It was absolutely ridiculous, but it was also true.
God, she was a mess. She felt like she might fall apart at any moment. She wanted to fall apart, and James was the one person she could do it around, but not right now. Not with everything that lay between them.
He studied her for a moment, his gaze warm and sweet as hot chocolate. Then his hand caught hers. When she tried to pull away, he held on tight and shook his head. “We need to talk, Cupcake. Maybe now isn’t the greatest time, but I already left things too long.”
Oh, Christ. She felt as if her breath was too hot for her lungs. Embarrassment prickled across her skin. “James. Don’t—”
“Nina. Please. Please let me try to fix this, because…” He broke off, swallowing hard. “I can’t lose you. And I feel like, if this nightmare hadn’t happened, I might have.”
She stared down at their joined hands, his fingers longer and thicker than hers, her skin darker and softer than his. She catalogued the little nicks and burns scattered across his knuckles and tried not to freak out. Tried not to hate him for speaking like this, speaking as if she meant the world to him, when things between them would never be the way she wanted.
“I’m sorry,” he said. His thumb swept slow, rhythmic circles over the back of her hand, the action easing her tension even as his words ratcheted it up. “I fucked up. Massively. Enormously. Worse than whoever invented pop-up ads.”
A smile crept onto her face without permission. “Continue.”
He let out a little chuckle, shaking his head. Then his expression softened, becoming almost… vulnerable. “Nina, when I was touching you—I couldn’t think. I just couldn’t. Which is ridiculous, and doesn’t excuse my being irresponsible, but it’s the truth. Then as soon as we were done, I just felt so guilty, and everything was flooding back into my brain at once, and it made me… Well, I was thoughtless. I shouldn’t have treated you like that. I’m sorry.”
She nodded slowly. Parts of that speech soothed the jagged wound inside her, but others seemed to tear it open further. She wanted to sort sensibly through the two sensations, wanted to approach their issues in a calm, reasonable, mature way—but she wasn’t calm, reasonable, or mature, so in the end she blurted out, “What the fuck, James?”
He blinked, running a hand over his jaw. “What?”
“I mean, okay, thank you. For the apology. But… how were you irresponsible? What, exactly, did you feel guilty about?”
He opened and shut his mouth like a fish. A very handsome fish. A very annoying fish. Finally, he said, “I told you. I shouldn’t have done it.”
She jerked back as if he’d hit her. “You mean you shouldn’t have done me.”
“That’s not how I would put it, but… No. I shouldn’t have. We can’t just—and then—like it doesn’t even—” Yet again, James appeared to have been hit with the inarticulate stick. Apparently, sex was the one thing he could not talk fluently about. She might find that funny, if she didn’t suspect it came from his sheer embarrassment that he’d given into his dick and slept with someone he didn’t actually want.
“Nina,” he said finally, “you’re twenty-three years old.”
“You didn’t seem to mind that when you had your tongue between my legs.”
He grimaced, letting go of her hand. “Sweetheart. Could you not—”
“What? Remind you of how awful it all was?”
“You know it wasn’t awful.” He stood, beginning to pace the room. Kind of annoying how the action that helped him focus made her want to throw something. “I hope I didn’t… Did it seem…?” He hesitated, turning to frown at her. “Did I act like it was awful?”
She set her jaw, drawing her knees up to her chest and wishing, more than ever before, that she could just fucking disappear. “I mean, you threw me out 0.5 seconds after finishing the job, so—”
“I did not throw you out,” he said, his tone suddenly fierce. “I would never do that. You left.”
“Okay, yeah. But you wanted me to leave.”
“No I fucking didn’t.” He was speaking through gritted teeth now, his scowl ferocious. “I wanted to take back the whole thing—”
“Great! Fucking great!”
“But I never wanted you to leave.”
“What’s the bloody difference?”
