by Ally Blake
“I had some free time.”
“So says the man who made me consider keeping smelling salts on my person in case he passed out at the mere mention of anything deep and meaningful.”
She switched on her machine, set up a pair of espresso glasses and reached for a pitcher of milk. She came out of the fridge and leapt out of her skin when she found Nate just behind her, his eyes roving over her hair.
When he reached out to her, her wide eyes followed his hand. And just like that she was back in the bar, her heart racing, warmth tugging low in her belly, not able to quite catch her breath. Wondering how she was possibly going to find it in her to deny him a second time...
“You have paint in your hair,” he said, pulling forward a strand that was white from root to tip.
Right.
“I’m renovating,” she muttered, moving quickly to her new butcher’s sink to madly wash out the paint. And to silently yell at herself to get a grip!
Nate had agreed to move into a holding pattern. The fact that he was here with the dossier proved it. He was trying to uphold his end of the deal. Perhaps even going the extra mile to “repay” her in other ways, as he’d out-and-out told her he’d wanted to do.
Glancing up from beneath her wet hair, she saw him taking in the gorgeous new wooden cabinets she’d installed herself, the deep turquoise walls and tiny red tiles, and the old vinyl floor she’d yet to replace, before his bluer than blue eyes landed on her. And her now dripping hair. She tucked it behind her ear.
“New?” he asked.
“As of about three days ago.”
“And I can smell paint.”
“That was this morning.”
“You’ve had a house full of contractors?” he asked, both eyebrows lifting towards his hairline.
“I did most of it myself.”
“By yourself?” he asked.
“Mostly. I haven’t tackled the electrics, so don’t panic. You’re safe.”
His mouth kicked at one corner. Safe? As if he’d felt unsafe before? Afraid she might jump him at any instant? Maybe he was right to worry. He nearly filled her small kitchen, and catching his scent with every breath was making her head spin.
She gripped the sink and leaned back. “It came to a bit of a standstill after my ex took off with all my stuff, so I’ve gone a bit crazy this week because it’s the first chance I’ve had to do so in so long.”
“I thought you said it was just your TV?” he said, his eyes pinning her to the spot.
“And my surround sound.”
“And...?”
She twisted her mouth, wondering if she oughtn’t just blow him off, change the subject, flash her boobs, anything not to have to talk about that. But he was looking at her in that way he did—interested and protective. As if should Stu be in the room he’d no longer be attached to his man parts. And then there was the fact of the dossier, sitting on her small red Formica kitchen table.
She checked the coffee grounds, then rested her hands on the settings. And in a rush of breath, she admitted, “And my computers, my books, CDs, DVDs, coffee maker, toaster, every piece of furniture. He wiped out my bank balance and took all my shoes. My neighbour saw him back up the truck, and thought we were moving. He left Ernest, a couple of tins of the only brand of dog food that he doesn’t like, a phone bill in my name that would cripple a small country and backed the truck into my car before disappearing into the sunset.”
She turned on the coffee machine so it filled the air with the noise of coffee beans crushing and the delirious scent of the same. When the coffees were made she turned back to find Nate had shoved a hip against the kitchen bench. His thumbs went into the waistband of his jeans, so his hands framed the contents therein.
He said, “Hence the debt?”
“Hence the debt.”
Nate looked around again, seeming to see her place with a fresh eye. “Have you tracked him down?”
“Stu? Good God, no.” The note he’d left had been more than she could take. “I’m fine now. I have a job that’s getting more and more successful, I have a roof over my head, I have a cute sugar daddy—what more do I need?”
Nate’s eyes were slanted to her, a frown above his nose—until her meaning dawned and the frown turned into a smile. And then a deep laugh filled her small kitchen, before bouncing around inside the cavity of her chest awhile.
Needing something to do with her hands other than place them on the big man in her kitchen, she shoved a double espresso at him, grabbed her own coffee and the dossier and ducked past him back into the large main room, which was now blistering with heat from the fire. At least she assumed it was the fire. But there was no way she was about to dim it—that would be as good as saying Is it hot in here or is it just me?
“The place was barely inhabitable when I bought it,” she said, giving him the grand tour. “Decades-old wallpaper dangling off the walls. Holes in the ceiling. A bathroom floor near rotted through. The ultimate fixer-upper.”
“And you are a sucker for a new project?” he said, pulling from nowhere a comment she’d made in passing weeks back.
Once again Saskia had to remind herself—just because he looked a little ruffled, and rumpled, and faded, and warm, and cuddly, and was saying nice things about her home, it didn’t mean he was any closer to wanting what she wanted from life than he was a few days ago.
“Impressive,” he added, finishing his turning circle close enough that she could smell the rain on his clothes. Feel the heat of his skin pressing in on her even more than the fire at her back. He smiled down at her, as if oblivious to the effect he was having. “A woman who can change a lightbulb all on her own.”
When, under the effect of all that nearness, the ground felt as if it was tipping under her feet, Saskia blurted, “I can’t cook to save my life.”
