Walking into my room, I realized that Nick’s duffel and garment bag were now on my bed, and my shower was running. Slamming open the door, I yelled at him.
“You have your own bathroom!” I was indignant.
“I did,” he said, popping his head out from behind the curtain that went around the ring above the clawfoot bathtub. “But now I’m in here with you.”
“No,” I railed at him, stalking over to the tub and reaching in to turn off the water.
“Yes,” he insisted, leaning in close to kiss me.
The fact that I took hold of his cheek and kissed him back took all the sting out of my words. His wide smile and dancing eyes told me I was a complete disaster when it came to threatening him in any way.
Grabbing a towel, I turned and stalked out of the room.
I took a lukewarm shower in the guest bathroom, which had very recently been his but was now empty of anything that did not belong to my mother. He had taken it upon himself to move all his crap into my room, uninvited. What the hell?
I was growling by the time I was done, and as I stood in front of the mirror, with my hair combed back from my face, I realized how badly it needed to be cut. It was falling to my shoulders now, as thick and heavy as my mother’s.
Turning and opening the door, I nearly walked into Nick, who was standing right outside.
“You can’t just move your shit into––”
“God, you’re annoying,” he said, chuckling as he took hold of my hips and stepped in close to me, his mouth a hairsbreadth from mine. “Kiss me.”
“You’ve been kissed enough,” I lied, because yes, I wanted more of every part of him.
“You’re worried that because I’m young, I’ll get tired of you, and I’ll want to go out and party.”
“No,” I groused, because yeah, that was part of it, the rest being that he’d wake up in the morning, in bed with me, and wonder what the hell he was thinking.
“Yes,” he said, smiling. “And I can’t fix that because only time will show you how serious I am about you.”
I wasn’t touching that.
“Where’s my ring?”
“Right here,” I grumbled, holding up my hand. “But you should––”
“Is your plan to not kiss me or touch me? Just make me do it all until I’m sick of being the only one initiating contact?”
Perhaps…
He shrugged. “It won’t work,” he assured me, chuckling. “I have no problem being––”
“Shuddup,” I ordered, slipping my hand around the side of his neck and drawing him close for a kiss.
I tipped his head back and kissed him slowly, taking my time, cupping the back of his head in my hand as I stroked over his jaw with my thumb.
The full-body shiver made me smile, and when I pulled back, his pupils were blown, and his face was flushed just enough that I noticed. “I am not easy to like or love or anything,” I told him. “You should pick someone easier.”
“I don’t want easy,” he said, leaning in. “I want you.”
I kissed him again, enfolding him in my arms, and he wrapped his around my neck so I couldn’t pull away. The shining eyes told me how happy he was when I let him breathe. Even panting for air, he’d never looked better.
I tried to tell myself I would take off the ring and just stop, put an end to his infatuation before it got any further out of hand.
“Don’t make me cry,” he whispered against my mouth. “Please, Loc, I only want to smile from now on.”
How was I supposed to say no to that?
At dinner, he was looking at me expectantly, and it hit me.
“Oh yeah,” I said, taking a breath and a deep gulp of chianti. “What was your epiphany?”
He put down his fork and scowled at me.
“Sweetheart, that’s not the way we ask about something as important as an epiphany,” my mother scolded me.
“No, I didn’t mean it like––” I growled at him. “Tell me or don’t.”
He tipped his head and squinted at me.
God.
“Fine, that was crappy. Please, tell me.”
His face lit up. “I had this great idea, and I talked to the guys, and they agreed to come with me, so I’m taking my aunt Gwen up on her offer.”
“Guys? Aunt who?”
“My guys, the guys in my band who back me up, Silas, Merce, and Flint.”
“Jesus Christ, I’m not even kidding. You don’t know anybody with a normal name.”
He shrugged. “Says Locryn.”
“What?”
“Never mind,” he replied, chuckling.
“And again, I ask, aunt who?”
“Okay, so, after the stories all hit the news,” he explained, putting his fork down so he could curl my hair around my ear, “my aunt Gwen, who’s my mother’s sister, reached out to me through Sawyer’s office and invited me to rediscover my Kentucky roots, in Irvine, which is where my mother’s family is from.”