“The difference is that no matter what happens between us, I always want you around. Always. Because you’re way more important to me than sex or any of that bullshit. I mean, come on, Nina.” He threw up his hands. “I know I said things all wrong, but I was right then and I’m right now. What are we going to do? Fuck each other and act like nothing happened? You want me to be like—” He broke off with a curse, turning away from her, and she knew he hadn’t meant to say so much. Sometimes—very rarely—his temper got away from him. He hated it when that happened.
But even though she knew his mind must be a hurricane, she was too angry not to push. “Like what?” she demanded, rising to her feet. “Like me?”
“No,” he said immediately, turning to look at her. “No. That’s not what I meant.”
She almost wanted to disbelieve him—to take his cut-off words as an insult, as a comment on her semi-notorious sex life. Some people in this city called her a man-eater. She truly did not give a fuck.
But if James had tried to hurt her like that, he’d have succeeded. And yet, she knew he hadn’t, and never would.
“What, then?” she asked, wrapping her arms around herself. Tight. Tight enough to hurt, to push at her own ribcage.
“Stop that,” he muttered, the words automatic, his tone distracted. He strode over and took hold of her wrists, tugging open her arms and sliding into the space he’d created. And now they were hugging, her cheek pressed to his shirt, his heartbeat strong under her ear, her tense muscles melting. Nina told those muscles, very sternly, not to bow to the enemy. She and James were having an argument, for fuck’s sake. She should not be inhaling his scent like it was oxygen.
Still, she had the presence of mind to push again. “James?”
His hand came to rest at her nape, fingers sliding carefully into her hair. “Shh. I’m working up to something.”
“To what?” She leaned back, trying to look at him, but he held her close.
“I’m putting my shit on the line here, Cupcake,” he said wryly. “Give me a second.”
“Stop calling me ‘Cupcake’.”
“No. Mark and I swore a solemn vow to irritate you wherever possible and I refuse to abandon my brother-in-arms.”
She rolled her eyes. “Why, when I was born with only one older brother, have I been cursed with two?”
Abruptly, he pushed her back until their eyes met. His gaze was steady, even more serious than usual. “I’m not your brother, Nina. In any way. Trust me.”
She felt an uncharacteristic blush heat her cheeks. “I know that. I—”
“I don’t want you to think of me as a quick fuck,” he said suddenly, the words cutting into the space between them. “That’s why I stopped things, before. That’s why I shouldn’t have done it. You’re young, and you’re you, and I love you for it, but I can’t be like these little boys you take to bed. We’re not like that. We’re friends. We matter.”
Oh. Oh. Understanding was like a fist to the gut. It actually stole her breath, realising what had been going through his head. Did he really think she’d treat him like everyone else, treat him like those guys she ran through to take the edge off? She studied his face, one she knew as well as her own, and accepted that the answer was yes. He did.
He really had no idea what he meant to her. At all.
But what was she supposed to do? Tell him? Just… admit her deepest, darkest secret, something that could blow up everything between them, from this fragile peace to the deepest foundations of their friendship? Fear clogged her throat at the thought. What would happen if she told him the truth? If she said, I don’t want to fuck you and act like nothing happened. I want you to be mine.
/>
Maybe he’d fall into her arms and confess his undying love. But, realistically, that wasn’t the most likely outcome. Especially when he kept harping on about this whole friendship thing. Nina knew how to read between the lines, and James’s were saying, I’m just not that into you.
Maybe she should be brave and confess anyway. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Even if she’d wanted to, her mouth wouldn’t form the words. Everything was awful right now—monumentally awful—and this man was her only haven.
She couldn’t risk it. She couldn’t risk him.
Not now. Not ever.
So Nina took a deep breath and plastered a smile on her face. Nothing too huge, because that wouldn’t be believable. Just a tiny, wry twist of the lips, as if she were reluctantly agreeing with him. “Fair enough,” she said softly. “You were right. We shouldn’t have crossed the line.”
His shoulders sagged. He gave a sigh that might have been relief. “Exactly. But we won’t do it again.”
Christ, did he have to sound so bloody emphatic? “No,” she agreed.
“Okay. Good. Cool. So…” He gave her a tentative smile. “Are you sure you’re not hungry?”
