by Jill Shalvis
Or maybe that was just him.
His eyes darkened as he pulled back. “Hmm,” he said, his voice like sex on a stick. “I definitely want to know what you’re thinking now.”
“It’s you,” she blurted out. “You have the most amazing eyes.”
He brought her hand up to his mouth and nipped the pad of her thumb. “And just think, my eyes aren’t even my best part.”
She laughed. “And as I’ve seen all your parts, I’m in a position of authority to verify this as fact.”
“Maybe you should re-verify later. Just to make sure,” he said, flashing her a panty-melting grin.
Mia knew she could get lost in him. Had gotten lost in him. But she didn’t want to get distracted by his sexiness, not tonight. She’d come here with a plan. She was giving him his Christmas present early, which was a flight to her aunt Chloe’s Christmas Eve wedding. It would mean flying across the country on a whim and meeting the people who meant the most to her.
Nick was good with whims, and she was excited at the prospect of spending the holiday with him. But she held back, waiting, because this was a beautiful, expensive restaurant that they’d talked about but had never been to. It was intimate, and exquisitely decorated for the holidays, and she hoped that maybe Nick had a surprise of his own up his sleeve.
They’d been dating for six months, through her graduating NYU with a BA in psychology and Nick working his very fine butt off studying for and passing the bar exam. Mia had gotten into graduate school and was currently halfway through her first year, and Nick was working around the clock to make a name for himself and reduce his monumental college debt—which was currently rivaling the size of the national deficit. So his restaurant choice had to mean something.
Was tonight the night he’d finally use the L-word?
Her heart picked up at the thought because that would be a most excellent Christmas present. But whatever his plans, Nick seemed in no hurry. He ordered appetizers, teased her about what she might have on beneath the Mrs. Claus outfit, and coaxed the details of her day out of her.
They ordered wine, and he touched his glass to hers, his eyes warm. “To a night like last night…,” he said silkily.
Last night had involved the secluded, deserted—and thankfully enclosed—rooftop patio of his five-story walk-up, where he’d loosened her inhibitions with slow, steady hands and an incredibly talented mouth, until she’d begged him to take her.
He’d acquiesced, twice. Just the memory made her go damp. “It’s supposed to rain tonight,” she said, her voice all Marilyn Monroe whispery, giving her away.
His smile was as slow and steady as his hands, and bad-boy wicked. He didn’t care about the rain.
“You’re wearing your new clothes,” she pointed out. “You’ll ruin them.”
He shrugged. After a lifetime of not having money, he never seemed to put much importance into possessions. In fact, he’d applied to work at a nonprofit law office providing restorative justice across the country. He wanted to try to save the kids who’d made some bad choices and needed help. If he got the job, he’d be traveling far and wide, and she’d lose him. She’d known this.
She’d fallen for him anyway.
Helplessly.
The question was still the same—had he fallen as well? They’d both been given up at birth, but Mia had been adopted by a wonderful couple who’d become mom and dad to her. Nick hadn’t been as lucky, and didn’t feel the same need for ties that she did. He was a lone wolf.
She, on the other hand, had been born to be part of a pack.
Nick leaned in close and kissed her just beneath her ear. “Have you ever had sex in the rain, Mia?”
Her breath caught, and there was a lot more tingling in places that had no business tingling in a restaurant. “Is sex all you think about?”
“No. But I think about it a lot. With you.” He flicked her earlobe with his tongue, and somehow all the bones in her body liquefied.
“Are guys really that much of a slave to their libido?” she managed.
“It’s the testosterone. A guy’d follow his girl all the way to Siberia if he thought it might get him laid. Barefoot. Uphill in the snow, both ways.”
She laughed, and he smiled. “Love the sound of your laugh,” he said. “You don’t do it enough.”
She’d been a serious kid, and not just because she was adopted. She loved her family, both her adoptive parents and her birth parents. She was lucky enough to have them all in her life. But there was no denying that in spite of her luck and the wealth of love she’d been showered with, she was… well, serious.
And still looking for her place to belong.
She thought—hoped—that her place to belong was with Nick, and it filled her with a giddiness that was hard to contain. He filled her with giddiness.
Dinner came and was delicious, and still Nick didn’t seem inclined to get to the point of the expensive restaurant. When the check arrived, he scooped it before she could. He always did that, even though he was drowning in college debt and, thanks to her four parents, she was not.
Outside, there were no cabs to be had. There was only a light mist in the air so they started walking. The construction crew was gone. Not that it mattered. No one would have bothered her with Nick at her side. He held himself in a way that spoke of a tough, easy confidence. He never went looking for trouble, but there was an edge to him that said if he happened to come across some, he wasn’t opposed to kicking its ass.
And growing up as he had, she had no doubt he could do so with little to no effort.
They made it to her tiny place, enjoying the crazy, over-the-top lights and Christmas decorations of the city. At her door, Nick playfully pushed her up against it. “You’re all wet, Mia…”
She took a moment to enjoy the feel of his hard body holding her pinned, then tipped her head to his. The flight confirmation was burning a hole in her purse. “Nick? Before we go in…”
He bent and kissed her cheek, her jaw, her throat, his hands slipping inside her coat. “I’m as adventurous as the next guy,” he murmured hotly against her skin, making her shiver because she knew exactly what his hands and mouth could do. “But out here in the hall?”
