“Cowardly?”
“Yep.”
“In what way?”
“Like I said, you’re trying to make a point that we both know is crap, so knock it off.”
“Nicky––”
“That’s no good either,” he said, shaking his head. “Get rid of that as well.”
“I––”
He stepped forward then, into me, crowding me, hands on my hips, his fingers in my belt loops, clutching tight. “I’m not a kid, Loc. Don’t try and treat me like one.”
“Yeah, but compared to––”
“No,” he murmured, smiling at me again, leaning sideways so he could speak close to my ear. “If you don’t want me, then say it to me man to man. Tell me that my hands on you are not something you ever want to feel, but this bullshit about me being too young for you is over.”
My heart stopped for a second, because yeah, no, not a kid. Not at all. Not with the power he was exerting to keep me still, not with how he smelled, like cedar with a trace of vanilla, like musk and the sun.
“Don’t ever call me kid again. Are we clear?”
“Yeah, I won’t,” I said, taking a breath.
“Good,” he said, his nose bumping my chin as he inhaled deeply. “Just go with the other. I like it much better.”
“Other?” I croaked out.
“Honey,” he murmured, and made a growling, purring sound that made my stomach flip over as his parted lips grazed the skin right under my jaw, his warm breath ghosting down the side of my neck. “That one you can use all the time, whenever you want.”
“I don’t call you––”
“Yes, you do,” he assured me huskily. “You call me honey, and your voice goes all soft and tender, and it takes everything in me to keep my hands off you.”
“Nick––”
“I watched you get out of the creek a bit ago,” he said, sliding his right hand around my waist to the small of my back, “and when I looked up and saw you standing there with all those gorgeous muscles and the smooth curve of your back trailing to your beautiful round ass…suddenly, I couldn’t even breathe.”
I had to concentrate on moving air through my lungs as well.
“You do that at home too,” he husked, his hand slipping from my back to my ass as the other lifted to the side of my neck, his thumb sliding along the line of my jaw. “You parade around without a shirt on, your jeans or sweats or whatever riding so fuckin’ low, just like this, showing off those sexy dimples and your gorgeous ass.”
He’d been watching me? Paying attention to me? “You need to––”
“First time—we’d been fighting all day, and I was sitting on the deck, and you came up from the pool, hair wet, towel over your shoulder and those damn shorts barely riding your hips, and all I could think was, for fuck’s sake, Nick, why are you fighting with this man instead of figuring out a way to get him in your bed?”
Everything, all his words, registered at once.
“Are you outta your mind?” I barked, shoving away from him, glaring. “I’m your fixer, you idiot. You don’t have sex with your fixer!”
His smile lit up his face. “Oh, baby, I’ve got news for you; we’re going to do so much more than just have sex.”
Clearly one of my mother’s hippie friends had come by and brought her some peyote or magic mushrooms and, either accidentally or on purpose, dosed the hell out of Nick Madison.
“I ask this with all sincerity,” I said, squinting at him. “Are you high?”
“You just got me clean,” he said indignantly.
“I know!” I yelled at him. “How the hell do you think I feel?”
He laughed at me, and I spun around to go back to the garden to get my shirt. It was suddenly very important to have more clothes on around him.
“Running away isn’t you,” Nick announced, easily keeping pace with me. “You’re much more the stand-and-fight guy.”
“I’m not fighting with––” I growled at him. “We’re not fighting!”
“Then why are you yelling?”
“Because you’re being stupid,” I thundered back.
“Oh? In what way?” he asked cheerfully.
I went to grab my shirt, but he shoved by me and snatched it off the gate along with the cowboy hat, which he put on.
“Gimme the shirt.”
“I’ll trade you for the jeans,” he offered, his gaze sliding over me from head to toe.
I crossed my arms and scowled at him. “Where the fuck is this coming from?”
“Months and months of pent-up longing,” he admitted, not sounding happy about it and giving me a pained smile.
“That’s not true. You hated me.”
“Yes,” he admitted, “I did. At first. But even when I thought you were the devil, I still dreamed about crawling into bed with you every night.”
“That’s such shit,” I snarled at him. “I listened to every word you ever said to me.”
“I was angry and stupid and selfish,” he conceded, reaching for me, “and I’m sorry, but you really need to stop thinking about anything I said before right this very second.”