Sam didn’t know what else to do but cross the room and stand next to him.There wasn’t anything really going on out there.Just a quiet Marietta night, winter swirling in.So, they stood shoulder to shoulder, looking down at Main Street.Snow fell in big, heavy flakes in the glow of streetlights.
It didn’t feel like a celebration, but maybe that was just the trial hanging over them.Maybe nothing could feel good—new homes, friends getting married, any of it—until the trial was over.
“They’re, uh, predicting something like a foot of snow,” Sam said lamely, because the silence she was usually so comfortable with was getting to her.
“I saw that.”
Silence descended again.Then Nate turned and with very purposeful moves put his glass down on her coffee table.He turned to her and took her glass from her.Set it down next to his.
Sam wasn’t sure what moved through her then, some kind of personal earthquake.Particularly when he fixed that intent, serious gaze to her and closed the space between them.
She should have backed away, but she was rooted to the spot.Even more so when his hand curled around her head.His fingers were tangled in herhair.He was looking at her with that intensity that they sometimes shared, but never whiletouching.
Everything stopped.Her breathing.Time, she was pretty sure.Because she didn’t know what was happening, and if she let herself consider whatmightbe happening, she’d have to laugh, because of course it wasn’t.
Except he was drawing her closer to him.The heat of him, the hardwallof him.And he could have stayed up there, a good foot taller than her, but he bent down.And she really had no thoughts in her head.Just a buzzing there, a thudding in her heart, and a yearning way deep inside.
She kept expecting him to stop or say something orstop, but then his mouth was on hers.
Just a gentle brush of lips.She could almost call it casual.Except his hand was still cradling her head, and his body was against hers, and his mouth was stillright there, just a whisper of air between them.
She felt too many things at once, worst of them hope, and that might have given her the sense to pull away from this, but his mouth touched hers again, more urgent this time.
She still felt a million tangles of too many things to name, but she didn’t have the brain power to do anything but kiss him back.It seemed the most natural thing in this moment to meet him move for move, sigh for sigh, even when internally she was vibrating apart.
She had wrapped her arms around his neck, not quite cognizant of doing it, but cognizant of the way his hair felt against her fingertips.
God, he could kiss.
Nate had… purposefully come up here and kissed her.Purposefully.It had clearly been his plan.Ithadto have been thought out.Even though they’d fought this morning.Even though they’d been avoiding this very thing formonthsnow.
She pulled back, fear a dark, horrible wriggle in the back of her brain.“Is this… is this about the break-in?”she asked.
Hadto ask, because she didn’t understand what else had brought this on, this very purposeful,plannedcrossing of that barrier they’d both kept erected.Maybe he thought he had to in order for his protection to be accepted, and no matter how amazing that kiss had been,thatwould be awful.
“Because… that’d be kind of a dick move.”
Nate sighed, but he didn’t let her go.His hand smoothed down her neck and back.Then he used his free hand to brush some hair off her cheek.
It was all so gentle.All so… something that felt like it had the weight to just destroy her if she let it.
And he only made that worse when he spoke, without letting her go, without stepping away.“Do you know how long I’ve wanted to kiss you, Sam?”
*
Nate had beenfascinated by Sam Price since they were teenagers.He’d never understood what had given her the courage or the empathy to help him out of town when he’d been broken and desperate.
When she’d tracked him down earlier this year, all determination and fire, unafraid to face down anything, the fascination had only grown.
Then over the past six months, he’d seen her soft spots, her vulnerabilities, her weaknesses.
But this was a whole new layer to her.She hid it very well.That uncertain girl so sure everyone would abandon her.
He wouldn’t.
He’d grown up in a house of barbs and bombs and manipulations without fully understanding all the shadows in the corners he’d ignored.He was direct with his family now.He’d be direct with her.No more shadows.No more ignoring what existed.
All he’d ever wanted to do was take care of something and know it wouldn’t crumble in his hands.
