Then his lips brushed her forehead. It could barely be called a kiss, she knew that. Still, arousal sparked at the chaste press of his mouth, shimmering through her body until it landed between her legs. Fuck.
Nate pulled back, looking at her with a rueful expression. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said.
She should be happy at this sign that he was beginning to see sense, but all she felt was that delicious zing of need, along with a disturbing disappointment at his words.
Apparently, her face conveyed that disappointment without authorisation, because he smiled—oh, she wished he wouldn’t smile—and murmured, “You disagree?”
“I don’t,” she said. “I think you’re right.”
Nate sighed. “This was a lot easier before I knew you. Now I can tell when you’re lying.”
She decided to ignore the more concerning part of that statement; nobody knew when Hannah was lying. “This?”
“This. Pretending I didn’t want to touch you. Not cornering you in the kitchen like some kind of pervert. Resisting the urge to kiss you.”
“You haven’t kissed me.”
“Yet.” But then he closed his eyes and shook his head. “No. No. I’m not going to kiss you. I’m not going to touch you.”
“Because you don’t… like me.” That was what she’d thought, but it was getting harder and harder to believe it.
Especially when Nate opened his eyes with a frown and asked, “What the hell are you talking about? Of course I like you.”
“Right.” She nodded calmly, as if she’d been aware of this all along. Which, really, she had—but it just seemed so impossible. When did anyone ever like her and want her all at the same time? Never, that’s when.
Now, actually. Someone likes you and wants you now.
“The problem,” Nate said slowly, as if making sure she understood, “is that you work for me.”
“Oh,” she said. “Well, yes. I knew that.” I just somehow didn’t consider it at all, because I was far too preoccupied with pre-teen anxiety about who does and does not like me. Wonderful.
Nate sighed, his expression suddenly, achingly sad. “This has ruined everything, hasn’t it?”
To Hannah’s surprise, something close to panic flared inside her. “What? No. I mean—I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have said anything at all, I just—”
“Not you. It’s not you.” He laughed, the tension in his shoulders fading slightly. “You can’t help yourself. You’re ovulating.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. Are you ever going to forget I said that?”
“Not in a thousand years.” His gaze dropped, for one heavy moment, to her lips, and Hannah’s chest tightened. He lowered his head, but their mouths didn’t meet. Instead, she felt his breath against her jaw, her ear, her throat. It felt like he was dragging his lips or his tongue, or even his hands, over that sensitive skin—but he wasn’t. He didn’t touch her. Not once.
Hannah felt slightly faint. If he ever did touch her she might just die. A thick, thrumming heat formed in her belly and moved lower, lower, lower, settling between her thighs. She felt like an ocean struck by lightning. She felt like a woman who’d never worried. She felt like he’d better hurry up and kiss her before she expired in anticipation.
“You weren’t supposed to know,” he said, and for a moment she imagined she felt the brush of his lips against her throat. But that was just a fantasy. “I didn’t want to put you in this position. I’m sorry.”
“Know what?” Why did she sound so breathless? If she’d had room for an emotion other than need, she might’ve been embarrassed.
“How much I want you.”
“Oh. Well. I mean, I already thought…”
He pulled back with a slow smile. “You thought what?”
“Um… I thought you might, perhaps, possibly, be slightly attracted to me—”
“You knew?”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, Nate, I am thirty years old, and sometimes people are interested in me—”
“Only sometimes?”
She gave him a warning glare. “And when they are, they tend to display certain signs, and I have become adept at recognising these signs—”
“You knew.” He laughed. “Oh, Hannah. I don’t know why I thought I could hide anything from you. No-one could hide anything from you.”
You’d be surprised. “I assumed you’d get over it,” she said. “Which you will, once you get to know me.”
Nate gave her an odd look. It was the kind of look she imagined he’d give the Queen, if the Queen suddenly ripped off her clothes and started pole dancing. “Hannah. I do know you. Knowing you is one of the reasons why I fantasise about kissing you senseless.”
“You… fantasise…” She shook her head and decided not to focus on the kissing part. “What are the other reasons?”
“There’s only one other reason.”
“Which is?”
He stared. “You know, there’s this thing called a mirror. And if you looked into one, all sorts of things might become clear to you.”
“Shut up,” she snorted. “Okay. I think we have enough information to proceed.”
He raised a brow. “Proceed?”
“Let’s review.”
He raised the other brow. “Review?”
She was getting very good at ignoring him. “You have developed some sort of attachment to me. Likely because I made that fried plantain last week—”
“Hannah.”
“And because your artistic temperament makes you susceptible to physical attraction—”
“This is amazing. I can’t even tell if you’re insulting me.”
She tried not to smile. Smiling would ruin the academic approach she was determined to take. “Meanwhile, I have fallen victim to a dormant crush that should have died many years ago—”
“Wait, what?”
“But didn’t, because you left town before anything could happen to kill it off.”
“Is this your incredibly roundabout way of admitting you have a crush on me?”
