Meant For You

by Lili Valente

  “Because they’re in the past and nothing can change them.” She swallows before adding in a softer voice, “And yes. Because it would hurt.”

  “Maybe talking to someone would help?”

  She laughs beneath her breath. “Therapy, you mean?”

  I shrug and she lifts her gaze to the ceiling.

  “Well, yes, Nate, I have considered therapy,” she says. “And I’ll probably consider it more seriously now that I know that your father is in possession of pictures of me without my shirt on.”

  I wince. “So that part had time to sink in, did it?”

  “Oh yeah.” She nods. “It sunk in, and my stomach isn’t happy about it. But that could also be because I skipped breakfast.”

  “Want to order room service?” I jump at the chance to get us back on safer ground, realizing by now how easy it would be to scare Adeline away. “I hear they’ve got a killer grilled cheese with tomato salad. Eduardo had it for breakfast. Said it was the best hangover food he’d ever had.”

  “I don’t have a hangover.”

  “I do,” I confess. “I could barely sleep last night. I kept thinking of all the things I wanted to tell you and worrying I wouldn’t get the chance.” I sit down on the coffee table, facing her, close enough that our knees almost brush. “I’m glad we’re talking again. I’ve missed you.”

  She studies my face, anxiety tightening her features. “What is this, Nate? What do you want?”

  “I want to buy you lunch,” I say, keeping my tone light. “And we don’t have to talk anymore if you don’t want to. We can turn on the TV and watch cheesy Valentine’s Day movies. Or, I think the lodge has a visitor channel. We could listen to the history of the Valentine’s Day tree and get a look at the hokey-pokey schedule.”

  “Don’t play dumb,” she whispers. “It doesn’t suit you.”

  “Well, I’m not dumb, but I’m no Einstein,” I joke, hoping it will make her smile.

  “Neither am I. Not anymore.” She stands, shaking her head with a sigh. “I should go, Nate. I don’t know what I was thinking.” She moves around the coffee table, but I swing my legs over and step into her path, cutting off her escape route.

  “Don’t go.” I hold my hands up in surrender. “I’ll back off, okay? I won’t push. I just want to be around you, Addie. We can be friends if that’s all you’re up for, I just—”

  “I can’t be friends with you, Nate,” she says, a humorless laugh bursting from her lips. “No. Just…no. It’s not going to happen.”

  “Why not?”

  Her jaw clenches. “I just can’t. It won’t work.”

  She tries to step around me again, but I shift in front of her. “I know I made mistakes, okay? I know that, but I’m—”

  “It’s not about your mistakes. It’s not about you at all. It’s about me!” She thumps a hand to her chest. “It can never be like it used to be. I can’t talk to you anymore.”

  “We were talking just fine a minute ago!”

  She shakes her head, sending her curls flying. “You don’t get it. I can’t really talk to you. I can’t. I won’t.”

  “Why not, Adeline? What—”

  “Because I can’t stand for you to know!”

  “To know what?” I ask, frustration thickening the words.

  “To know that I’ve done nothing,” she shouts, tears rising in her eyes. “That I am nothing!”

  “Jesus, Adeline. That’s not true.” I reach out, needing to wrap my arms around her. Her words are too painful for me to do anything else.

  But she braces her fists on my chest, holding me at a distance “It is true, Nate. You don’t know anything about me, or my life. Not anymore.”

  “Then tell me,” I beg, trying to get her to look at me, to see that I’m on her side. “Please, Ad. Talk to me. I’m not here to judge. If anyone deserves to be judged, it’s me for being a fucking coward and leaving you alone, or your parents for being sanctimonious pieces of shit. You didn’t do anything wrong. If your plans got messed up because your parents kicked you out of the house, that’s their fault, not yours.” I bend closer, dropping my voice. “Is that what happened?”

  “I can’t do this.” She shakes her head again, but with less conviction. “I can’t talk about it. I don’t. To anyone.”

  “Then don’t talk.” I let my forehead rest lightly against hers, bringing my hands to cup her face. “Don’t ever tell me if you don’t want to. You decide what I deserve to know, but don’t shut me out.” I brush my thumb lightly back and forth across her cheek. “I know you feel it, too. The way it still is between us.”

