by Mari Carr
She narrowed her eyes. “Yes, smartass. And you.”
He stood straighter and waved his hand. “Okay. So where is it?”
“Where is what?”
“My apology.”
She smirked. “It’s not your turn. You were number three.”
“You’re going chronologically?”
“Yep.”
“Thought Leo the Lion skipped town right after you failed to show at the Justice of the Peace.”
“He did, so I’m going to have to track him down.”
Nick’s grin faded. “You’re still going to look for the guy? After what happened with Phillip?”
Georgie nodded. “Of course I am.”
Nick crossed his arms. “I’ll go with you when you find him.”
She reared back. “No, you won’t. Nick, this is Leo we’re talking about. He used to catch mice and spiders in his mom’s basement so he could—” she did air quotes around the words, “—release them back into the wild. He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
“Did you anticipate Fist Bump pushing you back into a wall like that? Coming on so strong?”
“No. God, that was really disturbing, actually.”
“Shit.” Nick took her into his arms, hugging her tightly. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I really do think he would have let me go. Eventually. And it’s not like I met him down some dark alley, Nick. We were on a busy street.”
“And I watched at least four cars and half a dozen people walk right by the two of you in that clutch because that was what it looked like—a couple kissing.”
“It was just a misunderstanding.”
Nick released her, his hands on her upper arms. “Maybe so. But I still don’t want you to go see Leo alone.”
Leo and Phillip were worlds apart on the personality scale, but clearly Nick wasn’t going to see reason so she decided not to press the issue.
“I’m glad you showed up when you did.” Then she added, “That cat and mouse comment of his was weird.”
His shoulders relaxed. “No. It wasn’t.”
Georgie raised her eyebrows, silently acknowledging he was probably right.
Nick glanced at his watch.
“I hope I’m not making you late for something,” she said.
“You’re not keeping me from anything I want to do. I’m meeting my parents for dinner.”
She recalled the great lengths he would go to in order to avoid spending time with his mom and dad. “How is Gladys these days? She still hate me?”
Nick chuckled. “Actually her entire attitude toward you changed the minute you sprinted out of that church. She speaks quite fondly of you now.”
Georgie forced a laugh, though it had always bothered her how much his mother disliked her. “I bet she does. Well, give her my love when you see her.”
Nick rolled his eyes, then brushed a strand of hair from her face. “Yeah. I’m pretty sure I won’t do that. My goal for this meal is to get in and get out quickly. If Mom finds out I’m talking to you again, my evening could stretch into an eternity.”
Georgie became aware of how closely they were standing. Nick had her trapped against the side of her car, his legs pressed against hers. If she were taller, their mouths would be less than an inch or two apart, but his height—or her lack thereof—increased that.
Which was a shame. Because she really wanted to kiss him right now. When his eyes drifted to her lips, it occurred to her Nick wanted the same.
She wasn’t sure how long they stood there, simply looking at each other. Forever wouldn’t be long enough for her, but Nick didn’t seem to feel the same. He broke free of the trance and took a step away. She instantly missed the heat of his body next to hers.
When he glanced back the way they’d come, she knew he was preparing to leave. The idea of not seeing him again for months terrified her.
“What are you doing for dinner tomorrow?” she blurted out.
He hesitated before answering and she feared she’d crossed some invisible line he had drawn between them.
She resisted the urge to take it back. To say never mind and give him a carefree, non-threatening wave that would encourage him to call her later while forgetting her faux pas. Instead, she let the invitation ride.
“George,” he started.
“I’m not talking about a date or anything,” she hastened to include when she heard the refusal in his tone. “I just thought maybe we could go out and grab a pizza or something. It’s no big deal if you have plans.”
As soon as she said it, she wondered if he did have plans. What if he was dating someone? Zoey hadn’t mentioned another woman, but then again, poor Zoey was sick as a dog and barely functioning, the chemo kicking her ass.
The idea that Nick might have a girlfriend felt like a punch to the gut. She’d lived through two of his previous relationships. In fact, she and Nick had made an art form of staggering their relationships. Zig-zagging between singlehood and committed relationships. When she was in one, he was out of one. And vice versa.
When they’d met, Georgie had just started dating Fist Bump. Then, by the time, she’d sprinted away from the football field, Nick was hooking up with Giselle, the college professor. He dumped Giselle a week after Georgie started sleeping with Leo. Then she’d left Leo at the courthouse exactly three days after Nick took up with Cheryl.
Ugh. Cheryl. Even thinking that woman’s name made Georgie want to snarl.
If he was dating someone else now…
“I don’t have any plans,” he said at last.
“Oh.” That didn’t really answer her concern. “Well, if there’s someone else…” Her words faded. She couldn’t make herself ask.
“I’m not dating anybody.”
Georgie worked overtime to school her features, but she failed when a small smile escaped.
Nick saw it instantly and narrowed his eyes. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t look at me like that, George. We’re not starting this again.”
She nodded. “Oh, I know.” Then she tilted her head realizing she really didn’t know anything. “Um. Which this?”
