Chapter Twenty-three
Twenty minutes later, Grace was standing in front of the minibar in her room, contemplating scarfing down a king-sized Snickers bar and chasing it down with a little bottle of vodka, when Nick knocked on the door separating their rooms. Her heart leapt up in excitement (Let him in! Let him in!) while her brain immediately went into self-defense mode (He’s an ass! Ignore him!).
With one last look at the minibar—maybe she’d chase that Snickers bar down with two little bottles of vodka. Hadn’t she earned the right after the day she’d just had?—she walked over and leaned against the door, crossing her arms over her chest.
“What do you want, Nick?” she asked, putting as much “suck it, asshole” into her tone as possible.
“Can we talk, Grace? Please?”
The “please” was a nice touch, but it wasn’t enough to take the chill off what he’d said to her earlier. “Sure. Talk.”
“Will you open the door so I can see you?”
“No.”
She heard him sigh. “I deserve that. I’m so sorry for what I said earlier, Grace. I didn’t even mean it. I was just so…jealous and fucked-up about the thought of you being with that asshat. I wanted to tear him apart for even thinking he deserved to breathe the same air as you, and all I ended up doing was treating you like shit. Do you think you could ever forgive me?”
She wanted to tell him he was forgiven, because what he’d just said was probably the best apology she’d ever heard. Hell, Brad had cheated on her and hadn’t delivered half the apology Nick just had—and all he’d wrong done was talk out his ass for a minute! Who hadn’t been guilty of that at some point?
But while her heart wanted to immediately forgive him, her brain cautioned against it. That very apology—and her gut reaction to it—was proof that Nick was dangerous. Brad’s betrayal had hurt. But if this thing she had with Nick went further, when he left her (because let’s face it, everyone left eventually), she’d be destroyed.
How could she knowingly hand that kind of power over to anyone?
Grace let out a sigh of her own. “I’d like to forgive you, Nick. But…maybe this all happened for a reason. What you said was true. I did get involved with you really quickly. Too quickly. Maybe it’s time we step back and re-evaluate this thing.”
He was quiet for so long Grace started to wonder if he’d walked away or if he even planned to respond at all. Then he said, “Are you telling me that you want some space? Are you giving me an it’s-not-you-it’s-me speech?”
Grace blinked. Wow, he was right. That’s exactly what she was doing. She’d been on the receiving end a time or two, but hadn’t ever delivered one herself. And if she had to guess? She’d be willing to bet Nick never had a speech like that aimed at him, either.
Well, there was a first time for everything, she supposed.
With a nod that was entirely useless because he couldn’t see it, she said, “Yes. I suppose I am.”
She was pretty sure her heart face-palmed, all while her brain patted her on the back and offered platitudes about how there were plenty of other fish in the sea.
Grace flinched as there was a thunk on the door. It was a fairly distinct thunk, too. The thunk of a forehead dropping to the wood in defeat.
“Grace,” he said in that low, gravelly tone that never failed to reduce her knees to mush. “Don’t do this. Please let me in.”
There was more to that request than the obvious. He wasn’t just asking her to open her door. He was asking her to open her heart to him. To take a chance. To let her heart do the thinking for once.
And, God, how she wanted to. It’d be so easy to let Nick in. To lose herself in him. It’d be good, too. For a while, at least. But then…
“I’m sorry, Nick,” she choked out past the lump of emotion that had settled in her throat. “I can’t. I’m done talking about this. Please just go.”
Grace didn’t even wait for a reply. Instead, she shut off her light and threw herself down on the bed, wrapping her arms around her middle in an attempt to ward off the chill that had settled into her bones.
She’d done the right thing. Nick was too…everything for her. They didn’t belong together. It didn’t matter that he turned her on and made her laugh and had a huge heart. Letting him go now, before she got too attached, was the right thing to do.
But you already are attached, dumbass.
Jesus, had that come from her heart or her brain?
Okay, stay calm, she told herself, sucking in a deep breath. Think this through logically. Look at the pros and cons.
Pro number one for letting Nick go before things got any more complicated between them: Nick lived in Chicago and she lived in LA. Even if everything worked out between them (and that was a giant, massive, life-sized if) the best they could hope for was a long-distance relationship, because she couldn’t leave her practice in LA to follow him to Chicago (she was on track to be the youngest partner in the firm’s history, for God’s sake), and she wouldn’t ask him to uproot his life to follow her to LA.
Con for letting Nick go now: No more long talks about nothing and everything. The kind of talks that made her laugh until she nearly cried. The kind of talks that made her feel more alive and connected to another human being than she’d ever felt with anyone else. Those talks were so…intimate, and going back to a life without that kind of intimacy—the kind she was pretty sure she’d never had with another anyone else—was truly terrifying.
Pro for letting Nick go now before they got too involved: The chances of her ending up an emotionally crippled shell of her former self, drowning in mint mocha chip ice cream and vodka to dull the pain of losing him at some point in her not-so-distant future were all but nil. Suffer a little bit now, save herself infinitely greater pain later. It seemed like a reasonable trade-off.
