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“Hey!” she squeaked, ineffectually trying to pinch back at skin too muscle packed to give.
“The grin. Tell.”
Inching her bum out of pinching distance, she raised a brow. “So desperate to feed your ego?”
“Mmm, so it’s an ego-feeding grin. Tell me more.”
She took a deep breath, weighing the temptation to share her indecent revelation. He’d never judged her before…but this was different. Telling in a way she wanted him to know but was afraid to reveal. After what they’d done last night, she might have finally killed the good girl misconception, and owning up to what had her smiling—the part beyond finally being in his arms—might negate all the progress she’d made. Casting a sidelong glance his way, to that devilish smile and waiting stare, the temptation proved too much to resist. Her eyes squeezed shut and she fessed up in a rush of breath. “I’m thinking you’re the first notch in my bedpost.”
There! That wasn’t so bad. It was freeing, in fact. And—
Her eyes blinked open as Nate froze beside her, every muscle in his body gone taut and his breathing at an abrupt halt.
Her chin pulled back. Not quite the “partner-in-crime” kind of response she’d hoped for.
He couldn’t be insulted. But now that she thought about it, she wouldn’t feel great about being described as a notch either.
“You weren’t a virgin.” The words rasped out more plea than question or statement.
Momentarily stunned, Payton could practically feel his cold dread at the thought she’d saved something so special for him. That the night he’d given her on condition it be casual be so spectacularly significant. That she’d deceived him.
“No!” Her hands flew to the sides of her face as she shook her head in vehement denial. “I wasn’t a virgin, I promise! I meant ‘notch’ like uncommitted. Sex for sex’s sake.” The beginning of her reckless adventure. He didn’t need to know how special being with him truly was to her. After today it would never be an issue again. She wouldn’t let it be. “Don’t panic, please.”
Nate’s relief was a palpable thing, like a rush of air back into the room, the return of pressure with a whoosh.
“I wasn’t panicking,” he scoffed, pushing to one elbow on his side. “Pretty little princesses don’t make me panic. Especially not when they are…” he lifted the sheet for dramatic effect, offering a quick leer at her prone body before meeting her eyes again “…naked.”
Relief washed through her at the ease with which he recovered, but a lingering tension remained and his expression turned serious. Concerned.
“Are you okay about this, Payton?” Catching a wild curl with his finger, he pushed it over her ear. Let his mouth pull into a crooked twist when it sprang free and bounced back in front of her eyes. “With last night being the only night?”
She took a steadying breath. “I am if we go forward as friends.”
In those first minutes after the kiss became real in the hallway, she might have indulged in a fantasy where there could be more. A little longing or hope. But she’d quickly understood it wasn’t a romance in the making. And though a part of her cared for Nate on a level she couldn’t acknowledge to him, there was another part of her excited by the raw rush of her very own too-good-to-feel-guilty-about night of passion. A night only he could give her. Because she trusted him.
“Friends,” he said as if testing the word out.
“Yeah. I’ve missed you in my life. I don’t want to give you up again.”
Tiny lines etched at the corners of his eyes as he held her stare. “Do you feel like you can go forward from here without this—” he waved a slow hand between them “—getting in the way?”
She knew she could. She’d done it for years before Nate walked out of her life. “I can if you can. Even if you can’t tell if you’ve got a virgin in your bed.”
Brows arching high as he let out a sharp laugh, Nate rocked back, pulling Payton over with him. “Be a while before I live that down, will it?”
She squinted at him from her perch atop his chest. “Probably.”
“Then I better steer this little chat back toward the ego feeding.” Settling against the pillow to get comfortable, he prompted, “So tell me how it is I score bedpost-notch status.”
Payton readjusted around him and let her gaze run the length of his pure masculine perfection, complete with one heavily muscled leg thrown over the sheet, and wondered how he could even ask.
“It’s just it was so…intense without being…serious. It wasn’t candlelight and promises of love everlasting.”
