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She paused for so long, I wasn’t sure she heard me. Finally, though, she said, “Come in.”
I opened the door, shielding my eyes so I didn’t see her naked. “I’m sorry,” I said. “This piece of popcorn was really bothering me. I’ll be out of the way in a minute, and I won’t look.”
“Okay,” she said easily as if it were no big deal.
It made me feel stupid, more stupid than I already felt. Ciara seemed so calm, so laid-back about us moving in together. And while I understood that we both couldn’t freak out, did it always have to be me? I was a mess.
I straightened my spine, coming to a conclusion.I have to be better about this,I thought.This is your mess in the first place. Be a man and stop freaking out.
I opened one of the drawers, pulling out the floss. I tried to focus on the task at hand while also sternly reminding myself not to look in Ciara’s direction.The last thing she needs is for you to be a Peeping Tom,I thought.
But I couldn’t help it. The draw of the unknown, paired with the memory of her in that blue dress, forced my eyes to slowly, gradually, lookjust a teeny bitto the side.
Out of my peripheral, I could see Ciara’s curvy silhouette, solid and sure behind the glass. I focused on the sink, my breath coming faster and faster as I imagined slipping in behind her, molding my front to her back, soaping up a washcloth, and running it between her breasts. I would take my time and run it over the softness of her belly and the tops of her thighs, saving the best for last. And then, when everything else was clean, I would use my fingers to rub that spot between her legs, making her moan and expose her neck to me. I’d rain kisses down her neck as I slipped one finger, then two, into her warmth, my dick getting harder against her back, readying for what would be to come. But it wouldn’t happen right then. No, I’d spend time getting to know this mysterious woman, the one with the secretive smiles and the laugh that sounded like pure joy, and I’d make her come over and over as she chanted my name.
“Nathan? Is everything okay?”
I startled as I was brought back to the present by her voice. I cleared my throat. “Yes, I’m okay,” I said.
“Oh okay, good,” she said, sighing. I reminded myself that, unlike my fantasy, she was not sighing out of ecstasy. “You made a sound, so I thought something happened.”
“Nope, nothing going on here,” I assured, turning away from her silhouette. “Leaving now; see you out there.”
“Okay.”
I closed the door behind me with awhooshof breath leaving my lungs. “Reign it in, Hemingway,” I told myself. “Don’t add mess to an already messy situation.”
Besides,I thought as I resumed my position on the couch.She’s leaving you soon anyway.
ChapterTwenty-Three
CIARA
Icouldn’t sleep.
It started out innocently enough: I decided to read in bed. Other than my clothes and toiletries, I brought a suitcase full of books to Nathan’s. The paperbacks were old and worn from years of use, me flipping the pages and rereading some of my favorite—and often steamy—passages.
I pulled out one of those books, using it as a comfort read to help me sleep. But it didn’t work. I couldn’t read about my favorite heroine making love to the hero in a four-poster bed without inserting myself in her place and Nathan into the hero role. And then I started thinking aboutusmaking love, exploring each other’s bodies and learning about the other in a wholly different way. A sexy way.
It didn’t help that I was literally lying in his bed. And that he had seen my naked body while I was in the shower.
When he knocked and asked if he could come in to get floss, I had hesitated. Though he had seemed attracted to me, we were still getting to know each other, and I was leery about letting him see my body. Still, my innate desire to not make waves forced me to allow him to come in—but still cover my breasts and try to be as obscured as possible.
When he came in, I was still covering my body, shying away from the stream of water while he was in the bathroom. Still, I happened to look at him just as he turned slightly toward me. It was a quick glance, and I assumed he couldn’t see everything through the glass, but I figured he could see the outline of my body. He had paused, the floss pick frozen in his hand, just for a moment, before continuing his task. I fought to keep my breath steady, wondering what he thought about what he saw.
Despite my hesitation and nervousness about being naked in front of a man I had just met, a spark of desire rested low in my belly. The part of me that resisted shying away, that same part of me that had been awakened by Nathan’s kiss, yearned for him to open the shower door, join me under the spray of water, rain kisses down my neck and across my chest. Cure the ache between my thighs. That spark was like a match to flint, and the fact that we were in close quarters with each other,livingwith each other, was enough kindling to start a fire. It had been so long, eons, it felt like, since a man had touched me, and even longer since I had enjoyed it.
But when I asked Nathan if he was okay, he sounded calm and unruffled as if he hadn’t seen anything that would make him lose his mind the way I was losing mine. So when I got out of the shower, I put on my sleep shirt and sweatpants, told Nathan goodnight, and got in bed…to read.
Two hours and half a book later, I gave up. I hoped that Nathan had gone to bed, or was at least in the bathroom—anywhere but the kitchen, where I’d have to face him. If I had to see him while I was pent-up with lust, I’d never be able to fall asleep.
I got my wish; he wasn’t in the kitchen.
He was in the living room.
I must have made a noise because he turned around with a concerned look on his face. “Couldn’t sleep?” he asked.
I shrugged and shook my head. “Nope.”
