I walk cautiously toward him. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.”
“One day, though, you’ll see—this is a good thing. It’s better to be honest with her now—”
“You’re going to talk to me about honesty?”
I close my mouth.
He sighs, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. “This wasn’t how I expected things to go. It was easier when I thought you’d be by my side for—”
My apartment door opens behind me, sending my heart into my throat. I close my eyes, hoping I’m imagining that Nathan has just come into the hallway.
When nothing happens, I look over my shoulder. Although Nathan’s eyes are puffy from sleep, they’re shrewd and sharpened above my head—at Finn.
“Nate—” I begin, holding out my free hand.
Ignoring me, he beelines for Finn. Nathan is by no means violent, but all at once I see the tension in his muscles, the balling of his hands, the grit of his teeth. I drop the trash to catch his arm, but he’s already past me. He raises his fist and clocks Finn straight across the jaw. I cover my mouth, gasping as Finn retreats a few paces, one hand clutching his face.
Nathan shakes out his fist, flexing it.
“Oh my God,” I say, unable to conceal my shock.
“It’s okay.” Finn squeezes his eyes shut and works his jaw side to side, wincing. “I deserved it. But if there’s more coming—”
“I feel sorry for you,” Nathan cuts him off.
Finn pauses. His green eyes go foggy as he looks from Nathan to me. “You should.”
I want to tell Finn and his broken heart that he’ll meet his own soul mate—a woman who thoroughly belongs to him in a way I never could. A woman who, unlike Kendra, won’t hold him hostage if she doesn’t get what she wants. I can’t promise him that, though, and he isn’t my concern anyway. He’ll have to figure it out on his own.
Nathan turns around. He doesn’t look at me, but he puts his arm firmly around my shoulders. “Come inside.”
“The trash—”
“Leave it.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
We’re barely in the apartment when Nathan grabs my bicep and pulls me to him. “I want you.”
I glance at his hand on me, red and possibly swelling. “You need ice.”
“I need you, Sadie.” He leans in, his breath brushing my cheek. I can see his pulse racing at the base of his neck. “Now.”
I blush furiously at the growl in his voice. It’s been too long since he looked at me with this much love—this much lust. My insides coil and tighten deliciously. I look away, bashful, as if I have an enormous crush on my own husband. I sort of do. “You can have me,” I say, wrestling my arm from him. “Right after I take care of your hand.”
We stare each other down. He narrows his eyes like a lion that’s spotted its next meal. I take a step back. He takes one forward, bouncing on the balls of his feet. I bolt for the kitchen with him hot on my heels. I manage to grip the handle of the freezer right before he captures my waist and lifts me off my feet.
I devolve into peals of breathless laughter as he half swings, half tickles me. He sets me down facing the counter, my back to him, then slides his hands under my sweater. I close my eyes. Listen to our labored breaths. Appreciate the splash of chills over my skin. He tugs my top over my head, dropping it on the ground. My hair crackles with static while he combs his fingers through it. He unhooks my bra, tosses it, and reaches around to open the fly of my jeans. Seconds later, my pants and underwear are halfway down my thighs.
He runs his hand over my collarbone and rests it at the base of my throat. My heart pounds like it’s the first time a man’s ever touched me. Nathan reaches forward and picks a birth control pill out of the sink. “Is this . . . what I think it is?”
I turn in his arms and place my hands on his cheeks. He draws his eyebrows together, two wrinkles deepening between them, as if he’s concerned about what I’ll say.
“Let’s make a baby, Nathan.”
His expression eases with relief. He takes my hand and trails kisses from the inside of my palm up my forearm. With his big, enveloping arms, he hoists me by my waist. I shriek with surprise when my bare ass hits the cold countertop. Flour and sugar, leftover from my baking, bite into my skin. From this position, I get to watch his dance, the feverish way he rips open his fly and hops out of his pants and underwear. He reaches behind him to yank his t-shirt over his head.
And then, finally, but also swiftly, he’s sandwiched between my knees. He cups the base of my head and kisses his way up my neck until his mouth devours mine. Our tongues slip and slide faster than I can keep track.
He pulls my hips to the edge of the counter, and I wrap my legs around him. Teasing me, he traces the head of his cock up and down my slit. “I don’t think I can take it slow right now.” He presses in a little and groans. “Just to touch you with only my dick and feel how wet you are . . .”
I bite my bottom lip as he stretches me, slides inside me. He’s lost his dad, and he almost lost me too. I can feel his hunger, and I want to feed him. “This is a new start for us. Promise me, Nathan.”
He lifts his head to look at me. Sunlight filters through the kitchen window. His pupils constrict, his eyes a piercing almond-brown. “This isn’t a beginning or ending. It’s just where we are. We have a long and happy life behind us—ahead of us too.”
I dig my fingers into his shoulder as he breaks me open. With each heartfelt word and deliberate thrust, he rubs my sweetest spots. I’m practically purring. “Okay, Nathan. I trust you.”
“You want this baby?”
“I want this baby.”
He rears back, and I brace myself to take all of him, but the oven beeps. We freeze. He checks with me, an adorable expression of suffering and indecision plastered on his face. He knows I might want to stop. I don’t. It feels like sunshine after the rain to have him inside me again. But, there’ll be a price if we don’t. “It’s caramel apple pie,” I tell him. “Your call.”
He winces, as if I just slapped him. “I have to choose between pie and sex?”
“Warm and yummy,” I say. “I even got vanilla ice cream.”
He looks sidelong at the oven. “For the pie or the sex?”
I giggle and push him off me. He acts reluctant, but he smells the same delicious baked apples and homemade crust I do. “It’ll just take a minute,” I say and hop off the counter. “Otherwise it’ll be ruined.”
As I get out the oven mitts, he grabs an apron from the side closet and ties it on me. “Hot food and naked skin don’t mix.”
I bend over to check the pie and predictably, Nathan’s hand rounds the curve of my behind. “Mmm,” he hums. “You’re all the dessert I need.”
“Get me a cooling rack from the top cupboard, will you, babe?”
He slaps my ass. I gasp with the unexpected sting. “You’ve got flour on your buns,” he says. “And it’s making me hot.”
My motor is still running too, the throb between my thighs deeply unsatisfied. I place the dish on a trivet he set up. “It just needs to cool off.” I tease him as I toss the mitts aside, “Maybe I should let you cool off too.”
“Oh, I’m cool as a cucumber,” he says, scooping me up again. He plants my floured buns in the same pile of powder, takes a step back, and looks me over. He’s tall, lean, and hard everywhere. His sculpted shoulders. His muscular thighs. His pink, engorged cock, still glistening with traces of me.
“Nate,” I scold. Heat rises up my chest. “How will we ever make a baby if we don’t cross the finish line?”
He smiles slowly. “It’s just—you, in your apron. And the flour in your hair. You’re so beautiful, Sadie. It’s been too long since I told you.”
I get flustered under his praise and look away. Tucking my hair behind my ear, I hide my smile. “You’re the one who’s beautiful.”
He comes to me and turns my face to him by my chin. He pecks me hard on the lips and pulls back.
Holding my gaze, he squats down to push my knees apart and my apron up. He kisses my pussy like he did my mouth, once, fast and hard, and then looks up at me with a shit-eating grin.
“What?” I ask warily.
“Tastes just like caramel apple.”