by Faye Avalon
She didn’t know what his game was, and she certainly wasn’t going to be a pawn in it. The only thing she could think of was that he hadn’t taken kindly to her being the one to basically throw him out of bed, as it were. If he was usually the one to get there first, then it was quite possible he planned to have a repeat of last night so he could rectify things, keep his record intact.
Well, he could go to hell. She had plans that night, and they didn’t involve Mr. High and Mighty getting between her legs again. Which meant all she had to do was convince her body, and all would be well.
At the sound of the timer going off, Erin grabbed the oven gloves from the counter and bent to take the brownies she’d baked out of the oven. She pushed Willa away as she came sniffing around. “These aren’t for you, baby. Chocolate’s not good for you. But if you behave, you can have an extra biscuit.”
At the sound of biscuit, Willa’s tail started wagging in earnest. Laughing, Erin placed the brownie tin on the cooling tray and picked up Willa’s treat tin. “Why can’t I ever resist you, hmm?” In response, Willa plopped her butt down in eager anticipation. “Those big brown eyes and I’m a goner, aren’t I?”
Erin’s cell phone buzzed as she placed the lid back on the tin. She picked it up from the table where it was in charge mode, and frowned. She should have expected he’d call.
Her stomach gave a nervous pitch, as it always did when she thought of Nathan, but she ignored it and rejected the call. Ten seconds later, it buzzed again. She rejected it. That happened twice more, after which everything went quiet.
Satisfied, and assuring herself that not going to Nathan’s was the best plan, Erin set some water to boil and got out a packet of pasta and a tin of tomatoes. Since she wasn’t in the mood for anything fancy, she grated some cheese to pile on top of the pasta sauce.
A little over half an hour later, Erin took the tray with the half-eaten pasta to the sink. She dumped leftovers into the trash and piled the dirty dishes in her small dishwasher.
The sound of the front doorbell almost made her jump out of her skin, while Willa stared down the hallway on full alert. A chill ran down Erin’s spine, goose bumps breaking out along her arms. She wasn’t expecting anyone, and it was too late for cold-callers. Frozen to the spot, she swallowed, considering what to do.
She walked silently down the hallway and snuck into the living room. Thankfully, she hadn’t turned the lights on when she ate her pasta in front of the television, but the screen was still on. That meant she couldn’t pretend nobody was home and hope that whoever was at her door would go away.
Easing across to the far side of the window, she nudged back the blind and peeked out. She had a jolt of surprise, followed by a sort of heady relief, but fast on its tail was irritation.
What was he doing here?
The doorbell rang again, and this time didn’t stop. The bloody man was holding his finger on the bell. Willa came bounding down the hallway at the same moment Erin stepped out of the living room.
She grabbed Willa’s collar and walked her back to the kitchen, where she closed the door.
Erin stomped down the hallway and yanked open the door to find Nathan lounging against the doorframe with, yes, his finger pressed to the bell.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Erin slapped at his hand. “You’ll annoy my neighbors, let alone me.”
“What happened, sugar? Lose directions to my place?”
Since there was no way he was coming inside, Erin stepped over the threshold and pulled the door up behind her. “Not exactly, since I know precisely where they are. Currently residing in my trash bin.”
Still he lounged there, his easy-going posture at odds with the expression on his face. It seemed she wasn’t the only one currently pissed off.
“We had a date.”
God. The audacity of the man.
“At what time during that excuse for a conversation we had at my place of employment this afternoon did I give you any indication that I was under the impression we had a date?”
He pushed away from the doorframe. “I invited you to dinner. Gave you directions to my place. Most females would construe that as meaning they had a date.”
“Well, this female needs it spelling out a little more coherently. And she prefers being asked, not told.”
Erin moved back, about to slam the door in his arrogant face, when his palm flattened against the wood.
Fear trickled through her, memories of having a man force his way inside. Of being unable to withstand his strength…
“Leave me alone.” Gasping, Erin pushed harder against Nathan’s resistance. “Get away, or I’ll… I’ll call the police.”
Her throat dry, her heart beating too rapidly, she shoved herself at the door.
“Erin?”
Some quality in his voice trickled through her fear and brought her back to the moment. It wasn’t Justin standing on the other side of the door. It was Nathan.
She looked up, noticing his expression had changed. The irritation had been replaced by the same concern she’d heard when he spoke her name.
It must have been the questioning look in his eyes that made her step back into the hallway, her body trembling. She looked away from Nathan’s steady gaze, powerless to do anything but watch him close the door and move toward her.
“What the hell’s wrong, Erin. What’s happened?”
His soft, placating tone helped snap her out of her panicked state, and she made herself breathe. Her body shook, as if completely out of her control, and she wrapped her arms tight around herself. She’d overreacted. She’d allowed the memories to take her over.
“Nothing’s happened. I…I just don’t appreciate your strong-arm tactics. Can’t you take no for an answer?”
“Yeah, I can. But right now, I want to know what’s going on.”
