“Oh.” Aubrey mulled that over.
“Or maybe she really does have food poisoning. But either way, she’ll be okay.”
She looked down to find her fingers threaded, and forced them apart. “What were you and Tansy arguing about?”
He huffed out a stillborn laugh. “You don’t want to know. Trust me.”
She searched for a response. She couldn’t imagine sharing a home with someone she’d once been partnered with, long after the relationship had ended. Even the three days it had taken for Luke to move out had felt like weeks.
“You know what?” Nick said abruptly. “Screw it. I can’t keep things from you to save my life. We were arguing about you.”
A low sound of surprise welled in her throat. “What?Me?Why?”
“Do you remember the night I came over here? When you first got back?”
“Yeah. Of course.”
He stretched one leg toward the fire and hooked his elbow around the remaining knee. “I just came to get your fire lit, that’s all. But Tansy wanted me to ‘get you out of my system.’ Her words, not mine.”
Aubrey stared. Then stared some more. “She what?”
“Yeah.” He flashed a smile, but something about it glinted, cold. “I’m sure it’s the same thing she thinks I’m doing right now. It’s what she thought I was doing last night. And my efforts to correct her weren’t going so well this morning, at which point Paige walked in.”
A low buzz invaded Aubrey’s ears. “I... don’t understand.”
“What’s not to understand?”
Her mind whirled. He couldn’t possibly mean what she thought he did. “You’re telling me Tansy sent you over here to. . .” Her throat worked. She couldn’t even say it.
“Seduce you?” He laughed, bitter. “Yeah. When she found out you were back, she got it into her head that I’d be less of a pain in the ass if I came over here and ‘had some fun for once.’ Also her words. Definitely not mine.”
She opened her mouth, fumbled for her voice, and tried again. “What do you mean, ‘for once’?”
He kept his face aimed at the fire, but a blush burned high on his cheeks. “Yeah. So. I don’t know why I can’t keep my mouth shut around you.”
“What do you mean, ‘for once,’ Nick?”
He wouldn’t look at her.
Suspicion laced around her rib cage and pulled tight. “You must have someone,” she ventured. “Right?”
He cleared his throat, then dragged a hand down his face. “I mean, not really. No. Not in a long time.”
A weight hardened in her gut. “So, wait. Exactly how long has it been since you’ve. . .”
“What?” He finally looked at her, cutting a glance that sliced her to the bone. “Had sex? Made love?”
She flushed. “Yes.”
“Well, which one? They’re different. If you’re asking how long it’s been since I’ve had sex, the answer is six incredibly long and lonely years. And the last time I made love... well, that was right here. With you. And it was just the once.”
She stilled, her breath a nonsensical whirl. A dagger, poison-tipped with longing, slid into her heart. She... couldn’t be hearing this right. “I don’t get it,” she stammered.
“I think I put it pretty plainly.”
“How could you go that long without being touched?How?”
The black of his eyes seemed, impossibly, to deepen, the air around him crackling with a heat more aggressive than the fire’s. “What do you want me to say, Aubs? Do you actually want the truth? Do you want me to say I don’t want anyone’s hands on me but yours? Do you want me to tell you my heart still stops beating when you’re around? You want to know that even though I thought you were beautiful when we were kids, now you’re so fucking breathtaking that just looking at you hurts? Especially when I get to see you like this?”