“You don’t like those things?” he asked, running a finger down the curve of her shoulder.
Guiltily she glanced away, then forced her gaze back. “No, I do. I’m sure I would—” If she ever actually felt that forever kind of glow, she would probably love it. If Nate had wanted to give her those things…
Only he didn’t and she knew it. The only thing everlasting in their future was the schoolgirl crush she expected would never quite go away. And a friendship if she was lucky. “What I mean is this was so…hot and it’s never been like that for me before. Impulsive. Exciting.” She felt the blush creeping into her cheeks—held Nate’s gaze anyway, needing him to understand. “No strings. No expectations.”
“Hell, if I’d known that I wouldn’t have worked so hard.”
She let out her own laugh then, swatting harmlessly at his chest. “You know what kind of expectations I’m talking about. The long-term kind.” It would be impossible to go to bed with Nate without some kind of expectation. His name was practically scrawled on the ladies’ lounge wall next to the words “for a good time”. “It’s never been so much…fun. So…free. My other experience wasn’t like this.”
This time it was Nate’s turn to pull back. “Your ‘other experience’? As in singular? I mean, I knew your experience was limited, but that idiot was your first?”
“Nate! Can’t you at least pretend you don’t know who I’m talking about? And he isn’t an idiot.” Clint wasn’t perfect. Far from it. What she’d had with him was polite. It was pleasant. But it hadn’t been deep and it hadn’t been passionate. It hadn’t been real. How could it have been when one of the people in the relationship hadn’t actually existed? Not that Clint ever noticed or cared. But even so, it hardly seemed fair to discuss his lack of creativity and vigor with a man so completely out of his league.
“I can’t believe you gave it up to Clint.”
Payton bristled. Some long-ago disappointment—frustrated and immature—reared its head, lashing out. “Well, you didn’t take it,” she snapped. “I had to give it to someone.”
Nate coughed, his brows crashing down. “Thankfully you never offered.”
Yes, probably a good thing since he’d vanished from her life a few days after she’d decided she wanted him to be the one. She’d finally been ready to screw up the courage and tell him how she felt. Only it was too late. The friendship between them had become a casualty of the fallout with Brandt.
Nate’s finger caught under her chin, urging her focus back to his face. “I think it might have killed me to say no. But I would have had to. You were sixteen.”
“You were only eighteen.”
“Yeah, but there’s a big difference between those ages, Payton. Besides, I was leaving for school and I didn’t ever want to come back.”
Because of people like her brother and his friends. Nate knew plenty about being on the wrong side of the talk, just as she did. And right now, she didn’t want either of them to have to think about it.
“Well, I suppose you might have been worth waiting for.”
Propping an arm behind his head, he cocked a wry smile at her. “So glad you enjoyed yourself.”
“The way my life has been going, well, I needed this—you.” She blinked up at him, those soft brown eyes tugging at his heart just as they always had. “You really are quite a lot of fun.”
Leaning in, he caught her lips with his own. His arm tightened across her back, holding her close through this soft, lingering last kiss. Slowly they parted and Payton let out a sigh that feathered over his jaw and neck as she drew away. It was a sweet, quietly satisfied sound that, coupled with the soft press of her breast against his abdomen, the smooth skin of her thigh crossed over his, and the bare heat of her against him, had him fighting the urge to pull her back.
She felt good and he wanted her again. Wanted more fun. More intensity. He wanted to give her more of what she’d never had before. Except he didn’t want to give her any kind of false promise or misconception about the potential for a relationship. And something in those big brown eyes staring up at him said he needed to tread carefully. Payton’s heart was a responsibility he didn’t want to bear.
“I get what you’re saying. And I had a good time, too.” “Had” being the operative word.
“Thanks, Nate.” Her grin spread wide and she closed her eyes indulging in one long, languorous stretch that moved her in a slow slide of flesh as she rolled away from him. His gut tensed as she arched back, rotating her hips in a decadent extension of feminine musculature and pretty pink skin. He should look away. Turn his head. Get the hell out of the bed before he did something stupid, but already his heart was turning over, getting ready to rev with thoughts of consequence quickly dissipating.
