Nate leaned close, and all of a sudden, Molly was hyperaware of him. “Just so you know, it was me who left that dead frog. Zach dared me to.”
Molly turned to him, mouth open to give him proper hell, but she didn’t get the chance. Nate slid his mouth over hers, and she forgot about the dog and sleepaway camp and the frog. She didn’t think about the fact that they were sitting on the floor in her clinic, or that she’d told herself only hours earlier she wouldn’t do this again.
The world shrank until there was just Nate. And his mouth. And that ache deep inside her, the one that spread from her core and breathed fire into her veins. It was an ache she feared would never go away—and that thought should have scared her.
But how could she think of such things when his hands made her whimper? When Nate’s mouth practiced the kind of magic she’d read about? The kind that Richard Gere used on Julia Roberts? Who could resist it? With a groan, Molly gave up trying, because apparently, it wasn’t her.
They kissed until her head spun. Until her insides melted and spread across the floor. Until she thought she would die because she couldn’t breathe. Until her heart broke apart and warning bells rang inside her head.
“Stop,” she said, tearing her mouth from Nate’s. She stared into his eyes as she struggled to catch her breath. “What are we doing, Nate?”
He seemed just as affected as her and jumped to his feet, hands shoved into the front pockets of his pants as if he didn’t trust himself.
“I’m sorry, I… This is too fast.” Molly managed to say, getting up and moving away from him. Silence filled the room, and she didn’t move because her knees shook.
“I get that. I really do, but, Moll, there’s something here between us.”
“But what is it?” Dumb question on her part. She knew exactly what it was, for her, at least, and she waited, breath locked at the back of her throat, for him to answer.
He exhaled and ran his hands through the mess of hair at his nape and shrugged. “I don’t know, but I’d sure like to find out. I mean, we can take our time and see what happens.” A heartbeat passed. “Can’t we?”
This was the moment Molly could stop this thing in its tracks, and if she were smart, it was exactly what she’d do. She knew there was no future between her and Nathan. Hell, the guy had a life in New York City, and from what he told everyone, it was pretty damn exciting. He was going back to it in a week, and her life was here. He’d said goodbye to Crystal Lake as soon as he could, and he’d say goodbye to it again.
But there was that thought at the back of her mind, the one that said she’d be a fool not to take that one small slice of something special and taste it, savor it, enjoy the hell out of it for as long as she could. There were people on this planet who never got a chance to feel the way she did right now. So why would she turn her back on it? Even if it was only for a little while.
“Maybe,” she whispered, though for her, the decision was already made. “But not tonight.”
“Okay,” he answered slowly. “The ball’s in your court, Moll.”
The question was, what the hell did she do with the ball? Knock it out of the park and forget the whole thing? Or put the ball in play even if it was only for a small moment in time. She looked at him, at his dark eyes, square jaw, lips that kissed like a king, and she knew she wanted to play ball. She’d be smart about it. She had to prepare and come up with a plan to protect her heart from further damage, figure out a way to hide her true feelings. Because, as confused as she was about a lot of things, one of them was crystal clear.
Nathan Jacobs could never know she was in love with him.
Chapter Ten
Nate spent Tuesday working from the impressive backyard of the Manchester house. Surrounded by the kind of nature only found in this corner of the world, he relaxed on the back deck that overlooked the lake and answered emails and made phone calls. With school back in and the last long weekend of the summer over, the lake looked empty. A few boats zipped across the water, but the spark that made summer special was gone.
Link was still holed up here, though he hadn’t been forthcoming with the real reason he’d taken leave from the league. The guy definitely had no injury that Nate could see, but something was off, and he decided it was better to give the man some space to figure things out. The footballer spent the majority of his time hiking around the lake, so Nate had
the place to himself, which was why he’d packed up his laptop and come out here. He had to get out from under his mother’s eye.
She hadn’t said a word about his disappearing act from the Malone’s fish fry and didn’t look twice when he strolled through the door late Sunday afternoon. He’d spent all that time with Molly and the dog and her pups. They did nothing but talk and laugh, and he’d tried like hell to ignore the thing between them, though he wasn’t entirely successful. More than once, he’d moved closer, his intent clear, but the look in her eye kept him at arm’s length.
He’d have to heed his own words and go slow with her.
He glanced down and swore as another email landed in his inbox. All hell had broken loose over the weekend when he’d had his phone shut off. One of his top clients had decided to go vegan in a big way by tweeting and Instagramming one hundred and one reasons why he’d given up meat. Normally, Nate wouldn’t give a damn. What did he care what his clients shoved down their throats? But when the NBA star had been paid millions to hawk the biggest chain of steak houses in the country, when his face was in the middle of Times Square smiling at the hunk of meat on his fork, it became a big problem, and he’d been dealing with the fallout all morning.
He answered the email and tossed his phone. He was restless and couldn’t stop thinking about Molly. She’d been ignoring him since Sunday, and he was just about done with that.
He worked for a couple more hours and had just packed things up when Link strode onto the deck and parked his butt in one of the loungers that faced the water.
“Thought you’d be gone by now.”
Nate sat back and steepled his fingers. “We need to talk, Link.”
Link stared out across the water and slowly nodded. “Yeah, I supposed we do, mate.” He glanced over. “I suppose you want to know whether I’m signing with your agency or not.”
“At the moment, I’m more concerned about the fact you’ve manufactured some sort of injury that’s kept you from playing the game you love.”