Oh, god, where had all her oxygen gone? “Like... this?”
“Yeah,” he continued, as if he hadn’t just reduced her to a chaotic whirl of disordered heartbeats. “Not that there’s anything wrong with the power suit thing. But when you’re like this, in pajamas and no makeup, I see you for what you are.”
She searched his face while the world fell down around her. “And what am I?”
“A beautiful, incredible genius.” His voice thickened, like honey swirling through gravel. “Someone who’s going to save the world. Someone who’s ten times the human I’ll ever be.”
Her lips parted. She couldn’t breathe. “Nick. That’s not true.”
“It is.”
“It’s not.” For all that his words had poured into her like rains sweeping across a desert, she needed him to see. She needed to give back, to make him understand how singular he was. “You’re miles beyond what most people could ever hope to become. You’re honorable. Pure-hearted. Generous to a fault. Not to mention one of the smartest people I know. The total package.”
“No.” He scoffed and scraped a fingernail across some invisible stain on his jeans. “I’m just some guy who makes steel and reads a lot. I don’t save people’s lives, with or without math.”
“You do, though.” Fire ran rampant in her bloodstream. “You saved Paige’s life. You know that, right? That first day out at the farm, before I realized she was yours, I couldn’t get over how much she adored her dad, how much she worshipped him. And when I found out it was you... It took my breath away.”
“What? Why?”
Her palms throbbed, and she fought the urge to reach out. Oh, if she touched him, she wouldn’t be able to stop, not after what he’d just said. “Because. Your dad gave you nothing, but you were stronger than that. Than him. You grew up and gave everything you had to the luckiest little girl in the world, even though no one had ever shown you how, and Paige grew into an incredible person because of it. And that’s real. That’s absolutely pure. So much more than me matching up kidney donors.”
Nick’s breath rushed out of him. He blinked, his eyes as bright as polished onyx. “Is that really how you see me? As... a father? A good one?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Absolutely yes. And looking atyouhurts, too. It always has.”
He scrubbed his hands through his barely there hair and sniffed, long and hard. “Fuck,” he muttered. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Aubrey didn’t realize she’d leaned in until he scrambled away and went to the window. He leaned a palm against the wall and stared out through the sleet-slicked pane.
“What?” Her question came out half broken. “What is it?”
He breathed hard, the carven lines of his back heaving. “It’s you. This. It’s so fucking hard, Aubs. Being around you. Hearing you say this shit to me.”
An ache rose in her throat. After a moment of indecision, she rose and went to him, reaching out. “Nick, I—”
He spun and seized her in one sudden motion, pressing her against the wall, hemming her in with his sheer size andhimness. His hands skimmed down her sides until his thumbs seated themselves against her hipbones.
Her lungs emptied. Nick stared down, caging her in, so close she could taste the heat of his exhales. When her chest finally inflated again, it filled with plume after plume of his searing scent.
“What’re you doing?” she whispered.
“Something incredibly fucking stupid. Something you should definitely tell me not to do.”
When she didn’t protest, his grip tightened. His chest rose and fell, his breath frantic in the silence.
Electric heat churned in her belly. Slowly, ever so slowly, she inched her trembling fingers upward until the tips grazed his abdomen.
He hissed in a breath. “What’reyoudoing?”
“Touching you,” she whispered. “Someone should.”
“No,” he said, but he sounded like a man starved. “I’ve gone without for a long time.”
The sentiment hollowed her out. But he leaned closer—unconsciously, almost, as if his body were pleading with her without his permission. Muscle quivered beneath her fingertips, a confession he refused to let cross his lips.
She answered it. She grew bolder, her hands roaming over his wet shirt to explore the planes of his chest. She traced the ridges of his neck and tunneled her fingers through the shorn dark silk of his hair. When he released a shuddering exhale, she reached beneath his shirt to map his body. She charted the divots along his ribs, the hard lines of muscle that dived toward his jeans. Then she worked her way back in the other direction, dragging her fingernails up his sides. Down again. Up. Around. Everywhere she could reach.
Nick angled his face past hers and panted in her ear, hot and ragged. Something finally broke in him. He fisted her hair and yanked her head to the side, then set his teeth against her throat.
