Chapter 9

ChapterNine

Nick

Fear flashes in her eyes as the wind howls and the house groans. She’s scared, I think, of the storm. It’s picked up in the last fifteen or so minutes, the wind stronger, the snow heavier.

I want to comfort her. I don’t understand my constant need to comfort her, to touch her. My desire to taste her, to know her—I haven’t felt this way about a woman in a long time.

Probably too long. My buddies encouraged me for years to take up the women who pity me, to fuck them, to lose myself in them even in momentary pleasure. Before the accident—before her—I would have had no problem being with a woman and using her body. None. Then I met Patricia. I fell for her. I fell for her hard. I convinced myself I wanted her, loved her. That I wouldn’t be happy in life if I couldn’t spend it with her.

I was wrong. In less than twenty-four hours, this tiny woman has wiped away everything I felt for Patricia.

In less than twenty-four hours, Sadie has shed light on all the negative that Patricia left in my life.

Patricia was fake. Fake nails, fake hair, fake eyelashes, fake devotion. She was beautiful. But there was work in that beauty. She was maintenance, and she was proud of it. She felt she deserved it, was owed it, even. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing, if that’s what a man and a woman agree on.

But I wasn’t that man. It was a constant argument between us, the shit she did. The time she spent, the time I had always felt she wasted.

I have yet to even see Sadie put makeup on. Not that I mind makeup, I don’t. I like it, even.

I want a woman to care enough about her body to put a little effort into keeping herself. But the effort Patricia put in had been extreme. She worked part time, and expected me to supplement her salon expenses, which were weekly. I hadn’t minded the money, so much. I had plenty. I had enough money in trust from both my mother’s and father’s side, I didn’t need to work. Still, I worked.

That had been another bone of contention in my relationship with Patricia. She didn’t like that I worked. Why, she’d demanded, would I bother when I didn’t have to. And why, she persistently wanted to know, would I settle to live in a house so small when I could afford more. Better.

Sadie looked at my home like it was her most treasured dream come to life, and I liked that. I liked everything about Sadie, from her effortless beauty to her sunny personality.

She’s beautiful. Flawless inside and out. Enthralling in her simplicity. There’s an innocence about her that I should not crave, a youthfulness I should not desire.

I don’t even know how old she is. And me? I’m thirty-two. She’s too young for me, too innocent. And right now, watching the fear flashing in her eyes, the wind howling, threatening to blow the house down, the snow pelting the windows with its soft pitter-patter like feet on glass, she’s scared. I want to comfort her. I want to touch her.

I settle for giving her words. “You’re safe here, Sadie.”

Her eyes flash from the window to mine, and she blushes. She blushes a lot, and I like it. A lot.

“You’re a good man, Nick.”

Nick.I like the way she says my name, softly. I like the way it rolls off her tongue. Her quiet breath giving a hitch at the end.

Damn, but I want to hear her moan my name.

Fuck my mother.

She knew what she was doing when she sent Sadie to me. She had to know.

She always hated Patricia for me. And Sadie is everything Patricia isn’t. She’s so much more. She’s the exact woman my mother, with all her ideas of what would make me happy, would pick for me.

And I’m annoyed to know now that she’s right.

Sadie is curled up on the couch under my blanket, and I’m alarmed to realize that I like seeing her in my space. I like knowing she’s sitting on my couch. I like the thought that she’s using my things, eating my food.

I want to take care of her.

“Nick?” she calls my name. I’m so caught up in my thoughts, I almost don’t hear her.

“Yeah?”

“Can I ask you a question?”

I have a feeling I’m not going to like this. “You can ask.”

“Why are you alone?” When I don’t answer right away, she hurries to continue, “Lucy—Lucy sent me an email. In the email, she says that you’ve been alone for a long time. Three years. I just—I guess I wonder why?” When I still don’t respond, she waves a hand. “You don’t have to tell me. It’s not my business, I shouldn’t have…”

She’s rambling again. She does that when she’s nervous. I like it. I like that I make her nervous.

I shouldn’t fucking like that.

“Sadie,” I start, cutting her off. “You can ask me a question. It’s fine.”

“Okay,” she says simply. “Then I’m asking.”

“I’m alone because being with people,” I pause, considering. “I think when I’m around people, they’re uncomfortable.”

Her face screws into a mask of confusion. “People are uncomfortable around you? Why?”

Does she really not get it?

Does she not see my face? My hand? The burns?

“Sadie,” I say her name roughly. I’m not sure if I’m annoyed. She’s acting oblivious to something that’s been so important to me. So engraved in my every day. Something that haunts me every minute, so insistent, there has been no reprieve. It’s pissing me off.

“Nick,” she returns. “You’re not that mean. I know you think you are, but you’re not. So, this excuse that you make people uncomfortable is actually just bullshit.”

I lean forward in the chair, placing my wine on the table between us. I clasp my hands between my knees, dipping my head between my shoulders. I can feel agitation burning in my chest. She’s not stupid. She’s not a stupid woman. But she’s acting stupid right now.

I have a hard time with stupid.

Slowly, quietly, I demand, “Do you see my face, Sadie?”

“Yes,” she says simply. “I think you have a beautiful face.”

My chest compresses. I almost can’t breathe.

It’s a miracle I’m able to speak. “Do you see the scars?”

“Of course, I see your scars.”

I lift my head, my eyes pinning hers and she gasps. I’m not sure what she sees in my eyes—the anger? Maybe the frustration? The regret, the hate?

“These scars mark me from my face to mid-thigh on my left side. They’re not pretty. They’re not for the faint of stomach.”

“Whatever, Nick.” She rolls her eyes.

I’m stunned. Fucking stunned. And I’m pissed. “Excuse me?”

It’s her turn to lean forward. Her glass meets mine on the table and she kicks off her blanket to stand. There’s a brave determination that fills her eyes and sets her face as she moves toward me. When she lowers her body to her knees between mine, my body reacts in a shockingly physical way. Desire, unlike anything I’ve ever felt in my life, feasts on me from limb to limb. It’s so strong, so insistent, it almost hurts.

She tips her head back to look up into my face, into my eyes. Her mouth is soft, her eyes tender. She shocks me more when she lifts her hand and flattens it against the left side of my face—against my burns. I search her eyes for disgust but see none. I’m drowning in whiskey.

“You are not ugly, and you do not make people uncomfortable.” Her touch is warm. So warm and so soft. I want more. “You do not make me uncomfortable.”

“You told me yourself; I make you uncomfortable.” It takes all the strength I have inside my body not to lean forward and claim her mouth—her—as mine.

Her brows knit and her lips twist into a pout I feel in my dick. She shakes her head, confused, and then realization settles in. In my office, when she brought me cookies.

“I never said you make me uncomfortable. I said you make me nervous. And you do.”

“What’s the difference?” I ask, needing her answer like I need my next breath.

Her lips part, and she’s so close, I think I can almost taste her. Would she taste as sweet as she smells? Like the Christmas cookies she bakes?

“The difference is I want to be around you. The difference is that—” She pauses, and her face flushes red. I feel her hand start to pull away, so I catch it with mine, covering it with mine. Her tongue darts out to wet her lips. “The difference is that I don’t want to leave when the storm ends.”

“Then stay.”