between us sends a jolt of awareness straight to my rock-hard dick.

Unable to stop myself, I grasp her perfect ass cheeks, one in each large palm, to lift her from the muddy ground, her legs wrapping tightly around my waist as I pin her to the car, grinding my hardness against her. Giving him the friction he so desperately needs whilst she moans long and loud into my mouth, feeding me her pleasure.

She reaches between us, fingering the buttons of my shirt before hesitantly unbuttoning first one, then two, followed by a third. When she slides her hands across my chest, the tentative touch of her skin on mine makes me groan as I wretch our mouths apart and rest our foreheads together.

Both of us are panting heavily, rain streaming down our bodies as my eyes find and lock onto hers.

“I’m the liar because I want you, Hellcat. I want all of you.”

Her eyes glow impossibly golden, her face lighting up as my words ghost across her upturned lips.

“I want this.” I squeeze her ass cheek, eliciting a sound somewhere between a squeal and a giggle from her smiling mouth.

“But most importantly—and as always…” I stop to rub the tip of my nose against hers playfully. “You were right.” Then, I place my palm over her heart. “I want this.”

There’s another roll of thunder overhead, immediately followed by a flash of lightning as the rain continues to cover our overheated bodies.

Dropping featherlight kisses along her cheek and down the side of her face, I rest my lips close to her ear and whisper the words I should have spoken long before now. “I love you, Hellcat.”