Nick closed his eyes as if praying for patience, an expression Georgie was well accustomed to. Then his lids lifted and his gaze zeroed in on hers. “I want to kiss you. No, more than that. I want to take you home, strip you out of those clothes, tie you to my bed and bury myself deep inside your body. Over and over. I want to fuck you until my dick hurts and then I want to fuck you some more.”
Georgie found it difficult to breathe as Nick continued to move closer with each word. He leaned toward her until his nose was practically touching hers.
“But I’m not going to do that. I can’t. Can’t let myself get caught up in you again. No matter how much I want you. Do you understand?”
She nodded slowly, struggling to respond.
“George,” he said as he lightly shook her shoulders.
Georgie swallowed heavily. “Give me a minute, Nick. I’m stuck at the bury myself deep inside you part. I’ll catch up in a second.”
He laughed. She hadn’t really meant her words as a joke, but there was nothing sexier than the sound of Nick’s laugh, so she took it. “God. You’re going to be the death of me, woman.”
“I don’t mean to be,” she said, somewhat surprised by the seriousness in her own voice.
Nick cupped her cheek fondly. “I know you don’t.”
They looked at each other for just a moment more, then Nick stepped away. “I should go. I’m beyond late now.”
She wasn’t sure what else there was to say, so she just answered, “Okay.”
He turned and started to walk away. And that was when the terror that he might disappear from her life completely set in.
“Nick!” she called out.
He spun to face her. “Yeah?”
“Will you call me later?” she asked hesitantly. Their nightly conversations were the highlight of her day.
He gr
inned. “Yeah. Nine o’clock work for you?”
She nodded, her smile giving away far too much. She didn’t care. “That’s perfect.”
He waved and started to leave once more.
“Hey, Nick!” she yelled out again.
He shoved his hands in his front pockets as he faced her again. “Yeah?”
“Where did we land on that pizza?”
He laughed. “I’ll pick you up at your shop at five-thirty tomorrow. And we’re getting pepperoni and mushroom. That’s non-negotiable.”
“Deal.”
She considered—just briefly—asking how solid he was on that sex decision, but decided it was best not to push her luck. Two out of three wasn’t bad. For now.
He continued down the street and she watched him go. Then she glanced at her car, feeling as if it was useless to her. Given her present state, she could fly home if she wanted to.
Chapter Four
May’s flower is the Lily of the Valley, which symbolizes sweetness and humility. “You’ve made my life complete” is the hidden message connected to the flower.
* * *
Nick stood outside the door to Georgie’s shop, wishing he weren’t so damn happy to be there. Jason had warned him to proceed with caution. Nick had done anything but. Since seeing Georgie again in January, he’d basically jumped right back into the fire with both feet. He called her every damn night simply to hear her voice.
Then he’d seen her on the street with Fist Bump and jealousy had reared its ugly head. That emotion was so unfamiliar to him. He’d never felt it with anyone before Georgie, so he had very little experience trying to control it.
When Georgie had issued the invitation to pizza right on the heels of him seeing her in that clutch with her ex, he hadn’t been able to resist. He didn’t like seeing her with another guy, even though he didn’t intend to be the guy, so he made sure to monopolize her time and limit her opportunities to meet other men.
God. He really needed to get a grip.
He walked into the flower shop, grinning at the familiar sound of the bell tinkling. It was weird to admit, but he’d actually missed this place during the year after Georgie jilted him. Not that he’d ever confess that aloud.
“Just a minute,” he heard Georgie call from the back. Her voice sounded funny, strained.
Quickly, Nick skirted around the counter and headed toward the potting room. When he entered, he cursed.
Georgie was on top of a stepladder, teetering precariously as she tried to place a box full of glass vases on top of a refrigerator.
“What the hell?”
She wobbled even more when she turned and saw him there. She smiled weakly. “Help.”
He rushed across the room and placed his hands around the box. He was tall enough to push it into place without the ladder. Of course he had over a foot on Georgie. Once the box was secure, he reached for her.
Hands on her waist, he lifted her from the ladder, setting her on steady ground. Then he kept holding her, unable…unwilling…to let go. It was the first time he’d touched her since that day in the street when he’d pushed her against her car and fought like a son of a bitch not to give in to the desire to take her home and fuck her senseless.
Georgie’s hands rested on his chest, her breath coming rapidly from the exertion. Or maybe something else. Nick was feeling a little breathless himself.
“Hey,” she said at last, her face reflecting such delight at seeing him that it sent a sudden rush of blood to his loins. So much for keeping the upper hand. He spent every minute in her presence at half-mast, dizzy from arousal. “That was great timing. Thanks.”
“Call me the next time you decide to rearrange. I’ll come help.”
She grinned. “I’m totally taking you up on that.”
Nick swallowed heavily, then forced himself to release her. “Good.”
She took a step away from him once she was free, her face betraying so much of what he was feeling.
Even so, Nick understood the importance of keeping his distance, of maintaining the status quo. The last time he’d taken them from friends to lovers, it had changed everything. Georgie had become distant, aloof.
