Page 42 of Nailed

Brock was just a silhouette against it all.

I felt my throat tighten, like I’d done something wrong even though I really hadn’t.

“Brock?” I asked tentatively, taking a step towards him. His broad back was facing me, and he waited a second before finally turning around. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said, his voice as flat and stingy as ever. If there’d been anything else to give away in his expression, he’d masked it before I noticed. And it infuriated me.

“Is that why you chose to run away here?” I asked, gesturing to the rest of the room around us.

“I didn’t run away,” he said stiffly. “I just needed a moment to breathe. I don’t usually do this kind of thing.”

“And yet you came here anyway,” I shot back, folding my arms and sticking my hip out. “Is there a reason why you did?”

He said nothing.

I mentally counted to ten, trying very hard not to say anything that I’d regret after. But I was growing so tired of trying to figure him out. He built up so many walls between us but I didn’t imagine the ice in his walk when he saw Callum and I kissing. That wasn’t just for nothing.

“Does my interest in the others bother you?” I just laid it all on the table.

Brock seemed taken aback by my honesty. Whereas I’d been upfront so far, he’d been the one to skirt around the obvious and I was sick of doing that.

“We work for you, Miss Wolfhaardt,” he said, turning on that same old polish of distance that he liked to think was professionalism. He used my formal name like a shield. It was his tell that he wanted me to back up, that he’d gotten too close. But instead of retreating back the way I knew he wanted me to, I took a step forward.

Not to make him uncomfortable, but to push that boundary just up to where it hardened. I could take a no but I had a feeling that it wasn’t truly a no he was after.

“And?” I asked. “So what?”

“So, there are certain lines that we shouldn’t be crossing and you seem to have vaulted over them already,” he said.

Ouch. I didn’t like how that stung.

“I’m not doing anything illegal or immoral, Brock,” I said. “We’re all adults here. I don’t understand why you keep acting as though this contract is indefinite and there’s some hidden clause that says we can’t see each other.”

He laughed then. I’d wanted to hear him laugh for a long time now, but not like this. There was no amusement or happiness in the sound.

“It’s not a good idea,” he insisted.

“But why not?” I pressed. “You still haven’t given me an answer. You keep fighting me on this but the one thing you haven’t said was that you didn’t want to explore it.”

“Why would I?” The words were sharp and clipped. “Tell me, what do you even want with me? Don’t you have your hands full already?”

I exhaled, watching his face carefully. In the scant light, the lines of his face were rendered harder, his eyes hidden by the shadows. I stepped closer, slowly so that if he wanted to, he could walk away.

His body was almost preternaturally still, and the closer I got the more I could see of his eyes. They watched me just as closely.

“So it does bother you,” I commented softly. “Would you rather I had my hands full of you only?”

“Lauren.” He said my name this time and I felt my core clench. He said it less like a limit this time and more of a warning. Maybe even a plea.

“Shouldn’t we just decide for ourselves what feels good and what we want?” I asked, now so close to him that I wouldn’t have to reach out far to touch him. His breath had deepened, his eyes still fixed on mine. “Shouldn’t we decide what we get to wake up to?”

There was a crack in that mask. I saw it, quick as lightning. He was wavering, thinking.

I looked at his mouth, how the tension he usually held in his frown lessened. Now I did reach up, let my hand rest on his jaw and allowed my thumb to run across his bottom lip.

He sucked in a breath, quiet but noticeable enough to close the last of the space between us.

“I don’t want to force you into anything,” I said, my gaze still locked on his lips. “So if you want me to stop, just tell me.”