  She sucks in a breath. “It’s impossible.”

  “It’s not.” I thread my fingers into her hair, my pulse spiking as she shivers beneath my touch. “It’s right. And it’s good. And it can be even better.” I kiss her forehead, letting my lips move against her skin as I whisper, “Just let me in, Adeline. Let me prove to you that you and Einstein were right. The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. And you’ve always been my favorite mystery.”

  She sobs softly, her head tipping back. “That’s not playing fair.”

  “I’m not here to play fair,” I whisper.

  Her lips part, but I silence her with a kiss. After a moment that feels like forever, her arms go around my neck and her curves press against my chest and she kisses me back, sending relief rushing through my veins. Her tongue dances with mine, telling me all her secrets, and as I draw her back toward the couch, she silently promises that it’s not too late.

  That it’s never too late for two people who are meant to be.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Adeline

  For the first fifteen years of my life I was certain that I had it all together, and flawed characters who got swept off course by sex, drugs, alcohol, or their own inner demons had a hard time earning my sympathy. I believed that if you wanted to be the hero of your own story, then you would be. It was just a matter of saying no and meaning it, and then transferring your focus to healthier objects of fascination.

  And then Nate kissed me, touched me, made me see stars during the daytime on a haunted beach where the ghosts of lovers drowned at sea were rumored to make the sand dunes glow after dark, and I learned how easy it was to be swept away. That’s why I had my girlfriend pick up a few morning-after pills for me before she left for school. I knew how easy it would be to forget all my responsibilities and get lost in the incredible, magical, hot as hell things Nate made me feel.

  Now, as he pulls me down onto the couch and lengthens his body on top of mine, I sense that I’m about to lose control all over again.

  But before I do, I whisper against his lips, “Condom? In case I’m stupid enough to let this go that far?”

  “Covered.” His hands skim my curves over my clothes, making me burn as he cups my breast in his hand. “But it wouldn’t be stupid. I won’t let you down again, Einstein, and I promise to make you feel good.”

  My breath rushes out as he kisses his way down my throat. “You were always good at making me feel good.”

  “I can’t wait to make you come for me, Adeline. You’re so fucking beautiful when you come.” He rolls my nipple through the fabric of my sweater dress, making me gasp as electricity rips through my nerve endings. It’s like all the lamps in my quiet, dim little house are being thrown at once, making me squint in the fierce light exploding in the darkness. It’s sudden and so violent that it almost hurts, but it doesn’t because Nate kisses me, giving me a place to put all the need he sends thundering through me as he continues to play with my nipples through my dress.

  “I dream about this all the time.” He settles between my spread legs, letting me feel how hard he is beneath his jeans. “I dream about making love to you, and then wake up feeling like shit because I know I’ll never touch you again.”

  “You’re touching me now.” I bite gently into his bottom lip as he grinds against me, rubbing between my legs, making my need spike hard and
fast. I reach between us, finding the thick ridge of his erection, sighing as I stroke him through his jeans. “And now I’m touching you.”

  “Fuck, Addie.” He groans, pressing into my hand. “You drive me crazy.”

  “Me, too.” I nip his jaw this time, loving the way his breath catches as I slip the button at the top of his fly. “I want you. Right now.”

  “Not so fast.” He captures my hands, pinning them to the couch above my head. “I need to make you come at least once first. And I really need the taste of you in my mouth.”

  “But I don’t—” Before I can tell him that I don’t want his mouth, I want his cock—that beautiful, hard, pulsing cock that leaves no doubt he wants me as desperately as I want him—he kisses me again.

  This kiss is deeper and harder, showing me no mercy. He lays claim to every inch of my mouth as he reaches beneath my dress, pulling my panty hose and simple black briefs down around my knees. He doesn’t pull away until I’m breathless, panting, clawing at his shoulders, his ass, his rock hard chest that feels even more powerful than it used to. In a matter of seconds, he has my left boot off and my leg free of panties and hose.

  He doesn’t bother with the other boot. As soon as he’s able to spread my thighs, he guides them wide and settles between them.

