“Two more things,” she said softly. “I want a wedding night. I want to test out the waters, so to speak. Before you tie yourself to me forever, I want you to know what you’re getting.”
I couldn’t point out that I was already tied to her forever. Because suddenly I couldn’t see past the big white flag she’d just waved in front of me.
The one that signaled her surrender to me.
“And the other?” I croaked.
“I’ll tell you the last condition after.”
She held out her hand for me to shake.
It was more than obvious that I was in the twilight zone or something.
I was feeling and saying things that I never thought I was going to get to say, and I was actually getting things in return.
Things that would make Reggie officially mine.
Was she aware of what she was about to give me?
I reached for the hand that was still being held out in my direction.
The moment that my fingers closed around her fingers, I pulled her into me.
She gasped, her free hand going to my shoulder as she stared up at me in shock.
“Do you want me? Or do you want the nice husband? The one that I can pretend to be?” I asked. “Because those aren’t the same man.”
She licked her lips, nervousness now flitting through her eyes where before she’d looked like a fully composed, in control of everything she said, woman.
Her pulse was beating wildly against the smooth skin of her neck, and it took everything I had not to bend down and lick it.
Even still, I brought my hand up to curl around the side of her neck and my thumb around her throat to sweep over the pulse at the opposite side.
My hand looked good wrapped around her neck.
I refused to admit how hot I found it that she wasn’t pulling away. That my tanned hand looked big and rough against the smooth skin of her throat.
She pressed in a little deeper, her eyes never leaving mine, as she said, “I want you, Nathan. I don’t want some stepford-husband stand-in. I’m not going to lie and say you’re always going to like what I give you, but I’m not going to pretend I’m not me.”
Her words did something weird to my soul.
She wanted me?
Well, she was damn well going to get me.
Chapter 11
The more people I meet, the more I understand serial killers.
-Text from Reggie to Nathan
Reggie
What in the absolute hell was I doing? I thought about my propositions as I was escorted to his house.
I want the real you, Nathan? I’m going to give you the real me.
What the hell did I know?
I’d been playing a stupid game when it came to Nathan Cox for so long that I didn’t even know the real me anymore.
Ever since I was a kid and I thought it would impress him if he knew I knew how to throw a baseball.
We’d been competing for so long that I didn’t even know the real me anymore. I didn’t know how to be real.
But I knew a few things for sure.
I wanted…
He kissed me.
I was seconds away from calling the whole damn thing off. From telling him that I’d be his wife in name only because what the hell was I thinking?
Then his mouth connected with mine.
His lips met my lips. His tongue plunged inside my surprised, hanging open mouth.
And his hand tightened on my throat to the point that it had my heart pounding out an even faster tattoo.
I gasped in surprise, inhaling the air that came straight from his lungs.
He gave it to me willingly, waited for me to be steady on my feet, and then backed up a step and ripped off his t-shirt.
Nathan had always been a big guy.
From the moment that he started to mature into a teenager, I’d never been able to stop myself from looking.
When he was fourteen, he started to develop those lines that ran down the inside of his hipbones. The ones that were an indentation of muscle that sweatpants liked to reveal when you wore them down low enough? Yeah, Nathan Cox mastered the art of wearing sweatpants like that when he was sixteen. Which also happened to be around the time that he developed six-pack abs that weren’t those kinds of ones that boys had, but men had.
He had those muscles along his ribs that always reminded me of fish gills.
When I was a horny little seventeen-year-old and Nathan caught me staring, I always liked to give him shit that if only he could swim, he could play the part of a shark.
Granted, it wasn’t my most imaginative line, but it always used to annoy him.
And since I stared at him a lot, it was my go-to line that always seemed to pop out of my mouth when he called me out.
The day that he’d gotten the tattoo had been the last day that I allowed myself to stare at his body so openly.
From then on until now, I only allowed myself quick little glances here and there so that he didn’t figure out that I was staring.
But now?
With his shirt off?
Well, now I was looking.
And I liked what I saw.
I liked it a lot.
I groaned inwardly when he reached for my shirt.
“We should probably close the door,” I found myself stammering, suddenly nervous now that things were turning naughty.
I’d never done the whole sex thing before.
He was about to find out that I hadn’t either.
That I’d lied when I was sixteen and that I’d never done the thing that I swore up and down that I did.
I swallowed hard, ready to bolt, but he must’ve sensed my unease because he hooked his big-ass fingers into the belt loop of my jeans and yanked me toward him.
I had no other choice but to go or fall into his chest face first.
I chose to take a step, because if I fell into his chest, I’d be indecently
