So he took a wet cloth and wiped her hands clean. When he was done with the first, she threaded her fingers through his hair and trailed them along the line of his cheek to his chin. She tilted his head up, ducked down, and kissed him.
If there was one perk to this whole mess, it was that Carys was here, kissing him, instead of being on a plane headed halfway around the world. No reason they couldn’t enjoy the hell out of that upside.
He stepped in front of her, his hands firm at her waist, and pressed his tongue to her lips. She opened for him and wrapped her legs around him, pulling his body closer.
A door opened somewhere else in the house, and then there were footsteps up the stairs. Niko broke the kiss, ducking his head against her shoulder. She moved her hands up and down his back as they caught their breath.
Bennett, that little shit, had been more obnoxious than ever since their argument. He seemed to find an excuse to seek them out, interrupting them whenever they thought they might have a private moment. Niko was sure he was doing it on purpose, while Carys just thought they had bad timing. She kissed his cheek and slid down the length of his body. “Come on,” she said, taking his hand. “Let’s find something to do but not outside. It’s too damn hot.”
Each of them leaning on either side of the hallway, they debated their options.
“Music?”
Niko grimaced. He was too restless for music, and he didn’t know songs angry enough to play. Besides, he didn’t really want Carys to dwell at this point.
“TV?”
He smiled but shook his head. Whenever they watched TV, they always ended up making out. That was great, but with Bennett being a pain in the ass, it was begging for interruption.
“Lunch?” he signed, raising an eyebrow in question.
She cocked her head, considering. “I could eat. I’m not starved, but by the time we put something together, I might be legitimately hungry.”
It was hard work to keep the laughter off his face. If he could have, he would’ve informed her that was way too in depth an analysis for lunch.
They went into the kitchen and started up the great debate of all couples: what to eat. Carys grimaced at the thought of sandwiches. When she mentioned soup, Niko pointed outside at the heat they’d just escaped.
“Right. You’re right.” She put her hands on her hips, humming. “Oh, I know. How about spaghetti?”
He perked up. Spaghetti would be great. He went to the pantry to check out what pastas she had, but the glass jar she typically used to store her spaghetti noodles was empty. He turned back to her, holding the empty jar and his suggested replacement, penne pasta.
She was standing at the refrigerator. “Oh, no. I have a zucchini.” She brandished the thing.
He blinked.
“I thought we could make zoodles.”
He blinked.
“Look.” She moved to a cupboard and took out a cylindrical contraption of some sort. She put the zucchini in it and started to twist it. Noodle-like pieces started to emerge in long curly ques. “See? Zoodles.”
Niko stared at her, horrified. Was she really suggesting they use zucchini instead of pasta? He put down the jar and penne. “I-t-a-l-i-a-n.” He patted his chest emphatically. One didn’t mess with an Italian’s pasta, for fuck’s sake.
“I swear it tastes the same,” she said.
He glared. “No,” he signed.
“Really, it gets covered in sauce.”
“No.”
He could tell she was fighting a smile. “I already made the zoodles. Just try it.”
“No.”
“Fine.” She turned, crossing her arms over her chest and staring him down, still fighting a smile. “Then you can starve.”
He shook his head back and forth in a mocking way. Joke was on her. He had a truck and a wallet.
Niko heard Bennett coming down the stairs, so it wasn’t a surprise when he appeared in the kitchen. The younger man ignored him, going straight to his sister, hands already flying. Watching Carys’s face, Niko had a sneaking suspicion Bennett had figured out how to interrupt their lunch.
“Can it wait?” Carys asked both out loud and with her hands. “We were just about to have lunch.”
Niko watched the flurry of words, narrowing his eyes. They spoke way too fast for him to catch anything. He thought he saw the word “need,” but that might’ve been his bias. Of course Bennett needed something. He always did.
