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“The right. My alarm clock vibrates under my pillow in the morning and the light on that side turns on five minutes later.”
“I’m going to sit on the left side and hold you just like this for a while. So we can talk.” His smile was slow. “I can hear Mandy lightly snoring. She’s a solid sleeper.”
He walked around the room and sat on the bed, holding her in his lap as he leaned against the headboard. Nuzzling her face with his, she could feel him breathing her in. She settled her hands in her lap, uncertain what to do with herself.
His hand reached up to remove the stretchy band that secured her hair. It fell around her shoulders and he lifted a section, rubbing it along his cheek.
Sitting on him in such a way, with so few clothes between them, it was easier to feel how fit and strong Nate was. There was no doubt about his arousal beneath her thigh.
Moving back enough so she could read his lips, he told her, “I can’t do any of the things I really want to do to you, Zoe. I have to behave myself.” He put his palm on her thigh and stroked all the way down to the tips of her toes and back.
His eyes lifted and held hers. “However, I’ve never seen so much of you at once and I need to touch you. Just a little. Is that alright?”
“Yes. I want you to touch me, Nate.”
Repeating his stroke of her entire leg, he smiled. “I never imagined you’d have pink polish on your toes or tanned skin. You’re always so covered up and inside. How do you tan like this all over?”
“My grandmother was full Shawnee. I look like her.”
“I see. She must have been a beautiful woman.” He gently moved her hands and lifted the hem of her tank top to see her stomach. Sliding his palm over it, he moved down to the leg of her sleep shorts and pushed them up to expose her hip. “Same pale gold head to toe.”
Wrapping his arms tightly around her, he met her eyes. “I didn’t know that woman was in town or I would have stopped her from getting to you.” He shook his head. “I’ve had a restraining order against Jessica for six years. She isn’t allowed within a hundred feet of us because she’s mentally unstable. I’m sorry, Zoe.”
“It’s okay. It’s not your fault she’s insane, Nate.”
“There was more she said to you. Things you didn’t repeat in front of Mandy.” Zoe blushed hot and he nodded. “I thought so. I can only imagine the games she played, but I haven’ttouchedthat woman since Mandy was a baby and never would. She disgusts me.”
Zoe knew that, but it was strangely comforting for him to say it.
He kissed her lightly. “You’re theonlywoman I want in every way. It’s important to me that you understand that, Zoe.”
“To be honest, Idon’treally understand.”
“I had a feeling you were going to say that.” Cupping her face, he spent several minutes kissing her. As he broke the connection, he raked his fingers through her hair. “I’d like to ask you something. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
Understanding what he wanted to know, she confessed, “I’ve had one boyfriend. It ended before I was finished with high school but still dragged on far longer than it should have.”
“Will you tell me what happened?”
She met his eyes. “Charlie asked me to be his girlfriend freshman year. I was shy but more comfortable around him than most males because he boarded his horse at our place.”
“He was your first?”
“When we turned sixteen, he started getting pressure from his friends about still being a virgin. He told me he loved me and all the other crap young men say to get naïve teenage girls to sleep with them.”
Nate grinned. “We’re one track minded idiots at that age.”
“Agreed. He was patient enough to put me at ease and I was honestly glad to have the horrific awkwardness behind me.” She cleared her throat. “A couple of months later, I was in the accident. Technically, we were together almost four years. I spent a long time in the hospital and when I got out, he felt obligated to stay with me. He admitted that at the end.”
“I’m sorry, Zoe.”
“Charlie started saying and doing things that weren’t like him at all.” Twisting her fingers together in her lap, she remembered how terrible he made her feel the last few months. “He told me I should wear heels because I was too short. Said I needed to wear dresses and makeup to keep me from being plain.”
“I think I see where this is going. He was trying to get you to break up with him so he didn’t feel like a shit.”
“Yeah. He wasfuriousI wasn’t talking and that made me more anxious about doing it. He said it was too quiet during sex. I wrote him a note saying it wasalwaysquiet for me, in every situation.” Zoe dragged her fingers through her hair. “He started crying and admitted he’d been trying to get me to break up with him for months because people would think badly of him if he broke up with thedeaf girl.”
“What a shit thing to say, Zoe.”
