“Don’t push your luck,” I scolded, even though secretly, I really wanted to lift his hand and kiss every knuckle.
Carter
“How did you manage to hold on to this while punching out that guy?” Nora asked, holding up her gross purple alcohol slushy. Condensation clung to the cup, a droplet sliding right off the edge and falling onto her bare foot.
“I’m just that amazing,” I retorted, sprawling back on the sofa.
Retreating with the cup, she went around the bar separating the kitchen from the living area to reach into the freezer. After another sip, she set the cup on the coffee table and held out her hand.
My fingers hardly hurt, but I wasn’t about to tell her that because she seemed concerned and I liked it. Carefully, Nora took my “injured” hand, studying the knuckles. Unable to take my eyes away from her, the shock of the cold pack I hadn’t even seen coming made me jerk.
It fell off the top of my hand, hitting my thigh, and landed on the couch.
Making a sound of distress, Nora leaned close, bending to retrieve what fell. Once retrieved, she pulled back, but I couldn’t let her get away. Tugging her gently, she fell into my lap.
Eyes going wide, she tried to jolt up, but I locked an arm around her, forcing her to stay where she was. “I need that ice.” I reminded her.
Forgetting about my smooth moves, concern darkened her eyes again. “Let me see.”
After I offered my hand, she carefully placed the cold pack over my knuckles. “Why’d you have to hit him?”
“Why?” I gestured toward her with my chin. “You worried about me?”
“Of course not,” she retorted, holding the pack in place.
“He deserved a lot more than a single knockout.”
Her eyes swung to mine. Electricity crackled between us, making her swallow nervously.
“Your tongue is purple,” I mused, trying to make her a little more at ease and hoping the way I’d reacted to that douche at the bar didn’t scare her.
Sticking it out, she laughed.
“Are you drunk?”
“Of course not!” Nora refuted. “I only had half of that drink.”
“You had a mojito at dinner.”
“You took it away from me.” Her face showed severe disapproval.
“You’re cute when you glower.”
She started to get up, but I fought her attempt. “I have to pee,” she muttered.
Sighing, I let her go, and she rushed off into the bathroom. A few minutes later, she returned, standing near the couch, but not within touching distance.
“You can just take the ice with you.” Her eyes slid across the apartment toward the front door.
“I’m not leaving.”
“I have to finish packing.”
“We need to talk.”
“There’s nothing to say,” she argued. “You can let yourself out.” With that, she skittered toward the bedroom.
“You really want me to go?”
Stopping mid-run, her hand fisted at her side. “Yes.” The second she spoke the word, she rushed off again, fleeing into the safety of her bedroom.
Sighing, I stood, dropping the cold pack onto the table next to her half-gone drink. I could hear her moving around in the bedroom, and I pictured her making laps between the suitcase and her closet.
“I’m leaving, then,” I called.
All sounds stopped for a long minute.
“Bye!” she finally yelled.
Smiling to myself, I strolled to the front door, opened it, then shut it loudly. Leaning against it, I stood and waited, silently counting. One, two, three…
Nora’s bare feet slapped against the wood floor when she ran out of the room. I had smoothed my face into a bored expression, but it almost slipped when she came rushing around the corner, wearing a stricken expression.
At first, she didn’t see me waiting, but the second she did, she nearly tripped. “Carter,” she gasped out.
“You panicked for a minute, didn’t you?” I mused. “Really thought I’d just leave.”
Flustered, she brushed back the loose strands of hair around her face. “Of course not. I was coming to lock the door.”
Pushing off the wall, walking slowly toward her, I smiled. “Liar. It’s written all your face.”
“You’re playing games.”
“I’m not. I’ve never been more serious.”
“Tricking me into thinking you left—”
“I wanted you to feel it.”
Her brows knitted together. “Feel what?”
“The panic I felt when you got off my boat that morning and walked away.”
Her lips fell open. Saying nothing, she shifted from one bare foot to the other. “That was…” Her voice trailed away.
“It was supposed to be one night, but I can’t forget.” I finished for her.
Her eyes looked everywhere but at me. Tension cramped the condo and I knew she was uncomfortable, but I wasn’t going to stop.
“Do you ever think about me, Nora?” I whispered. “About that night?”
“I—” She cleared her throat.
Pulling her hand up, I pressed a kiss to the back of it. “I do. All the time. I can barely sleep in my bed without remembering when you were in it.”
“Don’t do this,” she whispered, a plea in her tone.
“Do what?” I questioned, soft. “Tell you the truth?”
Yanking her hand free of mine, she shuffled back a few steps, putting distance between us. “Drag fantasy into reality!” she cried.
My mouth turned down. “What?”
“What we had that night… it was incredible, like a fantasy come alive. When I got on that plane and left, I honestly thought I’d never see you again.”
My stomach tightened. “It was enough for you, that one night?”
Nora glanced at me, so much emotion and unspoken words dancing in her eyes. When she looked away, emptiness clawed deep inside me.
Nearly blind with desperation, I grabbed her, pulling her close to my chest. “Say it. Say everything you’re trying to keep in.”
