Page 20 of Secrets in Love
“No, Nate. I’m all red and sweaty. I look disgusting.”
“Impossible. You have never looked disgusting once in your life. Even that day you fell off Finn’s horse, Bluey, and had a smashed lip and black eye, you were still the prettiest girl I had ever seen.”
“Geez, Nate. You sure know how to give a girl head—a head! Shit! A big head!” Nate’s laughter bounced off the trees with vigor. I’m surprised they remained standing. “Can we please just forget I said that? Please?”
“Never. But also, maybe. Only if you flip that bloody camera and let me see you.”
“Nate.”
“EEEEEvie.”
The stalemate lasted until I found a comfy log overlooking the river to rest on. There, I breathed deeply, brought myself back to some semblance of calm horniness, and replied, “Fine. I will. But only because you have your shirt off.”
“Whoaaaaa! Are you flirting with me, Lil Gidget?”
Yes.
“No, I am trying to distract you by fluffing your massive ego.” After one final breath, I said a silent prayer—please, God, let me look okay—and flipped the camera. Nate’s slow exhale and dazzling smile melted my heart and undies. I was a puddle. Much like a frisky puppy, he wriggled side to side excitedly, causing the white sheet that covered his junk to slip lower over his hips, exposing the waistband of his underwear. It did nothing for my sweating. “There she is. There’s my grumpy one.”
“What, no fluffing-massive-things jokes? I’m rather disappointed, Nathaniel.”
“Well, I’m rather occupied by your super-cute braids. They’re a major kink of mine, by the way. Same with the beanie. It’s totally hot, Gidge. You look like a sexy snow bunny.”
Again, I resorted to smarminess. “Ugh. You’re such a freak.”
“Oh, Gidge, you have no idea.”
This level of sexy flirting was too much. My body temperature reached an all-time high, and the sweat dripping down my back was enough to replenish the river should there be a drought. I tried to steer us to safer waters and started prattling on about Iris and school, my new job—minus HotBoss teasing. It wasn’t a conscious decision to do so. Christian just didn’t enter my mind.
Nate asked how the surf off the coast of Long Island was and, of course, what my surroundings here at Tarrytown were like. All of which I was happy to report, especially about Tarrytown.
“There aren’t a lot of places we’ve been since moving here that I could picture myself living permanently, but this town, this river and piece of land, is one of them. There’s something so familiar yet so completely foreign about it. I’d never been here before, I don’t know its peaks and valleys intimately, but I had already kind of missed it. Know what I mean?”
It took a second, but the look of pure desire on Nate’s face, the roughness of his voice, and the meaning behind the words he spoke were worth the wait. “Yeah. Yeah, I do, Gidge. I know exactly what you mean.”
I couldn’t look away from his hunger.
From his heat.
We were thousands of miles apart. But I could feel flames licking every inch of my quivering flesh.
His best friend’s sister.
My brother’s best friend.
Eye-fucking.
That was it. I was going to do it.
“Nate.”
“Yes, Evie.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“You know you can ask me anything, Evie.”
“Are you interested in…umm…”