A reluctant frown tugged at the corners of Carys’s lips, and Niko knew what was coming next. “You’re right. We didn’t have set plans. It wouldn’t be a big deal.” She looked at Niko, her expression apologetic. “Benny’s having problems with his cell phone, and he wants me to go with him to the store to troubleshoot. It wouldn’t take more than hour.”
She got to her feet, but before she could get more than a step, he reached out to grab her around the wrist. She looked to him, confused. He held her gaze for a long moment before he looked at Bennett. “You can w-a-i-t.”
Bennett’s look turned dark.
“It’s not a big deal, Nik,” Carys said quietly.
He was done with quiet. So done. “Yes,” he signed. Yes, it was a big deal. He turned to face Bennett. “L-e-t her eat.” He mimed shoveling food in his mouth in lieu of the right word for eat. Maybe he looked like a fool, but he couldn’t let it go. Not today.
“Here we go again,” Carys translated for Benny. “Have you prepared another lecture for me? Did you find an English-to-ASL dictionary online? What a great circus trick.” She furrowed her brow and looked to Niko. “Lecture? Again?”
He grimaced, but Bennett was already filling in the blanks. Carys kept up the translation even though Bennett was talking to her. “Your knight in shining armor wants to rescue you from your horrible life. He thinks he knows you and what you want better than me. Now he thinks I want you to starve to death? Dramatic asshole, creating bullshit where—”
Niko slammed his open palm on the table, drawing both their attention. He hesitated, but fuck if he was going to let Bennett speak for him. “No. Not what I say.” He flexed his hands into fists, trying to call on his limited word bank. He looked at Carys. “I say to him you are important. Your happy important. Not his happy a-l-w-a-y-s.”
Carys was staring at him, her mouth hanging open, and Niko resisted the urge to squirm in his seat. He didn’t want to know how badly he’d mangled that. She blinked, distracted as Bennett started to sign again.
“This is bull,” she said for him. “He’s trying to make you angry with me.” She frowned. “Benny, I don’t think that’s true.”
“No,” Niko signed. “You brother.” Bennett was a pain in the ass, but Niko was well aware he was Carys’s pain in the ass, and that was something he could relate to. There was no point in trying to make Carys choose between the two of them. Bennett would win.
“T-o-l-d you. She thinks you more important. She thinks her dream no important. At l-e-a-s-t her lunch important. Let her eat.” He signed the last word as a mime, pretending to shove food in his mouth.
“Do you think I want her to starve? She’s not going to starve,” Carys said for Bennett. His face was turning red by that point. “This is bullshit. What? You learn a few words, and now you’re going to have something to say every time I talk to my sister?”
Bennett faced Carys then, his hands moving faster than ever. Carys didn’t translate, but she answered him out loud. “Why are you asking me that? Benny, I don’t mind staying. I told you.”
When Carys didn’t translate again, Niko tapped her arm.
Carys glanced between him and Bennett, her face pinched. “He wants to know if I really wanted to go to France.”
Bingo. “Tell him t-r-u-t-h.”
She looked conflicted and sighed as she turned back to Bennett. “Yeah, Benny. I wanted to go. I really wanted to go. But it’s okay, you know?” she said quickly. “There are a lot of things more important than a job that would take me away from home for half a year.
”
Bennett stared at her, his eyes wide, and it was all Niko could do not to fist pump.
Seriously. It was a job in France. How had he not known it was something Carys would’ve wanted?
Bennett’s eyes narrowed again, and he signed. “You see, he’s trying to stir things up between us, to make you angry at me,” Carys said. She shook her head. “Benny, I’m not—”
“Why are you still here?” Bennett burst out, glaring daggers at Niko.
He wanted to say because someone needed to have Carys’s back. He wanted to tell him he wasn’t going away unless Carys told him to.
“Nik.” Carys touched his arm, the expression on her face apologetic. “Do you think you can give us a minute?”
Niko stared at her for a long moment. Somehow, he remembered the doctor she’d been dating when they first met and how Bennett had effectively driven him right out of her life.
But he nodded and stood. “Home,” he signed, because he couldn’t be there anymore.
