by Ally Blake
“I thought you already had. By the cab. And at his office.”
“I kissed him again.”
“Where?”
“At his family home. In his childhood bedroom, with sailing ships and baseball mitts watching over us.”
“You hussy.”
“It’s worse. My hand was on his...you know...when his mum walked in on us.”
Lissy clutched her stomach and fell to the couch they had staked out at The Cave a couple of hours earlier.
“We barely spoke on the way home after,” Saskia said. “Then he walked me to the door, kissed me on the cheek and went on home.”
Between clutches at breath Lissy managed to get out, “You tell me I crave dysfunctional relationships—but, honey, you take the cake.”
“It’s not dysfunctional. We’re merely...renegotiating the terms of our mutually beneficial agreement.”
“Until one day I come to work and find a tie hanging on the door handle.”
“No,” Saskia said. Then, “I don’t think so anyway. We haven’t discussed it.”
“You haven’t discussed sex? Sweetie, I saw his photo. You don’t discuss sleeping with that. You just hold on tight and enjoy the ride.”
Saskia swallowed. Not that it helped. The lump in her throat at the thought of holding on to Nate Mackenzie, enjoying Nate Mackenzie, riding Nate Mackenzie was immovable. Much like the guy himself. From the second he’d come knocking on her email he’d loomed larger than life.
“It was right that we stopped,” Saskia said, straightening.
“Why on earth?” Lissy asked, eyes large with astonishment.
“It’s complicated.”
“It’s really not. You take your clothes off, kiss a bit, he puts his—”
“It’s temporary!” Saskia nearly shouted to stop Lissy from putting any more images in her head. Nate was naked in there now, as it was, his hot-as-a-furnace skin all glistening with sweat.
“The majority of love affairs are temporary, hon. But that doesn’t diminish the possibility the next one might become something more.”
“Nate’s not a possibility, Lis. He’s like the door of a bank safe—all big and hard and shiny and tempting, but impossible to get through.”
“Knock harder. There’s treasure behind that there door.”
“Maybe,” Saskia said, frowning.
“Oh, sweetie,” Lissy said, dragging herself upright to hold Saskia by both cheeks. “You should see the mope you have on right now. You like the guy. For real. He might be pretending, but you’re not.”
Saskia shook her head—hopelessly, as it turned out, because Lissy had caught the arm of a busboy and was flirting him into getting fresh drinks for them. Leaving Saskia to think it out on her own.
She liked kissing him. The man had skill.
She liked pretending to like him. It was great fun. A caper.
She liked Nate too. How could she not? Every layer she managed to laboriously shave away only revealed more to like beneath. And more to make her certain that despite the perfect appearance, Nate was a true fixer-upper.
But... But what if she found the combination to unlock that door and discovered that his odds at finding and keeping love were as dim as the rest of the poor saps out there? What hope did she have then?
“Good God,” Lissy uttered. “No wonder you felt him up all over.”
Saskia blinked and turned to Lissy who was staring at some point over Saskia’s shoulder.
“Here’s a love formula for you: those shoulders plus that jaw line plus oh, my word, what a mouth equals...”
Right as the band hit a crescendo of onerous drums, screeching sax and groaning bass guitar, Saskia turned and found herself looking right at Nate Mackenzie. He was making his way through the crowded bar, smiling at anyone who caught his eye, and unless it was a coincidence of the highest degree he was looking for her.
“What’s he doing here?” Lissy asked.
“I have no idea. I mean, I might have mentioned I’d be here tonight, but not in an invitation sort of way.”
“Well, he’s here—and he’s not alone.”
Saskia dragged her eyes away long enough to see Nate had an entourage: a collection of shiny gorgeous things behind him, looking around The Cave, taking in the mismatched chairs, the shabby old couches covered in faded velvet, the bad acoustics, the scratched and dented vintage signage.
Her heart thundered against her ribs as her hand went to her hair, which had long since gone to curl. Her skinny jeans, ballet flats and layered tanks were good only for dancing, which meant the likelihood was that her mascara had long since turned to panda eyes.
Finally Nate’s eyes found hers. Dark, blue, intense. She lifted a hand and his mouth cocked into a half smile which was different from the one he bestowed upon strangers. Gentler, warmer—just for her.
I know this man, she thought in a moment of wonder. I’ve kissed this man. I’d really like to kiss him again.
Lissy was right, she thought with a groan. She wasn’t one hundred percent pretending any more.
She stood as he approached; his suit was slick, he had not a hair out of place, and a beam of light slanted across his stunning face, picking out his sensuous mouth and sapphire eyes.
“Beautiful,” she thought. But before she could catch the word she realised she’d said it out loud.
Nate’s brow furrowed a moment, before it cleared and he laughed. As if hearing such a thing from her wasn’t so unexpected after all.
A loud clearing of the throat brought Saskia’s attention back to Lissy who was standing behind her batting her lashes. At Nate and at the big guy behind Nate.
“Nate,” said Saskia, “this is Lissy—my friend and business partner. Lissy Carmichael—Nate Mackenzie.”
“Love Formula research bunny, in the flesh,” Lissy said, giving Nate’s hand a good shake.