A shuddering breath escaped raggedly from her lips. “Every time it rains, I think of you. Some nights, I dream about you and walk around the entire next day like a zombie trying to clutch onto the way that dream made me feel.”
Heart pounding, I gave her a small shake. “What else?”
My God, if she stopped talking, if she stopped saying everything I wanted to hear, I would go crazy. I knew what an addict felt like in that moment, how crazed and desperate they must be for a fix. But it wasn’t drugs I so frantically wanted… It was her.
Her stare reached out to mine, and I let her see how badly I wanted to know what she was thinking.
“I still have your shirts. Both of them. I wear them to bed. I wear them to class. Val makes fun of me because she thinks I traded one obsession for another.”
Puzzled, I asked with my eyes what she meant.
Averting her gaze, she answered, “Alan for you.”
Grasping her chin, I said, “I wanted to erase him from your mind.”
“You did,” Nora confessed. “All that’s left is you.”
“You haven’t let anyone else touch you since then?”
She shook her head.
Closing my eyes, I let out a relieved breath. I’d been torturing myself thinking about some other man’s hands against her skin.
“I thought that night was it. But now you’re here. Now…”
“Now?” I prompted.
“Now I’m confused. I can’t tell what’s real.”
A sound ripped from my throat, and tenderness washed over me. Her ponytail was in my way, so I slid out the hair band to run my fingers through the long, blond strands. “This is real. I’m real.”
Moving closer and dropping her forehead in the center of my chest, she wound her arms around my waist. After a few minutes of standing in my embrace, I felt her draw in a deep breath, then slowly step away.
Nora
Reality vs. Fantasy Observation #2:
Fantasy is a great escape. But eventually, you have to go back to reality.
Carter was a juxtaposition.
On one hand, he was commanding and resolve nearly gushed from his pores. The power he yielded seemed to be endless, as he could practically snap a finger, raise a fist, or make a call, and whatever he wanted was done.
These things would have made him intimidating. But he wasn’t. Not to me.
I didn’t think I’d ever met a man who allowed his emotions to play so easily over his face. Sometimes when I was with Carter, it was like his heart beat right there in his eyes. My entire body hummed beneath his touch, and though he was incredibly powerful, I never felt as though he would hurt me. Instead, his strength would shield me.
It was intoxicating. He was intoxicating.
This was exactly why this wasn’t real. Getting caught up in a fantasy would only cause pain.
“Explain what you mean,” he said, watching me intensely, almost as if he were trying to anticipate my every move.
Walking farther into the condo, gazing around at the gray walls, modern furniture, and new flat-screen mounted against the wall, I raised my hands, gesturing to it all. “Look at this,” I implored before going over to the large sliders that offered a view of the beach.
“You don’t like the condo?”
Spinning, I gave him a look. “Of course I like it! I already said that.”
His face twisted in confusion, and I almost laughed. For someone so damn intelligent, he was adorably clueless.
“This is not the kind of apartment an intern is provided for a summer job,” I deadpanned.
Carter straightened, displeasure making his onyx eyes narrow.
Holding up my hand, I continued. “You said it yourself. Ansoft doesn’t even take on interns, yet here I am.”
“You’re different,” he muttered.
“How do you know that?” I shot back.
He frowned. “Nora.”
“I’m serious, Carter. We had one night together. A night that was so amazing that neither of us could move on. It was too good to be true. Do you know what that means?”
He opened his lips, but I barreled on. “It means that it was. It means all of this… That’s just you trying to recreate the fantasy we had.”
His eyes flashed, and he started toward me. Evading his hands, I backed up against the doors, which felt cold against my T-shirt.
“You don’t really know me. I don’t really know you. But look at what you’ve done. You brought me out here and set me up in an apartment with a job. You have people watching me to get details because you don’t know any of them yourself.”
“That’s not why—”
“I know you have like a bazillion dollars. You’re used to getting everything and anything you want. I made you think you could have me because I came so willingly to you that night on the island. But you can’t buy me, Carter. I’m not for sale.”
Blowing out a breath and rubbing the back of his neck, he laughed under his breath. “That’s what you think?”
I made a sound of agreement and nodded once.
He stepped forward, near-black eyes glittering and completely focused on me. My heart jumped, a feeling of being preyed upon skittering down my spine. He looked like a tiger on the prowl for something to dominate. “You think I’m a fantasy,” he rumbled, still moving forward.
I started backward, only to realize I couldn’t escape. My back was already against the glass, and there was nowhere else to go.
In a last attempt for space, I darted left, but he was faster. His large palm slapped against the glass, blocking my retreat. Dodging right, he did the same, effectively caging me in with his body.
“Carter,” I whispered, my voice shaky and weak.
With a low sniff, he grabbed my wrist, dragging it up between our bodies. Placing his hand over mine, he pressed my palm flat against his chest. The silk of his shirt was smooth and soft. Beneath the thin material, his body was solid and strong.
“Doesn’t this feel real to you?” he whispered, rubbing his hand over mine, creating even more friction between us.
