Last Summer(60)

Her cheeks heat. She wants him to stop talking. His words are too much. “Nathan—”

“I still love you,” he admits. “And I know somewhere in that head of yours, you feel the same. You told me.”

She what?

She steps back, needing a moment to process.

He lets his arm drop. “You seem surprised.”

“That’s an understatement.” Her heart pounds in her throat. A sinking, hollow sensation expands in her chest. “Why are you telling me this now?”

“I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“I suddenly have the impression a lot of what I’ve been waiting to hear from you will be upsetting.” My god. She fell in love with another man. Worse, she was going to leave her beautiful, magnificent husband. The man she loves.

The man she just cheated on. Again, she thinks begrudgingly.

A wise woman would get back in the van and return to the airport, fly to London, and be with her husband. Never tell him about any of this. But she doesn’t want to leave. Hearing Nathan tell her she loved him and was going to leave Damien is shocking, but it does explain things. Namely, how easily she’s falling for him. Then again, the same thing happened with Damien. Ella falls hard and she falls fast. She just wants to love and be loved.

She’s all sorts of screwed.

Nathan is standing there, looking as though he’s holding his breath.

He should have told her everything the first night she arrived. But like Damien, he bit his tongue.

Bite your tongue.

There’s that phrase again.

Ella narrows her gaze. Nathan watches her cautiously. “Is this why you’ve held out on me? You’re afraid of how I’ll react?”

“No.” He forces out a breath. “Okay. A little. But I wanted you to know where I’m coming from when we do talk. I don’t want to lose you again,” he confesses.

Her first thought is that she doesn’t want to lose him, too. But that isn’t right. She doesn’t want to let him go. She doesn’t want to leave him. More than anything, she’s confused. She needs time and space to think.

Rising to her toes, she kisses his neck, his jaw, his mouth. “Go,” she whispers against his lips. “We’ll talk tonight.”

Nathan leaves to meet with Scott, and later, Ella joins them for dinner. Afterward, while Nathan finishes up downstairs, she goes back to the room to continue work on the article. By 10:00 p.m., Nathan hasn’t returned. Exhausted, Ella shuts her laptop and climbs into bed.

What must be an hour or so later, she wakes as Nathan eases into bed. He spoons her, his warm breath dusting her shoulder. He traces his thumb along the scar over her pelvis. She clasps his fingers, stilling his touch.

He buries his face in the crook of her neck and murmurs something incoherent. From the tone, it sounds like an apology.

She twists her head in his direction. “What?”

He kisses her shoulder. “Do you think you’ll try again?”

She feels his hand, still over her scar.

“To have kids?” she asks. “I don’t know. I’d like to.” But Damien hasn’t wanted to talk about it. And she doesn’t want to think about Damien while in another man’s bed. Right now, she doesn’t want to think at all.

Rotating in Nathan’s arms, she pushes him to his back and straddles his hips. He’s ready, and she takes him inside. His hands palm her breasts.

“You’re beautiful.”

“You can’t see me.” The room’s pitch-black. She can barely make out the outline of his face.

“I can feel you.”

She can feel him, too. Everywhere, which is exactly what she wants. To feel. This moment. In the dark.

With Nathan.





CHAPTER 24

“Ella.”

She groans, burrowing under the covers.

“Ella.” Nathan nudges her shoulder.

Her eyelids flutter. The room sits in darkness but her internal clock tells her it’s morning.

Nathan turns on the bedside lamp. She groans again, burying her face in the pillow. “Turn it off.”

“Wake up, Skye.”

Her eyes snap open at the order. Nathan grins. Energy radiates off him.

“What?” she grumbles, her voice hoarse, drowsy.

“We’ve been cleared to fly. I secured a spot for you on the heli.”

“You did?” She sits up and tosses off the covers. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

Nathan stands, moving out of her way. Already dressed for skiing, he can’t stop grinning.

“Excited much?” She picks through her clothes, selecting items. Ella mentioned last night that if there was room, she wanted to ride with them. She’d photograph him heli-skiing for the article.

She glances over her shoulder at Nathan. He’s inspecting his gear. “I can’t believe I didn’t hear you get dressed.”

“I wore you out last night.”

She raises her eyes to the ceiling. “Yeah, right. That must be it.”

“You were snoring.”

“I don’t snore.”

“You were making little squeaky noises,” he says, pinching his fingers together.

“I don’t squeak.” She whips his upper back with her shirt and locks herself in the bathroom to change.