Fix It Up - Mary Calmes Page 0,69
sad or both or neither and was just lost in his own head, in what I hoped was his creative process. He’d told me that things were coming to him, pieces of lyrics, parts of songs, notes, chords, so I didn’t want to disturb him if that was the case, but neither did I want to leave him alone if he needed support. “Talk to me, kid.”
He growled.
I smiled at him. At least he was alive.
“Nicky?”
He threw his arms up in defeat and let his head fall back on his shoulders.
I tried to stifle my chuckle, but the picture he made, clearly irritated about something, at the end of his rope, was far too appealing. The rest of him, those broad shoulders, the sleek tan skin over hard muscles, and his long, toned legs, was to be admired as well.
He caught me staring, and I glared to cover it, but the smile I got was beautiful, his lush mouth curled up at the corner and his heated golden-brown gaze locked on me. “What did I say about that?” he asked me, tipping his head, waiting for my answer.
“I missed something,” I replied, suddenly uncomfortable with how he was staring at me. It was too familiar and far too fond. I stood up to put a little distance between us and then took a step back to add a little more.
“I told you,” he said, his voice smooth and silky, touching me almost physically even though I’d put a couple feet between us. “I am not a kid, so I would appreciate if, going forward, you’d strike the word from your vocabulary.”
I shrugged, trying to restore normalcy. “I don’t mean anything by it.”
“Yes, you do,” he insisted, putting the guitar on the chair beside him and standing up, facing me. “You say it to purposely try and put distance between us, and I don’t like it. Honestly, it’s cowardly, and that’s not like you at all.”
“Cowardly?”
“Yep.”
“In what way?”
“Like I said, you’re trying to make a point that we both know is crap, so knock it off.”
“Nicky––”
“That’s no good either,” he said, shaking his head. “Get rid of that as well.”
“I––”
He stepped forward then, into me, crowding me, hands on my hips, his fingers in my belt loops, clutching tight. “I’m not a kid, Loc. Don’t try and treat me like one.”
“Yeah, but compared to––”
“No,” he murmured, smiling at me again, leaning sideways so he could speak close to my ear. “If you don’t want me, then say it to me man to man. Tell me that my hands on you are not something you ever want to feel, but this bullshit about me being too young for you is over.”
My heart stopped for a second, because yeah, no, not a kid. Not at all. Not with the power he was exerting to keep me still, not with how he smelled, like cedar with a trace of vanilla, like musk and the sun.
“Don’t ever call me kid again. Are we clear?”
“Yeah, I won’t,” I said, taking a breath.
“Good,” he said, his nose bumping my chin as he inhaled deeply. “Just go with the other. I like it much better.”
“Other?” I croaked out.
“Honey,” he murmured, and made a growling, purring sound that made my stomach flip over as his parted lips grazed the skin right under my jaw, his warm breath ghosting down the side of my neck. “That one you can use all the time, whenever you want.”
“I don’t call you––”
“Yes, you do,” he assured me huskily. “You call me honey, and your voice goes all soft and tender, and it takes everything in me to keep my hands off you.”
“Nick––”
“I watched you get out of the creek a bit ago,” he said, sliding his right hand around my waist to the small of my back, “and when I looked up and saw you standing there with all those gorgeous muscles and the smooth curve of your back trailing to your beautiful round ass…suddenly, I couldn’t even breathe.”
I had to concentrate on moving air through my lungs as well.
“You do that at home too,” he husked, his hand slipping from my back to my ass as the other lifted to the side of my neck, his thumb sliding along the line of my jaw. “You parade around without a shirt on, your jeans or sweats or whatever riding so fuckin’ low, just like this, showing off those sexy dimples and your gorgeous ass.”
He’d been watching me? Paying attention to me? “You need