After Tonight

by Erin Nicholas

  There was something about the way he said naked. There was a tone in his voice or something. She felt a tingle somewhere between her chest and her thighs.

  “The physical stuff,” she said. “That isn’t what you need to practice.”

  He shrugged. “I never cuddle-nap on my couch with women. So this is new. But,” he gave her a little smug smile, “I think maybe I’m naturally good at this.”

  “This? Cuddle-napping?” she asked, using his made-up term.

  “Yeah.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  Something flickered in his eyes. “You were very comfortable.”

  She felt her eyes widen. “How do you know? I was dead asleep when you climbed onto that couch with me.”

  “Because of the sighing and wiggling.”

  Riley pushed herself up to sitting. “The what?”

  “The sighing and wiggling you did against me once I was there.”

  Do not blush. Do not blush. He’s messing with you. This is Derek. “You sure I wasn’t trying to get you to move and give me more room?”

  “Yeah, that doesn’t explain why you brought that sweet ass right back against me when I did shift back a little.”

  She blinked at him. Her sweet ass? Had he really just said that? And insinuated that, in her sleep, she’d been trying to get as close to him as possible? Come on.

  But it wasn’t like being up against him had been unpleasant.

  She pushed up from the couch, suddenly feeling antsy. He didn’t step back and they were definitely sharing some personal space, but she quickly stepped around him.

  “We’re not doing this,” she told him. “I realize that it’s nearly impossible for you to shut your libido down, but this is us.”

  “We’re not doing what?” he asked calmly, turning to face her as she put the coffee table between them. He set his hands on his hips, and the action drew her attention to his hips, then his abs, then everything between.

  Why did she suddenly have to be aware that Derek had a body? When she’d thought of him in the past, it had been with a combination of exasperation mixed with affection. He’d just been this guy. This guy who would argue with her over the color of grass. But now he was a guy who produced exasperation and affection and confusion and…fucking tingles.

  “We’re not talking about asses and we’re not spooning and we’re not going to be thinking about each other naked.”

  “You were thinking about me naked?”

  Maybe a little. “No. You were thinking about me naked earlier in the kitchen.”

  “Oh, so you weren’t thinking about me naked? Because you sure took your time getting your eyes up to mine when I answered the door.”

  “You were half-naked. It’s not like I was imagining it,” she shot back, in an admittedly weak counter.

  “But you didn’t mind.”

  She blew out a breath. This was Derek. She’d called him on his shit every time she was given a chance. “You look good without a shirt on,” she told him. “That’s just a fact. But that doesn’t mean anything. We’re us, and I’m here to show you girlfriend stuff that’s not naked stuff.”

  “We’ve never spooned before.”

  She waited for him to go on. When he didn’t, she shrugged. “And?”

  “So there was no way to know how good that would feel and how much you’d like it.”

  She sighed. She knew what he was doing. He liked to get her pissed off. So she wasn’t going to get pissed off. “I guess that’s true.”

  He looked mildly surprised that she’d agreed. “Because it did feel good.”

  Yeah, she wasn’t giving him the satisfaction of getting riled up about this. Or fighting it. She lifted a shoulder. “I guess.” It had. That didn’t need to be a big deal. It didn’t change anything.

  But instead of pressing, instead of saying something like “we could do it again”, instead of trying to get her to admit even more, or to blush, he just nodded and asked, “So I’ll see you later at the Come Again?”

  See? He teased her. But he didn’t flirt with her. There was a distinct difference. It was important to remember.

  Then she thought about his question. Yeah, he would. Where else would she go? She had work to do and she couldn’t do it at her mom’s. And there was no way she’d be going to bed before eleven. Or midnight. Or one. That was just how she was wired. Even if she was tired, she’d stay up. “I’ll be there,” she told him. “And then we’ll come back here for movies?”

  He gave her a look. “We’re definitely doing that?”

  “You have to put the time in,” she said. “If you’re going to be a bartender in a real relationship with someone who works normal hours, you’ll have to figure out how to spend time together.”

  “But you don’t work normal hours.”

  “But you’re not actually dating me. You’re practicing with me.”

  “But our practice sessions can happen during the day when other people are working.”

  “And how is that going to help you figure out how to adjust to having a real girlfriend?”

  She felt a shot of warmth go through her unexpectedly. This felt good. Arguing with Derek. That was what she should be doing with him. Not spooning him. Not pressing her “sweet ass”—and she felt a little warmer when she thought about him saying that—against him.

  “It’s not just practicing being thoughtful and sweet and romantic? It actually matters what time of day it is?”

  “This is about practical stuff like schedules and all the other things you can be doing with your mouth than what you’re used to.” She smirked. “And I feel that resisting those urges at night will be more…character building.”

  “You don’t think I can or will go down on a woman in the middle of the day?”

  Heat swept through her, and she felt her cheeks get pink. And her gaze dropped to his mouth. Damn him. He’d gotten to her after all. She swallowed. “I think it’s harder for you to come up with other things to do at night. You’re pretty programmed for a certain level of activity when the sun goes down.”

