by M. K. Hale
“Wait,” he said, but I disobeyed him.
I sprinted to my room and slammed the door closed, needing to hide. Needing to wrap myself in blankets until the ice in my chest melted.
Nate slammed a hand against our shared wall and cursed. I swore I heard him say, “I’m sorry.”
Chapter 9
Nate:
* * *
She had snuck into my room and yet I was the one who felt guilty? Damn it, how was she able to twist me up inside? I half expected her to shove a stick into my chest, spin it around, and pull out a cotton candy shaped dessert made of my organs. That was how messed up she had me. Like a sicker version of being wrapped around someone’s finger.
I had pushed her away, but she saw my pushes as pulls. She infiltrated my senses. Pushing her away was an option that had jumped overboard and drowned. She was already inside of me. Like thick bacterial mucus during a bad cold. And no matter how much of her I got out of my system, more built up the next day. A gross comparison, but a valid one.
My claim: I needed to stay away from Allie. Evidence supporting my claim: Being around her led to feelings and words seeping out of me like blood from the gashes she had sliced into me. She picked and prodded at me like I was an experiment.
I was so damn tired of being treated as less than a person.
Over the years, I had a hard time separating pals from real friends. People who liked me versus people who liked the connections the Reddington family offered them. Allie did not seem to care about my last name, but she acted like the rest of them. Uncaring of my feelings and ready to do whatever she wanted to reach her goal.
But what was her goal?
To “fix” me?
I vibrated with anger; the fingers making up my fists twitching from tension. She had insinuated I was broken. Me. Broken.
Then I told her she was broken. And her face had crumpled. Crumpled. Fuck.
I fell back on my bed, letting the mattress springs creak as it moved up and down from my weight. She had broken into my room and stolen my calendar, and I was the one left feeling horrible about myself? That was so damn unfair. Everything about her was unfair. The way she looked, knowing she was off-limits to me. The way she made me laugh, knowing the emotional walls I built up had a weakness for strange humor.
How was I to be held accountable for my words when sleep evaded me for days? Mostly due to reoccurring images playing through my head of Allie in her revealing purple nightgown. She thought I was a Greek God? She looked like freaking Meg from Hercules. Her long, wavy auburn hair, and her silk purple nightgown covering thirty percent of her…. So thin it was almost see-through. Damn, I had wanted to rip it off and fucking pin her to the wall, take her right there in the hallway—Jesus, Nate, stop. Allie broke rules. She had snuck into my room like a crazy person. Why the hell was I still so attracted to her?
She was crazy. “Broken.” I shook my head as shame tingled in my lungs. How could I have let something like that slip out of my mouth? I had no business or right calling another person broken. She had just…stabbed me. “I just wanted to help you. Fix you.” Why? Why was she so obsessed with me?
Why did she think I needed fixing?
Was I broken?
I let out a frustrated groan. I was pissed at her, but I needed to apologize.
That crumpled look on her face flashed in my mind and froze me half to death in my temperate room. She was always so overconfident and smiley. Cocky and teasing. She sparkled in a dim room. But my words had snuffed out that part of her. She had looked at me like her soul was glass ready to break and I had just flicked my fingers against a crack.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, alone in my room.
How was I supposed to make her feel better when I needed to avoid seeing her?
Which one was more important?
I had not seen Allie in three days. Some nights, I heard the door to her room open and close, but since it was after midnight; I stuck to my strict sleeping schedule and kept my eyes closed until my alarm clock tore them open the next morning. On the third day of not seeing her, I went to dinner fifteen minutes later than usual as if maybe trying to catch her, but she did not frequent the dining hall during the times I did.
She probably ate dinner around seven-thirty on most nights or something. Wild girl.
My goal to avoid her turned on its axis and became trying to find her. To apologize to her for being a dick. And maybe receive an apology for her insinuating there was something about me she wanted to “fix” as well.
My confidence spiked one night at the end of the week when I heard the door to her room open and close around six o’clock. Time to get rid of this guilt.
I knocked on her door and waited as some muffled sounds happened behind it. Was she tidying up? For me?
Her door opened just enough to show me half of her face. “Oh, Nate.” She sniffled and wiped her nose. The green eye on display was puffy and bloodshot. She had been crying? Had I made her cry? The sudden urge to take myself outside and teach myself a lesson bombarded me. “Um, what’s up, neighbor?”
I cleared my throat. To address her tears or not to address her tears. That was the question. “Um, I wanted to—”
A banging noise occurred behind her. I tilted my head to peer inside, but she moved and blocked me. Was she hiding something?
“What was that?” I asked.
“Nothing,” she responded. “So what did you want?”
Right. The apology. “I wanted to say I was sorry about—” A louder banging noise came from the corner of her room. I squinted, seeing nothing over her head. “What is that noise?”
She sniffled again. “Things falling off my dresser, that’s all.”
“With no one touching them?” I questioned.
“Gravity is always touching them.”
“Right.” Just move on and apologize. “I’m sorry about what I said before about—”
And even louder banging noise.
