“Yes.”
His reluctance to share it with her inspired no resentment. She suspected it had less to do with trust issues and more to do with concern that it might make her reject him. And how crazy was that? Nick worried that she would reject him. He was a smart, gorgeous, charming man who would have no difficulty enticing a different woman into his bed every night. She, on the other hand, was a single mom who had stressful ex-husband baggage, worked at home, hadn’t dated anyone since she was a teenager, and basically only left the house to grocery shop and check the mail.
Yet Nick was worried she might reject him.
“There’s a way out of the rabbit hole, you know,” he murmured. Resting both hands on her hips, he drew her closer.
Damn, she loved this man’s hands. They were so big and warm. And no matter where or how he touched her, Nick made her feel more alive than she had in years. “What?”
“You said you felt as though you had fallen down the rabbit hole.” Sliding his hands around, he clasped them at the base of her spine and drew her against him. “If it’s too much… there’s a way out of it. There’s an exit.”
Heart pounding, barely listening, Kayla followed his example. Wrapping her arms around his trim waist, she clasped her hands at the base of his spine, just above the muscled ass she wanted to fondle. “What do you mean?”
Her breath caught when a faint amber glow lit his irises.
“I can ask Seth to bury your memories of everything except the crash.”
That snagged her attention, yanking it away from how good he felt pressed against her. “What?”
“If it’s too much… or if you’ve changed your mind… Seth can bury your knowledge of what I am and”—his gaze flickered up toward his bedroom and back—“what I feel for you, so your life can return to normal without any preternatural stuff impinging upon it. And things between us can go back to what they were.”
Anger swiftly rose, strong enough to make her step back and break his hold. “First of all,” she bit out, “the fact that your friend can do that unnerves the hell out of me. I don’t want anyone fucking with my mind and my memories. Ever.”
Then uncertainty zoomed in and halted what otherwise would’ve turned into a nice long rant.
Had he had to do that before? Had some woman in Nick’s past reacted so badly to his being immortal and having special abilities that he’d had to ask Seth to bury her memory and make her forget? Had some woman rejected him for it? Or women plural?
Goodness knew the world was full of people who were eager to hate anyone who was different from themselves and jumped at any chance to treat them like shit. And Nick was about as different as you could get. She had never in her life met anyone who was so different. The fact that he now looked as if he were bracing himself for a blow made sympathy rise and merge with the absolute certainty that some dimwit—or dimwits—had actually done that. They had actually treated him like shit because he was different, which spawned a new anger.
“And second,” she snapped, bolstering her nerve, “does this feel like I want to forget?” Heart pounding in her chest (no one would ever accuse her of being bold), she closed the distance between them once more, rose onto her toes, wrapped her arms around his neck, and drew his head down for a fiery kiss.
Nick’s muscled arms banded around her, crushing her close. Her breasts smashed against his chest. Her hips melded with his, letting her feel his long, hard length. Heat flooded her as he deepened the kiss, his tongue stroking hers. Her breath shortened as she fought the urge to jump up, wrap her legs around his hips, and grind against him.
On the brink of losing that fight, she dragged her lips from his and drew in several deep breaths.
It didn’t help. Every inhale drew his scent into her lungs and filled her with Nick pheromones that made her ache for more.
She looked up at him.
He stared back, his eyes boring into hers with a bright amber glow. “You don’t want to forget.” His voice was deeper and husky with desire that did nothing to dampen her need.
“I don’t want to forget,” she assured him, as if her tight hold on him hadn’t already made that clear. “But someone in your past did. Someone rejected you because of who and what you are.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed with a hard swallow before he nodded.
“Who?”
He hesitated for so long she thought he wouldn’t answer. “Almost everyone I’ve ever loved,” he confessed wearily.
Her heels dropped back to the floor. Her chest tightened. And the backs of her eyes began to burn with tears she hastily blinked back.
Those five words held a wealth of sorrow.
Leaving her casted hand on the nape of his neck, she cupped his strong jaw with the other. “They were fools.” Fools she would love to give a strong kick in the ass. One corner of her lips turned up as she arched a brow. “And total wusses apparently.”
His lips stretched in a smile that bespoke both amusement and relief.
She winked. “I’m smarter and made of sterner stuff.”
“Yes, you are.”
“I don’t want to forget.”
“You don’t want to forget.”
Though desire still rode them both, their embrace loosened and shifted to one of affection rather than need.
Kayla drew her thumb across the stubble on his cheek as she studied him. She was not without insecurities of her own. “I’m a socially awkward single mom who hasn’t dated in nineteen years. Are you sure you don’t want me to forget?”
He flattened his hands on her lower back, slid them down the curve of her ass, lifted her onto her toes again, and pressed her hips into his. “What do you think?”
She thought she wanted to push him back onto the sofa and straddle him again, this time without clothes. “My daughter is upstairs.” It was more a reminder for herself than for him.
“I’m aware.” He winced, then loosened his hold on her. “Which reminds me…” Stepping back, he shuffled his feet and looked sheepish as hell. “I’m sorry about earlier. About what happened when Becca first arrived. I woke up with your beautiful body pressed against mine and—when she burst into the room—I’m pretty sure my physical reaction was as obvious then as it is now.”
Against her will, her gaze dropped to the large bulge in his pants, flitted back up to his face, then dropped down again because she couldn’t help it, and back up. Her face flamed with a blush she wished she could hide. Damn her pale, freckled skin. “Don’t worry about it. I’m sure my nipples were standing at attention.” Why the hell did I just say that? “And even though I like to think Becca is still a little girl, she’s an adult now.”
His lips twitched. “I’m not sure that’s going to make it easier for her to accept her mother having a sexual relationship with her next-door neighbor.”
Kayla smiled. “Accepting it is one thing. Seeing it is another. No one likes to imagine their parents having sex.”
Chuckling, he gave her a boyish grin that resurrected the warm and tingly feeling inside her. “I’m convinced a stork left me on my parents’ doorstep.”
She laughed. “Me, too.”