“It’s not ruined.”
“It’s soaked. And stained.”
“It’s wet,” I countered. “And dirty.”
She snorted softly. I grabbed a handful of paper towels and turned back to her. The space was small, barely enough room for both of us without touching. When I moved toward her, the door swung shut behind me, muffling the music into a dull, pounding thrum.
I started dabbing at the fabric, careful and deliberate. Very normal behavior for a man who absolutely wasnotthinking about how the damp silk clung to her underneath his hands.
“It’s really okay,” she said, her voice quieter now as she glanced up at me.
“I know.” I kept dabbing anyway, trying to remedy the situation.
Finally, the stain lightened a little but not much. She still looked like she’d been shot. After a few more seconds, I shrugged out of my tux jacket and slipped it over her shoulders. The motion brought us closer together and my hands lingered a beat too long adjusting the lapels.
“There,” I said.
Her eyes lifted back to mine. We were nearly chest to chest in the cramped space, but as my heart rate sped up, she unexpectedly laughed. A soft, breathy sound that bubbled up out of nowhere.
I frowned. “What?”
She gestured vaguely between us. “This is just so ridiculous.”
I felt a smile crack through my concern for her. A breath of laughter escaped me too when I realized she was right. “You’re telling me.”
As I looked back at her, I realized some of her curls were coming loose from the bun, spiraling around her face, and my laughter instantly faded. My jacket was hanging off her shoulders and there was a faint smear of red near her collarbone I’d missed, but I didn’t move to rub it away.
Her eyes were too bright on mine, wide and maybe even a little dazed. I stepped even closer to her without thinking, my hands finding her waist like they had every right to be there. Instead of smacking me away, she sucked in a breath and leaned in closer.
I would never understand what happened to my sense of logic or reason when I was with her, but before I even knew what I was doing, I slid my arms around her. Kate Vanderhaul really was becoming like an addiction to me, and right now, I wasn’t the least bit inclined to fight the temptation to indulge.
CHAPTER 28
KATE
There was something about a man on the cusp of losing control that was unlike anything else in this world. When that man was Nate Westwood, it was a thrill beyond compare.
I stared into his eyes, the firm heat of him standing between my knees burning into me like I’d stumbled too close to a wildfire. Breathing a little harder than usual, he looked back into my eyes with a kind of hunger that stunned me.
It was there in the tension of his features, the knot at the back of his jaw, the way his gaze kept slipping to my mouth, and how his fingers tightened around my thighs. This was the moment one of us should’ve pulled away.
I knew that, but when he lifted a hand and wrapped it around the back of my head, I leaned in, my lips crashing into his instead. He met me halfway, plastering his chest to mine as his arm slid from my thighs around my hips to pull me closer.
Somewhere in the back of my mind, alarm bells were blaring, warning me that this could only end badly, but I didn’t listen. Simply put, I didn’t want to. This man, as enigmatic, frustrating, and emotionally unavailable as he was, was also going to be my husband.
It was as simple as that. We were getting married, and while there were a few painful steps I still had to take before we got there, this was who I would be spending the rest of my life with. Or at the very least the next few years.
Coming to terms with that was hard. He wasn’t who I’d had in mind when I’d pictured my future before, but my impossibly sweet, sexy boyfriend CB, the one who’d opened up to me in layers over the last five years until he’d exposed every last part of himself, wasn’t going to be my forever after all.
That still stung. Badly.
But there was something undeniable between Nate and me, a connection that felt deeper than it should and a chemistry that sparked like electricity. That was what I chose to focus on now.
We were both weathering this storm, facing the impossible demands, the deep uncertainty, and the future we hadn’t chosen, but we were doing it together. Right now, that was what mattered. It had to be.
Nate groaned into our kiss and wound his fingers around my hair, his grip hard enough to send pulses of pleasure through me. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, caging him against me, and he lifted me so I was sitting on what appeared to be a cardboard box of paper towels. Luckily, it seemed surprisingly sturdy.
As his tongue delved into my mouth, hot and searching, exploring every nook and cranny, my nipples were suddenly aching, begging for attention. Heat pooled between my legs and it felt like my lungs had gotten too small to supply enough oxygen to my body.
