Page 103 of Unwritten Rules

I shake my head rapidly from side to side without opening my eyes. I can’t witness the look in his eyes. I want him to keep me on that damn pedestal.

“No!” I shout back as loud as I can. “Just leave. Go home, Nathaniel. I can’t look at you right now.”

“You can, and you will, Hellcat.”

My eyes fly open when I hear the door handle lift, despite the thunderous sound of the deluge around us.

I’m too late in remembering that my brother had made sure to have the automatic locking on every DeMarco-owned vehicle disabled last year. Caden’s wife had been in a fender-bender, and he wasn’t taking any chances since discovering that the emergency services hadn’t been able to unlock the doors of her car for an age.

I hit the lock button on the door to keep him out, but I’m too late.

“I said get out!”

Without waiting for a reply, Nate grasps hold of my biceps to forcibly pull me from my own damn car.

“Fuck off, Nathaniel. I’m not doing this.”

A clap of thunder somewhere in the distance startles us momentarily, drawing our combined attention to the east, where I notice a small house further into the thicket of trees.

“Why didn’t you tell me, Hellcat?”

Nate’s question draws my attention back to his angry face. The rage is rolling off of him in waves.

I shrug out of his hold, pushing him off and away from my personal space. “Tell you what, Nathaniel? That I’m clearly a fucking idiot who mistakes attention for affection? Kindness for love? That I’ve had utterly meaningless sex with not one but two men in an effort to fill the hole in my heart—the unfillable Nathaniel Hawthorne-shaped hole?”

I side-step around him, slipping on the forest floor made unsteady by the veritable storm surrounding us. He reaches out to grab me, to stop me from falling, but he’s too late.

I stumble and land smack on my ass, adding insult to injury.

“For fuck’s sake. Why couldn’t you just let me go? Why did you follow me back here? What can possibly be gained by having this conversation?”

I throw my hands in the air in utter exasperation. “I’m done, Nathaniel. I can’t do this. I can’t be your friend. Or your friend with benefits. Or your best friend’s little sister. I can’t be any of those things anymore.”

When I push myself to stand, his face falls, and he steps closer to help me, but I put both my hands out, palms facing him.

“No. Don’t touch me. I can’t do this…I won’t do this to myself any longer. I called you a liar earlier tonight, but you’re not the liar. I am.”

I swallow roughly as I take a step back and then another, putting more and more distance between us before I say what I need to.

“I’ve been lying to myself to think that I can be your friend when I’m so fucking in love with you that I don’t know which way is up. Christ, I just can’t do this—”

His long legs have covered the ground in two strides before I know what’s happening, his broad palm sliding around the nape of my neck, cutting my tirade off when he plants his hot mouth on mine.

Devouring my words in a soul-shattering kiss.

CHAPTER 30

NATE

Once I’d effectively shut Jameson down, I raced down the steps in search of my Hellcat. Knowing that I needed to tell her everything I’d kept buried for far too long.

The full truth of my forbidden feelings.

I need to tell her that I love her. That I’m in love with her. That she means more to me than anything or anyone and that, just like she said during that Shakespearean debate, I too would burn the world if it meant I could have her.

But not just for one day. For all of my days.

I’ll obviously need to talk to Henry before we take things any further than we already have – he won’t like it, but he’ll have no choice other than to get the fuck over it because I’m teetering on the edge of madness, forcing myself to believe that I can’t have Mila, when the truth of the matter is, I can.