He tried to touch her arm, but Erin shrugged away and made for the kitchen. She went to the sink and poured herself water while Willa snuck into the corner when she got a look at Nathan. Not for the first time, Erin worried that her own anxieties and fears added to Willa’s and she wasn’t doing her dog any favors by living in the past and being frightened of shadows.
She slugged down water, telling herself to calm down and deal with the situation. She needed to get Nathan out of her house, out of her life. A man like him wasn’t good for her, and it wasn’t good for Willa. But how many times in the last few days had she warned herself off Nathan? Too many to count. Yet still she’d slept with him, and look where that had gotten her.
She turned, prepared to ask him to leave, but the words stuck in her throat when she heard the chair scrape behind her. Nathan held it out, inviting her to sit. She stared at the chair for long moments before giving in to the need to get off her unsteady legs.
Nathan sat opposite her at the small square table. He said nothing, just watched her with those steady, unrelenting green eyes until she felt compelled to offer him at least some sort of explanation. “I was in a relationship before I came here. He was very controlling and expected me to adhere to his needs. If I didn’t, he’d act up and throw his weight around.”
“Did he hurt you?”
“No.” She told herself it wasn’t a lie, because physically Justin hadn’t really laid a finger on her. “Like I said, he was controlling.”
A deep scowl settled between his eyebrows. “Then why did you look terrified when I wouldn’t let you close the door in my face?”
“Any woman would look terrified if a man’s trying to force his way inside her home.”
She looked away from his implacable gaze and down to where she’d clasped her hands together on the table. His palm settled big and comforting over them. “Did he use his hands on you, Erin?”
Erin swallowed, glanced down at Willa, then made herself look at Nathan again. His expression unsettled her even
more than the old memories reverberating through her mind. “No,” she said firmly. “He wanted to exert his power over me, bend me to his will.”
His fingers cocooned her hands, and she reveled in the reassuring touch. It would be so easy to simply let herself be comforted by Nathan, to let him work his magic and take away all her demons. But then she would be right back at square one.
A relationship with him might start well, but it wouldn’t be long before she might find herself in a similar situation to the one she had run from. From his comments, physically hurting a woman was anathema to Nathan, but there were many ways to control and manipulate people.
“Have you eaten?”
His question was so out of context, it took her by surprise. “What?”
“Eaten. As in food, plate, table.”
She slipped her hands from beneath his, not sure she liked where the conversation was headed. “Yes. Pasta.”
He glanced over to the counter. “That dessert?”
She followed his gaze to the brownies she’d turned out onto the cooling rack and forgotten about. “I…em…”
He waggled his brows. “Got any ice cream?”
Did she? She couldn’t rightly remember. All she could focus on was getting him out of her house before they sat down together for a chummy chat over brownies and ice cream.
“Nathan…I…”
“I’m not going to hurt you, Erin.” His hands settled above hers again. “If you want me to go, fine. But I don’t want to leave while your hands are shaking and you’ve got the fear of God in your eyes.”
There was no point denying what he’d said, considering it wasn’t just her hands that were shaking, it was her whole body. But she was slowly calming down and able to think rationally again. Once he saw she was okay, he’d leave.
She swallowed, nodded. “The ice cream’s in the fridge.”
Nathan stood, shrugged out of his leather jacket and slung it over the back of his chair. He went over and opened her refrigerator. “Shit. You’ve got less in yours than I’ve got in mine.”
There was no point wasting food if she had to make a hasty escape from Bodmin at any time. “I don’t like waste,” she improvised. “I just buy what I need.”
He pulled out the small carton of ice cream from the freezer section and brought it over to the brownies. “Plates?”
“On the shelf. Above.”
He retrieved two dessert bowls and popped a brownie into each one before spooning in ice cream. It gave her a jolt to notice how at home he seemed in her kitchen, and how big and masculine he looked while moving about the small space. But then he seemed to take up any space—large or small—and managed to completely fill it with his imposing presence.
The man even looked masculine and sexy doing something prosaic like preparing a dessert of brownies and ice cream. Before she could resist, her gaze dropped to his gorgeous ass tightly encased in well-fitting jeans. She moved her attention up to his broad back and wide shoulders, his thick neck and short dark hair. He was certainly a well-put-together package. Was it any wonder she found him almost impossible to resist?
Except she had to. For all the reasons she’d told herself, she couldn’t chance being with him again. And that was what would happen if he stayed. She didn’t seem to have any restraint when she was around him. The damn man could talk her into anything.
He brought the filled bowls to the table, went back to rummage in the drawer for spoons, then sat where he had before.
At the smell of food, Willa sauntered over to Erin, eyeing Nathan and giving him a wide berth.
“Still don’t trust me, do you, girl,” Nathan said to Willa, but Erin had the distinct impression his words might have been for her benefit too. “Don’t blame you,” he said. “Always best to get your bearings before plunging in.”
He scooped up ice cream and popped it into his mouth, then brought his gaze to Erin’s. Leaving her ice cream untouched, Erin cocked her head. “What does that mean?”
“What?”
