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My back hit the wall. “Yes,” I said on a shaky breath.
His arm came out and pressed against the wall beside my head. “What about me, Nova Stone? If I stroked my hand down that soft body, buried my fingers inside your panties, would I find you wet? Would you want what I had to offer?”
“Yes,” I whispered, partially because I was embarrassed at the admission, partially because it felt like he was stealing the air from my lungs with his intensity. My knees felt like jello. His hand came up to cup my cheek, his eyes running all over my face. I wish I could see what he was thinking.
Then he stepped away, and my palms hit the wall behind me like it could hold me up. He went back to the couch. “Tell us your plan, Rigby. I know you have one.”
Rigby raised an eyebrow at him as he walked over to me, herding me toward an armchair. He looked over at River. “Sit down, man. You’re making me nauseous just looking at you.”
I sat down like a good girl, and River sat beside Devan. Rigby stood in the middle of the room, his eyes bouncing between us all.
“So, the reporter from ASPN grilled me about my girlfriend during question time.” He looked at me. “It took me a while to realize they were talking about you, because unless they had a camera in the house, or were pulling old images off the ‘Gram, to the world I was single as fuck.” I winced, because I had a feeling I knew where this was going. “When I worked out she meant you and the fact I called attention to you last week, I just said you were a new friend.”
River rolled his eyes. “Yeah, but did you say it like that, with that I-just-got-fucked smirk on your face?”
Rigby shrugged. “I didn’t know that Andrea was trying to get a gotcha moment. I didn’t see your message until after the press shit was over. So maybe.” I groaned and swiped a hand down my face.
“Do you think she’s going to spin a story?” Devan asked, his brows pulled down into a worried line.
“Given that River fucked and forgot her last season, I’d say she’sdefinitelygoing to run a story that makes him look like an asshole, Nova like a harlot, and me like a cuck.”
I flopped back into the cushions of the couch and covered my face with my hands. This was a disaster. I hadn’t even been here two weeks, and it had become a shitshow. “What do we do?”
The last thing I wanted to do was draw attention to myself and Huey. I wanted to stay as far from the limelight as possible.
“That depends on you, Nova. It depends on what you want—from me, from River, from Dev. It’s all in your hands.”
Well, no pressure then.
ChapterTwenty-Two
DEVAN
I was harderthan I’d been in a long time. Women had always been a peripheral thing; first was my family, then the business, and somewhere like fifteenth or sixteenth on the list, was sex.
It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy it. I mean, what’s not to like? But the emotional complications that came with taking a woman home, fucking her and then trying to get her to leave again made it undesirable unless I really needed to blow my load inside someone.
Fuck me, I wanted that someone to be Nova right now. She looked mortified as Rigby asked his question. What did she want from us?
Up until today, I would’ve said she wanted nothing from me. But after that little scene we’d just had against the wall? The way I’d affected her almost as much as she affected me said otherwise.
“What do you mean?” she squeaked out.
I gave her a loaded look. “I think you know what he means, Nova.” God, I wanted to lay her over my lap and do depraved things to her. I had no right at all, but I wanted it so fucking bad it made my balls ache. “What I want to know is if he’s out of his fucking mind?”
Rigby rolled his eyes at me. “This is going to surprise you, but I love you surly bastards. Love you enough that I want you to be happy. But you forget I also know you. You’re so fucked up, with more baggage between you than all the international airports in the world, it would almost be unfair to ask a woman to heal that trauma for you.”
It was like a punch in the chest, but I didn’t deny it. It was true. I would never inflict my issues on a woman. Therapy helped, but some shit had been imprinted in my DNA.
“What's your point?”
“It means you guys would never be enough for a woman. You could give her what she needs physically, but you’d be emotional sandpaper.”
“Rigby…” Nova said softly, already trying to protect our feelings. She was too good.
River was shaking his head. “He’s not wrong. Let him finish.”
“You both need time to heal from your past. Hell, you should have already begun healing, but you’re both stubborn bastards. It's almost too late. Too late for you to feel real happiness. Love.”