But then, of course, there was the other con for letting Nick go now: Not ever getting to have sex with him. Never getting to know what it felt like to be with him, skin-to-skin, surrounded by him, losing herself to him as he drove her to the edge of sanity and beyond…
I’m not looking for a relationship.
Yeah, but what would you do if you found one?
Images of the past few days with Nick raced through her mind like montage clips from a cheesy romantic comedy. Nick smirking at her across the table in that airport holding room, Nick paying for a stranger’s dinner and blushing when she saw evidence of what a nice guy he was, Nick protecting her from Cletus the creepy motel night manager, Nick holding her and taking care of her when she was too sick to move, Nick kissing the holy hell out of her in that elevator…
“Damn,” Grace muttered. “I’ve found a relationship.”
And that was pretty much when her heart told her brain, with all its logic and pro/con lists, to go screw itself. How could she possibly let him go now? She’d been a fool to even consider it.
A cocktail of dread and panic coursed through her veins as she considered the possibility that he might not want her anymore. She had stiff-armed him away from her pretty hard. What if he was in the hotel bar right now, picking up some hot, willing woman who wasn’t all fifty shades of fucked-up like Grace was?
Driven by panic, Grace shot up off the bed and raced to the door separating their rooms. Without giving any thought to what she might see if he wasn’t alone in that room, Grace yanked the door open and…
Let out a shocked gasp when she found Nick standing right there, head down, arms braced on the doorframe above his head.
He hadn’t moved when she told him to go away.
Nick lifted his head slowly, and when his eyes met hers, Grace knew there was no turning back. The hurt, the longing, the confusion, the need…everything she was feeling was looking right back at her from the depths of his fathomless blue eyes.
She opened her mouth, but whatever she was going to say was lost forever when he grabbed her, yanked her into his arms and kissed the ever-lovin’ hell out of her.
Cha
pter Twenty-four
Grace didn’t even hesitate. She threw herself into the kiss as wholeheartedly as he did. Maybe a little too wholeheartedly, she admitted to herself as he staggered back a step under the onslaught of her full body weight against him. But true to form, he righted himself quickly, his hands slipping down to her ass, pulling her tightly against him.
Nick flipped her around, pressing her back against the wall in his room. He kissed her hard and with a desperation she could only attribute to fear of being pushed away again.
Not that there was any chance of that happening at the moment.
He pulled back just far enough to rest his forehead against hers, his breathing ragged. “I’m so sorry, Grace. I didn’t mean what I said.”
Less talking, more kissing, she wanted to say, but his mouth seemed to have some kind of gravitational pull, because she couldn’t help but go after his lips again. He held her back, though. “I mean it,” he said in a voice so rough it sounded like it’d been beaten against rocks since they last spoke. “Do you forgive me?”
“Only if you don’t stop kissing me.”
He raised his head and looked down into her eyes, and Grace knew she was this close to convincing him to surrender. And damned if seeing that near-surrender in this man’s eyes didn’t make her feel like the sexiest siren ever to have lived. It was a heady, dangerous feeling. She could get used to it, grow dependent on it, so, so fast.
But that was a worry for another day. There just wasn’t room for worry between them at the moment. Only heat, forgiveness, passion, and need.
He closed his eyes and let out a hoarse groan. “You’re killing me. Don’t we need to talk about this?”
She was pretty sure she was going to die if she didn’t get him inside her soon, so she just shook her head. “Not now.”
He slid his hand under her hair to firmly but gently grip her nape. “We will talk about this later,” he said, his tone brooking no argument.
Yes! Grace did a mental fist pump. She had him!
“Later,” she agreed. “Much later.”
Her entire body hummed with electricity as he moaned into her mouth and kissed her again. It wasn’t long before their kisses grew feverish and frantic, their breathing labored.
Grace had never been the type to lose control, but with Nick, control was nothing more than a distant memory—and not an entirely pleasant distant memory. If this was what it felt like to let go with Nick, Grace realized there was no going back. She might just be officially ruined for all other men, and she hadn’t even gotten him inside her yet.
Nick was the first to break the kiss. But her moan of protest turned into a shocked squeal as he bent down, put his shoulder into her stomach and neatly upended her, tossing her over his shoulder, caveman-style. In a few long, purposeful strides, he reached his bed, where he dumped her unceremoniously onto the mattress.
Her body barely even had time to bounce once before he was on her, holding his weight off her as he kissed her again, nudging her thighs apart with his knee. Grace gasped into his mouth as he lowered his body onto hers, then she let out an embarrassing sound—something needy and desperate and guttural—when he rocked his hips gently into her.
“Jesus Christ,” he groaned between kisses. “That is the sexiest damn sound I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Oh, okay. Maybe she shouldn’t be embarrassed by that sound after all.
Which was a good thing, because she started making that sound on a continuous loop as Nick slid his lips down over her neck. While his tongue traced the hollow at the base of her throat, his hands worked the knot at the waist of her robe free. When the thick layers of terrycloth were peeled back and she was completely bared to his gaze, she could actually feel the weight and heat of his stare gliding all over every inch of her skin.
All. Over.