She went still and then smacked him on the chest. “That’s not what I was going to say.”
He laughed and straightened, leaving his hands on her hips. “No?” His eyes were gleaming with mischief and a sexual promise that made her rethink turning him down for anything.
“No,” she repeated, her heart speeding up a little. “Nick—”
He kissed her again, full of intent and purpose, and only when her bones had melted did he pull slowly back. “Sorry,” he said. “You’re just so damn sweet.”
“You can gobble me up inside,” she promised. “But I sort of have a Christmas present for you.”
He dropped his hands from her. “You said no Christmas presents, that we’d go away together for a weekend next month when we both have off, and that would be our gift to each other.”
“Okay, so it’s not a Christmas present,” she said. “Call it a present present. Do you remember months ago when I told you I was going home for Christmas for my aunt Chloe’s wedding?” She hesitated. “Well… I bought two plane tickets, not just one.” She pulled his confirmation from her purse and handed it to him.
Mia’s aunt Chloe and her fiancé, Sawyer Thompson, had been together for five years now. Being committed but not tethered had suited both of their wild souls, but recently Chloe had caught baby fever from her sister Maddie, who’d just had her second child.
Nick stared down at the paper Mia had handed him. “The wedding in Lucky Harbor?” he asked. “In Washington State?”
“Yes,” Mia said. She’d spent her first summer there five years ago at age seventeen, where she’d found and met her birth parents. She’d discovered her first crush there, too, her first love.
She and Carlos had done their best, but they’d been so young. Too young. Th
eir teenage romance hadn’t survived, but she’d still gone to Lucky Harbor as often as she could over the past five years. “I realize it’s all the way across the country,” she said. “And also that it’s short notice, but I’ve been wanting to ask you for a while now. I just didn’t want you to feel obligated.”
He wasn’t looking like he felt obligated. He was looking like she’d clobbered him over the head with her purse, and some of her happiness faded.
“You want me to meet your birth parents?” he asked slowly.
“No,” she said slowly. “Well, yes. But mostly I just want to spend the holiday with you.” She knew the holidays had never been kind to him, and she wanted to show him how magical it could be. “This’ll be our first Christmas. It’ll be fun.” She smiled.
He didn’t. “Mia, I can’t.”
She took in his blank expression and got suddenly cold. “Can’t?” she murmured, not understanding.
“Okay, won’t,” he corrected, voice soft but his meaning brutally clear.
Shocked, she stepped back, coming up against her front door.
Nick reached for her, but she lifted a hand, holding him off. “You know it’s just a trip, right?” she asked as lightly as she could. “It’s not a request for a diamond or anything like that.” She’d never make that request of him. Maybe she’d secretly hoped that someday he’d make that request, but she certainly wouldn’t.
“I can’t,” he repeated.
No warm smile, no explanation to soften the blow, nothing. She actually looked down at herself. Was she bleeding? It felt like she was bleeding. But she wasn’t. She was in perfect working order as Mrs. Claus. Feeling stupid, she lifted her chin. “Okay,” she said quietly, even as her heart seized. “Never mind.” A little numb, which was a good thing at the moment since she didn’t want to fall apart, yet, she unlocked her door and stepped inside. Don’t look back, don’t look back—
She totally looked back.
Tension radiated from Nick, but he wasn’t giving anything away. A moment ago, he’d been touching her as if he needed her more than air, and now he was a complete stranger.
She quietly shut and locked the door, then leaned back against it.
He hadn’t picked her.
Chapter 2
Nick spent the next hour studying the ticket confirmation Mia had given him as if it held the answers to the universe. Not that he was actually seeing the piece of paper. Nope, he kept flashing back to Mia sitting across from him at the table earlier, her long brown hair falling like silk to her shoulders, her mossy green eyes full of affection and heat.
For him.
He loved the way she looked at him, though he’d managed to ruin that pretty well tonight. Disgusted with himself, he set the paper aside, turned off the lights, and got into bed, where he proceeded to stare up at the ceiling, counting the ways in which he’d screwed up.
There were too many to count.
He could argue that his life was in crazy flux, but that was an excuse, and he hated excuses. His reaction to Mia’s invitation had been knee-jerk, and he’d hurt her.
He felt like shit about that, but he knew in the end, it was for the best. He had no business going to meet her family. One, he had no family experience. None. Two, he had even less relationship experience. Three, he’d applied for a job that was going to take him places, the first of which was around the entire country for the next two years.
It was what he’d wanted, to defend the kids who were falling through the cracks of the system—as he had. Mia, more than anyone else, understood this need. She’d been given up at birth, too.
But she’d been adopted. Nick had been shuffled from home to home his entire childhood, never quite belonging anywhere. Mia knew all this about him. It was what drew them together.
But what she didn’t know was that he’d gotten the job.
He’d been planning on telling her at dinner, and then they’d have celebrated. Except that being with her, as always, took him out of time and place. She made him forget everything but her and how he felt when he was with her.
