Mr. Hot Grinch - Lindsey Hart Page 0,46

my shoulder, the other splayed warmly and protectively against my back, making me feel so tiny next to the massiveness of him.

“Did you change your mind about the agreement?” he evenly asks since I did just participate in basically attacking him, mouth first.

“N-no. Did you?” Good god, this is a humiliating conversation.

“Yes, which is stupid and thoughtless. I’ve gotten so good at growing a thick skin and a rock for a heart to keep it safe that it’s second nature to be an asshole.”

Gulp. I can’t believe he just said that as it makes me warm and tingly on top of the already warm and tingly sensations coursing through my body. “That’s not why I said to wait.” I swallow thickly. “I just…I don’t want to do anything that could hurt Shade.”

“You could never do that.”

“I don’t want to just disappear out of his life like all the other nannies because you end up pissed off that we got this wrong. I don’t want to go.” Now that I’m saying it, I know it’s true. Maybe because I just started, maybe not, but perhaps it could be that some things you don’t need years and years to figure out.

“I know you could never hurt him. That would never happen—me being pissed off, or us getting it wrong.”

“But…but…”

“It wouldn’t. It wouldn’t because we decided it wouldn’t, and we’d go with that.”

“You can’t just decide on your feelings.” Clearly not, because we’re both sitting here right now, like this, with all the throbbing and pounding and raging hormones.

“We won’t get it wrong.” He repeats it with finality, like a benediction, but his jaw ticks after.

I don’t know what that tick means.

Maybe it means he knows like I do, that this could wreck us. I know we’re two flawed, lonely people coming together under some fucked up circumstances. But then, what’s wrong with being flawed? Isn’t everyone? I mean, there are sets and sets of flawed people all over the world who make things work. I know there are tons who don’t too, but that’s life and choice, and it can go either way. Tonight, I’m choosing this. I’m choosing to make it go a good way, a beautiful way.

Call it a sixth sense—a pervy sixth sense maybe—but I already know our bodies will fit perfectly. It took no time at all for us to bury under each other’s skin like a sliver and not want to leave. A god sliver, if that kind of thing even exists. Maybe it’s more like a piercing you’ve been longing to get, but your parents won’t let you get it, and when you finally do get it in secret, it’s so freaking satisfying and beautiful that you never want to stop looking at it because you’re so proud of it. Your body doesn’t even try and reject it because it’s that great. Yeah. Not implying my belly button piercing went down like that or anything.

Luke was all gruff and hard like stone. He needed to keep himself safe so he could heal, but maybe what he needs now is connection. He was probably waiting for it all along, waiting for a lighthouse to guide his lost ship back home in the dark. Argh, it’s a lot of pressure, and I can’t think like that. I just have to promise myself that because he dropped his guard, and we both just sense we need each other for no apparent reason at all other than we’d somehow be a perfect fit, I need to get it right.

Maybe the sixth sense is actually an impending sense of something glorious and right.

I promise myself that not only will I never hurt Shade; I’ll never hurt Luke either.

And I’m doing a lot of thinking over here while Luke’s hand is all over me, our bodies still pressed together, our breaths close enough to mingle. He waits for me because he’s patient and steadfast. Also, because he might be gruff, but he’s a lot of other things too.

“Do you feel like your heart is all shadows?”

Luke blinks. “I guess so. Sometimes.”

There are so many other words I don’t use—words such as lonely, alone, solitude, pain, and despair.

“Did you know the light of a single candle is enough to keep a person from freezing to death in the dead of winter if they get stranded, and it’s freezing?”

“No, I can’t say I did.” His lips waver at the corners. “We live in Florida, so I can’t say I’ve ever contemplated freezing to death.”

What