Maybe just one more—
And then she was climbing out of bed—dragging the sheet he’d barely had a corner of with her as she cast an impish wink back and darted for the bathroom.
His fingers tingled where he’d almost gotten hold of her. Damn, it was a good thing they were taking this off a physical level. He liked control. After the past six months, he needed it. And Payton, all naked and soft, had an unnerving ability to threaten his.
He glared at the closed bathroom door. He wasn’t following her in there.
The shower sounded, then the quiet thud of the sliding glass door as it closed.
He wasn’t going to take her against the tile wall. Bury himself inside her again. No. Because if he gave in, one more time wouldn’t be enough. It would be again and again. Finding new and creative ways to get Payton’s petite form wrapped tight around him. In his arms. In his bed. But that was all he’d have to offer her. Sex. And right now, the friendship they both needed was more important than that.
So, no. Definitely not. He wouldn’t follow.
Chapter Six
PAYTON stood beneath the hot spray, her body tender from sensual satisfaction, her mind whirling a mile a minute as she began to compartmentalize everything that had happened with Nate. Everything that would happen. She needed to be cool, to make sure he understood she didn’t have expectations about a future together. Or at least a romantic future. Because while last night had been incredible—exciting in a way she hadn’t believed possible and would never regret—it was the going forward that mattered.
Going forward as friends.
Tipping her face beneath the water, she pushed back the sodden curls, wringing the heavy mass clean.
These past hours with Nate had been a taste of what she’d missed so much over the years. Someone who could see her as she truly was. Accept her without recrimination. He hadn’t balked at her attraction—her interest in a single night of insanity. He’d helped her embrace it.
She needed that kind of freedom and acceptance as she edged out of the mold of perfect daughter to a man no longer there to maintain it for. She needed to be real.
Brandt wouldn’t approve of this business with Nate, and her mother—well, she was already worried out of her mind about the changes Payton had made with her career, her apartment, Clint. Most of all Clint. Nate would be just one more thing. But it was time she stopped living her life to someone else’s expectations.
Turning the brass tap fixtures to “off”, she stepped from the shower and knotted a thick terry bath sheet between her breasts. Stared into the mirror seeing the foggy image of a woman no one knew.
She’d been alone for too long. Surrounded by so many people—all the right people with their picture-perfect smiles and placid conversation—yet none of them knew her. What she really thought. Who she was.
And at the first sign she might be more than they believed, the talk had started. Concerned talk. Catty talk. The kind of talk she’d never been interested in and didn’t care to listen to now. She’d rather be alone. Only eventually loneliness wore on a person and they started to search for someone—a friend—to take them as they were.
A breath eased from her chest. A smile curved her lips.
She’d found Nate. And he’d asked her to be the friend he needed. When she needed one most. So this would work.
She opened the bathroom door and stepped into the now sun drenched suite, scanning the floor for her panties and bra. And her dress! She didn’t want to put that thing on again, but unless she planned to sprint for Nate’s limo in a robe it was the only option.
They’d started by the wall, but the floor was clear. Then the bed—
Her lips parted in silent awe.
Nate sat reclined against the headboard in his black trousers and bare feet, hair a spiky mess and tuxedo shirt hanging open down his chest. His attention fixed on The Wall Street Journal in his hands.
The look was all sin and seduction and wild bad-boy. This was the shot the magazine should have run next to his most-wanted bachelor bio. He wouldn’t be able to beat the women off with a stick.
Forcing her gaze away before he needed the stick for her, she noticed the pink lounge pants, zip jacket and shirt neatly folded at the foot of the bed. An accompanying set of lacey panties and bra lay beside them. “When—How?”
Without looking up, he yawned, “While you were in the shower.”