And then there’d been the real problem.
Sitting with her at that candlelit table, watching her smile at him, for him… suddenly he hadn’t wanted to go anywhere.
He’d been wrestling with that when she’d dropped her wedding invite like a bombshell. She wanted him to go spend Christmas—a holiday he’d never believed in—with her family. Her family, something else he didn’t quite believe in.
When he finally fell into an exhausted, restless sleep, he dreamed about the first time they’d met, in a Human Behavior class that he’d needed in order to counsel teens on a volunteer basis.
She turned her head and gave him a long look when he slid into the class ten minutes late on the first day, thanks to a monster hangover. She was in glasses, her eyes nondescript, her brown hair piled up on top of her head. She had a laptop perched carefully on her lap and the required reading opened in one hand.
A nerd, he’d immediately decided, and knew he’d sat by the right girl. He always tried to sit by the smart ones because they were great study partners. He smiled at her.
She frowned and went back to concentrating on the lecture.
He realized he must have missed something important, as she had a full screen of notes. He leaned in to try to read over her shoulder at the same moment she turned back to him.
Their lips nearly brushed.
Her eyes widened and her lips opened in a little oh! of surprise. His reaction wasn’t all that different. Had he thought her nondescript? She was the furthest thing from nondescript, starting with her eyes. They were deep green and brimming with intelligence. She stared at him for a long beat, and then turned her laptop his way to share her notes.
“Oh, whoops,” she said, quickly closing a screen. “That was my research project for a different class.” She bit her lower lip. “You’re probably wondering about it now.”
Actually, he wasn’t. He wasn’t even looking at her screen. He was wondering how it was that she smelled so amazing, how her eyes could be so… green. He was wondering if she was wearing a bra beneath that thin sweater, or if she was just chilly…
“I’m writing about human sexuality,” she said.
Okay, now she had his attention. “You’re researching sex?” he asked. “As in how to have it?”
“Hey, I know how to have it,” she said, and then blushed gorgeously when she caught the teasing in his gaze.
Later he found out she’d been adopted, too. Drawn by this thing they had in common, he bought her a burger that night, and they ended up in Central Park beneath the stars watching an unexpected meteor shower. Mia made wishes on every falling star, big wishes, little wishes, wishes for everyone in her life… and he found himself entranced big-time.
Normally he never talked about himself, but she pulled him out of his shell, and they talked until dawn. Talked. Never in his life had he just sat and talked with a girl he hadn’t yet even gotten to second base. But she was different, and he shared things with her that he’d not shared with anyone.
The next night, she brought him homemade brownies. And unlike the brownies his roommates always made, hers weren’t illegal.
They’d been together ever since. Nick flopped over in his bed. They’d had fun exploring the city together. Exploring each other. Getting closer than he’d ever let someone get before.
And that’s about when her ex had shown up.
With a ring.
Yeah, that had been fun.
Carlos knocked on Mia’s door late one night. Mia was shocked at the visit. Nick was shocked when she asked him to go home so she could talk to Carlos alone.
Nick went downstairs and stood on the sidewalk, wondering if he was about to lose the best thing that had ever happened to him.
The longest hour of his life later, Carlos came out of the building, hood up and hands in his pockets as he headed down the sidewalk, never looking back.
Nick took the
stairs at a jog, his gut in knots.
Mia’s shower was running, and he waited until she came out of the bathroom. In just a towel, steam surrounding her, she stared at him, and slowly shook her head.
And then her eyes filled with tears.
His heart squeezed as he strode to her and pulled her in close.
“He wanted me to marry him,” she said against his chest.
Nick went still. “And you said…?”
“I loved him when I was seventeen,” she said soggily, “with everything I had. I wanted to make it work, but he didn’t. He told me to move on. So that’s what I did. He broke my heart, and I just broke his.”
Nick let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and pressed his jaw to the top of her head.
“I think you should go,” she whispered.
Nick had made it a lifelong policy to never stay a moment longer than he was wanted. Ever. So he headed out of the building much the way Carlos had only a little while before and walked home. The last thing he remembered before falling asleep that night was the feel of Mia’s tears on his neck.
Rolling over again, he punched his pillow. He’d made a choice back then, and he’d been wrong. He shouldn’t have left her.
And he’d made the same mistake tonight.
At the crack of dawn, he gave up trying to sleep. He dressed and went to Mia’s apartment. He needed to see her, talk to her. Touch her. He had a key, but it didn’t feel right to just let himself in this time. But she didn’t answer, which is what happened when one acted like a complete ass. A complete, stupid ass. “Mia,” he said, “let me in.”
At the deafening silence, he blew out a sigh and pulled out his phone. But either she’d turned hers off or she’d hit Ignore because his call went right to voice mail. “Come to the door, Mia.”
Three doors down, an older lady peeked out and frowned at him. “So you’re all stupid then,” she said.
“Excuse me?”
“ ‘Let me in.’ ‘Come to the door.’ You always demand like that? No wonder she isn’t answering. Try asking sometime. Not all women will stand for that Fifty Shades crap, you know.” She gave a disgusted headshake and slammed her door shut.