Saskia could have killed Lissy. She honest to goodness could have thrown her over the back of the chair for that one. But she had to put on a smile as Nate’s gaze skewed back to her.
“Better than a lab rat,” she said.
Thankfully that brought laughter which hummed across her chest. “True.”
Lissy sat down and grinned over her cocktail.
“More trouble than she’s worth?” Nate murmured against her cheek as he moved around behind her.
“You have no idea.”
When his entourage appeared through the haze like a band of perfection Nate placed a hand in the small of her back. There was no suppressing her shiver at his light touch. Nate must have felt it. Might even have liked it, if the way he spread his fingers around to her waist was anything to go by.
“Saskia Bloom, this is Gabe Hamilton—my friend and business partner.”
Saskia looked up—and up—and shook hands with about the biggest man she’d ever seen.
“Pleasure,” said Gabe in a voice as deep as he was tall. He drew an attractive blonde to his side. “This is Paige. My fiancée.”
“Next up we have Mae and Clint,” Nate said. “It’s they we have to thank for bringing us together.”
Mae grinned, while Clint seemed to be eyeing the bar.
Saskia waved them all onto ottomans and over-soft couches—whatever they could drag around the low coffee table.
Clint’s backside had barely hit a chair before Mae put in her drinks order. “After the dinner we’ve just had I need a big blue jug of something sweet and deadly.”
Saskia watched all this with Nate’s hot fingers pressed against her side, pretty much diffusing everything else to about half strength.
Then he said, “And you know Bamford, of course.”
Well, that got Saskia’s attention. She hadn’t even noticed the scruffy-looking gaming king off
to the side of the group, sorting the M&M’S in his palm into colour blocks and then throwing them into his mouth one at a time. From the corner of her mouth, to Nate she said, “I’ve never met him before.”
Nate’s eyes widened. “But didn’t you say—”
“I said Lissy had worked on his website for a time. And found him a pain in the ass.”
Nate ran a hand up the back of his head and swore, looking comically pained.
She asked, “What’s going on here?”
“Celebratory dinner. The contract’s all done, signed. Thanks, in part, to you.”
“Me?”
“You inspired us to schlep him over to M&M’S World in Vegas and it put him over the edge.”
“Wow. I mean...that’s fabulous! Do I get a finder’s fee?”
His blue eyes snagged on hers and his hand dropped from the back of his head. His mouth kicked up into a half smile. Anxiety forgotten. It’s a gift, she thought, glowing from the inside out.
“What you get,” Nate said, eyes smiling deep into hers, making her glow brighter still, “is the chance to help a friend get through this night before he strangles someone.”
A friend, Saskia thought, liking the term a whole lot. Because the truth was she really liked Nate Mackenzie. And friendship sounded a heck of a lot less disastrous than the feelings buzzing around inside her, starting where his hand rested possessively against her hip.
“Dinner was atrocious,” he continued. “The guy complained so much, about everything, I kept waiting for the chef to appear from the kitchen brandishing a carving knife. Then I remembered you’d be here. You were my last hope to make this evening anything other than horrendous.”
Wow. If Saskia hadn’t already thought herself on the other side of pretending, the guy had just pushed her over the edge with a neat little shove.
She widened her eyes in warning that he owed her for this, and moved to meet Bamford Smythe.
“I’m Saskia Bloom of SassyStats. My colleague did some work on your website last year. It’s an honour to finally meet you.”
Bamford blinked as if coming to from another plane. And then Saskia saw the direction of his gaze. His eyes were all on Lissy, who was bouncing in the chair as the band lurched into a grunge version of “Dancing Queen.”
“Did you meet Lissy? She did the graphics for your site,” Saskia said, nice and loud.
Lissy looked up from her cocktail, her straw caught between her teeth. She saw who Saskia was talking to and her jaw dropped. Saskia knew her friend well enough to see the war going on behind her pale green eyes. Bamford was famously difficult, but in their circles he was a god. And behind the scruff he was actually pretty cute.
Lissy twirled the straw with her tongue, just once around the rim of her glass, before she pressed to her feet and thrust herself deep inside the computer genius’s personal space. Saskia sent out a word of prayer on Bamford Smythe’s behalf.
Saskia turned back to Nate with a smile. “How’s that?”
Nate leaned in so as to be heard. “You are my very own little miracle-worker. Again.”
“It’s a knack.”
“One of these days I’m going to have to repay you for all this. Properly.”
Right, Saskia thought, flinching on the inside. And there she’d been liking the guy, because somehow she’d let herself forget that at the heart of everything was the deal. Not friendship, not desire. Just a tenuous arrangement that stretched between now and a wedding.
“It’s fine,” she said, waving it away. “Happy to help. Puppy Dog–syndrome, remember?”
Nate angled his head, motioning to a quieter part of the bar. Saskia grabbed her beanie, scarf and her ex-army jacket with all its helpful pockets for money, ID and the like, hooking it over her arm, extricating herself from the group and following.
“Drink?” he asked, once they’d found themselves a spot at the end of the bar.
“Ta,” she said, perching on a bar stool.
“I’m paying,” he shot back as she reached into a pocket.
