Page 14 of The Do-Over Girl
Ken’s face loses its shine, and Nash turns to me. “Let’s get back inside, Kali.”
I don’t know if it’s the way he says my name, all proprietary and intimate like we have a secret, or if it’s the way he presses his hand into the small of my back, raising all the fine hairs on my body with the sizzle, but I go along.
The fire trucks are pulling away, and Charline and Steve must have already gone inside. All the lights that had gone on in the neighboring homes are shut off now with only a few porchlights gleaming. We go inside, and Nash lets the door close behind us as I find myself standing with him in the confines of the front entry, close, with one of his arms around my back, and his fiery eyes staring down at me.
I back up a step, forcing his arm to fall away and shrug his shirt off my shoulders. “You can have this back now.” I hold the shirt out to him. “Thank you.” I remember my manners as I should, and that settles me. He takes his shirt.
But as I watch his eyes darken and his gaze lower over my body, I realize that returning his shirt so quickly was a stupid move because now I’m standing in front of him, barely a foot away, dressed only in my night shirt once again, with more skin exposed than a virile man ought to see in the middle of the night.
His gaze roams freely and without apology, touching every morsel of my body. My nipples pebble as his eyes pass over them. Shit. I fiercely grit my teeth against the blush, and though I want to look away, his dark gaze holds mine.
“Now, I’m going to dream about you in that nighty all night, Lollipop.”
“I told you—”
He cuts me off. “You can’t tell me what to do. You don’t own me.” He uses the exact words he told me that night—the last night I saw him—seventeen years ago. I felt those words like a knife to my gut back then. Now?
Honestly, the gut-churning emotions those words rile up tonight don’t feel so good either. Shit. Shit. Shit. I shouldn’t waste my energy reacting to him like this.
“You can’t affect me anymore, Nash. Say whatever you want.”
“Brave words.” He pauses and lets his gaze penetrate like he can see inside me as he used to do when we knew each other so well we could read each other’s minds. “Too bad you’re fucking lying. Manipulating. Just like you were back then.”
My mouth drops open as he turns away and walks back outside, pushing through the door more forcefully than casually. I fall back against the wall, my nerves tingling and jittery.
How the heck am I going to get back to sleep now? Glancing at the grandfather clock to the right of the stairs, I see it’s three a.m. School starts at seven in the morning.
Shit. I can’t stand Nash Lewis. I don’t care how many other people admire him. I don’t even care that he got me out of bed when I didn’t hear the fire alarm. He’s a jerk. He probably just wanted to see me in my nighty.
Hold onto that sentiment good and hard, Kali, and don’t let go, or you could be in trouble.