“Had,” she corrected. “I had a crush on you. It’s sort of reappeared, like a virus, but once it’s dealt with, my immunity will be complete, and it will never return. At least, that’s my theory.”
He watched her for a moment. He looked even more handsome since his haircut—which should be impossible, since he’d already been the most handsome man on earth. Yet there he stood, more gorgeous than before. And maybe a little bit… sad?
When had that happened? Why was that happening? He shouldn’t look sad. She did not want him to look sad.
“Your crush on me,” he said, “is a virus.”
“That’s… how I’ve been thinking of it,” she admitted.
It was a perfectly sensible metaphor. So why did she feel slightly guilty? Hannah pushed that niggling doubt aside and ploughed on.
“I also have a theory that whatever you feel toward me is due to the novelty of having someone to cook and look after your kids—”
“Don’t,” he said, his voice oddly tight. “Don’t say that. I wish you didn’t look after the kids. I wish I didn’t need you to. If I didn’t need you, I could just… want you.”
She bit her lip, studying his face. She didn’t understand him. She’d been trying to understand him—she was usually so good at that—but she still couldn’t quite grasp… this. The way he looked at her. The way he watched her now, with something dark and heavy in his gaze.
“Listen,” he sighed. “This—today—it’s all been a bit of a fuck-up. And I’m sorry, because I shouldn’t have done any of this, and because I thought I was hiding things well, but obviously I wasn’t. You’re wrong about… about me. About this. But it doesn’t matter, because I’m your employer, and you live here, and I can’t have you.”
He sounded so depressingly hopeless, her heart squeezed in her chest. “Don’t worry,” she said. “It’ll be fine. Give it a few weeks and you’ll forget this ever happened.”
; He pulled away, freeing her from the cage of his arms, stepping back with a frown. “Forget what ever happened? Today? Or the fact that I want you at all?”
Without Nate surrounding her, Hannah felt suddenly unmoored. She shook her head against the sensation, and against his words. “You don’t want me. I’m just around. It happens to the best of us.”
He did not look pleased. He didn’t even look reassured, or relieved, which was what she’d been hoping for.
In fact, all of a sudden, he looked thunderous. “You’re just around? That’s what you think this is? Are you fucking serious?”
Oh, she wished he wasn’t shirtless right now. “There’s really no need to get upset—”
“I’m not upset, Hannah. I’m pissed.”
She blinked. “Why?”
“Why? Why? Because I am not this kind of guy! I don’t lust after women who work for me! I don’t spend hours thinking about women I can’t have and shouldn’t want. I don’t take advantage of people—I don’t even think about it. But I can’t stop thinking of you. And dreaming of you, and wishing I could touch you, and trying to make you smile—and you want to tell me it’ll blow over? Do you know how many times in the last few years I’ve wished I could want someone like this? I didn’t think I could! And now it’s you, and I shouldn’t, and I— fuck!” He broke off with a low growl, dragging his hands through his hair as he turned away.
Hannah watched him, her brain so full of wild and reckless thoughts, it suddenly felt too big for her skull. As if she might burst. There was too much to take in, to consider, to analyse—and over the top of everything she should be thinking, Nate’s voice played like some kind of recording. Not for the first time, she wished her own ridiculous memory to hell. Because now she’d have to go the rest of her life recalling those words, and the way he looked at her as if it were all true, as if he wanted her like nothing else.
This couldn’t be happening. Even the most passionate moments of Hannah’s life, from filthy one night stands to so-called-love, hadn’t made her feel like this. These things didn’t happen in real life—or maybe they did, for some people, but not for her. For her, everything was numb and distant and swaddled in cotton wool, and she appreciated the protection, the safety, enough to forgo that raw emotion…
So why did she feel everything like a blade scraping over bare skin right now? Why did she believe him?
“Nate,” she said, her voice a ragged whisper. “Look at me.” She hadn’t known what she was going to say before the words came out of her mouth, but they felt oddly right.
Then he turned, and she knew they were right. She’d needed to see him, just like this, looking as confused as she felt. There were no tricks here. He was just as lost as she was.
“Come here,” she said.
He shook his head. “I can’t. I can’t.”
“Why not?”
“If you let me, I’ll—” He broke off. “No. No. I can’t touch you.”
She moved toward him, as slowly and steadily as he’d done to her ten minutes before. This time, she stalked him into a corner—against the cool expanse of the kitchen island. He reached back and gripped the counter until his knuckles were paper-white.
Nate dragged in a breath, his eyes pinned to hers, a sort of desperation gleaming from their depths. “What are you doing?”
She had no idea. She knew, logically, that she was standing in front of him, barely a breath between their bodies—and now she was raising a hand, and she would put that hand on him, and it would feel fucking good, and it would change everything.
But she didn’t understand where all this torrential need had come from, or how it was overpowering her common sense and forcing her to do this. All she knew was that when he looked at her, she saw something worth chasing. Something that turned her into a wilder version of herself, something that felt like a drug without adverse effects. She’d heard people talk about losing their minds with lust, and she’d thought they were childish—too cowardly to admit that they’d acted with complete consciousness, using something as bland and ordinary as desire to be their shield.