“Honestly, you don’t have to. Thanks to you, for the first time in months I have money to burn, remember?” There, now he’d been reminded too.
“Doesn’t mean a guy can’t buy you a drink,” he said. “I insist.”
She’d never had a guy insist before. Pretend to, sure. But the difference was clear. And it felt unexpectedly nice. Oh, what the heck? she thought, and let him.
“In recompense I’ll even let you take notes just this once,” he said with a smile as the bartender slid them each a bottle of imported beer. “‘Nate’s Moves on a Date.’”
“So we’re on a date all of a sudden, are we?” she asked, spinning to press her back against the bar and then taking a swig.
“You tell me.”
She opened her mouth to tell him...something. But nothing came out. At the directness of his gaze, the glimmer of something warm and relaxed deep in his eyes, his nearness, his latent heat, her tummy was twisting and diving too much for a quick comeback to occur to her.
“Some place you’ve got here,” he said, letting her off the hook with a grin that offered a now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t dimple. “It’s got a good energy.”
Saskia leant her elbows back on the soft old wood and sighed. “I love it. Since uni it’s been my home away from home. They make the fattest, crunchiest fries on the planet and their coffee is the absolute best.”
“Only one thing—”
“What’s with the music?” she finished.
They both listened a moment to the dissonance of deep rumbling ABBA lyrics cranking out of the fuzzy old speakers.
“I think it’s meant to be ironic.”
“It’s terrible.”
Saskia’s teeth gripped the lip of her beer bottle as she grinned. “Yeah, I know. It’s a dive. The lead guitarist in the band is the owner’s nephew to whom he pays nothing. But I think there’d be a revolt if it ever changed.”
Nate’s eyes dipped to her mouth, then to her throat as she took a swig and swallowed. She tucked a foot onto the long metal footstand running around along the bottom of the bar and held on with all her might.
Nate’s eyes remained narrowed in her direction, his fingers tapping on the bar, as if he was deciding whether or not to say what was really on his mind. Then a muscle twitched in his jaw. “I’ve been meaning to call to thank you for coming to lunch with my family.”
“They were convinced?”
“Convinced I don’t deserve you.”
“I am rather adorable when I want to be.”
His mouth kicked at one corner again, but there was no humour in his eyes. Dark clouds had swirled in, taking too strong a hold. His hand lifted and he brushed a knuckle down her cheek. “I think you’re rather adorable even when you haven’t a clue.”
“Nate,” she said, in warning, or maybe in entreaty.
Either way, Nate lifted himself from the stool and moved around in front of her slowly, till she was trapped between the man and the bar, the heat of his skin sending her nerves into meltdown.
She tried to tell herself they’d done more than enough renegotiating. That friendship was all she wanted. That she feared the treasure behind the vault doors was too rich even for her.
But then his fingers slid beneath her hair and he bent down till his lips were a whisper away from hers. “I need to kiss you, Saskia. Right now.”
And before she knew it he was kissing her—as if his life depended on it. Her hands slid up the back of his jacket and her leg twined around his strong calves, till she disappeared into heat, desire and sumptuous sensation.
He pulled her to her feet. Her flat shoes landed on the sticky floor with a thump. And when his mouth moved to her ear, sweeping a shot of breath over the lobe, her knees all but gave ou
t from under her. His arm was at her back, dragging her against his body, and his readiness, his need, had her biting her lip to stop from whimpering.
Then his voice, deep and insistent was at her ear. “I lied. I didn’t come here because of Bamford. I have not been able to stop thinking about you since last weekend. About your warmth, your sweetness, your glorious mouth. There’s this light inside of you, Saskia Bloom, and all I have to do is touch you and it burns me up right along with it.” He lifted away, just enough to take her face in both hands, look deep into her eyes and say, “I want you. And I’m not enough of a gentleman to pretend I don’t know you want me too. Let’s get the hell out of here.”
Saskia’s eyes flicked between Nate’s, lured by his incessant heat. He wanted her. While her whole body throbbed from wanting him.
Yet a little voice in the back of her head whispered just loud enough to be heard above the rush of blood. He might want her now, but this was not a man who would ever wonder how he lived without her, which was ultimately what she wanted.
She licked her lips, and when he looked like he was coming back for seconds she put a hand to his chest. Fighting the urge to hook her finger through his shirt and lose herself in his kiss. In his everything.
“Nate?” she croaked.
“Yes, Saskia?’ he said, his voice not much clearer than hers.
“I’m not sure this is smart.”
“Screw smart.”
Her blood filled with liquid fire, meaning she had to gather every last shred of sanity she could find and said, “I’m not sure I have it in me. I finished high school a year early, I have first-class honours in Applied Mathematics; smart is my fallback position. And I think we should fall back.”
He fell back not an inch. In fact he might even have pressed a little closer. Close enough that the scent of him filled her nostrils and made her head spin.
She’d told Nate once she never said never, but the less fanciful truth was she simply found it hard to say no. And with Nate leaning into her, all hot and male and husky with desire, she’d never wanted to say no less in her entire life.
But from nowhere some kind of latent self-protection mechanism rose out of the mist. “It’s not real.”
