Page 65 of Awestruck at Dusk
“And you guys used to date or …?”
“No. No, we never dated.”
“So just sex then?” I queried. That look on Lana’s face didn’t meannothing. And the thought of them together drilled a hole through my stomach. The idea of her scheming her way back to Nathan made me want to puke again.
“Yes.” He shot a lazy grimace at me. “But what does this have to do with anything?”
“It’s got everything to do with everything! I’m shocked that you can’t see it when you knowhow muchshe likes to play games. It seems to me like you know her so well, so you tell me. What does she have to gain by making you think that I’m ‘secretly’ dating William? I met her, by the way. Earlier tonight. She says hi, but I’m glad to see that you don’t need me to pass on the message since you’ve already been reacquainted.”
“You’re jealous,” he said, not a hint of a question in his remark.
“Crazy jealous.”
“Come here.” Nathan took my mouth and kissed me like he never had before. Each brush of his tongue against mine filled with a primal claim. And I met him, stroke for stroke. He’d pinned me against the concrete wall behind us, and all I wanted was for him to come up. I didn’t care if I’d find myself fainting from exhaustion the next day because of it.
I needed to convince myself that Nathan wasit. That William was and would always be an object of awestruck admiration, as Nathan said before. To me and everyone else, so it seemed.
I wasn’t too crazy to feel that way about him. Apparently, everyone did too. I knew Zara, my friends from school, and half the female world population did.
Everywhere and anywhere William went, people loved him. He would always be the sun that rises every day and fades out into dusk. Get too close, and you’ll burn. I knew that already. I just had to wake up. William was and had always been too much for me to handle. The things I felt for him felt so ridiculously out of proportion that they couldn’t be real.
Nathanwas real, and he was standing right in front of me, kissing me with all he had. And I did too, after days of feeling like I couldn’t give all of myself to him again.
Nathan stopped kissing me abruptly and said, “I have to have you tonight. I want you spread on your bed in nothing but that necklace.”
Listening to him saying that made me burn and yearn for him in a way I hadn’t before. As if realizing for the first time how I probably couldn’t live without him. The way he kept talking to me with such untamed desire sparked things up inside me that made me think these feelings had to be answer enough.
He broke away from my lips again and said, “Tell me what I have to do to come up, and I’ll do it.”
I turned toward the apartment building’s green shade, and Amena was gone. However, Aaron and David still lingered there, not entirely giving their backs to us but rather standing at an oblique angle, offering us the most privacy they could.
“Come. I’ll talk to Aaron.” I grabbed Nathan’s hand and pulled him.
“Hey,” I said to them. Aaron and David acknowledged me, ignoring Nathan’s presence. That wasn’t good. Aaron must’ve wanted to keep a distance from him, and I could only imagine why.
“Ready to leave, Mr. Saunders?” Aaron said to him, looking at me.That’s why. I was having a hard time leveling with the intense indigo of his commanding gaze.
“Nathan’s walking me up,” I said casually, ignoring his authority. An authority that was bestowed upon him by my father and that I was expected to comply with.
Aaron lifted a brow in return, and by the look on David’s face, I knew he was most definitely going to stay out of this conversation.
“Miss Murphy, we’ve discussed this. No access for Mr. Saunders, and you are to go straight up to your apartment.”
There was nothing left for me to do but beg. But the thought of doing so felt out of place and humiliating. I guess Nathan caught up with that, or the lawyer in him was out of service because he didn’t argue his case like I thought he would.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, love.”
With that, Aaron darted toward the SUV and climbed in the driver’s seat. David opened the door for Nathan, and I walked him over to the car to say goodbye. Nathan pulled his phone out, unlocked it, and deleted the messages Lana had just sent him. He then blocked her number.
“I don’t take advice from that girl,” he said. “But I can unblock her from time to time just to watch you get riled up like you did before and make you forget about it in a million different ways.”
I tugged on Nathan’s jacket and pulled myself against him with a giddy smile, and said, “That’ll teach me.”
“It certainly will.” He placed a soft kiss on my lips, and he leaped into his seat. “Happy birthday, love.”
A Choice
“HEY, BRUCE,”I said to our door guard, who seemed in a great mood despite the hour.
