“Did Scott tend to that side of you?”
She shrugged, a defeated look in her eyes. “As much as I hate to admit it, he did. I mean, it’s not like he’s some paragon of how to be a good boyfriend, but he was attentive, and took me to dinner, and bought me flowers and gifts, and candy on Valentine’s Day. So really, it was clearly the other side of me he didn’t like. He didn’t like me in the bedroom.”
Nate’s jaw clenched. The guy was such an ass. “That’s not romantic,” he muttered.
She propped herself on her elbow. “Oh yeah, Mr. Not Romantic? Tell me what’s romantic then?”
“You think I’m not romantic just because I don’t get serious?”
She scrunched up the corner of her lips. “Well, kind of.”
He grabbed her hip, playfully pulling her closer. “I’ll have you know, Miss Casey, that I am excellent at buying flowers. I can whip out my platinum card like that,” he said, snapping his wrist and mimicking slapping down a plastic card. “I can also—wait for it—use that same card to buy gifts. In fact, I did,” he said, gesturing to the box.
“I know, and I liked your gift. But you know what I mean.”
“I can do candlelight dinners too. Let me tell you, the way I book a restaurant is inspired. Only to be topped by my ability to order champagne and have chocolate delivered on Valentine’s Day. ”
She held up her hands in defeat. “Fine, fine. You win. What is romantic to you then?”
“Romantic,” he said, lingering on the word as he stopped to finger a strand of her hair, “is taking care of a woman. It’s being attuned to her needs. It’s listening to her. It’s making her feel beautiful, inside and out, because she is. It’s knowing her favorite dish, and picking it up on the way home. It’s giving her your coat when she’s cold, and holding open the door, and it’s making sure she has everything she needs before a big meeting,” he said, and a flicker of recognition flashed in her mountain lake blue eyes.
It was as if they existed in a bubble right now, a sealed cocoon where they were dancing perilously close to admissions they should never make. The moment fueled him, spurring him on. “It’s knowing what matters to her, whether it’s her collection of kisses, or the way she likes to be kissed.”
She brought her fingers to her lips, as if recalling a kiss. He couldn’t resist. “Sometimes, it’s just kissing her because she needs to be kissed, and because you can’t help yourself when it comes to her,” Nate said and kissed her once more. A soft, slow kiss. An unhurried one, as he explored her lips with tender moves, tracing her mouth with the tip of his tongue, gently brushing his fingertips along her face. Their bodies drew near to each other inch by inch, as if an invisible thread knit them together. The kiss became a sensuous journey across her mouth and her lips and her tongue. It was her melting into his arms, and him melting with her. Because he kissed her with all he had and she kissed him back the same way, spreading her hand across his chest, and hooking her leg over his. It was a full body kiss, heady and intoxicating, and it pulled him under, like a wave. He barely wanted to come up for air.
Then he stopped and looked her in the eyes. “Is that okay?”
“Is what okay?” she asked, sounding dazed. Looking dazed too. He loved that kiss-drunk look she wore so well after he’d touched her.
“If I just kiss you like that? For no reason? Or is that crossing a line in our agreement?”
“Oh, right. Yes, our agreement,” she said, smoothing her hands down her shirt, looking away from him. She seemed to be . . . rebooting. When she returned her gaze to him, she had on that business-like face.
“I think as long as we know that there are lines we’ll be fine,” she said, in a cool and measured voice.
“Absolutely. The lines are clear. Hell, if you want, I can keep my hands off unless we’re practicing a lesson,” he said, perhaps more gung-ho than he intended. But he couldn’t stop. He needed the reminders too. He laid on the bravado reassurances that he was cool with it all. “It’s not a problem. I can easily just take a step back when we’re not in the middle of things.”
“Don’t you worry,” she said with a cheerful smile. “I’m not going to get confused and think the sex, or the almost-sex, or the kissing for no reason, means anything more than it does. We’re still friends, and these lessons aren’t changing that,” she said, so damn matter-of-factly that she could be teaching a course on nonchalance.
His chest tightened, and he tried to ignore the way those words gnawed at him. They shouldn’t annoy him, because this was what he wanted. To stay friends with her, and to be the one to help her in her quest.
The friendship mattered too much to him to let this momentary irritation win.
That was why he stayed. That was why he ate sesame chicken and moo shu pancakes and broke fortune cookies with her, handing her his—now is the time to try something new—and saying, “I believe this one was meant for you.” She gave him hers, as she said, “Then, this must be yours then. Your fondest dreams will come true this year.”
“I am going to open a hotel on the moon,” he said in an awed voice, and she laughed, then danced her fingers across his chest.
“Here. Right here,” she said, tapping his left pec. “I’m going to write that on your chest like a tattoo.”
He raised an eyebrow. “That I’m opening a hotel on the moon?”
She shook her head. “No. That you’re a good teacher of tricks.”
“Trick teacher,” he said, with a laugh. “Yeah, that’ll be my first tattoo.”
“I’ve always wanted to brand you,” she said.
They were back to being friends. They were back to the zone where he’d always have her in his life. Because there, she could never break his heart. She could never hurt him. He could always be happy with what they had.
Besides, he was getting every man’s dream. Sex, and no expectations of more.
Or sex soon, he should say.
As she gathered up their empty cartons, she tossed out a question. “Do you think Jack would care? If he knew what we’re doing?”
“Eating Chinese?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.
“You know what I mean.”
“I do know. And I don’t know how it could matter to him, because we already agreed that nothing has changed, and that nothing is going to change.”