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He’s only half right.
They both stand up when I do.
“Natalie—”
I hold up one hand when Finn starts to explain. He’s panicking, thinking the same as Nic. I’m not going anywhere. Instead, I’m about to do the thing that scares me more than anything—more than break-ins, blackmail, even more than regaining all the weight that I worked so hard to lose.
More.
Reaching for the buttons on this soft, stupidly expensive silk blouse, I pop them open one by one.
17
FINN
I’ve never seen a man so scared as Nic at this moment.
“Natalie.” His voice is pained, desire written all over his face. Natalie pauses, the gauzy, filmy blouse caught around her upper arms as she battles the tiny buttons at her wrists.
It’s the first time I’ve seen her strip on her own, and I know the real battle she’s fighting has nothing to do with buttons.
“What?”
“What are you doing?” Nic asks.
She laughs nervously. “If you have to ask, I must be doing something wrong.” I can hear the tremor in her voice, riding a shaky line of bravado to cover up the vulnerability, the fear. She wants him. I knew it weeks ago, and it’s never been more obvious than right now.
She’s letting him see her in more ways than one, and it tugs at my heart how brave she must be, even as the room heats with every inch of skin she reveals.
“You don’t have to—” Whatever he was going to say stutters to a stop when Natalie manages to free her hands and drops the blouse on the sofa behind her. She squares her shoulders back and turns to face Nic fully. Brave, beautiful Natalie. She thinks I don’t know she doesn’t want to be naked when we’re together like this. Not in the light where I can see her—where we can see her.
He makes her brave.
“Do you want me to go?” she asks.
“You should.” His voice is raw.
“Do you want me to go?” she asks again. His eyes haven’t left her face since she dropped the shirt.
“No.”
“I’m not here because I have to do this,” she says, reaching out to cup his cheek. The intimacy in that single touch bleeds into the air, so potent I can almost see it spreading like lightning, and I realize Natalie’s not the only one laying herself open.
“Finn.” Nic doesn’t take his eyes off her when he speaks.
“I’m here.” There’s just enough space in this corner of the room to get closer, with Natalie between us. I take her hand. She squeezes, lacing our fingers together.
Nic leads us down the hall. His place is a mirror image of mine. Finding ourselves in his bedroom doesn’t surprise me.
Natalie’s the last one in the room. Nic closes the door behind her. At her questioning look, he says, “To keep Cat out.”
For the longest moment, he simply stares at Natalie. If we weren’t already in his bedroom with the door shut, I’d think he was about to call the whole thing off. He approaches her slowly, closing the inches between them as though every step is an act of deliberation. Consecration, even. He reaches for her shoulders, skating over her silhouette until his hands land on her waist. Nic presses her close, kissing her like his next breath depends on it.
I’ve never seen anything hotter, not in my whole life. It nails my feet to the floor, but I must make some kind of noise because Nic pulls back an inch, looking back at me.
“Three hundred and ninety-two days,” he says.
Natalie’s eyes open slowly. Her face is gorgeously flushed in the dim light.
