“When are you gonna admit that you want this as bad as I do?” he asks.
“IT’S NOT—” I exclaim a little louder than I mean to.
Lowering my voice, I continue, “It’s not that I don’t want this, Nash. It’s that Ican’twant this. I’ve been saying this for weeks, but you refuse to accept it. It’s hard enough for young attorneys to be taken seriously, especially as a woman. Add fucking your paralegal to that, and what do you think that would do for my career?”
“Why does anyone have to know? I can keep a secret if you can. No one has to know a thing,” he tries to reassure me.
I roll my eyes. “Everyone will know. You don’t have a subtle bone in your body.”
“No,” he pauses, leaning forward. “I don’t. Not one single subtle bone,” he repeats my words back to me while bringing his hand to rest dangerously close to the crotch of his pants.
“Ugh, what am I gonna do with you?” I huff.
“I can think of a few things,” he replies.
I groan. “Let’s call it a night,” I mutter, “before I do something I’ll regret.”
We walk to the elevator in silence, the soft hum of fluorescent lights above us the only sound. Nash’s shoulder nearly brushes mine as we stand side by side, my arms loaded with files and marked-up legal pads. The elevator arrives with a too loud ding, its steel doors gaping open onto empty, mirrored walls that reflect our fatigue.
Inside, Nash leans against the rail, thumbing the loose button on his sleeve, eyes on his shoes. The silence grows more with every passing floor.
I sense his urge to say something, to crack a joke, but he only exhales, slow and steady, as if the act of restraint is a foreign language he’s still learning.
The doors part open to the lobby, spilling us onto polished floors and into the after-hours hush. The security guard barely glances up from his phone, granting us the privacy of two people pretending not to be in the middle of something major.
Nash follows, hands jammed in his pockets, a step behind me as if to stop himself from touching me again.
The parking lot is mostly empty. My breath fogs in the brisk night, heart still beating too fast from the memory of his hands.
As we reach my car, I grab the handle and turn to him to say, “Goodnight, Nash.”
For the first time, he doesn’t smile like he has all the other times he’s heard me say that.
Instead, he closes the gap between us, places his hand on my hip, and leans in to whisper in my ear, “The next time I hear you say that, you’ll be naked, half-asleep, worn out from the number of orgasms I just gave you.”
Then he turns and walks away.
I’m still burning by the time I slide into the driver’s seat, placing the files in the seat next to me. The chill of the steering wheel is no match for the heat radiating off my body.
Nash’s words echo in my head, like a song lyric stuck on a loop.
“The next time I hear you say that, you’ll be naked, half-asleep, worn out from the number of orgasms I just gave you.”
If anyone else said something that brazen, I’d roll my eyes and dismiss it as empty bravado. But with Nash, I believe him. I can practically feel the promise of it, the way his hands would know exactly where to touch, the infuriating confidence in his voice as he made good on every syllable.
I’m so distracted I barely remember to shift the car out of park.
I know I should be furious with him, or at least exasperated, but all I can think of is the way he makes me want. It’s like he’s rewired something in me, my brain cells now sparking every time I think of his stupid, beautiful face.
Nash isn’t even my type: too reckless, too eager, too much.
But tonight he made me feel something I hadn’t realized I was starving for. Someone who doesn’t just want me, but needs to prove it, needs to outdo every other man who’s ever touched me.
At that thought, I realize Mina was right. Painfully, embarrassingly right, which is her specialty. I really had been settling with Pierce.
A whole list of his character flaws flashes through my mind: his brittle sense of humor, his inability to listen to anythingwithout a running commentary, the way he’d act like my career was a hobby I’d eventually outgrow.
I’d overlooked all of it. Because it was easier that way. Because it was comfortable to be with Pierce.