He found he couldn’t leave without the last word. He took a step past her and then stepped back. He put a firm hand to her back, pulling her toward him, and then he kissed her. It was a good kiss, long and firm. It wasn’t a showy kiss. It wasn’t meant to disgust or provoke Bennett, because it wasn’t for his benefit at all. He just needed Carys to know. Know what, he couldn’t have said.
When he broke the kiss, she blinked up at him with unfocused eyes. He held his gaze a moment longer before he let her go and walked away.
It was all bullshit.
What Niko wanted was to be able to say, if Carys was about to kick him to the curb at her brother’s whim, was fuck the both of them. Carys was a big girl, after all. She knew what she was doing. She knew what she was doing every time she gave something up, whether it was a job or a man, for her brother. Whatever. So maybe he wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good catch, but he’d been good to her. If she was going to play him like she’d played that doctor she was seeing at the beginning of the summer, he was better off without that kind of person in his life.
He should’ve been able to brush it off. Either she was going to ditch him or she wasn’t. No need to be pissed as hell at her before she did something, and if she did, she wasn’t worth it. Simple as that.
So the fact his stomach hurt annoyed the shit out of him. The fact his fingers itched to pick up his phone and text her made him want to smash the damn thing. Text her what?
Please, please don’t leave me again? Right. That was going to happen.
Instead, he sat staring at the TV, trying to pretend he was concentrating. He grunted when, an hour into a movie, he had to admit to himself he had no idea what the hell was going on.
He needed a hobby or, better yet, a job. The construction thing hadn’t gone too badly once he got the hang of it.
Back when this had all gone down, Jamie had suggested it could be a matter of finding someone who would work with him, but that had seemed impossible at the time. Now, though, he’d managed to memorize a decent speech in the space of a day. He could learn enough words to get him through an interview with the help of an interpreter. He didn’t have to like it any more than Bennett had to like the idea of using someone other than his sister as an interpreter.
Eventually, afternoon turned into evening, and evening turned into night. Niko had drifted into a nap when a knock sounded. Confused, he shook his head hard, sure he was half-dreaming, but the knock persisted, so he got up.
The minute Niko opened the door, Carys was on him. She dove for him, taking his face in her hands and kissing him, and Niko stumbled back from the force. He wrapped an arm around her waist on instinct, steadying her, and braced his other hand on the wall.
Whoa.
Niko had no idea what the hell was going on, but he wasn’t about to question it. Carys was a passionate woman, and her kisses, her hands on his body, were always eager. This was something altogether different. He cupped the side of her neck and slid his fingers into her hair. She whimpered into his mouth.
Steady now, Niko took his hand off the wall and wrapped his arm around her, pulling her close against him. He was relieved to be holding her. That couldn’t be denied. His lips, pressed to hers, curved up at the corners, and the ache in his chest he’d been ignoring all day eased.
He opened his eyes, and as though she felt his gaze on hers, she did, too. Their kisses turned softer, and Niko knew. If she’d walked away from him for her brother, he wouldn’t have been okay with that. It wasn’t a comfortable knowledge, but right then, he didn’t care. She’d chosen him.
Breaking their kiss, he ran the tip of his nose along hers, one hand cupped to her face as he caressed her cheek with his thumb. There was so much he wanted to say to her.
“Talk to me,” she said.
He furrowed his brow, his thoughts muddled from her kisses. The statement didn’t make sense, and yet, he knew she wasn’t trying to be cruel.
“Talk to me.” Carys brought his hand to her lips, kissing his knuckles as though it was a precious thing. “You talked for me. Now talk to me.”
He stared at her for a moment. Her eyes were dancing, her lips turned up in a smile. He ran his knuckles along her cheek.
She was right. He’d made a fool of himself in front of her asshole brother. This was Carys.
Niko raised his hands. “I want good things for you. Your life. You w-e-r-e happy. For France. Want you happy. Happy in job. Happy...” Happy with me, he almost signed.