  He tipped his head. “You think you know me pretty well.”

  “I do know you pretty well.”

  “You don’t know that side of me.”

  “That’s because we don’t spend that time of day together.”

  “But now we will be.”

  Yeah, and she was going to have to try to do it without thinking about his mouth the entire time. “Right. So I’ll help you…de-program.”

  “You’ll make me want to do other things with a woman alone in my house at night?”

  “Right.”

  “No, you won’t.”

  Why the hell was she still standing here talking about this? “We’re not doing that stuff, Derek.”

  “Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be able to make me want to do other things more. Trust me.”

  She blew out a breath and started for the front door. Great, now she was going to be sitting on this couch with him, watching a movie, and thinking about the things he would rather be doing. “I’ll pick the movie. Just be sure you have popcorn. I like kettle corn.”

  Her hand was on the doorknob when he asked, “Does Lucy like kettle corn?”

  Right. The woman he was practicing all of this for. And the answer to this question about Lucy, she did know. “Okay fine, get cheddar.”

  She pulled the door open and escaped before he said anything else about Lucy. Or his mouth. Thank God. Both subjects were making Riley far jumpier than she would have liked. Or would ever admit.

  “Hey, Riley.”

  Riley looked up from the website she was finishing for her brother’s medical clinic to see Peyton pulling out the chair across the table.

  “Hey.” She grinned at the other woman. Peyton had always been a wild child. She partied hard, rebelled against most conventions, and had a mouth. Riley had always loved her. They hadn’t been super close. Peyton wasn’t a nerd at all. But she had a don
’t-fuck-with-me attitude that Riley had always admired. “How are things?”

  Peyton was with Scott Hansen now. The town cop. It was the most ironic pairing ever, and Riley loved everything about it. Scott gave Peyton some very much-needed stability, and Peyton made the by-the-book guy relax a little.

  “Good.” Peyton grinned a grin Riley had never seen from her before. It was full of satisfaction and true happiness. “Things are really good.”

  “I’m glad.” And she really was. Scott and Peyton were good for each other. Someday Riley would find that too. Not with a guy in Sapphire Falls. Not with a guy in Nebraska, God willing. But she’d eventually find someone who understood her and supported her for who she was the way Scott did for Peyton. Peyton didn’t conform to many of the small-town ideals, but she could be herself with Scott. And she didn’t have a mother who was always pointing out the ways that she was different, and who held to the idea that those differences were why she was unhappy.

  Riley pulled her focus back to Peyton as the other woman leaned in. Peyton had had a rough childhood, with a mom with mental illness and a neglectful father. Riley knew she should be grateful for having parents who were involved in her life and cared. But there was a tiny, selfish bit of her that kind of envied Peyton not having her parents meddling in her decisions.

  “I wanted to ask you a question,” Peyton said, leaning onto her forearms on the table.

  “Okay, shoot.”

  “You can probably hack any website, right?”

  Riley took her hands off her keyboard. She hadn’t been expecting that question. “Um…”

  Peyton grinned. “I’m not undercover for Scott or anything. I have an idea, but I wanted to run it past you before I mention it to him.”

  Riley ran a hand through her hair. How to answer the question? With the honest answer—which was, “yeah I can hack pretty much any website”—or the “I don’t know what you’ve heard but it’s not completely true” that she’d been giving her mother, or the safe “why do you need to know?” before spilling anything.

  “Why do you need to know?” she asked.

  Peyton laughed. “Okay, fair enough.” But she sobered almost immediately. “I don’t know how much you know about the special task force Scott is a part of, but he’s been working for a few years with a group that infiltrates sex trafficking rings and works to bring them down.”

  Riley hadn’t known that. “Wow. Really? Right here in Nebraska?”

  Peyton nodded. “It’s horrible to think about but yeah, it happens right here. He works throughout the Midwest, but there are definitely people here.”

  Riley frowned. “That’s…awful.”

  “It is. And since I’ve been involved with him, I’ve been learning a lot more and getting involved too. I’m working more as an advocate. I’ve trained to work with girls after they get out. And I’m working to raise awareness.”

  Riley nodded. Now that Peyton mentioned it, she’d seen on the town’s website that Peyton was raising money for a community project that would raise awareness and indicate that Sapphire Falls was a safe place for victims.

  “But I was thinking about it the other night when Scott was talking about how there are websites being used to find victims. They offer things like nanny positions or other jobs, or all-expense-paid trips, or internships, and people sign up and give them all their information, agree to meet them somewhere and that’s how they’re taken. I was thinking that the task force could really use someone who knows all about websites and hacking to help them track the people behind them and get them taken down.”

  Riley shook her head. “I’m sure they have access to people who are way smarter than I am.”

  Peyton grinned. “I sincerely doubt it. And we’re not talking about people who design sites. They need someone who knows how to get into sites and see what’s behind the scenes.” She leaned closer. “You hacked into a Fortune 500 company. A company with some of the highest security and tech. Right?”

  It was a Fortune 100 company actually, but she didn’t point that out. “I did. Accidentally.”

