else, treat him like those guys she ran through to take the edge off? She studied his face, one she knew as well as her own, and accepted that the answer was yes. He did.
He really had no idea what he meant to her. At all.
But what was she supposed to do? Tell him? Just… admit her deepest, darkest secret, something that could blow up everything between them, from this fragile peace to the deepest foundations of their friendship? Fear clogged her throat at the thought. What would happen if she told him the truth? If she said, I don’t want to fuck you and act like nothing happened. I want you to be mine.
Maybe he’d fall into her arms and confess his undying love. But, realistically, that wasn’t the most likely outcome. Especially when he kept harping on about this whole friendship thing. Nina knew how to read between the lines, and James’s were saying, I’m just not that into you.
Maybe she should be brave and confess anyway. But she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. Even if she’d wanted to, her mouth wouldn’t form the words. Everything was awful right now—monumentally awful—and this man was her only haven.
She couldn’t risk it. She couldn’t risk him.
Not now. Not ever.
So Nina took a deep breath and plastered a smile on her face. Nothing too huge, because that wouldn’t be believable. Just a tiny, wry twist of the lips, as if she were reluctantly agreeing with him. “Fair enough,” she said softly. “You were right. We shouldn’t have crossed the line.”
His shoulders sagged. He gave a sigh that might have been relief. “Exactly. But we won’t do it again.”
Christ, did he have to sound so bloody emphatic? “No,” she agreed.
“Okay. Good. Cool. So…” He gave her a tentative smile. “Are you sure you’re not hungry?”
“Actually,” she murmured, “I’m starving.”
Chapter Three
They were in the middle of some Marvel film or other, finished bowls of pasta on the coffee table and the sky outside growing dark, when Nina’s nerves got the better of her.
She shouldn’t have said anything. It was silly. It was weak. But the words tumbled out anyway, realer than they’d ever been.
“What if someone hurts me?”
There was a pause, in which Nina tried to psychologically kick herself—seriously, she could use a steel-toed boot up the arse right now—and James, presumably, processed what she’d just said. She could feel his presence right beside her, the heat of their barely touching thighs, the creak of leather every time he shifted, the cadence of his steady breaths. So she sensed, rather than saw, him lean forward to pause the film.
Then he repeated his earlier words, his deep voice warm and comforting. “No-one’s hurting you, Cupcake. No-one. I’ve got you.”
The vulnerability she felt right now made her want to turn and hide—but that would be cowardly, wouldn’t it? More cowardly than looking to him for the reassurance she needed, the reassurance he was so good at offering. So she turned toward him.
When their eyes met, his jaw shifted, as if he were struggling to hold in his words. But he didn’t speak, and he didn’t look away. In that moment she realised how often he did look away—how often James distracted himself around her, working on something as they talked. It was rare for them to sit in silence like this. To be so close, and so alone, like this.
It hadn’t always been like that. When she’d been young—before her brother had left—James had been casually comfortable around her. Fond and unaffected. Then everything changed at once; she’d grown up, her brother had run off to feel like a part of something, and gradually, James had… changed. In ways she couldn’t name, had never thought to examine.
Maybe she’d consider all that later, when she could think without the solid weight of anxiety squeezing her brain.
“You’re not a superhero,” she told him flatly. “And you can’t keep evil people under control through sheer force of will.”
James seemed to flinch at the words, pressing his eyes shut for a breath. Then he opened them again, and suddenly his expression was so… raw, so honest, it almost hurt to look at. “If anyone hurts you, I will kill them.” He said it the way he said everything: quietly, steadily, certainly. She couldn’t imagine James killing anyone. He was just… good. Everything about him was good. But at that moment, for some reason, she believed him.
Maybe that should’ve scared her. Instead, it made her want to curl up in his