Nine-tenths of the Law

Chapter Thirty-three

A few days had passed since the night a set of handcuffs brought us closer together, and we found ourselves sitting in silence in his living room. Nathan sat on the couch and I laid across it, my head on his lap and my feet on the armrest. He combed his fingers through my hair, the slow, repetitive motions nearly lulling me to sleep.

It had been a long day for both of us. He’d been in depositions all day. I’d been up to my eyebrows in both people and equipment that refused to work properly. Ah, the American dream, I thought. Working yourself into the ground so you’re too damned tired to do anything else.

His fingers slowed, gradually losing the rhythm that had almost put me to sleep. It wasn’t a deliberate change of pace. If anything, it seemed as though he’d forgotten his fingers were moving at all.

I watched him, but he didn’t notice. His eyes seemed unfocused, fixed on something in the room but not really looking at it. He seemed to be looking right through it, staring at something that was a million miles away, just like the thoughts in which he was lost.

“Hey,” I said. He looked down, blinking once as if trying to bring himself back to the present. I touched his arm gently. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” He held my gaze for a moment, then looked away. “I was just thinking.”

After a moment, I said, “Is that an invitation for me to ask what you were thinking about, or…”

He laughed softly. “That depends. Do you really want to know?”

“Does it include Saturday’s winning lottery numbers?”

Another laugh, this time with a bit more enthusiasm behind it. “Don’t I wish?” Then he paused and looked away, again finding whatever it was he wasn’t looking at earlier. The humor faded from his expression. When he looked down at me again, he ran a single, gentle fingertip down the side of my face. “It does involve you, though.”

My heart jumped into my throat. His affectionate touch reassured me that it wasn’t anything to be alarmed about, but the pair of crevices forming between his eyebrows cancelled out that effect. Swallowing hard, I said, “Go on.”

He chewed his lip for a second. “I’ve been thinking about the other night.”

I didn’t need to ask which night. If it had been on his mind half as much as it had been on mine, he probably still heard the handcuffs rattling just like I did. “What about it?”

Without looking at me, he gave a half shrug. “I’m not really sure, just…” He paused. “Just thinking.”

“Do you regret it?”

His eyes darted downward and met mine. “Regret it? Do-” He shook his head. “Jesus, no.”

I exhaled, trying not to make my relief too apparent. “Neither do I.”

He smiled. “I definitely don’t regret it. I guess it just…”

“Made you think?”

“Obviously.” He laughed halfheartedly, then his face turned more serious again. Trailing his fingertip along my jaw, he said, “I just keep thinking that it should have made me nervous. Or, more nervous than it did, anyway.”

I chewed the inside of my cheek, unsure what to say to that. Fortunately, he went on before I had to think of a response.

“You suggested doing it so I could learn to trust you,” he said quietly. “But I think I already did. I just didn’t know it yet. And that night, everything we did just made me realize it.”

I furrowed my brow. Though this was what I had hoped for, that he would realize there was less distrust between us than he thought, there was a note of hesitation in his voice, as if this revelation unnerved him.

He went on. “As much as we’ve gone around and around about trust, I think I trust you more than I do most people.” He paused. “Maybe more than I should.”

Cold water ran through my veins. “More than you should?”

His fingertips drifted tenderly down the side of my face. “More than I should if this is…” He was quiet and distant for a moment. Then he took a breath. “If this is what it was when we started out.”

My heart pounded. “A rebound thing?”

He nodded. “Especially given how this rebound thing got started.”

I swallowed. “Maybe it started out that way, but maybe it isn’t meant to stay that way.”

“Shouldn’t it, though?” He cleared his throat. “Shouldn’t it stay that way?”

Sitting up, I bit my lip and thought for a moment. “I probably shouldn’t have offered to buy you a beer the night we met, but I can’t change the past, and…” I hesitated. “I don’t think I can change the future, either.”

“What do you mean?”

“Whether we should or not,” I said. “We are. And unless one of us walks out right now, we will.” Leaning closer, I slid my hand around to the back of his neck, not sure if I just wanted to touch him, if I wanted to reassure him, or if I was silently pleading with him to stay.

We looked at each other in silence. Blood pounded in my ears, and my stomach turned with uncertainty. This was a crossroads. A point of no return. Now or never. Stay or go.

I wasn’t going to walk out. I couldn’t be sure if he would. I hoped to God he didn’t.

The next move is yours, Nathan.

He took the kind of deep, deliberate breath that suggested he was steeling himself against something. Preparing to say or do something, to take a step in one direction or another. I couldn’t predict which way he would go, only that he was about to do something.

When he released that breath, the air rushed past my face and I realized he’d moved a little closer.

His gaze shifted down and momentary panic swept through me as I expected him to back away, but when his eyes came back up, so did his hands. First one, then the other, touching my face and drawing me closer.

Looking at me, he hesitated. No, that wasn’t right. His pause was neither uncertainty nor hesitation.

If the half-grin and the look in his eyes-somewhere between lust and reverence-were to be believed, he was stopping on purpose. Enjoying the moment. Savoring it.

One hand went from my face to the back of my neck. My arms wrapped around him as if they had a mind of their own, and we came together in the gentlest, most passionate kiss I’d ever experienced.

It wasn’t our first kiss, not by a long shot, but it may as well have been. The gentleness, the tenderness, the intimacy. This was uncharted territory. This was a degree of “us” we’d never before encountered.

That was the moment I realized I was in love with him. It didn’t matter how we got here, only that we were here, and I was undeniably, unabashedly and unflinchingly in love with Nathan Forrester.

He broke the kiss and looked in my eyes. His thumb brushed over my cheekbone, and my own hand mirrored that motion on his face. Neither of us spoke, but a million things ran through my mind, every last one of them halting right at the tip of my tongue.

I had no doubt that I loved him. It made perfect sense. In fact, I couldn’t comprehend that there was ever a time when I wasn’t in love with him. But knowing it was a far cry from saying it.

He kissed me again, then said, “So where do we go from here?”

Anywhere, as long as you’re there. “I was wondering the same thing.”

Running his fingers through my hair, he kissed me gently. “There’s always the bedroom.”

I don’t want this to be over yet. “Or…” I traced the edge of his goatee with my fingertips. “We could stay here.”

He smiled. “There’s more room to move in the bedroom.”

“Who says we need to move?”

“We don’t need to,” he said. “But if you want to…”

“I don’t,” I said, letting my fingers disappear into his hair as I pulled him closer. “Not unless you do.”

“In that case…” His upper lip touched mine. “I’m not going anywhere.”