There’s a choked sound from my side. I turn in slow motion, eyes narrowed, and find Nate watching me with a strange, strangled look on his face.
“Okay… so maybe I need a little more practice,” I admit warily.
At that, he loses it completely.
Chapter Twenty
I’ll never look at a damn chocolate
chip cookie the same way again.
Nathaniel Knox, whose sweet tooth is more
inclined toward brunettes than brownies.
Laughter bursts from Nate’s mouth — loud, roaring laughter. The kind that makes you bend at the waist and clutch your knees and gasp for air. The kind that makes your eyes tear and your stomach hurt.
I want to laugh too — because even I can admit my abysmal show of marksmanship is pretty funny — but I can’t take my eyes off him. Not yet. Because watching Nate laugh has to be the most beautiful thing I’ve seen in my twenty-three years and three hundred sixty-three days of life on this planet.
“Stop laughing at me!” I protest, setting the useless gun on the booth. “Or I’ll shoot you.”
That threat just makes him laugh harder.
“I hate you,” I inform him sweetly.
“No you don’t,” he gasps, straightening to full height again.
“I do,” I say, stepping closer. “I really, really, really hate— Eeek!”
My words are cut off when his hands shoot out from his sides and pull me into his chest. I watch as the laughter dies out of his eyes, replaced by something else. Something that looks a lot like lust.
“What did you just say to me?” he asks, voice intense.
I feel breathless, pressed against him so tightly. All the air has been forced from my lungs, like I’ve just run the Boston Marathon and his arms are the finish line.
I stare into those dark eyes and try not to sway closer. “I said I hate—”
The words are swallowed up as his mouth lands on mine. His kiss is hard, uncompromising, stealing my breath and sending my mind into a tailspin. His hands find the small of my back, pulling me closer as his lips overtake mine. It’s all-consuming. The kind of kiss you can’t even return properly — you just hang on for dear life and hope you’re still breathing when it’s over.
When he’s finished, my arms are looped limply around his neck, I’m panting like Boo when he takes on the stairs, and I’m pretty sure if Nate lets go of me I’ll slide to the floor in a heap of limbs, because my legs are made of Jell-O.
“I grew up with that — I hate you.” His forehead rests against mine; his eyes are closed tightly. “My parents would shout it at each other, in the years before they became so indifferent to their marriage they couldn’t be bothered to work up any feelings at all. Even hate. They didn’t always use the words, necessarily, but it was there in their eyes. In the way they snapped and snarled.” He exhales sharply. “I’ve never met two people more toxic for each other.”
“Nate,” I whisper, not knowing what to say.
His eyes flicker open. “Don’t say you hate me. Even if you’re joking. Even if you don’t mean it.” His forehead presses tighter against mine. “Don’t ever say that to me, West. Because the day you hate me is the day I know I’ve finally fucked things up for good.”
I look at him, feeling confused and hopeful and maybe even scared by his words. My hand lifts to trace the stubble shadowing his jawline. He sucks in a breath of air as soon as my fingertips make contact.
“I don’t hate you,” I whisper, staring at his mouth. “I don’t think I could ever hate you. Trust me, I’ve tried.”
His eyes crinkle. “You’ve tried?”
“Plenty of times.”
“When?”
I tighten my arms around his neck and crane back to look up into his eyes. “Hmmm, let’s see…” I tilt my head. “Definitely that time in second grade when you and Parker cut all the hair off my favorite Barbie dolls.”
His lips twitch.
“And the time you put bean sprouts in my dinner and told me they were worms.”
He snorts.