She pressed her hands to his side, pulling him in closer, and pressed her lips to his. “You make me happy,” she whispered against his skin.
He pulled back a fraction. “You crazy.” Not knowing the sign for crazy, he made the old middle-school taunt of winding a finger around his ear.
Carys smiled at him indulgently. “More like…” She made a pair of signs and waited until he signed back. She giggled, and he arched an eyebrow at the obvious mischief in her eyes. “Bad taste. I have bad taste. In men.”
Smirking, he grabbed her by her sides and tickled her, making her shriek and grab him by the wrists. They wrestled, her ducking under his arm and him pulling her back by the loop in her jeans.
They were breathless by the time he had her caged with his hands on either side of her head and her back up against the wall. His kissed her open-mouthed as they breathed in each other’s air. Her eyes locked with his, and he needed to be inside her. He considered hitching her leg up around her waist and taking her right there, but no. There were better ways.
He cupped his hands over her ass and lifted. She got the idea and wrapped her legs around him. He kissed her and kissed her as he walked toward the bedroom and laid her down in the middle of the bed.
She was beautiful; his gorgeous, infuriating woman. He knelt over her at the foot of the bed and just looked at her.
“What are you staring at?” she asked, a blush tinting her cheeks. She reached up and traced the pad of a thumb along his chin.
“You,” he signed.
“What about me?” She ran her thumb over his lips.
He took the tip of her thumb in his mouth, watching her. There were words on the tips of his…
Fingers.
“I love you,” he signed.
The way her whole face lit up was better than anything Niko had ever seen in his life.
“I love you,” he signed again. “I love you. I—”
She put her hand over his, twined their fingers together, and pulled him down on her.
It was late morning, and Niko was starving, but he’d be damned if he wanted to get out of bed now. Some things were better than eggs, bacon, and coffee for breakfast. Besides, his mouth was preoccupied.
Niko pulled back slightly, breaking the latest of a million kisses they’d shared that morning. Despite the fact she was all he’d seen for hours now, the sight of her made him smile all over again. Her eyes were hooded, her cheeks were flushed, and her smile was soft as she looked back at him.
Just as
he was about to duck his head for yet another kiss, his phone chimed with a text. He grimaced but otherwise ignored it. There was no way he was looking at anything but the woman in his bed for a while longer.
As though to prove he meant business, he kissed Carys again. This time, he rolled over her, his fingers tickling along her side so she gasped into his mouth. He hooked his hand under her thigh, pulling her against him. She moaned, and it was her who broke this kiss.
She licked her lips, eyes gone dark with lust and her breath erratic as her heartbeat. “Again? You know, neither us is going to be able to walk soon.”
He smirked and waggled his eyebrows. Walking was overrated, but he wasn’t ready to go again.
Yet.
More sex or not, Niko liked the feel of her nude body against his. He’d liked falling asleep with her and waking up to her hands wandering his body. Except for the mandatory bathroom trip, he liked not getting out of bed for hours on end. Right then, he was content with nude kissing, so he ducked his head.
Carys’s phone chimed with the ringtone she’d set specifically for her brother, and almost instantly, her body language changed. She stilled except to turn her head toward the nightstand where her phone rested. Niko tensed and waited for her to reach for it.
She didn’t. She turned back to look up at him and smiled again, cupping his cheek and pulling him down to her.
Had she just chosen him over her brother? That probably shouldn’t have made him as, uh, excited as it did, but he wasn’t going to complain. Not when Carys was reaching between them to take him in her hands.
Her phone chimed again with her normal ringtone. Then his chimed. Twice.
They looked at each other, and Niko frowned. Something was going on.
He rolled away from her, reaching for his cell phone on his nightstand as she reached for hers.
The first message, which had been sent over an hour earlier, was from Del, informing him he was coming to lunch at her place and he should bring Carys and Bennett. Niko scratched his head, wondering how he had missed so many texts. The next few were more of the same, the tone getting increasingly more annoyed as noon approached.
Spaces Between Notes Page 22
