Once Upon A Half-Time: A Sports Romance - Sosie Frost Page 0,135

might want to take advantage of a stranded, beautiful woman.”

“I’m well-aware.” I bit my lip. “You’re not going home, are you?”

“Where else would I go?”

“To the cabin?”

Nate narrowed his eyes. “You sure?”

No, but I had a bad enough night. “Someone should be there to protect me from any creeps following us in the woods.”

“No one would bother you if I were around.”

I stared at his lips. “Then you better follow close.”

“Mandy—”

“I’ll meet you there.”

I knew he watched me walk to the car. And I knew where he stared, what he wanted, just where his thoughts wandered because mine was already there.

Nate once thrilled me with a night of simple pleasures and dark fantasies.

And tonight, we’d do it again.

9

Mandy

A mistake was something that happened once.

What was it called when it happened twice? Idiocy? Insanity?

Luck?

It didn’t matter. The last time I was overwhelmed by the wedding and my family, I turned to the wrong man to make it right. And he had—at least, in that moment. Now I wanted more of the same, knowing the consequences.

I invited him to the cabin and tossed the bridesmaids and my sister into the guest bedrooms.

I told him to wait while I quickly showered the night off and grabbed a warm, fuzzy blanket.

And we planned to repeat that wonderful mistake.

It wasn’t logical. It wasn’t safe.

It wasn’t fair to him.

But I couldn’t share the secret about the baby yet, not even with him. My family already danced around total annihilation. The drama would ruin the wedding, drive a wedge deeper between my parents, and destroy any relationship I had with my sister.

That sort of news wouldn’t be seen as blessed or joyous. It’d be scandal and shame, and no baby deserved that.

Once the wedding was over, I’d tell them.

And him.

I shut the cabin door behind me. I expected the night to be completely silent this far away from the city, but the chirping frogs and buzzing locusts muffled the click of the door’s latch. The cabin overlooked a field of wildflowers in the front. In the back, it stood watch over a lake, mirror-flat and still, reflecting a sky littered with thousands of stars.

Nate leaned against the porch railing. Was it possible for him to look better now, waiting in the dark stillness? The shadows struck the hard angles of his jaw, and his eyes absorbed the mystery of the night. Green gave way to midnight tones of blue and silver. I stared, imagining everything we had done and had yet to do.

“Everyone asleep?” His voice rumbled, low and cautious.

“They will be,” I said.

“You okay?”

“I will be.”

Nate crossed his arms. The tattoos creeping along his biceps and under the t-shirt edged black in the low light, too dark to hide anything but their intent. He wasn’t a man who saved damsels in distress, but he was the type to accept their gratitude however they wished to award it.

I cradled the blanket to my chest. Nate didn’t ask any more foolish questions. He offered his hand.

I took a breath.

My palm fit within his, and the heat coursed over me, through me, inside me.

He guided me along the dirt path leading from the cabin to the lakeside dock. I hadn’t been to the lake since I was little. Back then, the water seemed huge and impossible. Now the stillness was safe and serene. The lake lapped the dock, and the sky above stretched in brilliant shades of blue and the darkest purple. I almost giggled. The sky looked indigo.

We didn’t need to speak. I wasn’t sure what we would say. Nate had pushed, and I’d denied him so many times. But we ended here together, staring into each other’s eyes like it was the first and last time we would touch each other.

Nate laid the blanket over the wooden planks of the dock. My breathing shuddered, and I had no idea how to stand or protect myself or what to do.

But he showed me, just like he did before. I was so inexperienced then, and I was still inexperienced now. Despite the twisting in my stomach as the baby swatted at all the butterflies, I’d never felt safer.

Nate reached for me, his hand caressing my cheek. He pulled me in for a kiss and let his fingers tangle in my hair.

“It’s shorter,” he whispered. “You cut your hair.”

“You weren’t the only one who noticed.”

“It’s beautiful. You’re beautiful.”

His lips met mine. Why did I ever fight his kiss? He nibbled the words I couldn’t speak, soothed the fears I breathed,