She was starting to think she’d never really known desire. It certainly wasn’t bland and ordinary now. It wasn’t as anxiety-inducing as a crush, either, or as easily contained as thoughtless lust.
Desire, apparently, had a life of its own.
Hannah let her fingertips trace the words tattooed over his chest, words that stemmed from the dark branches of a barren tree. “No gods, no kings,” she murmured, smiling slightly. “You don’t love my God, Nate?”
He let his head fall back, his eyes closed. “I’ll love whatever you tell me to. Take me to church. I don’t give a fuck.”
She laughed. “I won’t hold you to that.” But her laugh was shaky, almost as shaky as she felt. Adrenaline must have been tearing through her veins, because her hand was far from steady when she brushed over the tiny silver bar through his nipple.
He sucked in a breath, his hips jerking forward. They were already standing so close, and the action brought them firmly into contact. Hannah felt the rigid outline of his dick press against her belly, and the fact that he was even hard at all dragged a moan from her throat.
His eyes snapped open, burning into her. “Fuck, I want to kiss you.”
She ran her hands over his chest, his shoulders, drinking in the hard muscle and soft skin, pushing her body against his, the pressure just enough to tease—him or her, she wasn’t sure. Either. Both. “What else do you want to do?”
“Hannah…” His voice cracked, her name a plea.
“Just once,” she said. “We’ll do this just once, and then we’ll go back to the way it was before.”
There was a pause, too long and far too weighty. She thought he’d say no. She knew he’d say no.
Until, finally, he said, “Once.”
Something in his voice struck her as odd, but the hunger in his eyes wiped her mind clean.
“And then we’ll be okay,” she said.
He didn’t reply, exactly. Instead, he kissed her.
14
Nate had been a lot of things, but he’d never been a liar before.
Usually, when he did wrong, he admitted it. When he was at school, if he’d punched a guy or smoked some weed he’d say, “Yeah, Ma, I punched that guy. I smoked some weed.” Even when he’d been in court after an anti-fash protest that turned into a brawl, he’d happily pled guilty to affray because… well, because he’d done it.
But here he was, after thirty years of honesty, letting Hannah believe that one time would be enough. He supposed, technically, that the lie didn’t matter. Because one time wouldn’t be enough, but it would be the end. She clearly wasn’t interested in more, and Nate… Nate would only allow himself this, anyway. Only this. And only because she’d asked for it.
Funny how none of that made him feel any better. Funny how none of that stopped his mind from whispering, You are absolute scum.
Funny how he knew, almost instinctively, that kissing her would silence the voices in his head.
Hannah’s cheeks felt so sweet and delicate in his hands. The way her eyes fluttered closed, as if she’d been waiting for this, sent a warmth through him that had nothing to do with the need in his blood or the ache in his cock. How she’d ever thought he didn’t like her, Nate had no idea. But after this, he had a feeling she’d never forget it.
His mouth found hers and something in him clicked into place. He’d thought she’d taste of lipstick and lust and burning flames, but instead, she was… she was cool mint and a hint of sugar, and something he couldn’t identify. That mysterious something, earthy and intimate, drew him in the most. It made him deepen the gentle touch of their lips, made him pour out his passion until she finally opened for him. He swept his thumb over the velvety skin of her cheek as his tongue explored the heat of her mouth.
She moaned, a sweet, whimpering sound, and Nate lost what little restraint he’d had, wrapping an arm around her waist to haul her
closer. Only, the closer they got, the more he noticed the height difference between them. So he took the only sensible option and picked her up.
Only to be rewarded with a shriek and a smack to the back of the head. “Put me down!”
“Don’t be difficult.”
“Nate!”
He rolled his eyes, put her back on her feet, and sank to his knees.
“What the hell are you doing now?” she demanded.
He didn’t answer. He couldn’t, because this new position put his face on a level with her cleavage, swelling gently beneath her loose, white shirt. To Nate, Hannah’s tits were sort of like his nose: obviously, he knew they were there, but his eyes generally refused to show him. Anytime he’d come close to looking at her chest, guilt forced his gaze to slide away without registering any of the details.
But apparently, his eyes were feeling more cooperative today. Because he could see, quite clearly, the hint of deep brown flesh displayed by her loosened top buttons. He could even see the tiny mole that kissed the curve of her left breast. He wanted to lick that mole.
He could also see the rise and fall of her chest as she panted softly, its rhythm almost hypnotic. He heard every sharp inhale, every shaking exhale, because this was Hannah and he felt everything about her, even when he shouldn’t. He had no idea how, but he did. He’d hear her calling his name from miles away and he’d see her reaching for him in the dark. He knew that she was reaching for him now even though she hadn’t moved a muscle.
So he undid the button that strained over her breasts, his hands seeming bigger and clumsier than usual. Still, he managed to open her shirt and push down the cups of her bra. He managed not to come on the spot when she released a high, tight whimper. He managed not to moan out loud when her tits fell into his palms. Nate caressed the ripe mounds, savoured her silky skin, and watched her face.
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