But even as her skin warmed and tingled under the intensity of his stare, old insecurities reared their ugly heads. She’d never lost that freshman fifteen—okay, twenty—she’d picked up at Notre Dame. Brad had certainly never let her hear the end of that, especially when he bought her a gym membership for Christmas and an elliptical machine for her birthday. (The elliptical machine doubled nicely as a rack to dry her sweaters on, though, so at least it was practical. The gym membership had been a total waste.) And here she was, laid out like a sacrificial offering to a guy who was built like a Greek god…
He shook his head slowly and lifted awe-filled eyes to hers. “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. You’re perfect, Grace.”
And he meant every word, she realized. To him, she truly was perfect. It didn’t matter if her thighs jiggled, or her ass was dimply. He thought she was beautiful just the way she was. Tears filled her eyes, but she impatiently blinked them away.
Grace released the death grip she had on the sheets and leaned up, taking his face in her hands as she kissed him. “Where have you been all my life?”
He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her tightly against him. “Just waiting for you, angel. Just waiting for you.”
Well, if that wasn’t the best aphrodisiac in the world, she didn’t know what was. Grace reached down and tugged impatiently on the hem of his shirt. “Off. Now. Need.”
He chuckled. “Yes, ma’am,” he said as he reached behind him, snagged the back of his shirt and tugged it over his head in that way that only guys could ever seem to accomplish. If Grace tried that, she’d end up with her shirt stuck on her ears and her arms trapped like they were in a straightjacket.
The shirt hadn’t even hit the floor before she got her hands on him, letting her fingertips trace the contours of his chest before shifting and letting them bump over the ridges of his abs, all—two, four, six—eight of them. And to think she’d sworn after watching 300 that eight-packs were only possible with CGI.
Other than the tightening of his muscles and his shallow breathing, he stayed perfectly still while she touched him. It was absolute, glorious torture. Beautiful and agonizing at the same time.
She wanted more of him and she wanted it now. With a growl of frustration, she hooked her hand behind his head and yanked him down on her, pressing her mouth to his once more, fervently, feverishly.
She felt his smile against her mouth and it made her want to snag his lower lip between her teeth and nip the hell out of it—just to let him know she meant business. But she didn’t dare for fear he’d stop altogether.
But he must have sensed how close he was to losing his lower lip because he murmured. “Relax, angel. We have all night.”
All night? she screamed inwardly. She couldn’t go on like this all night! She needed more now. It had been too long. Far, far too long.
But that and all other rational thought left the building when his hand slid down her stomach before slipping deftly between her legs.
Grace might have blacked out a little at that point. All she knew for sure was that he touched her like he’d been gifted an owner’s manual for her body. He knew just how to touch her to reduce her to a quivering, panting, whimpering puddle with no coherent thoughts other than how much she wanted—no, needed—to come.
“Please,” she said on a desperate exhale, then nearly sobbed like a baby when his hand slowed as he listened to her. “You need to be in me now.”
“Not yet,” he murmured.
She would’ve protested, but her eyes rolled back in her head and words escaped her when he dipped his head and sucked one of her nipples into his mouth. After shifting to give her other breast his attention—hallelujah and thank you, Jesus—he lifted his head to watch her reaction as his hand started moving again.
Grace bit down on her lower lip and squeezed her eyes shut, determined not to make any more noises that would let him know just how close she was to coming. She just couldn’t take the risk of him trying to slow things down again. But he must have been on to her, because just when her legs began to quiver, just when she was right there, his fingers slowed again.
With a roar o
f frustrated outrage, Grace slapped her hands down on the mattress. “Motherfucker!” she cried.
The motherfucker kissed her jawline. “You have no idea how sexy you are right now,” he said, licking the spot right below her ear.
Grace sucked in a deep breath through her nose. “Then why are you torturing me?”
“You think it’s not torture for me, too?” he said with a tight-sounding chuckle. “I’m trying my damnedest to go slow. I’ve been thinking about dead puppies and baseball stats since you opened that door to keep from shredding your clothes like a fucking animal and pounding you into the wall.”
Grace shifted under him and practically purred at the thought of him pounding her into the wall. “And that would be bad?”
“It’d be great. Awesome. Reality-altering, most likely. But it wouldn’t be fucking romantic, and I was kind of going for romantic here, Grace. I’m tryin’ to make this last.”
A little bit of Jersey was seeping back into his voice, letting her know he wasn’t as calm, cool, and in control as he’d let her believe up until that point. Thank God.
Reaching up, she cupped her hand around the back of his neck and yanked his head down so that their mouths were only a whisper apart before she said, “Nick, I need you to do something for me.”
“Anything,” he said without hesitation.
Again, thank God.
Putting every bit of seriousness into her tone as humanly possible, she looked him dead in the eye and said, “It’s been a really long time since I’ve had sex, Nick, and I need you to fuck me. Hard and fast. Getting pounded into the wall sounds perfect to me. We can worry about romance later. And there will definitely be a later, because I guarantee you, one time will not be enough.”
His eyes went dark and his expression turned nothing short of feral—and Grace knew a moment of trepidation. Had she bitten off more than she could chew with this one? But his next words shut down that train of thought faster than she could draw her next breath.
“Then brace yourself, angel. This might get rough.”
You Complicate Me Page 12