Nate laughed, the sound filling the room. “Good to know.”
She led him to the third bedroom, where she’d set up the office. It was cooler in there, and her skin thanked her for the respite from the stuffiness of the rest of the small house.
The desk—a reclaimed wood dining table covered in paint splotches and pen marks and nicks and notches sat in the centre of the room, her chair and computer on one side, which was covered in teetering piles of notes on yellow legal pad paper, with colour-coded notes stuck all over them. To anyone else it probably looked like a disaster waiting to happen, but Saskia knew where every single scrap of paper was. Lissy’s computer and chair were on the other side of the huge table, which, incongruously, considering the person who used it, was clean as a whistle.
The rest of the room was all cream paint and raw furnishings. Built-in shelves were filled with rattan baskets found at flea markets; soft-furnished guest chairs held cushions and throws. Sprays of stripped willow in an array of huge vases filled up the far corner. A dog-eared copy of Catch-22 nestled amongst her other favourite books.
“Great room,” Nate said, his eyes skimming too quickly to settle on any one thing. “Love the lighting.”
“The original fixtures were hideous—straight out a horror movie. I do believe you’re actually interested in my renovations. I’d be a little worried if I didn’t know better.”
Nate’s eyes slid back to hers, laughing, vibrant, lit with something she hadn’t seen there since she’d known him. “The BonAventure offices were refurbed a couple of years back,” he said. “The same decorator did my apartment, and I was so busy at the time I let him go nuts—which is why I live in what looks like the home of a sixty-year-old big game hunter. I worked more closely with him at the office.”
“Nate the interior decorator? I’m shocked.”
“Gave Gabe a laugh.”
“Maybe because he’s more manly than you?”
“No argument there,” Nate said, which only
made him seem manlier still.
Ruffled, rumpled, even a little rugged, she thought, staring at the scuff on his boots, then at the loose thread on the collar of his T-shirt.
A skitter of something new and sweet and just a little frightening trickled down her spine. Shaking it off, she waved a hand at a guest chair which was nudged up against the short end of the table. “Work first, food after?”
“Sounds fair—work?”
“The dossier. You’ve come to the party on my end of the deal, right?”
He looked at the folder in her hand, then at the guest chair as if it might bite, before lowering his length into it.
Saskia sat in her soft pink bouncy office chair, one foot sliding to rest next to her backside. She twisted back and forth and stuck a pen in her mouth. The mixed feelings that came with having Nate so close edged away as she slid into work mode.
Popping her vintage glasses onto the end of her nose, she grabbed the dossier and opened it to the first page. But she’d already filled that out.
“What are you wearing?” Nate asked.
Saskia went cross-eyed as she looked at the incongruously big glasses perched on her fine nose. “They’re for reading.”
“They look like you nicked them from your grandfather.”
“Never met either. And they’re vintage.” She went to turn the next page when Nate interrupted again, “What’s that?”
Sighing, she took off her glasses and glanced at her monitor and a big hot pink rectangle with Electric Dreams: Finding Love in the Digital Age scrawled across the top in curly girly font that Lissy had started fiddling with. “The infographic. The carcass at least.”
“Does it have to be pink?” Nate asked, looking as pained as if she’d handed him a set of knitting needles and asked him to make her a pair of bootees.
“Pink’s romantic. And hot-pink’s...well, hot.”
Nate muttered something that sounded along the lines of, This can’t possibly be worth it.
“I’ve got some great stuff to work with so far: one in five singles have tried online dating. Less than one percent believes a movie is a good idea for a first date. More than half of women think dinner is a good first date, and that the guy should pay—”
“You refused to let me pay.”
“I’m not most women.”
“So you keep reminding me.”
“Here.” She dug through the pile on her left, found the legal pad dedicated to that job, and threw it to him.
He moved the chair closer. Close enough that when she next swung back her knee brushed his. Thick wool rasped against old denim and the friction shot through her as if she’d been hit with a cattle prod.
His eyes widened as he flipped page after page of the questions she’d come up with in her research. Some of them she’d already put into a survey she’d added to the Dating By Numbers website, and given to a handful of online magazines—men’s and women’s. Others were just of interest to her.
She glanced down at the pages, reading words such as sex, love, lies, oral, psycho killer, back-up plan. She slowly slid a pen towards Nate. “It’s the intimate details that lift a piece from dry statistical analysis to something that resonates with people. So if you have anything you’d like to add—thoughts, experiences, anything—feel free. Start simple. Like, are you a leg man?”
Nate’s face began to turn green.
“Eyes, then? Hair? Little toes? If you picked me, clearly it’s not about chest inches. Or is it something more intangible? Something chemical?”
His eyes shot back to hers at that, so blue, so quick, so effortlessly seductive, and she could have kicked herself for getting cocky.
He put the notepad back onto her desk, holding her gaze the whole time. “You really want to know what I like?”
She did. She really did. “Hit me.”