“Actually,” she murmured, “I’m starving.”
Chapter Three
They were in the middle of some Marvel film or other, finished bowls of pasta on the coffee table and the sky outside growing dark, when Nina’s nerves got the better of her.
She shouldn’t have said anything. It was silly. It was weak. But the words tumbled out anyway, realer than they’d ever been.
“What if someone hurts me?”
There was a pause, in which Nina tried to psychologically kick herself—seriously, she could use a steel-toed boot up the arse right now—and James, presumably, processed what she’d just said. She could feel his presence right beside her, the heat of their barely touching thighs, the creak of leather every time he shifted, the cadence of his steady breaths. So she sensed, rather than saw, him lean forward to pause the film.
Then he repeated his earlier words, his deep voice warm and comforting. “No-one’s hurting you, Cupcake. No-one. I’ve got you.”
The vulnerability she felt right now made her want to turn and hide—but that would be cowardly, wouldn’t it? More cowardly than looking to him for the reassurance she needed, the reassurance he was so good at offering. So she turned toward him.
When their eyes met, his jaw shifted, as if he were struggling to hold in his words. But he didn’t speak, and he didn’t look away. In that moment she realised how often he did look away—how often James distracted himself around her, working on something as they talked. It was rare for them to sit in silence like this. To be so close, and so alone, like this.
It hadn’t always been like that. When she’d been young—before her brother had left—James had been casually comfortable around her. Fond and unaffected. Then everything changed at once; she’d grown up, her brother had run off to feel like a part of something, and gradually, James had… changed. In ways she couldn’t name, had never thought to examine.
Maybe she’d consider all that later, when she could think without the solid weight of anxiety squeezing her brain.
“You’re not a superhero,” she told him flatly. “And you can’t keep evil people under control through sheer force of will.”
James seemed to flinch at the words, pressing his eyes shut for a breath. Then he opened them again, and suddenly his expression was so… raw, so honest, it almost hurt to look at. “If anyone hurts you, I will kill them.” He said it the way he said everything: quietly, steadily, certainly. She couldn’t imagine James killing anyone. He was just… good. Everything about him was good. But at that moment, for some reason, she believed him.
Maybe that should’ve scared her. Instead, it made her want to curl up in his lap like a cat and purr.
“I don’t understand you,” she admitted quietly, the words squeezing at her own heart. She hated it, but it was true. Nina wanted to understand everything—that was why she’d started the website that got her into this mess. She’d wanted to understand the way this country worked, and when she’d figured it out, she’d wanted everyone else to know too.
Now she was an expert on EU subsidies and misleading rhetoric. She could tell you how many deaths had been caused by austerity so far and she could recommend books that would explain the sociological biases that allowed those deaths to happen.
But she couldn’t grasp why James was the way he was—how he could touch her so gently one minute and flinch away the next, how he could avoid her like the plague but swear he’d kill for her. And, truthfully, she couldn’t fathom the depths of her own need for him, when her teenage crush had grown into something that felt molten and uncontrollable and painfully inevitable.
“What’s there to understand?” he asked quietly. “You know I care about you.”
“Because you love my brother.”
“Because I love—” he broke off with a heavy sigh, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Nina. Because if that’s what you think, I haven’t done right by you for a long time.”
She eyed him warily. “What does that mean?”
“It means you’re—you’re one of the most important people in my life, and you don’t even know it. You should know it.” He reached out and caught her hand, her nerve endings sparking like fireworks. Aside from their hug, this was the first solid touch she’d had from James in weeks, sitting on the sofa where he’d touched her, really touched her, for the last time. The quick flick of his whiskey gaze, the tick of a muscle at his jaw, was the only indication that he might be thinking the same. But within seconds his expression was smooth, his voice level and comforting.
Maybe she was imagining things.
“If I tell you something now,” he said, “do you think you could try to believe me?”
She felt a smile tease her lips, despite the tumult of emotions in her chest. “Something, hm? We’re not going to talk about our feelings, are we? Because you know how I feel about that.”