She checked the tags. This man had practice purchasing women’s clothing. “Quite an impressive skill set you have going on—your ability to guess sizes so accurately.”
A wry smile tugged at his lips. “I’ve got my limitations. I’d’ve had a tough time eyeballing you for a fitting. But I know exactly what fills my palm.”
“You’re bad,” she muttered, running a fingertip over the soft fabric.
“Yeah, but, as we’ve already established…” he folded the paper and tossed it beside him “…you like it.” Rising from the bed, he cast a lazy glance her way—and stopped. His eyes riveted to her.
“What?” Her hands went to her hair, seeking out some pile of suds she’d missed. Then, tucking her chin, she looked down. Everything packed away where it was supposed to be, and yet Nate’s halted posture—his unsettled reaction—was clearly in response to her. “Is something wrong?”
And then she saw it, in the last second before he gave an abrupt shake of the head and turned his back to her.
Heat. Desire. Ruthlessly shut down. She understood they weren’t continuing a physical relationship, but his almost hostile reaction—
“Nate?” she asked, crossing her arms over her chest to stave off the cool chill running through her heart.
“Nothing. Just realized I forgot a file at the office,” he answered abruptly. “Go on and get dressed and we’ll get out of here.”
Payton took a step back. “Sure. Of course.” Just as well. She’d been looking at Nate like too much of a temptation anyway and that wasn’t going to work. Not for either of them. Gathering the loungewear he’d gotten for her, she went back to the bathroom. The sooner they got out of this suite and back onto solid friendship ground, the better.
A few minutes later she returned to find a hastily scrawled note atop the bed.
Had to rush out. My driver is waiting for you downstairs.
I’ll get your address and stop over this afternoon.
Payton stared down at the note in blatant disbelief. She’d been on the other side of the door, a few panels of wood between then, and he’d left a note? The nerve!
No—this was something other than nerve. Nate would never intentionally hurt her. He might cat around, but he wasn’t cruel and he wasn’t callous. Her mind played back the minutes before he’d left, slowing to that last glimpse of desire and then anger. He hadn’t wanted to see her that way. Hadn’t wanted the attraction.
So be it. She’d look at this as the clean break they needed.
When she saw him again, it would be as friends.
And then her friend could explain what kind of a mess he’d gotten himself into that he needed a pretend affair to cover it up.
Nate raked his fingers through his hair, balling them at the base of his skull before letting go with a grunt. His dogged strides ate up the sidewalk, taking him fast from the scene of the crime. He was a jackass of the most contemptible variety. But seeing her there, wrapped in that towel, wet tendrils of hair snaking over her bare shoulders, tiny beads of water sprinkled across the swells of her freshly scrubbed skin—it was like being thrown back in time. To a place he didn’t want to revisit.
To a time when he was still mere potential and promise. Trying to exist within the confines of an environment that wanted to squelch the pride and drive out of him. Teach him a lesson. Show him he wasn’t good enough. That nothing he did could change it.
When all the frustrations and inequities of his youth came to a head—all driven by one inadvertent mistake. One look. One girl.
And like that, the years folded over and his feet were pounding up the stairs at the Liss house as he went for the textbook he’d left on Brandt’s floor the night before. Breaking the landing, he’d looked up, and through the open door of Payton’s bedroom, there she was. Brandt’s little sister emerging from her bathroom—fresh from the shower. Totally unaware.
He stopped breathing. Stood, mouth agape, stunned. Payton, his little shadow—always bundled in those conservative sweaters, jackets and formless clothing, her hair restrained, her legs covered—stood wrapped in a towel, her curls wet and wild, her curves unmistakable, her legs bare and pink and looking so soft. He jerked his gaze away. Snapped his jaw shut and forced his fists into his pockets.
God help him, she was beautiful. Hell, he’d known she was beautiful. Sweet and funny. But he’d never wanted her until that very minute and it caught him like a sock to the gut.
For too many reasons he had to get out of there. Couldn’t risk that he’d look again.