  I tense for a second, remembering there’s some reason I don’t want him to kiss me like this, but then his tongue is on my clit, warm and firm and wicked, and I forget everything but the way he makes me feel. I’m lightning in a bottle, a bonfire in the rain, the ocean surging onto shore only to evaporate the second it kisses the lava fields rolling down into the sea.

  He makes me go hot and cold, dizzy and clear, sane and out of my mind all at once.

  “You taste the same,” he murmurs between my legs, his tongue dipping into where I am shamefully wet for him. “God, Addie, I want to tattoo the taste of you on my tongue.”

  “Oh, God. God, yes,” I chant as the pressure builds between my hips.

  “Are you going to come on my mouth, Einstein?” There’s a smug note in his voice that should probably bother me, but hell, the man knows what he’s doing. Who am I to fault him for realizing he’s the master of oral sex?

  “Yes!” I fist my fingers in his hair. “I’m so close, so fucking close.”

  “I love hearing you cuss.” His tongue sweeps up the center of me, making me gasp. “Tell me how fucking close you are again, Addie. Talk dirty to me in that sweet voice of yours.”

  “I’m so close. Fuck me with your mouth, Nate. Fuck me harder.”

  Nate growls something that sounds filthy and approving and devotes himself to devouring me with a single-minded passion I can feel dancing across every nerve in my body. I spread my legs wider, pulsing into him as he consumes me, licking and sucking and biting until I’m wild. And then he drives his fingers inside, hitting that place he magically knows how to find, and I detonate.

  I cry his name and tighten my grip in his hair, holding him to me as I come, rocking my hips into his mouth as he hums and cusses and insists that I’m the sexiest woman in the world.

  And in that moment…I am.

  Me—fades into the wallpaper, boringly accommodating, dour librarian casual Adeline Klein—I am the sexiest woman in the world. I’m flying so high I don’t hesitate to reach for the close of Nate’s pants and rip down his zipper. “Take off your pants,” I demand as he kisses me again, the salt-and-woman essence of my body on his tongue.

  Nate’s right; it does taste good, especially with his flavor mingling with it.

  “Pants off,” I insist, shoving at the waistband. “Now.”

  “I want you to be sure.” He slips his fingers back between my legs, making me moan as I rock into his touch. “It doesn’t have to go further than this, Addie. We don’t have to rush. I can make you come and you can remember that I’m good for something other than being a pain in your ass.”

  “You were never a pain in my ass,” I say, lips parting as the pleasure begins to build again. “I loved you. I loved being in love with you and spending time with you and fucking you.”

  He groans. “Seriously, Addie, hearing you cuss is almost more than I can take. Why is it so hot?”

  “Because when we were together before, I was a girl who was too shy to say things like that.” My breath catches as I screw my courage to the begging him to screw me point. “I’m still shy, sometimes, but I’m not a girl. So you’d better take your pants off and fuck me, Nate, before I go find someone who won’t be so worried about rushing me.”

  He pulls back, a dark, dangerous look in his eyes that makes me shiver. “Yes, ma’am, Ms. Klein. But you’re going to wait two seconds while I get a condom.”

  I nod, the mention of the condom clearing some of the fog from my thoughts.

  He pulls away, tugging off his sweater and starting on the buttons of his shirt as he backs away. “By the time I get back from the bathroom, I want you naked, beautiful. I’m flipping the deadbolt so we won’t be disturbed. Ed isn’t due back for another hour, at least, but I may not be finished fucking you by then.” He strips off his shirt and tosses it on the floor, revealing his incredible, beautiful, perfect chest. “We’ve got a lot of making up for lost time to do.”

  With a wink he turns and disappears into the bathroom. The second he vanishes, I leap to my feet, struggling back into my underwear and pantyhose, heart pounding fast and panicked against my ribs.

  What the hell was I thinking? I can’t get naked with Nate!

  I have to get out of here. Now! Ten minutes ago would be better. I need to rewind time and prevent myself from getting completely out of control. I should never have let him kiss me. I should have done whatever it took to keep my lips from his. I should have eaten a raw onion and put a bag over my head if that’s what it took.

