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No. Josh had never fucked me like that. However Nick meant when he looked at me just that way… No. Another shiver happened low in my belly.
I had to be rational here. And I didn’t evenknowthis guy.
“I can’t—” I stuttered. “I can’t believe you just said that. You’re an asshole.”
“That right there.” He pointed at me, at my face. He wore two bracelets on his wrist, a leather one and a woven one that looked old and worn. Something significant. I wondered what it was. “That expression. That’s the one you didn’t have when you saw your boyfriend fucking another woman. I bet Bank Boy never saw that expression at all.”
I had no idea what my expression was, but I had to guess furious. Because that was how I suddenly felt. Fuck him and his stupid insights, anyway. “Fine,” I said, trying to piss him off in return. “I should just fuck someone. Are you volunteering?”
For a second, he actually considered it, his gaze taking me in, up and down. My overalls and sweater, my messy hair. My stomach went into freefall. Why had I said that? Because he was hot, and I’d assumed it wouldn’t happen? Or because I assumed it would? If he said no, or if he said yes—either was equally terrifying.
But Nick shook his head. “You’re not the kind of woman I fuck,” he said.
Now I was both offended and relieved at the same time. “Why not?” I asked.
“You’re nice. I’m too dirty for you.”
No one likes a girl who makes a fuss,my mother said in my head. Gina wasn’tnice.Gina was sexy. Dirty, maybe. Unlike me. Unlike the way I was now.
There were reasons I was like this. Being sexy and dirty, being that girl—it led nowhere. It was pointless. Worse, it led to pain and disappointment. No, even for Nick Mason and his stupid-gorgeous face and his stupid-hot body, I wasn’t going down that road ever again.
But suddenly I was purely, deeply enraged. I wanted to stand up, flip the table through the plate glass window, and scream thatI was not nice.
I didn’t do that, of course. I sat with my hands gripping the table edge so hard my knuckles were white. If Nick noticed, he didn’t let on. “Well, you’re not my type either,” I snapped. “I like guys with a little politeness and self-respect. I also like guys who do laundry every once in a while.”
He put a hand over his heart. “You’re hurting me,” he said. “What are you, seventy? You look twenty-five at most. Loosen up, have some orgasms. You’re missing out.”
“You don’t know what I’m missing.”
“Yeah, redhead, I kind of do.”
Fuck. He was so calm. And he had sexy fucking arms. Sexy everything. I kept my voice snappish to keep my distance. “So, Dr. Freud, I should have orgasms, according to you. Is that right? But not with you.”
“Definitely not with me.”
“What is the matter with you?” I said, so loud the half-asleep waitress behind the front counter nearly woke all the way up.
“What’s the matter with me is that I’m an asshole,” Nick said. “We’ve established that. What’s the matter with you?”
“What’s the matter with me is that I wasted four months!” I said. “Four monthson that jerk! Beingnice!He was supposed to be the one! We were supposed to makeplans! And he went off and banged some massage therapist with no pants, and you think I should just—should just—”
“Fuck someone,” Nick supplied.
“Is that whatyou’regoing to do?” Oh, God. Suddenly, I had a vision: Nick Mason, naked, in bed. I looked at his perfect mouth, and the dip between his collarbones, which I could see past the neck of his T-shirt, and it was so easy to picture. All that taut, muscled skin. It was all mixed up with his muscles and his reddened knuckles and the gravel of his voice, and suddenly my girl parts woke up. I meanwoke up.I didn’t even like him, and he’d just insulted me. It was exciting and horrifying at the same time.
“I might fuck someone,” he answered me, oblivious. “I’m still considering. I punched Bank Boy, and that felt pretty good. It’s you who has the anger problem.”
That startled me out of my lust. “I do not have an anger problem.”
“You do,” he corrected me patiently. “Your problem is that you don’t have enough of it. You need to get good and mad.”
“I am already good and mad,” I argued back. “At you.”
“Then take it out on me,” Nick said, immune to my insults. “I’m at a boxing gym every day at five.” He told me an address that I recognized in a not-so-nice part of town. “Come meet me if you want to work up a sweat.”
My reply was immediate. A boxing gym? With Nick Mason? “No way.”
He licked cheese from his thumb, pulled some bills from his wallet, and stood up. “Whatever. See you later, redhead.” Then he turned and walked for the door.