My eyes closed, body sinking against the window.
“My heart doesn’t beat this fast for anyone else,” he said, his voice right against my ear.
It was beating fast, thumping exactly the way mine did.
“True, I might not know that much about you. But I know more than you think.”
“What your spies reported to you doesn’t count.”
“Yes, it does,” he refuted. “But I’m not talking about that stuff.”
Leaning my head against the window, I gazed at him. “Then what?”
“I know you aren’t the kind of girl to have a one-night stand. You’re the kind of girl who wants stability, who wants to give her heart to one man. You’re so loyal you put up with more than you should, trying to make it work when clearly it doesn’t. You’re the kind of friend who thinks of her friends when you visit places you think they might like. You have a lot of pride. You want to take care of yourself even though, in my opinion, you need someone to look after you.”
“Hey!” I gasped.
Chuckling, he bounced his finger on the tip of my nose. “You can’t walk in heels, confrontation makes your stomach hurt, and you are a talented graphic designer.” Another thought brightened his eyes, and his smile was quick. “Oh, and you have a terrible sense of direction.”
“I do not,” I muttered.
“When you were lost at sea, you swam away from land…”
How annoying. “That was one time.”
Amusement shone in his eyes. “Am I wrong?”
“You don’t know that much,” I mumbled, trying to slip past.
His arm shot out, blocking me again. “I also know the way your face looks when I make you come, how your lips feel rubbing against mine, and that the sound of my name on your lips is my favorite.”
My knees started wobbling. If my heart beat any more irregularly, I was going to pass out. Using both hands, I shoved at his chest, pushing him back enough for me to skirt by. Pressing a hand against my heart, I willed it to calm. Seeing my melty margarita, I veered toward it to take a hearty drink.
“Why didn’t you just call? Why did you have to go this far?” I slapped the cup down on the table and flung my arm out toward the condo.
The air around him changed, growing slightly cooler. The heart-on-his-sleeve man I was looking at slowly closed up and become the powerful millionaire. “In my world, people don’t just come when you call. In my world, you have to give something to get something.”
“That’s not real, Carter,” I said, feeling my heart break a little.
“Maybe not for you. But for me, it’s all too real.”
I wanted to go to him, so much so that my body started forward before my head gave the command. The second I realized what I was doing, I stopped and wrung my hands.
He sighed. “Still don’t have that yet.”
I glanced up. “Huh?”
“You don’t trust me yet.”
“I do,” I countered, suddenly feeling a thousand pounds of guilt.
His half smile was a little sad, but it was also full of hope. “It’s okay, good girl. We’ll get there.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?” I muttered. “I’m not a dog.”
His smile was all joy this time around, and my heart whispered that he could call me that forever if it made him look that way. “Because you are everything good in this wicked world.”
Oh, it was hard not to fall under his spell. So hard not to succumb. “I need real, Carter. Something I can trust.”
He studied me for long minutes, as though he had an exam. “Can you accept that reality for me is a little different than reality for you?”
“How?”
“Stay,” he ordered, and I swear he
could have been a siren washed in straight from the sea. I was so ready, so… motivated to do anything he asked of me that it scared me.
Clinging to that fear, I used it as a shield. “How can I do that? I feel like you lured me here. I feel like I don’t know you as much as you know me.”
“Stay,” he said again. “I’ll let you get to know me, and I’ll get to know you.”
“People at work are already gossiping. They’ve seen us together, and then the president came down and gave me his card, told me to call him personally if I needed anything.”
“Bryan is a friend of mine.”
“They took me to lunch as a welcome party, but really, they just wanted to know about me and you.”
His eyes closed briefly, reopened, and focused wholly on me. “That’s not going to change. I won’t pretend I don’t have feelings for you. People will probably try to get through you to me. I’ll try and protect you the best I can.”
“Is that why you had someone follow me to lunch?”
He inclined his head. “Partly. The other part of me was jealous I couldn’t eat with you.”
I liked that he didn’t try to hide the fact that everyone would be talking about us. I liked that he held my stare when he said people would try to use me. It made me wonder what his life was really like… if everyone treated him this way.
How lonely he must be.
“Did you hire me because you want to sleep with me?”
His teeth flashed. They were white, but not perfectly straight, something I really liked about him. Mr. Fantasy isn’t perfect after all.
“I think we already proved I don’t have to give you a job to sleep with you.”
“Maybe in a fantasy world,” I rebuked. “We’re in the real world now.” Gazing around, I took in my fancy surroundings. “Sort of.”
“All right.” He raised his hands in surrender. My stomach dipped because it seemed he was about to concede he really did just want sex. “Let’s take it off the table.”
“What?”
“No sex. We won’t have sex while you’re interning at Ansoft.”
My mouth dropped open. Was he for real?
Chuckling, he closed the distance between us. “If you want me to keep to that, stop looking so damn cute all the time.” Tenderly, his eyes roamed my face and his thumb brushed over my cheekbone, trailing so his fingers could tug on the ends of my hair.
Mr. Fantasy: (A standalone romance) Page 11