‘What are you doing?’ I hissed, feeling his breath against my cheek as he pressed me back against the door.
His answer was to kiss me.
I froze in shock at the move, but soon the shock wore off under the feel of warm, coaxing lips. Perhaps it helped that he wasn’t aggressive or fierce. His kiss was soft, yearning. My lips answered to that and I found myself kissing him back.
Nate pulled away first, panting heavily as he nuzzled my cheek, his hands iron bands around my biceps as he breathed me in. I was surrounded by him. The familiar strength of him, his scent, his taste on my tongue, even the slightly bristly feel of his cheek on mine.
I closed my eyes, tears clinging to my lashes.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the loss of him wasn’t the most painful thing in the world. As I stood there in his arms, knowing that he would never really be mine, it occurred to me that more than loss, it was the longing that hurt.
‘You’re the first person I thought of,’ he told me hoarsely, his words vibrating against my ear and causing an involuntary shiver. ‘The only one I wanted here with me.’
Swallowing past the burning, choking ball of unshed tears in my throat, I whispered, ‘I’m sorry I ignored your call.’
‘Don’t be. You came. That’s all that matters.’
Needing some kind of distance, some kind of break from the intensity between us, I cracked, ‘I think there’s an inappropriate joke in there somewhere.’
He laughed against my skin before pulling back. ‘Fuck, I’ve missed you, Liv.’
‘Nate.’ I pushed gently against him until he got the message. His hands dropped from around my arms, leaving me bereft. ‘I’m glad your dad is going to be okay, but I have to go.’
‘Liv, please –’
‘Ben’s waiting,’ I lied impulsively. I had this sudden fear that Nate’s calls and his confession that he missed me were leading somewhere. And I didn’t know if I was strong enough to do the right thing, so I wasn’t going to give him the chance to mess with my head. ‘I’m meeting him.’
He was quiet in the dark for a moment.
And then …
‘We need to talk.’
‘No. We really don’t.’ I fumbled for the door handle and managed to slip outside. He didn’t follow.
I took that to mean that he understood there was no point.
25
Apparently Nate didn’t take it to mean that at all.
I shouldn’t have been surprised really to find him waiting for me in my apartment when I got home from work that night. I slammed the door behind me and held out my palm. ‘I want my key back.’
Nate had stood up as soon as I walked in, and now he was prowling toward me with this playful look in his eyes. The way his dimples played peekaboo had my face scrunching up like a five-year-old preparing for a tantrum. I did not need him to be gorgeous and charming right now! I definitely did not need the dimples.
‘I swallowed the key.’
‘You didn’t swallow it. If you’d swallowed it I’d have come home to a corpse.’
Nate stopped with one eyebrow raised. ‘Should I be worried by how not upset you are at that prospect?’
My nostrils flared. I knew it. He was here to be charming.
I had to get him out!
‘Give me my key.’
Nate shrugged. ‘I can’t do that.’
‘You have to,’ I huffed indignantly. ‘It’s my key.’
‘Why are we still talking about the key?’
‘We’ve barely even started talking about the key.’ My right foot moved back as Nate moved forward, his lids lowering sexily over his eyes. It was his hunting look. ‘Nate –’
‘I love you.’
I froze, almost gasping from the words, words that were fists punching gaping holes in my chest.
While I was in shock Nate took advantage. He stopped, inches before me, not touching me but not really needing to. The heat from his body licked my skin.
‘My life has been hell without you,’ he confessed, his voice rough, his expression morose. ‘I thought I could do it. I thought I could lie to the both of us. But seeing you on the street last week with that guy and the little girl … It was a glimpse into the future. It didn’t hit me until right in that moment that walking away from you, from us, meant having to watch you be with someone else, have kids with someone else.’ He closed his eyes as if in pain. ‘It cut me to the quick to see you playing happy family with that guy. Christ, Liv, I couldn’t breathe.’
And I couldn’t do this. It wasn’t enough.