The minute those words were out of her mouth, there was a shift between us. I fucking liked hearing those words but I sensed she wished they’d never been uttered. It had been a long time since I’d been anyone’s man, and with each passing day I was easing more into this relationship, whatever the hell it was. A week ago, it was just sex, now it felt like a lot more.
I pulled her closer before she had a chance to retreat from me. “You make me very happy,” I whispered in her ear.
Her body was rigid but at my words, I felt her soften. “Same,” she said, and that one word sent warmth through me. Although we’d taken a long time to get here, I felt like we were in the exact right place. Together.
Loosening my hold on her, I stepped back and my eyes drifted down her body. “Babe,” I said as I looked back up at her, “don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it, but why the hell do women wear the tightest jeans that barely fit them. How the fuck do you breathe in those things?”
She smacked me on the arm. “Why the fuck do women do anything, Nash? To make sure the men in their lives are happy and to make sure their attention stays on them rather than on another woman.”
I chuckled having achieved my goal. “Trust me when I say that my attention is firmly on you, sweet thing.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You totally said all that to change the topic of the conversation, didn’t you?”
Caught out. I grinned. “It may have also been to get you a little shitty. You’re fuckin’ hot when you’re shitty.”
She hit my chest this time and pointed at the doorway. “Go. We’ve got shopping to do.”
I did as I was told and she followed me outside. When we reached her car, I put my hand out for her keys. The look she gave me could have brought a weaker man to his knees. “What?” I asked.
“Did you just put your hand out for the keys so you could drive my car?”
“Yeah.” I wasn’t really sure what the problem was here.
“I don’t think so, Nash.” She gave me an annoyed look.
“Well we can’t take my bike,” I said what I thought should have been clear. We were on our way to Ikea to pick up a bookshelf for her and it sure as shit couldn’t be transported on a bike.
That just pissed her off even more. “Oh my God, Nash. That’s not what I meant.”
“What the hell did you mean then?” This conversation had gone south real fucking quick and I was clueless as to why.
“Just because you’re the man doesn’t mean you get to automatically drive my car. If it was your car, I would assume you’d drive it. I’d never assume that I would. Don’t come into my life and think that I’m the woman so I must be relegated to woman jobs.” She meant business and I read between the lines. Some asshole had fucked with her and I suspected it was her ex-husband.
I didn’t argue, just raised my hands in apology. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. It’s all yours.” I moved to the passenger door and waited for her to let me in.
She stood staring at me and I waited for her to make the next move. “Shit, Nash Walker, where the hell have you been all my life?” she finally said before walking around to the driver’s side.
“Baby, I could say the same thing,” I said, softly, more to myself than her, but she caught it and flashed me a smile before getting in the car. Velvet smiling was a sight I could see myself living for; a sight I would trip over myself to make sure I saw often.
***
Velvet
I watched as Nash pulled all the flat packed pieces out of the box and started assembling the cabinet I’d bought. We’d gone to buy a bookshelf and ended up with one of those plus this cabinet that looked tricky to put together. I grabbed the assembly instructions and passed them to him.
He frowned as he took it off me. “Why are you giving me that?”
I gave him a ‘you’re joking’ look. “So you can work out how to put it together.”
He shoved the instructions back at me. “I can work out how to put it together without those, sweetheart.”
Was he kidding me? I opened them and started reading to make sure what he was doing was actually right. It was a good thing I did because I noticed he was doing something wrong.
I tried to give him the instructions again. “You’ve got the wrong part there,” I insisted.
He stood up and scowled at me. “Velvet, I’m still working out how it goes together. Maybe you should go and do something else while I do this.”
“If you’d just read the instructions, you’d work it out faster,” I suggested. It annoyed me when men wouldn’t read instructions.