“Okay.” I pushed inside her room. “What is that?” I looked around, but nothing caught my eye. Then it sounded again from behind her closed closet door. “Are you hiding a man in here?” I asked.
A dead chill settled in the air.
She glanced from me to the closet with an expression of guilt. “Um, no.”
Unbelievable. She was sleeping with someone? She could, obviously. She had the right to.
I had not had sex with anyone since meeting her.
“She is a single woman who can do whatever she wants. I have no claim to her,” I thought at the same time I yelled at her, “Who the hell are you sleeping with? Ryan, is it Ryan?” I would kill him.
“Whoa, what? No—”
I lost it, rolling up the sleeves of my button-down shirt and fastening them over my thick forearms. “You think you can fuck someone in this room?” The room next to me. Next to where I could not sleep, because of thoughts about her.
She narrowed her eyes, anger trickling onto her puffy red face. And if the asshole had made her cry… Oh, I am going to prison tonight. “If I was, it wouldn’t be any of your business. It’s not in the rule book.”
“I don’t care what’s in the fucking rule book.” I strode up to her, and she tipped her chin up to match my gaze. “Make him leave right now.”
The sparkle in her eyes, the one I had been missing, came back to life. “Maybe I want him to stay. Maybe he’s going to stay all night,” she said the words slow enough to punctuate each syllable. “I hope you have noise-canceling headphones.”
“He is leaving,” I grated. “Now.”
She clenched her fists at her sides, but her anger just made her look more adorable and sexy as fuck. “Unlike you, I’m not an unfeeling robot. I have needs.”
I looked down at her swollen lips. From being kissed? No one sucks those lips but me. “I know all about your needs.” My hands moved up and settled on her hips of their own accord. My fingers dug into her sides, pulling her closer. I hope he hears this. “You don’t
need someone else to satisfy those needs, baby. Not while I’m fucking breathing.”
Her pupils dilated, hopefully from arousal and not rage. “You couldn’t satisfy me if you had vibrators for fingers.”
How did she make me want to throw my head back and roar? “You want my fingers to prove it to you right now?” I pulled up the fabric of her dress, inching it up and revealing more and more of my favorite, smooth legs. Her tender thighs quivered as I bunched the bottom of her dress up to her stomach.
Black lace panties.
Like she was trying to kill me.
She succeeded.
“I see that little damp spot. For me,” I muttered. “You want my touch right now, don’t you?”
She whimpered before clamping down her jaw so no other noise would escape.
“You want my fingers pounding inside you.”
She breathed out, “No, thank you.”
“You want my thumb swiping over your swollen little clit.”
Her eyelids hooded, and I stepped closer to her, absorbing her warmth and tripling it to sizzling heat.
My stiffening cock pulsed hard inside the confines of my pants. “You want me to own your wet little pussy—”
Another noise sounded from her closet, reminding me of why and how I had gotten to this point. I let her dress drop back down, shaking off my lust, and marched up to her closet.
She flung herself in front of it. “You can’t do this. You don’t have a warrant,” she said.
I twisted the doorknob and pulled, her body being shoved into mine at my pulling open the door.
I blinked. No guy. “What—” Then I saw it. A cat. “What is this?”
“His name is Fluffykins and you will treat him with respect.” She ventured inside and picked up the small feline, showing me her tight backside behind her dress as she did just that. The fluff of faded orange cuddled into her neck.
“You’re not allowed to have a pet. No animals in the dorm. It’s the—”
“Second rule in the book,” she finished for me.
Dang, why did I find her memorization of the rulebook just as sexy as her breaking all the rules in it? “You can’t have it here.”
“It is a him,” she clarified, flashing his genitals at me for verification I did not need, nor had I asked for.
“You can’t have him here.”
“He’s a stray, he has nowhere else to go.”
“You can’t just keep him.”
“Why not?” she asked, but her voice cracked. She then sneezed three times in a row, holding the cat out, far from her body.
The red eyes. The sniffling. “Are you allergic to cats?” I asked, putting it all together.
“I wouldn’t say allergic—” She sneezed. “Hmm. Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I mean, yes, my body has a hard time functioning around cats, cat hair, etcetera. But really what’s some sneezing, a runny nose, itchy eyes, and a closing throat compared to the love of a pet?”
I gaped at her. She was crazy. And sweet. She had taken a stray cat in even though his presence hurt her and messed up her ability to breathe? “Come on.” I waved her out of her room, but she did not budge.
“What? I told you, I’m not going to leave him back on the street. He just needs some rest for the night and then I’ll take him to a shelter, I swear.”
“You can’t sleep in the same room as that cat.”
Her eyes widened. “So you want me to sleep in your room?”
“What? N-No.” Interesting how her thought process landed her there. “I meant the cat will sleep in my room tonight, and then he is going to a shelter in the morning. Immediately in the morning.”
She nibbled her lip. “I don’t know. Cats can sense bad people. He might try to claw you in your sleep,” she stated.
I fought off a smile. “Are you trying to say I’m a bad person, Allie?”
“Hey, I’m just saying animals can sense certain things, that’s all.”