“I like drinks—casual, no promises. I like parties—more people to talk to if talking to her is like pulling teeth. I like night time—it has a built-in end point.”
“Wow. That all sounds so...hopeless.”
“You asked,” he said, grabbing a box of paperclips and shaking it by his ear as he leant back, his knees pressing deeper under her desk, crowding her, leaving her nowhere to move.
“Yeah,” she said, tucking herself into a tighter ball on her chair, “I did.” Then a thought. “Okay, then, what are you hoping for when you meet a woman? And I don’t mean the ‘built-in-end-point.’ I mean ultimately.”
His eyes narrowed and his jaw clenched. So many walls, she thought, wondering how he managed to connect beyond superficially with any member of the human race. The guy needed more than ruffling. He needed disentangling.
“Is this going to end up in your piece?”
She thought about it, and then shook her head. “I want to know.”
“Why?”
She threw out her hands, her feet collapsing to the ground so that her knees bumped against his. “Because it’s the human condition, Nate. Biological imperative. Haven’t you ever had the urge to clobber some woman over the head and brand her as yours?”
Seeing the darkness in his eyes, she was pretty sure he was allowing himself a moment to imagine how his life might be better off if he clobbered her over the head.
He leant forward and put the paperclips back on the desk, then rested his elbows on his knees, his gaze settling at some point in the middle distance. He said, “This isn’t for the piece. This is just for you.”
She nodded. Swallowed. Gripped her mouse for support.
“After my father died I spent six long years of my life looking after the whims and needs of four very emotional, very demanding, very much loved women—and it near wiped me out. I’ve done my time on that score. I have no desire to ‘settle down.’ To marry. To ‘make a life with someone.’ Whatever you want to call it. I like women. Adore many. Love a handful. But I like my independence more. Ultimately I will protect it with my dying breath. How’s that?”
“Thank you,” she said, even as his words felt like little needles all over her skin.
“Your turn. Why do you care so much about what I want?” he asked, his long fingers tapping a soft beat on the table, his blue eyes roving over her face.
“That’s not how this works.”
“Says who?”
“Me.”
“You think you’re the boss in this scenario?”
“I’m the boss in every scenario.”
His grin showed teeth, straight and many, and that rare and delightful dimple. “Well, sweetheart, in my world so am I. So what are we going to do about it?”
She had to swallow before she could get a word out. “I think you’re a good guy, Nate. But when it comes to relationships you’re screwed in the head. I think I can help.”
“I’m beyond help. Do you want to know what I need?”
Saskia hoped he had no clue about the button he’d just pushed. That she was sitting there humming with the desperate need to know what he needed. What any man needed. She’d been searching for that answer her whole damn life, without success, and Nate was about to hand her the key.
She nodded, even while the look in his eyes told her she was agreeing to way more than she could ever have bargained for.
“I took the day off today.”
She found herself oddly disappointed. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” he said with a low rumble of laughter. “I didn’t go to work. That’s the first weekday I’ve had off work in seven years. I looked it up. That’s what I spent an hour of my first day off in seven years doing—looking up how long it had been since the last time I’d played hooky.”
“So why did you play hooky?”
“You. Badgering me about relaxing more.”
She got two raised eyebrow
s with that, which she could only meet with blank shock.
“And partly because I’ve known for a long time if I don’t ease back I’m going to burn out. So I thought about going fishing, even drove down to the pier at Sorrento with grand ideas of dropping a line for squid. Turns out I’m a total wimp—it was just too damn cold so I turned around and came home. And of all the things I could have done with my day I came here. To see you. Do this.”
He reached out and ran a hand down her hair. A curl gripped his finger before he gave it a gentle tug.
“And this.”
His hand moved to her neck. His eyes followed as his thumb ran down her throat.
“And this.”
His hand roved over her shoulder, sliding her oversized sweater right along with it till her shoulder was bare. He swept his thumb over her collarbone and she shivered, pleasure pulsing through her.
With that he grabbed the arms of her chair and tugged till it was between his thighs. Anticipation raged inside her. It had been building since that night at the bar, and she’d used up the last of her resistance.
“Kiss me,” he insisted.
She didn’t need to be asked twice. She was in his lap, her hands in his hair, her mouth on his, before he took his next breath.
No testing this time. No figuring one another out. They just opened to one another—mouths, lips, teeth, tongues, breath intertwining as sexual tension wrapped about them like a tight coil.
Then, with a final slow swipe of his tongue along hers, Nate pulled back, his forehead leaning on hers. Their stilted breaths matched, mingled.
“Are we done here?” he asked, his voice like an echo deep inside a cavern.
“In what capacity?” she asked.
“I don’t want to talk about other women.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“Good.”
Then, with a speed that defied the guy’s impressive size, Nate slid an arm beneath her and lifted her into his arms. With a wholly unladylike whoop Saskia flailed her legs madly and she gripped his neck so hard she was sure she’d leave a mark.
