“Great to hear, Nate.”
“That’s wonderful. Hope it continues.”
Leo, the sad-eyed man who’d lost his wife, wasn’t so lucky, and the rest of the meeting was spent comforting him. He felt moving on was a betrayal of his wife’s memory and that he needed to mourn her more.
“This group is for people who want to forget. I can’t.”
“Learning to deal with grief doesn’t mean forgetting the person you love. It means learning how to live with their memory and allowing the pain of their loss to coexist with your need to live again. It’s a very fine line that takes time to navigate.”
By the end of the emotional, dramatic session, Leo agreed to return, at least for the next week’s meeting.
“Let’s go.” Nate buttoned his suit jacket.
“You don’t want to stick around and have some coffee and cake?”
He snorted, and I hid my smile. I thought Nate believed Monroe was interested in me. We hadn’t spoken about it, but he positively glared at the man whenever Monroe looked my way. It was cute and kind of gave me a little thrill that someone thought enough of me to be jealous.
“Okay. Let’s go, then. I’ll get our coats.” I crossed the room to the coatrack, avoiding Monroe, who was pouring himself some coffee from the urn. He was certainly an attractive man with his dark hair and scruff and warm, gentle ways, but Nate’s vulnerable, haunted eyes held me captivated and tied up in knots every night before I went to sleep.
He stood at the entrance, bouncing on his toes, and I handed him his coat. “Here you go.”
Once outside, he called for a car. “It’ll be here in two minutes.”
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.” He gave me one of those mysterious smiles.
“That’s becoming a familiar refrain with you. Am I going to freeze my ass off again?”
“I thought I warmed you up pretty well, if I remember correctly.”
My face heated, and I hated how my emotions gave me away so easily.
He laughed and slid his arm around my shoulders. “Don’t worry. You’ll be nice and warm, I promise.”
The car pulled up, and we climbed inside. Nate held my hand, toying with my fingers, and I allowed myself to enjoy the gentle, sensual moment. My casual flirtations after Jared hadn’t been anything more than a need to hold someone and feel…something. They didn’t know anything about me or didn’t care to know, which was why I never allowed it to go further than a kiss.
Until Nate.
From the start he pulled me toward him as if he’d hooked me on an invisible line. The more time we spent together, the more tangled up in him I became.
The car pulled up in front of a plain building with a line of hopeful young people behind a velvet rope.
“No offense, but I’m a little old to be waiting in the cold to get into a club.”
Nate squeezed my hand. “Trust me.” Still holding my hand, he walked to the front of the line to speak to the very large bouncer. “Derek, how’s it going?”
The man broke his granite-like grimace for a smile. “Good, good, Nate. Coming inside?”
“Yeah. This is my friend, Presley.”
“Nice to meet you.”
He stepped aside for us and unhooked the velvet rope to howls of protest from the crowd. Nate rested his hand on my waist, and we walked inside, where the pounding beat of the music and the flashing lights swallowed us up.
“This way. We’ll check our coats.” Nate’s lips touched my ear, opening the floodgates of desire. My breath caught, and I could only nod in response. He slid his arm around my waist, and I didn’t protest. I didn’t want to.
Once relieved of our coats, we joined the throngs on the dance floor, and to my surprise, Nate showed himself to be a wonderful dancer. His hips moved to the driving beat, and he held me with one hand at the small of my back and the other at the nape of my neck. His fingers slid and threaded through my hair. The music slowed to a throbbing tempo, and we rolled our hips, our movements becoming more erotic. Nate gripped me, and his lips grazed mine.