I stepped closer to her again, my thoughts jumping back to the black panties I knew she wore and the damp spot on them. She was wet for me, and I hadn’t even touched her. It was only fair considering I had been hard for her since day one. She sniffled as she glanced down at my lips.
I held out my arms, and she placed Fluffykins into them. “You can say goodbye in the morning,” I told her.
“How do I know you won’t throw him out on the street to protect your rules?”
Was that what she thought of me? That I would abandon a helpless cat on the side of the road on a college campus? “I’ll take good care of him. Maybe we will even stay up late and watch an action movie together. You know, guy stuff,” I cracked a joke and fought the instinct to slap myself on the forehead. Nate Reddington did not say bad jokes out loud. Or any jokes out loud.
But she smiled and released a little half-laugh. Even if it was a pity laugh, the sound of it on my ears… Magical.
My grin was unstoppable. Focus. “But um, before I forget, I wanted to apologize for what I said before. About you being broken. You’re not.”
She lost her smile but nodded, serious. “Thanks.”
“You’re not even close to broken. You’re amazing, Allie Parser.”
She nodded again.
Right. Just get out of there. Then I remembered, I expected an apology as well. “Do you have anything you want to say to me?”
Her eyebrows squished together. “Not that I can think of. Why?”
“Nothing about that night? What you did? Said?” How she was trying to “fix” me.
“Nope. Thanks for the apology, though. Take care of Fluffykins for me.”
She closed the door on my face.
Chapter 10
Allie:
* * *
“Do you have anything you want to say to me?” Nate had asked me. Did he want a love confession? What was he fishing for? I did not like him. Did he think I liked him? I mean, yes, I was attracted to him. Duh. Every girl with heterosexual tendencies seemed to be. But that was it.
Him pulling up my dress and biting his lip at the sight of my black panties? His whispered dirty words of “You want me to own your wet little pussy.” It was the hottest moment of my damn life. But he was off-limits to me in that way until after I finished my paper about him. Maybe next semester. Once he was fixed.
He needed to cut loose and remove all those thick walls he put up.
Some muffled noise came from his side of the wall, and I leaned closer to make out his words. “Fluffykins…Stupid name…Mr. Orange Guy…Call you Crush.”
Nate was talking to Fluffykins. My heart evaporated into a liquid, which dripped into my stomach and swirled around. I settled in closer to our shared wall.
“…Allergic to you but still took you in…Crazy.” I frowned at his insult, but he added, “Cute.”
He thought I was crazy cute?
“Need some milk.” There was some shuffling as Nate opened his mini-fridge in search of a treat for Fluffykins. The bedsprings creaked, and I closed my eyes, picturing him cuddling up to the cat. It was hard to imagine due to my original thinking of him throwing it out a window and spraying everything clean.
Maybe this was what Nate needed. Something to take care of. Something to give him affection. Something he could talk to. Or someone. The cat would need to be gone in a day or two, but that did not mean Nate had to go back to being lonely.
What if I found him a girl?
The wave of nausea wracking me caused a bit of confusion. I would not be—should not be—jealous at the idea of him being with someone else. In my psychological expert opinion, he needed a bond with someone where he could be vulnerable and share his feelings instead of bottling them up. But who?
I tapped my chin in contemplation, still fighting back the uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.
If I let my jealousy win, that would make me selfish. He needed this. A connection. His friendships did not seem as deep as they could be. He hid aspects of h
is life from people.
I would find him a girl. My business cards would require a larger size cardstock once I added “matchmaker” to my list of skills, but I was willing to do it.
The question was: what kind of girl did Nate want? Who was his type? Leggy brown haired girls with red highlights, obviously, but we could not have that kind of relationship while I studied him.
I wrote on a piece of paper: Nate’s Dream Girl. Now I just needed to fill in the blanks.
The next morning, I knocked on Nate’s door bright and early, trying to catch him off guard. It worked because he answered, rubbing his eyes, shirtless and in nothing but plaid pajama pants.
In a hoarse voice, he rasped, “Allie?” Waking up in a split second, he glanced down and turned back into his room, searching for a shirt. “Sorry. Um, what’s up? Is something wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong.” Other than you covering up those magnificent, edible muscles. “Just checking in on Fluffykins.”
“Crush,” Nate called out, and the cat maneuvered out from under the covers, where he had slept in Nate’s bed. Was I a little jealous over a cat? Maybe. “I renamed him. Calling him Fluffykins was just cruel.”
“Fluffykins is an adorable name for an adorable cat,” I cooed, walking toward Nate’s bed and trying not to think about the time I rolled around on it and how comfortable those sheets were.
“If I called him Fluffykins, he would have killed me in his sleep.”
I picked up the cat, but he craned his neck to keep an eye on Nate. “I think he likes you.”
“He’s cool.” Nate shrugged, but the corners of his mouth tugged up. Ah, yes, he craved affection. Living a lonely life did that to a person.
Allie, you are going to find him the best girlfriend in the world.
Nate stepped forward when a disgusting noise came from my body. “Did you just gag? Are you sick?”