Shit. Shit!
“Nadia.”
“No.” She held up her hand. “I know. I understand. This was my fault. Very much so. Let me, please, just let me go now.”
“Nadia.” I felt absolutely nothing more than concern for a friend I’d hurt and the urgent need to go check on Lizzie. “You sure you’re okay?”
“I will be. And please, tell her I’m sorry.”
“I think she understood.”
“Good. That is good.” She squinted at the sunlight and pursed her lips together. “You are a good man. I’m sorry I did that to you. I will move on, but after—after Toby—it felt good to be treated well. It just… misfired inside my brain a little.”
“You deserve the absolute best. I’m not that guy for you, but there is one out there. I promise.”
“Thank you.”
“Can I help you now?”
She looked down at her feet, giving an embarrassed laugh. “Sure, good guy. I will let you help.”
I crouched down, a grin on my face. Nadia was a great woman. I meant everything I said. Had Lizzie never been on my brain, I still didn’t think she would have been my type. Outside of this small fiasco, she was generally too serious for me. But she absolutely deserved a man who appreciated that in her.
I gathered up her things, ignoring the lacy items and bathroom items she’d packed as if she’d hoped to stay for a weekend and didn’t act like I saw a thing when I tossed it all into her back seat. “Drive safe, Nadia.”
She slid into the driver’s seat, hands still trembling. “I will.” She peeked up at me, sunglasses now slid over her eyes so I couldn’t see her. “And… I am happy for you. I am.”
“Thank you.” I stepped around the car, back to the sidewalk on my front lawn, and I waited until she got her car started.
Once she pulled out and down the street, I headed back inside, not surprised at all to find Lizzie in the kitchen, pretending that she hadn’t been pacing or, most likely staring out the windows and watching.
“Is she okay?”
My heart grew three sizes. It stretched and grew and put pressure against my sternum so harsh I rubbed the area that felt the force of my love for this woman.
Had Lizzie not been as incredible as she was, this could have had a drastically different beginning to her welcome to Vegas. Instead, all she cared about was Nadia.
“She will be, and I’m really, really damn sorry this was how you met her because I swear, under a different set of circumstances, you two would be trouble together.”
“So—”
I lifted my hand to stop her. “She has an ex-boyfriend. Toby or something or other I don’t even remember but the guy was causing her problems, refusing to accept she’d broken up with him. André, her brother, asked me if I’d bring her as my date to a holiday fundraiser we had. Swear to God” —I placed my hand on my chest— “I told her straight up where I was, that I was happy to play the part if it got her ex to realize she was over him. I also told her most definitely that I was not at all in any position or place to want any kind of relationship right now. I’m new to the team, finding my footing and I want to come together with these guys, which isn’t easy after being in Chicago for so long.”
She came to me, that soft smile making me think of sex on lazy Sunday mornings where we moved slow and unhurried. “I think I understand.”
“I don’t know how she got a different idea, and I talked to her, since she called when we met that night. We had another thing to go to next week, and I figured that’s why she was calling and when I got back to my room, after calming down, I called her back and told her exactly why I wouldn’t be able to go to any more events with her. She sounded hurt, but I didn’t think… I didn’t think she really thought she had a chance. Or that she’d do this. I never even kissed her, Lizzie.”
I played back through our interactions, running a hand through my hair and staring at the ceiling. Was there a time I’d flirted? Maybe, but it was harmless. Had I led her on? No. I’d told her how much I loved Lizzie, how much I wished things could have been different with us. The only time I’d ever touched her was to help her out of a car or usher her through a photo line or through a doorway.
“I can see why she’d be attracted to you.”
She said it with that same lazy smile, but now humor sparkled in her grass green eyes.
“What?”
“Yeah.” She shrugged and took another step toward me. Every move closer to me sent a spark of heat to my spine. “You’re a good guy. You were probably a really good friend, made her laugh and forget her problems. Made her think something better was out there and when she thought she’d lost you, well, women who have had losers or jerks can see a good thing and will do anything to keep them. It’s not your fault, though.”
“So, what you’re saying is, I’m better than her asshole cheating narcissistic ex so she might as well shoot her shot.”
She laughed, threw her head back and her throat bobbed as she laughed her lyrical tune. “Yeah, I’m saying she found something just above the bottom of the barrel.”
“Thank you,” I breathed out. She really wasn’t pissed and, better, she trusted me. Believed me. “For not freaking out about this and believing me.” I whipped out my arm and grabbed her hand, yanking her to me until she slammed against my chest.
The urge to kiss her and take and devour and slake my desire deep inside hit me strong and fast, shooting straight to my dick and stealing my breath as I inhaled her sweet scent and felt the silky strands of her hair brush against my arms. I kissed her instead, pressed my lips to hers tenderly, fighting back the base urges fighting for dominance until her lips parted, and I slipped my tongue inside her mouth.
Kissing Lizzie was nirvana, a religious experience. She gave herself to it like she gave herself to everything she did—full of passion and with one hundred and ten percent. I could have kissed her forever, held her in my arms and stood in my kitchen until the world ended.
But I’d promised her slow, and as much as I loved her, I needed to be a man of word on that.
There was no way I was screwing us up by going back to our old ways.
I slowed the kiss, lingering at her lips as her hands fisted my shirt at the back and then rested my forehead to hers.
“What do you say we do dinner out somewhere and go have some fun on your first night in Vegas? Unless you’re too tired?”
Her eyes glimmered with the diminishing haze of lust and excitement. “Can we go to the Strip?”
“We can do anything you want.”
Always. Forever. As long as she did it with me at her side.
13
Lizzie
I was still swaying on my feet, fingers pressed to my lips to seal in the taste of his kiss and feel of his mouth, not to mention the passion he poured forth into that kiss when Garrett stepped back and picked up his cell phone.
“I hate to do this, but I should call André. Make sure he knows about Nadia. At least so he can check in to make sure she’s okay. They’re really close.”
Right. At least I pulled off the compassionate not-girlfriend baby-mama role. Inside, the mere mention of her name tightened a fist inside my chest. This woman wasn’t just absolutely, breathtakingly gorgeous, something I could one hundred percent admit to, she’d been splayed out on Garrett’s bed, in his house, like a sex goddess offering to heal all his wounds and take him to heaven with a crook of her fingers.