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Finally, he turns to me and when those dark eyes land on me, I realize I can’t breathe at all. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
ChapterTwenty-Three
Sadie
Nick says nothing more as he pulls me into his room and closes his door. My heart is pounding so hard in my chest, I can hear it between my ears. Blood rushes through my body, warming the space between my legs. Being in this room with this man is a feeling I've never experienced in my life. Every inch of my body is aware of every jagged line of his. His eyes sweep slowly over my face, and down my body. They fix for a moment on the white T-shirt I hold clutched between my hands. That muscle in his jaw ticks, and his eyes cut to mine.
The timbre of his tone is rough when he speaks. “You can change in my bathroom. In the drawer, left side of the sink, you'll find an unopened toothbrush. Use it. You're welcome to any of the products in there, too.”
He turns away from me and moves to what is clearly a walk-in closet, because when he opens the door and disappears inside, I see clothes hanging.
Without him so close to me, I find I can breathe again. I suck in air through scorched lungs. My legs feel like Jell-O as I cross the room quickly to the bathroom. I close the door with a click, and lean my back against it, breathing hard, my chest rising and falling fast and violently.
“All right, Sadie,” I pep-talk myself. “Get a grip.”
Pushing away from the door, I move deeper into the bathroom. Like everything else, this room is big. It's spacious and grand, but not in a way that's over the top. It's warm. The tones are warm. Everything, even the dark man with a dark gaze, is warm. I've never felt anything that scorches me the way he does—the way that he ignites me.
I want to know him, everything about him. Standing at his vanity, looking in the mirror at myself, I think he wants to know me—everything about me, too.
I think Lucy knew when I answered her ad and we began talking, that I would feel this way about her son. She had to have known to gamble the way she did with the two of us. Her scheme could have gone so terribly wrong. I wonder if she suspected when we shared stories about each other's lives, that I would be standing in her son's bathroom, holding his T-shirt, ready to spend the night in his bed beside him. I wonder if she suspected this is where we would end up.
I wonder if she hoped for this.If she hopes for this.
I haven't heard from Lucy since her email. In all fairness, I didn't reply to that email. At first, I'd been incensed, naturally. Then I'd just been occupied.
I've been baking, and cooking, and getting to know Nick.
And now we have a tiny fur baby, who isn't so much a baby. In kitty terms, he's a senior—and he's still behind the chair. I hope he will wander when the house turns dark and silent. I hope he will explore. Come morning light, I hope he will venture close for scratches.
Now, admittedly, I'm not thinking about Claus.
I'm thinking about the man in the closet. The one I'll share a bed with tonight. I wonder if anything more will happen, and my belly tightens. Heat floods between my thighs as my breaths pick up pace. Yeah, I want the man.
I want Nick.
I want to feel him inside me, around me, consuming me.
I'm ready, I realize, as wet hits my eyes and I blink up at the ceiling as though I can see the sky. As though Mom is looking down on me from some golden arch surrounded by surreal blue. I don't know what Heaven is. I can't even imagine it, really. There is no concrete picture that comes to my mind. Just a hazy image—a hope—a belief that it's beautiful.
I wish I could call her right now and tell her that I have found that special man I've been waiting for, because even though Katie says he’s not special, I think he is. I think I was guided here by something much more fantastical than a scheming mother and an internet ad. I think I was guided here by fate. By the Divine. By a story long since written in the stars. I think maybe Nick could be the other half of my soul. The piece I've been searching for.
We're all searching for that. We just don't really know that anymore. I think a lot of people have forgotten the power of real love. It's massive in its connection. It's overwhelming in its power. It's chaos and stability. And I think I could really love him the way Mom loved Dad, endlessly.
A tear falls from my eye as my heart clenches in my chest with an ache that I feel every time I want my mom. I scrub it away with the palm of my hand, opening the drawer where I find the toothbrush. I tear it from the wrapper, load it with toothpaste and shove it in my mouth. I'm not wearing a whole lot of makeup. But the makeup that I am wearing, I scrub off my face, patting my face dry with a towel that smells like Nick.
I strip, my bare feet landing on heated tile that makes me smile, because Nick is a spoiled man. I leave my panties on as I slide his shirt over my head, feeling my nipples harden as the fabric of his shirt grazes my sensitive flesh, the spicy scent of him enveloping me.
Then, with shaky fingers, I comb my fingers through my hair. The nervous fluttering of anxious butterflies in my heart has picked up pace again because I know I have to exit the safety of this bathroom to face the man outside.
My hands tremble as I gather my clothes from the floor and move to the door. I find Nick on the other side. He's changed into navy plaid pajama pants and a long sleeve black T-shirt. I frown at his shirt, because it's weird that he's going to bed in a long sleeve shirt. I sincerely doubt that he sleeps in anything at all, much less covered head to toe.
I dance around him, awkwardly clearing my throat as I ask, “What side of the bed?”
“I sleep closest to the door.”
I move quickly to the opposite side of the bed, the side closest to the massive windows. Secretly, I'd been hoping to sleep closest to the window. I'm excited to wake to the view of the sun shining over hard gray mountain stone capped in white. I'm excited to take in the view of the morning sun as it casts its burning rays onto naked trees, painting them in pink hues. I imagine the cool white snow, currently a haunted blue, shimmering the color of a pink flame under the early morning sunrise.