  Peyton laughed. “Accidentally? I’ll give you that you didn’t know what you were doing was wrong, but you did it very intentionally.”

  Her boss had tricked her, actually. Lied to her. Used her. Which was why the charges against her were dropped—well, that and the fact that she’d testified against him on that count as well as several others.

  “Yeah, okay, I did it.”

  “So you could easily hack into a site these jackasses put up, right?”

  “What would that accomplish?” She didn’t mind the idea of hacking sex traffickers at all, of course. Those scum of the earth deserved anything and everything that happened to them. But she wasn’t sure how hacking them could help.

  “Is there a way to hack the site so they think it’s still up but it’s not actually visible to anyone else? They have to stay active since that’s how the cops are setting up stings, but we don’t want real kids finding the sites.”

  Riley nodded. “I’m sure I could do something. We’d have to feed it fake info but yeah, that could be done.”

  Peyton grinned at her. “Awesome. I figured you could. And you could probably find their bank accounts too? Phone records, travel invoices, things like that?”

  “I could definitely do that.”

  “And you’re willing to work with Scott on this?”

  Do something more important than building websites for local merchants who did only about 10% of their actual business online because everyone could walk a few blocks to the actual store and get bonus town gossip while they picked up their supplies? Um, yeah.

  “It would be a paid position,” Peyton added.

  Even better. “Have you talked to Scott about any of this?” Riley asked.

  “I mentioned that I was going to talk to you about it.”

  Riley was surprised to feel a little streak of disappointment. This wasn’t a done deal. “Oh, okay.”

  “But they need you,” Peyton said firmly. “We have to take these people down, and the people they have working on this stuff right now just aren’t good enough.”

  Helping to stop sex trafficking. That seemed like something even Riley’s mom would approve of her doing with her “computer obsession.” “Okay, talk to Scott. Let me know what he thinks.”

  “Great.” Peyton pushed a piece of paper across the table. “And just in case you’re curious.”

  It was a list of five websites. And of course she was curious. Did this mean that she was going to go in and start poking around even without Scott’s full permission?

  Oh yeah.

  “Got it.” She gave Peyton a smile.

  Peyton pushed her chair back and stood, but hesitated.

  “Something else?” Riley asked.

  Peyton looked like she wanted to say more but finally shook her head. “Just check out the sites. I’ll find you tomorrow and we can chat.”

  Riley nodded and watched Peyton head out the door. Wow, Peyton Wells leaving the bar before midnight. Things really did change.

  For the next two hours, Riley scoured the websites Peyton had given her behind a privacy setting that even the Pentagon would have a hard time getting through. And by the time it was last call, Riley had made a very important decision.

  She was going to help take these guys down even if Scott didn’t give permission for her to work with the task force. They had to go down, and she could be a part of it. She not only had the skills, but thanks to being back in Sapphire Falls, she had the time. Not to mention the desire to prove to the world—okay, and herself—that she wasn’t a complete screwup.

  6

  “You ever sat on this couch with a girl and not made out with her?” Riley asked as they settled onto the two ends of Derek’s sofa.

  He reached for the remote and gave her a glance. “Of course.”

  “Who?” She picked two pieces of cheddar popcorn from the bowl she held and tossed them into her m
outh.

  “Peyton. Hannah. My mom.” He flipped through the settings on his TV to get to the DVR.

  Riley laughed. “So the answer is actually no.”

  “And now you,” he commented as he settled back into the couch and reached for a handful of popcorn.

  Okay, cheddar was good. But kettle corn was better. Riley was right on that one.

  “So you’ve never sat on this couch with a woman you were attracted to and not made out?” Riley clarified her question.

  Derek concentrated on chewing and starting the movie. Because the answer to the question was actually “not until tonight”. Because, dammit, he was attracted to Riley.

  Thirty-seven minutes later, she was fast asleep. And she’d barely touched the popcorn. Cheddar was Lucy’s favorite, and if he was going to have movie nights with her, that was probably a good thing to know. But now Derek wished he hadn’t asked and had just gotten the kettle corn Riley had wanted. At the time, after all the talking about mouths and actually saying the words “go down on a woman” to Riley, the mention of Lucy had seemed like a good way to refocus what was going on between them. Which was nothing, really.

  And if he had been picturing Riley spread out on his coffee table in nothing but a smile and her sassy attitude, well…he was only human.

  He was also only human right now.

  She looked gorgeous. Since they were sharing the couch, she’d fallen asleep propped up in the corner. She wore a hoodie over a tank top and loose cotton shorts that hit her mid-thigh. The hoodie was open, one breast pressing against the tank. She wasn’t wearing a bra. He could tell if he looked closely. Which he wasn’t. Anymore.

  Her face was relaxed, and her hair was escaping from the messy bun she had on top of her head. And he could hardly count how many times in his life he’d seen her asleep. Several. Many. Yet, for some reason, tonight it hit him how damned beautiful she was. Which meant he should probably go to bed. Because he’d never had an urge to run his hand up Riley Ames’s leg before, and right now he was having a hard time fighting it.