“It’s gotta happen sometime, Cupcake.” James wasn’t smiling back. He was deadly serious, his gaze insistent. He leaned toward her, and she was struck by the power of his body, the amount of space he took up. He was a big guy, which she liked, impressive muscles protected by a layer of sheer bulk. When he was sitting in front of her like this, in a thin white vest and basketball shorts, she was filled with the inappropriate urge to run her hands over his powerful body. To kiss the soft and vulnerable parts of him and luxuriate in the hard ones.
She cleared her throat and said, “I’ll believe whatever you tell me. I know you’re always honest.”
It was true, but for some reason his expression darkened at the words. “Right. Right. Okay. Well…” A moment ago he’d been calm and collected as ever, but now he seemed to be searching for words. “Well, first of all, I know we haven’t seen each other in a while, but talking to you is the highlight of my day. I don’t do it because of Mark. When he told me to look out for you, I don’t think he meant ‘Text her constantly’.”
The rueful expression on his face made Nina smile. “We don’t text constantly.”
They texted constantly. Usually just dog pics, weird memes, and links to articles. But still.
James gave her a look and ignored the blatant lie. “Anyway. I also want you to know that, no matter how things are between us, I am never too busy for you. I pray that nothing like this ever happens again, but if it does, you need to know that. You need me, you call me. Fuck, you can call me if you break a fucking nail. I don’t care, Nina. You need me, you call me. Because you matter. Okay?”
She looked away, trying not to choke on the emotions clogging her throat.
“Nina.”
She grunted.
“Nina.” She registered the familiar exasperation in his voice, realised she was doing the whole emotional distancing thing, seconds before he caught her by the wrist and pulled. The action sent her sprawling against h
is side, forcing her to lean on him when she felt more like wandering off.
“I think someone needs another hug, Cupcake,” he said. She laughed automatically, because this was a familiar move—as familiar as the nickname itself. The whole thing had started as a joke between he and Mark.
“Damn, your little sister’s a ray of sunshine.”
“Oh, yeah. That’s Nina: a marshmallow in human form.”
“A walking, talking cupcake.”
The punchline, of course, was her permanent scowl, pessimistic outlook, and love of the colour black.
But James always said it with such soul-deep fondness, she never felt like he was making fun of her. The moniker only annoyed her these days because it felt like a reminder to the both of them: This can’t happen. You’re off-limits. You’re my Cupcake.
Well, he’d certainly eaten her like one. She glanced at him with a smirk. If James could read her mind, he’d probably spend most of his time in a horror-shock coma.
“What’s so funny?” he demanded, and then, of course, he tickled her.
Nina’s smile turned into an undignified snort, then a reluctant shriek. She rose up on her knees to escape; he pulled her close. She batted away his hands; he rolled his eyes and kept going. James was a lot bigger than she was, and singularly determined to make her laugh.
He succeeded, too—as always. Within seconds, she was breathless and giggling harder than she had in years. “Oh my God,” she said finally, gasping for air. “Okay, okay, stop!”
He did, laughing himself, and for a moment, things were just like they used to be—back when Markus was around and James was just part of the furniture, like a second older brother with a hell of a lot more patience.
But as their laughter faded, so did the mirage of their memories. Because this wasn’t before. Not even close. As this weird tension between them had grown, they’d lost the tactile element of their friendship. Every touch between them, once casual, now felt charged—at least, it did to Nina.
And apparently to James too. They both seemed to realise at the same moment, with similar jolts of surprise, that she was practically sitting on his lap right now, having somehow managed to wiggle her way closer to his warmth. Christ, that was embarrassing. She saw the exact moment he noticed: the smile slid right off his face, replaced by an expression that was mostly uncertain, but partly… something darker. Something hot and secretive and guilty. The way his soft mouth hardened, the fire burning in his eyes, the tension in his muscles: it all reminded her of the way he’d looked when he’d settled between her thighs. On his knees. Worshipping her.
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