When It's Right (5 page)

The door of the cab slammed shut and the engine rumbled to life, racking the whole truck with a low tremor. Okay, even Nate had to admit he didn’t love the way that felt.

All the same, he fell back on his good memories of trips like this—the ones with his friends when they were in high school, wind rushing through their hair and the world laid out, ripe for the picking. He pushed off and clambered to lie on his back in the bed, one of their bags beneath his head. As the truck lurched into motion, he held out his arm. “Come here.”

Cassie grumbled a quiet protest, but at the first bump of the truck over the uneven pavement, she crawled over to meet him. She settled herself in against him, head on his shoulder, body tucked against his side. He swallowed hard and wrapped his arms around her, absorbing her shivering. Giving her everything he could.

They’d put on their coats as soon as they’d fished them out of the back of the wreck, so he couldn’t feel her curves or her warmth the way he had before, but it didn’t matter. Nothing did.

Because in that infinite moment, it was just like it had been, flying through the night over a decade ago, young and free and invincible. Back before he’d gotten tied down by what he’d wanted. By his career and by one wrong woman after another.

This was
right
.

He held Cassie closer. Because that wasn’t all it was like.

It was like every other moment he’d had with her over the past five years—all those moments of friendship and companionship and happiness so profound he hadn’t even realized their source. All the smiles and laughter. The casual touches and the embrace of one friend wrapping around another.

And it was more. It was so much more.

With a shiver of his own borne of anything but cold, Nate stared up at the sky, through the lingering wisps of clouds at a darkness punched through with more stars than he could count. As he gazed at that vastness, he felt himself unfurling. Opening up to the possibility of more. Of something different and real.

And he let it seep into him like light through the holes in the ceiling of the world.

Chapter Six

“Your insurance man’ll call y’all once he comes in and confirms the car is totaled.” Sherry had her window down, her arm resting on the lip of it as she talked through the gap.

Nate nodded. He stood beside the truck, his tall frame hunched over so he could peer into it as he listened. Cassie waited a few feet away, hugging herself against the cold. She was on autopilot now, just trying to get through until she could rest.

The wind whipped her hair around her face, but the chill went so much deeper than the sting of it in the air. Deep in her bones, she could still feel the warmth of Nate’s arms. He’d touched her constantly since the accident, every moment acting as if he was trying to convince himself she was real—every moment except this one. And each time he reached for her, she didn’t have the will to stay away. All her resolve and all her mantras about being over him had crumbled in the wake of the need for comfort. He’d offered it so willingly, taking the same for himself, and she’d given and received without reservation.

Later. She’d worry about it later. Pull back again
later
, when this disaster was behind them. When she wasn’t so tired.

They’d wanted a new start. A new optimism for a brand-new year. And at every single turn, it had gone wrong, wrong, wrong.

She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry.

With a little mock salute, Nate stepped back from the truck as the window rolled up and the behemoth lumbered off. Nate didn’t move until it had turned back onto the road, its taillights receding into twin trails of red in the darkness, leaving them in front of the only motel for miles. Stranded, for all intents and purposes. The sign in the window of the office said there were rooms available, at least. If there weren’t…

“Cheer up, will you?”

Cassie jerked her eyes from the blackness to meet Nate’s gaze. He’d turned and was staring right at her, his smile hopeful in a way she couldn’t bring herself to be. Not now. She grumbled noncommittally, and he rolled his eyes.

“Come on then.” He moved to scoop up their bags, but she hefted hers onto her shoulder before he had a chance. He scowled, then strode forward to open the office door. “After you.”

With a sigh, she moved into the warmth and stepped aside. There wasn’t much to see. Just a deserted desk and a couple of sad brochures that looked like they’d been there for years.

Nate let the door swing closed behind him and called out a questioning, “Hello?”

The sound of movement beyond an open doorway was the only reply, until finally the twisted figure of an old man emerged. Leaning against the wall, Cassie let Nate take care of things. There were all the usual questions and replies. One room. Two double beds. Non-smoking. A credit card changed hands, and then Nate was standing in front of her again, dangling a key from between his fingers.

“All set,” he said. “See? That wasn’t so bad.”

Cassie held back her comments about how bad it could get. All the horror stories of bedbugs and bloodstains and axe murderers waiting in the bath. Hell. Right now, as long as the murderer promised to wait until she was sleeping, she probably wouldn’t even protest.

She shivered in spite of her pretense at apathy. Nate’s brow crinkled, and he stepped into her side to wrap his arm around her shoulder, rubbing his hand up and down. Ducking close, voice low, he said, “Let’s go get you warmed up.”

And it was too much. It was the heat of his breath on her neck, the smooth tone of his words in her ear and the innuendo he didn’t hear there. The suggestion. And she was so weak. So weak she hoped, leaned into him and breathed. Then stopped herself, cursing in her head.

Stupid, stupid hope.

She shrugged him off and forced a halfhearted smile. “Lead on.”

She kept a safe distance between their bodies as they exited the office and made their way down the concrete sidewalk, each shouldering their own bag in spite of his offer to carry both. They passed door after door until they reached one near the end where Nate stopped, put the key into the lock and pushed.

The door swung open and Cassie walked through. Looked. Took a half-dozen numb steps forward and forced one breath after another.

Bedbugs. Bloodstains. Axe murderers. She would have taken any of them. Anything except this.

Anything except one king bed—one huge, fluffy, inviting king bed.

How many times had she envisioned the two of them sleeping like this? Her next inhalation choked her, the oxygen tearing through her throat, setting her lungs and chest on fire. She’d wanted this. But not like this.