At least when they weren’t in bed. That had been the one exception, which was probably why they’d spent nearly every waking hour they were together between the sheets. This shared attraction between them was almost overpowering. And it was clearly still there. Yet another reason why he needed to keep his distance and not touch her.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, drawing him from his thoughts.
“It’s May.” He let those two words answer the question. And they did.
Georgie laughed loudly. “Oh my God. You forgot Mother’s Day again, didn’t you?”
He nodded, his ears still ringing from the thirty-five-minute guilt trip his mother had just taken him on.
“You never miss a meeting at work because it all goes in that damn smart phone of yours. Turn the thing on right now. I’m plugging in a reminder for you for next year.”
Nick smirked. “I already did that. For the next ten years. But that doesn’t get me out of the doghouse right now. I need one of your masterpieces.”
Georgie crossed her arms, which unfortunately pushed her breasts up. Nick’s usual half-cocked sprang to locked and loaded within seconds. “I think you mean one of your masterpieces.”
Nick sighed. He’d met Georgie four and half years earlier when he’d come to her shop to buy flowers for a woman he had just taken to bed. It was shortly after Valentine’s Day and the sex had been pretty incredible. On a whim, he’d pulled into Georgie’s Garden, a shop he passed on the way to work every single day, but that he’d never stepped foot in.
For some reason, that day he’d felt compelled to stop. And it had changed his whole life. Just not in the way he’d expected.
He had planned to pop in, have a dozen red roses delivered to the woman—Nick couldn’t recall her name to save his soul—then be back on his way to work.
Instead, he’d met Georgie, who hadn’t been content to just take his order. She had basically conducted an interview, then determined that it was far too soon in his relationship with the woman to send roses. She’d gone into some long speech about flowers and courtship and how different flowers signified specific things.
And Nick had hung on her every word because she’d been so passionate and beautiful and funny.
In the end, he’d sent a bouquet with some yellowish flowers in it. Georgie would kill him if she ever found out he still couldn’t tell most of her flowers apart despite the off and on lessons he’d been subjected to over the past few years.
The flowers, however, had worked. The woman had been absolutely thrilled with the bouquet. Enough to give him three more nights in her bed. At which point, they’d both grown bored and moved on.
The second time he saw Georgie was the last time he’d forgotten this damn holiday. He’d run into her just as she was closing up the shop for the day and begged her to let him buy a last-minute bouquet for his mother. Georgie being Georgie had decided the flowers and the apology would mean more if he made the arrangement himself.
Which was how he’d ended up in her backroom surrounded by roses and daisies and baby’s breath and God only knew what else as she instructed him on what the flowers signified and helping him put them into some sort of presentable shape.
“George. Please. Just make me a pretty arrangement. You know I suck at all this shit.”
She ignored his protest and pointed to the box he’d just put on top of the refrigerator. “Grab a vase from there.”
He frowned. “Why are you putting vases you use for arrangements up so high? What are you going to do the next time you need one?”
“Those are special vases. I don’t use them very often.” She gestured to several boxes behind her on the floor. “Those are my everyday vases.”
“Oh. Okay.” Nick grabbed a vase, then returned to her workbench and waited as Georgi
e roamed from one cold case to the next gathering the stems.
When she returned, she laid the flowers down. “I figure we can go two ways with this bouquet. The last time you made one, I didn’t know your mom, so we went the love and affection route. This time, I have a working knowledge of Gladys.”
Nick tried not to chuckle at the slight vein of disgust in her tone.
“So we’re going to put together a display that signifies beauty.”
He had to admit it. She did get his mother, who was without a doubt, the vainest creature on the face of the earth. “She’ll like that.”
“We’ll use amaryllis as our main focus. Do you remember how to do this?”
He frowned. “You’re seriously going to make me do this again?”
She giggled. “Of course I am. It’s part of your punishment for forgetting. If you’d ordered this last week like every other good son in town, I would have made it for you.”
“You’re a heartless woman.”
“It’s all about rhythm and line.” She handed him a large flower. “I think this one would work best as our focal flower, don’t you?”
He shrugged. “I guess.”
She picked up a sprig of baby’s breath and tickled his cheek with it. “What’s the matter, Nick? Are you afraid this insults your manhood?”
He grasped her wrist firmly, holding it captive. Georgie’s eyes widened at his unexpected touch. Then he reached for her free hand, pulling it to the front of his pants, running it along his rock-hard cock. “There’s nothing wrong with my manhood, George.”
Georgie’s hand trembled slightly and she licked her lips nervously. Then she pressed against him more firmly. “I can see that.” Her tone was rife with desire and it took every ounce of strength in Nick’s body not to pick her up, lay her across the table and take her. Hard.
They stood there, still as statues, both of them gasping for breath.
Nick silently cursed his impulsive, self-destructive action. This wasn’t what he wanted.
No. That wasn’t true. This was exactly what he wanted. But he couldn’t give in to it.
He released her, then turned toward the table. “I’m sorry about that. Took the joke too far. It won’t happen again.”
