I have to summon up the courage to speak, forcing my crackled words out through my dry throat. “You excite me. You knock me off my feet. I can’t even breathe sometimes… because I want… I want…”
“Laine…” he begins, but I shake my head.
“I watched you in the shower and I liked it. And last night, on the landing… when you…”
“When I lost control…”
“It felt amazing.” I take a breath. “Please, Nick. Please don’t stop this. Last night… I want that… I want more of that…”
He stares at me. “You’ve never been with a man before, Laine, How do you know you’re ready?”
I laugh, but he doesn’t. “I’m definitely ready. I’m the oldest virgin I know. A regular spinster.”
“You’ve never come close, not with anyone?”
I shake my head. “There’s never been anyone worth getting close to. Just idiots. Normally drunk idiots at that. The Kelly Anne effect.”
“You’ve got a good head on your shoulders for such a sweet little thing, Laine.”
“I might not be cool and streetwise like Kelly is, but I know what I want, Nick. I know what’s right, and what’s not right. I know what’s dumb, and what’s safe and how to get through life without getting into too much trouble.” My words stall as I remember him grabbing hold of me in the rain. “Well… usually… that night was…”
“Dangerous,” he says. “It was dangerous.”
“I should’ve been more careful.” I try to keep my voice firm, try to sound so much more in control than I feel. “I’m usually more careful. I guess with Mum away, Kelly Anne was the only… I wanted to have fun…”
“It was your eighteenth. If there’s a night for recklessness I imagine your eighteenth birthday is going to feature pretty highly on the list.” He sighs. “It wasn’t your fault, Laine.”
“Even so,” I say. “I was lucky.”
“No,” he tells me, and reaches across the table. I drop his lovely pen and take his hand, and those butterflies start their fluttering. “I was lucky.”
“Fate,” I whisper. “Like we said.”
“And what do you think fate has in store for us, Laine?” His eyes are so fierce. Dark like treacle as they stare into mine.
“Everything.” My voice is light, like air. “I think fate wants us to be everything.”
“Everything?”
“Everything.”
Tense. It’s so tense. His eyes so serious and his jaw so hard. I can feel him thinking, feel him teetering on the edge, and I want to pull him over, pull him to me.
Please. Please, please, please.
I’ve never wanted anything so bad.
He squeezes my hand. “We’ll take it slow,” he says. “You can change your mind at any time, but be sure. Be sure you want this before we’re both in too deep to get out.”
“You mean we can… you’ll be my…”
“Everything,” he says. “If that’s what you want.”
I can’t stop smiling. “I want that. I want everything. I won’t change my mind. Not ever.”
I worry I’ve overstepped the line, but he smiles back and my heart soars.
“This can’t have any impact on the ground rules, Laine. How we are together, it doesn’t make any difference, you’ll still be in my care.”
“It won’t make a difference, I promise. I don’t want it to, I like the ground rules.”
His eyes sparkle, and he looks so strong again. There’s that something primal underneath his cool, and I’m there on the landing again, in bed with his hardness against my ass again…
He pulls his hand from mine and closes his laptop.
“In that case, I think it’s bedtime,” he says. “Let’s start starting slowly.”Chapter ElevenLaineMy feet are bouncy as I follow Nick upstairs. He flashes a glance back at me, and his eyes are fierce, with a sexy kind of darkness that makes me feel like a clumsy kid.
I am a woman, I tell myself so. I’m eighteen after all. Totally ready for this. Totally ready for him.
If only the butterflies whirling round my tummy would believe me.
He gestures me on ahead at the landing, and I head for Jane’s room before it occurs to me that maybe he won’t want to… not in there… but he doesn’t say a word, just follows me in and closes the door behind us.
And then he stands.
Staring.
Watching.
“What?” I giggle.
“I’m looking at you,” he says, and my laughter dries up. “I love looking at you, Laine.”
He examines me, up and down, taking in every single gawky part of me, and I try not to worry about my little breasts, or the weird-shaped birthmark on my thigh, or my bony knees. I try not to worry about whether I’ll be good enough. “You’re so very beautiful. You have no idea.”
“Kelly Anne says I’m not sexy. She says I’m cute, like a doll, but not sexy. I don’t really do sexy, though…” I admit, and I’m rambling. Nerves.
“I’m sick of hearing what that idiot Kelly Anne says,” he says, and my eyes widen. “You’re sexy and you’re cute. You’re everything she’d want to be if she wasn’t putting it out to anyone who’ll have her after a few tequilas.”