Dropping her bag on the floor, she buried her face in her hands and sank to sit on the edge of that stupid, stupid bed. The corners of her eyes prickled, and her cheeks burned as she stuttered out a shaking, “This is wrong. Everything is so, so wrong.”

The room and his presence, his mocking desire for a new start and a new opportunity for love. The broken wreck of her car and the road spinning out beneath them. The clicking silence of his engine and…and
everything.

She should never have come. Should have stayed at home where she could nurse her broken heart and mourn her unrequited love alone. Should never have let herself be so closed or opened herself up again.
Should have should have should have.

For too many long, aching moments, there was no sound but for her ragged gasps for air and the lingering echo of how
wrong
this was. But then there was motion. The gust of wind and the closing of the door, a thud as another bag hit the floor. Footfalls. Nate’s hands on hers and everything about him too close.

Making quiet shushing noises, he peeled her fingers from her face, then curled his hands around hers, holding them between their bodies. He was kneeling on the floor before her, so close she could feel his breath against her lips. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.

His eyes blazed, but his hands and voice were so, so soft.

“Cassie. I will go to that office and I will change this room.” He paused, and something in his expression seemed to melt. “But…”

Her heart went cold and hot inside her chest. “But?”

“But what if it’s not wrong?” With his thumbs, he caressed the centers of her palms. “What if it’s not wrong at all? What if it’s right?”

For an instant, absolute silence reigned. And then things got very loud in Cassie’s brain. Against the rising tide of incredulous voices all clamoring for attention, she shook her head and clenched her eyes shut tight. When she looked again, though, he was still right there, his face as earnest as she had ever seen it.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean…” His hands were still rubbing hers, and the contact made her whole body tremble. These weren’t the touches of two friends. Oh, no. This was more. And she had no idea what to do with that.

Except take it.

From the very first moment she’d laid eyes on Nate, she had wanted this. She hadn’t acted on it then, and she’d never regretted that. Her reluctance had kept her from the ranks of the notches on his bedpost, from the long list of women he had dated and resented and never let into his heart. It had been the right thing to do, back then. To never even pursue him.

And the
right
thing now would be to let him finish his sentence. Hell, to beg him to explain and to fight for what they’d built these last few years. But what they had was untenable, solid but anchored to the shaky foundation of her yearning heart. And she didn’t care very much about right and wrong. Not now.

His next word was swallowed by her breath, by the unpracticed, unpremeditated crush of lips on lips.
God, his mouth.
For a second, he hesitated, his voice fighting to be heard, but she wasn’t listening. Even if this was just an experiment for him, just another effort to get out of a rut and try something new or—her chest ached—just another in this day’s long series of disasters and mistakes, she would take it. Because no matter what happened next…she would always have this to hold on to.

“Not now,” she said against his lips. She squeezed his hands, begging him to understand.

“But we should talk about—”

“Later.”

She parted her lips around his bottom one, sucking gently at flesh she’d watched for so long. Panic was starting to creep in around the rush of finally tasting and taking, a sudden terror that she’d read this all wrong. That this hadn’t been what he’d been going for, that his hands on hers weren’t—

All at once, he groaned, and then he was cupping her face, rising higher on his knees. His mouth opened, and there was nothing but this kiss.
His
kiss. The press of tongue and a glance of teeth. It was wet and sloppy, careless and yet firm. It tasted like letting go and giving in. Like something so wrong and so right.

They both shrugged off their coats. He pushed her back, and she went willingly, scooting up the bed, bracing herself on her elbows as he followed, knees coming to rest between her thighs. Hovering over her, just inches between their bodies, he pressed her into the mattress and into a well of feeling she didn’t know if she’d ever resurface from—one she wasn't sure she even wanted to.

His hips grazed hers, his arousal clear, and her body felt like it was giving off sparks. But just as quickly as he’d started kissing her, he stopped. Her eyes flew open as he pulled lips and hips away, his face flushed and breath heaving. With one hand tangling in the scruff at the back of his neck, she tried to pull him back down, but he held firm.

“Cassie…” There was a pleading to his tone, like he was asking her for something. Or like he didn’t even know what he wanted.

“Don’t overthink this.” When he still refused to budge, she lifted herself up to put her lips to his throat, making him shake.

He laughed, but the sound was dry. “How can I not? It’s you, Cass.
You
.”

“Do you not want to…?” It hurt to even ask, and she froze with her mouth open at his pulse point, her abdomen twisting as she braced herself.

“Fuck.” He moved one hand from the mattress to her hip, his thumb sneaking above her waistband. It was so
warm.
“I do. But…”

She shook her head. “Then let it happen.” She closed her lips on the salty flesh where his shoulder met his neck and sucked, feeling his answering moan as a blooming heat between her legs. “Let it happen.”

“Cass…”

She slid her hand down his chest, and when she touched the firm muscles of his abdomen, they both tensed. He dropped his head onto her shoulder, throat rumbling with sounds of need. In a whirlwind, his mouth was back on hers, his hands darting higher until one was on her breast over her shirt, the other touching the bare skin of her side.

Scarcely breaking the kiss, he pulled back just an inch to say, “We will be talking about this.”

“I know. Just not now.”

He looked at her with the same intensity that had always captivated her. “Not now.”

With that, all the restraint in his body seemed to evaporate, his mouth capturing hers again as his body melted down. Flush against her, fitting in every way, he was all hard angles and delicious weight, pressure exactly where she needed between her thighs.

Her hands finally free to touch where she wanted to, she dragged them down the expanse of his back and lower, cupping his ass and pulling him close. He thrust against the valley of her hips, and she saw stars. “Right there.”