  A door slams in the bathroom, and I jump, glancing guiltily around for my purse only to remember I didn’t bring it with me. I pat the front pocket of my dress, realize my room key is still safely where I left it, and make a run for the door.

  I literally run, dashing past the bathroom, knowing speed is my only chance. Stealth won’t work. Nate is probably sliding that condom on right now and if I get a look at him in all his naked glory there’s a good chance I’ll go out of my head again and do something even stupider than I have already.

  I reach the door and haul it open, just as Nate calls out, “Adeline?” But I don’t answer; I lunge through the door, ramming into a solid wall of papa bear. I bounce off Eduardo’s chest with an oof, landing on my ass back in the hotel room.

  “Adeline!” He claps his hands, grinning like I’ve just completed some impressive trick and not fallen flat on my rear. “Oh, I’m so glad to see you here. You’ll be thrilled to learn that Nathaniel is now a free man!”

  “What? What about Max and pool boy?” Nate appears beside me, still shirtless, but thankfully with his jeans firmly buttoned and zipped.

  Eduardo’s eyebrows lift as he takes in the gun and six pack show. “Oh dear. Should I come back later, loves? Tomorrow morning, perhaps?”

  “No,” I say at the exact moment Nate says, “Yes.”

  Eduardo’s brows arch higher. “Well, I’m not sure how to take that, but as far as Max and his pool boy are concerned, Max cornered me in the spa about half an hour ago.” His eyes dance as his shoulders shimmy. “I won’t go into graphic detail, but suffice it to say there was begging and it was done on his knees. His knees!”

  “All right!” Nate holds out a hand, which Eduardo high fives.

  “He insisted he’s realized the error of his ways and is desperate to have me back.” The older man laughs wickedly. “I told him to go home and sign the paperwork giving me full ownership of the salons, and that we would talk reconciliation next week, after my lawyer has had a chance to look things over.”

  “But you’re not taking him back,” Nate says.

  “Oh God no, sweet pea. I’m going to take my money and run singing nah nah nah nah boo boo,
all the way down Fifth Avenue.” Eduardo crosses his arms and leans against the doorframe with a happy sigh. “So, my darlings, I’m a happy man and it’s all because of this gorgeous creature who made Max so exquisitely jealous. As my way of saying thank you, I would love to set you two up in the honeymoon suite for the rest of the weekend. I think you deserve a beautiful place for your reunion.”

  “That’s very sweet of you,” I say, coming to my feet and smoothing my dress down. “But Nate and I have decided to take things slow. Isn’t that right, Nate?”

  He falters, but after a second he nods. “Of course. If that’s what you want.”

  “It is,” I say, smiling as I slip around Eduardo and out into the hall. “That just seems best, you know? Taking things slow and easy and um…” I jab a thumb down the hall. “So I’m going to go. But maybe we can have breakfast tomorrow?”

  “Absolutely. I’ll be waiting in the lobby at seven. Come down whenever you’re ready.” Nate looks so relieved that I feel terrible about lying, but I can’t help it. I just have to get him to let me go without his deploying another diabolical kiss attack. “But you’re welcome to have dinner with us, tonight, too. Or at least hang out for celebratory drinks. I think this calls for mojitos in the hot tub, right, Ed?”

  “Yes!” Ed claps again. “Oh, do join us for mojitos. A celebration is always more festive with three.”

  “I appreciate the offer, but I really am tired. It’s been a long time since I’ve been…out in the elements.” I see Nate smile out of the corner of my eye, but don’t look his way. The less I look at that man, the better. “But congratulations on your good news, Eduardo. I’m so happy that everything worked out.”

  “Me, too, doll.” He casts an assessing look my direction. “I think everyone deserves a happy ending, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” I agree, wiggling my fingers as I back away. “See you tomorrow.”

  “See you tomorrow, Einstein,” Nate says in a soft, sexy voice, so sweet and confusing that I can’t think about it too much.

  With a final thumbs-up, I turn and walk down the hall, deliberately not thinking about happy endings or old flames or anything else that might keep me from making a calm, clean, reasonably paced getaway.