Riding the storm - By Julie Miller Page 0,70
You know, get a good night’s sleep and talk in the morning?”
What? Jolene shifted her gaze back to the firm warning in his eyes. He didn’t want her to touch him. Fine. She could live with that.
No, she couldn’t.
She shook her head, clearing her thoughts and reminding herself of the reason she was here in the first place. “I need to do this now. There are a couple of things that are making me crazy.” Like the fact he was standing in front of her nearly naked, but she wasn’t allowed to touch. She shrugged, apologizing for her lousy timing. “Besides, you can’t get dressed. I rinsed out your clothes and hung them up to dry. I’m sure they’re still damp.”
He glanced up at the ceiling and inhaled a deep breath before nailing her with a conversation-closed look. “Jolene, a man likes to have his pants on when he’s having a serious discussion.”
“So you do think that what happened between us is serious?”
Nate plopped his hand on her shoulder and scooted her out of the way before crossing to the foot of the bed, where he had room to turn around. “Of course, I do. I’m not a guy who sleeps with that many woman.”
She whirled around to face him. “So you were just lonely for a woman to sleep with?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“Then explain it to me.”
“Explain why I made love to you?”
Made love. At least that sounded as if it hadn’t been a completely awful or embarrassing experience for him.
Jolene moved closer and hugged her arm around the bedpost. He didn’t retreat. Another good sign? Or was he getting angry? “You haven’t said much of anything about it.”
“I’m not a guy who talks about—”
“I know I came on pretty strong. And then maybe I didn’t follow through and make it good enough for you.”
“That’s not—”
“We haven’t known each other for very long. But like you said, I feel I know you better than some people I’ve known my whole life.”
“I know,” he agreed. “I feel that, too. But—”
“I thought maybe it had something to do with promising Dad to take care of me. But I’m twenty-eight years old. A grown woman. I’m responsible for my own choices. I can take care of myself.”
“What are you say—?”
“Do you regret having sex?”
“It wasn’t just sex. Jolene, you’re not the kind of a woman that a man—”
“If it isn’t me, is there some other reason why you don’t want to talk about what happened between—”
“If you want me to talk, let me talk.”
His voice was sharp, his expression sharper.
Their coyote friend howled in the silence that followed.
Jolene gnawed on her lip for one nervous moment, then quietly answered. “Okay.”
Nate opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated, as if waiting to be interrupted again. Jolene dutifully kept her mouth shut.
“First…” He held up one finger, then seemed to decide it might be wiser to keep both hands on the towel. “I do not regret what happened in the loft. It might not have been the smartest move I’ve ever made—and yeah, I’ve been thinking a lot about being your first and whether or not that was the smartest move you could have made. But I wanted to be with you.”
“I wanted to be with you, too.” Her soft whisper seemed to soothe his patience.
“Second. You were temptation itself, standing there with that shiny red apple and big blue eyes. I’d been working my butt off all day, trying to get you out of my system. After all that talk about liking my ass and being a whole man, I knew I had to keep my distance or I’d do something stupid. But there you were. I wanted you and I couldn’t resist.” He came a step closer, risked his grip on the towel, and raised one finger to brush the hair off her forehead. “I still can’t resist.”
“Do you think you’d ever…want to do it again?” She caught his hand when he would have pulled away. “With me?”
Turning his hand, he laced their fingers together and stroked his thumb along the back of her knuckles. “Is that another invitation?”
Jolene pressed her lips together and tried to focus on his eyes instead of the top of that towel and the slight protrusion she could see tenting beneath it. “Would you say yes?”
He raked his gaze over her, staring long enough to make her nipples bead up into tight knots and thrust against the T-shirt she wore. “I’m trying to do the