“Best to get your bearings before plunging in.”
He shrugged and scooped up more dessert. “Doesn’t mean anything. Only that once you know what you want, and find it standing right in front of you, then it makes sense to just dive right in.”
“You’re not referring to Willa, are you?”
His eyes glittered green fire. “What do you think? This is good, by the way. Excellent brownies.”
“Thanks.” She picked up her spoon and stabbed at the ice cream. “But I’m not diving right in again, just so you know.”
“Because you don’t know what you want? Or are you just plain scared, Erin?”
“Maybe both. Not that you’d know how that feels. I imagine you know exactly what you want, and you’ve never felt scared in your life.”
He dropped the spoon into the bowl and pushed it away. “I wouldn’t bet on that.” His eyes met hers. “There are many ways terror can strike your heart.”
What did that mean? Bloody hell. The man confused her, irritated her. “Why do you always manage to say things like that? Things that I can’t get my head around.”
He leaned back in his chair, much the way he had in the coffee shop. All arrogance and assurance. “You knocked me off balance from the start. You’re not the only one scared shitless here.”
“See? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about how I planned to stay away. That after I realized you’d stood me up tonight, I told myself so be it. She doesn’t want to play, then it’s her loss. Plenty more where she came from. But you know what? That doesn’t cut it for me this time.” He raised his eyebrows. “And here I am, back for more.”
An unexpected thrill trickled along her spine, but she had to question his motives. He was a different-girl-a-night man, so why was he acting like this with her? Because she had got in first, and told him to leave before he could do it to her? Was he playing games? Testing her? She’d read that people could spot a weak, powerless person at a hundred paces. Was that how he saw her?
Nathan didn’t seem the type of man to exploit the weak, or be deliberately dishonorable. Except…
“What did Caroline Longworth do that was so bad you treated her like that on the night of Naomi’s party?”
Surprise flashed in his eyes, as if that had been the last question he’d been expecting, but then he shrugged. “Water under the bridge.”
“Not to me, it isn’t. I’d really like to know.”
He leaned forward and spooned up more ice cream. “The woman doesn’t understand boundaries.”
“And?” She sensed he didn’t want to speak out of turn but pressed him anyway.
“Caroline decided, after we’d hooked up, that we should be exclusive. Told her friends that I was with her now and they should stay away.”
Erin simply stared at him for long moments, then she let out a laugh. She couldn’t help it. “And that was bad enough that you embarrassed her in front of people?”
“She lied,” he said simply. “I don’t hold with that.”
“You led Caroline to believe we were together that night,” Erin felt compelled to point out. “Isn’t that a trifle hypocritical?”
“I said I was there for someone else. I didn’t say it was you. She was the one who joined the dots.”
Erin huffed. “Not especially hard to do, since you were standing up close to me at the time.”
“People see what they want to see.”
Heck. Sometimes he could be the most exasperating man. “Let me get this straight, then. You’re holding a grudge against Caroline because she effectively cut off a major supply of women you can call on. While that remains the case, does that make me an easy option?”
He shrugged again. “The supply wasn’t that major. And there’s nothing easy about you, sugar. Any coffe
e to wash down dessert?”
Since she imagined the topic wouldn’t yield any more in the way of discussion, Erin raised her eyebrows. “It needs washing down? Were my brownies that bad?”
He grinned. “Stop fishing for compliments. I already told you they were good. Where’d you learn to bake?”
“My mother. She was a great cook.”
“Was?”
Erin nodded. “She died three years ago. She and my father were on holiday in Thailand, and the boat they were in capsized in bad weather.”
“Shit. That’s tough.”
It had been at the time. Despite Erin never having had a close relationship with them, they were her parents. She often wondered if losing them had been a factor in sending her into Justin’s arms. Perhaps in an attempt to feel that she was important, that she was needed.
“What about you? Your parents.”
“Lost them both five years back. Within two months of each other. My father died of a heart attack, and my mother just went slowly down after that. She didn’t put up much of a fight to stay around, so I heard. I was in Afghanistan, so I didn’t get back in time to say good-bye.”
“I’m so sorry,” Erin said. “It’s really hard losing parents. Do you have any brothers or sisters?
“No. Only child.”
“Like me,” Erin said wistfully. She’d often thought how great it would have been to have siblings. “I don’t think my parents could have coped with any more children. Even I was one too many.”
Nathan frowned. “They didn’t want kids?”
“I think they’d have been happy enough without me. They were really into each other, their careers.” She inhaled, realizing she’d told him more than enough. “Did your parents want any more children?”
“They couldn’t have any. Period. I was adopted.”
“Oh.” For some reason, Erin hadn’t expected that. “They must have really loved you.”
“Yeah. So, your mother, did she teach you to cook anything else?”
Another skillful change of direction. Erin let it go. She knew how painful it could be to dwell on certain subjects. “She tried. But I do best with baking. I’m going to make some cakes for the café, see how they go. Sandie, my boss, says her supplier is getting more and more expensive, so it could be a win-win.”