Picture Perfect (12 page)

“Just be grateful my boyfriend didn’t let me wear stilettos, you skeezebucket. And be grateful he didn’t see this, or that pretty face of yours would be unrecognizable right now.”

The buzz of the alcohol was definitely gone now, replaced by a killer headache digging into my temples and making my limbs shudder. All I wanted was to get the hell out of there. I stalked back out onto the dance floor, plowing straight through the crowd this time.

Nate found me, caught my hand in his, raised it to his lips and kissed it.

“Sweetheart, you’re shaking. You okay?”

“No. I mean, yeah. Now I am.”

He drew back from me, examining my face, smoothing my hair back from my face. My God. I must have been a disaster. “Just that guy, the one who snubbed me?”

“He’s here?”

“Yeah, he’s actually Hannah’s boyfriend.”

A mix of surprise and alarm took over his face. “Why didn’t you tell me? We were sitting at the same table as the fucker.”

“I didn’t think it was important. Because it’s not. Anyway, he tried to…talk to me. Just now.”

“Don’t tell me he tried to touch you.”

“He did, but it’s no big deal.” I wouldn’t let it be. I wouldn’t let that asshole get to me again.

A storm brewed behind Nate’s eyes, and before I could convince him otherwise, he was stalking back across the dance floor. Jake was still recovering, leaning against a wall. In one smooth motion, Nate had pulled Jake upright by the collar of his t-shirt, and spoke in a low growl just inches from his face.

“If you ever so much as think about talking to this woman again, trust me, I will sink to actually laying my hands on you, do you understand?”

No swearing. No yelling. No punching. But Nate succeeded in scaring the shit out of Jake, because when he let him drop, Jake raised his palms in front of his chest and stammered apologies.

“Come on, sweetheart,” he said, grabbing my hand, and circling his other arm around my waist as he walked me back out.

“You didn’t have to do that.”

He looked up at me with round eyes.

“But I appreciated it.”

Even though I could take care of resident assholes all on my own, I loved that Nate had stood up for me. I also loved that he didn’t cause a scene, because I didn’t want that—not right now, not even over me. In fact, the only thing I
did
want was to get home with him, wash my face, strip off all my clothes, slide under the covers, and be content knowing that me—exactly as I was, only me—was exactly what Nate wanted.

Fuck what Doctor Albright had said. I wasn’t my old self, and I wasn’t going to be. If I was happy being with Nate, I was just going to keep being with Nate. Even if he was a little bit of a crutch, it wasn’t like he didn’t know anything about my past.

This was honest. This was good.

I told him as much, tucked my head into his shoulder while his hand went around my waist, and he nodded against my head.

We settled into a cab, which I guess he’d called when I went to the bathroom, and only broke that position to get our seatbelts on. I sat in the middle, letting my head bounce against his arm as we cruised through the neon-streaked city night.

We walked up to his apartment, and I stumbled to his bathroom, where I rinsed my mouth out, scrubbed my teeth, and rinsed my mouth out again. I scrubbed my makeup off and swiped a steaming washcloth over my eyes for good measure.

Nate was waiting to get into the bathroom on my way out. I walked up to him, then fell into him, letting my forehead rest against his chest. “Okay if we just go to bed?”

“Yeah, of course. You feeling okay?”

I wasn’t feeling okay. I felt like I’d been hit by a truck and slithered over by a snake all in one night. But I didn’t want to tell him that. “Just a headache.”

“Sweetheart. Let me take care of you. You should have told me in the cab, I would have brought you Tylenol right away.”

He tugged me over to the bed by my hand, reached behind me, and unzipped my dress. It fell to the floor. The thong I’d put on to make my ass flawless in that dress suddenly felt like a cage, so while Nate drew back the sheets I stepped out of that, balling it up and shoving it in my purse next to my side of the bed. I slid into bed, in all my naked glory, but Nate seemed less concerned with his girlfriend being naked in his bed and way more concerned about whether I would rather have Tylenol or Advil. He tucked the heavy covers around me as he asked the question, and was back with three extra-strength Tylenol when I told him.

The rush of the water from the bathroom as he got ready for bed was a blissful minute and a half of white noise. Part of me wanted to tell Nate about what Jake had done, and the loudest part of me screamed that he would never be doing that again, so what was the point? And besides, nothing had
really
happened.

Nate walked back into the room, standing next to the bed as he kicked off shoes and stepped out of his pants. Through the thin light and the pounding of my head, I watched those gorgeous shoulders shrug out of his button-down shirt, leaving an undershirt. Then he started to slide into bed next to me.

“No,” I complained, “Take your shirt off. Please?”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “You have a headache.” I knew he was saying I was drunk, and he didn’t want to. But instead of going for begging, I went for teasing.

“Yeah, too bad you didn’t catch me on the dance floor, right?”

“You know that’s not why I—”

“No, I know. I’m just kidding.” I stretched my naked arm up to him, and watched my muscles flex. Yeah, there it was. My beauty was back, when I was here with Nate. “But I do want you to take your shirt off. I want to feel you next to me. I swear, I’m falling asleep in like two minutes.”

An indulgent smile stretched across his face. “You know I’d do anything for you.”

I tried to look away as he pulled it over his neck, because the sight of those particular muscles doing that particular act had actually sent me into a frenzy the other day. But right now, I was exhausted, and I looked and smelled disgusting.

More than anything, I just needed him to hold me.

In seconds, his arms were around me, rocking me briefly away, then pulling me into him. In a few seconds more, his body felt heavier on my arm. “You’re more exhausted than I am, huh?” I asked.

“It’s been a long time since I went out dancing. I’m just glad you were there with me. Gave me something to focus on.”

“Exactly the way I felt.”

I snuggled my face into the warm, smooth skin of his chest, while his face pressed into my hair. “Jesus, your hair stinks.”

I laughed, sinking down farther. “Oh, shit. Sorry. The cigarette smoke always gets caught in there.”

“Stop that. Don’t ever apologize for being you, and being here,” he murmured, tugging me back up on his chest and drawing my lips to his. No intensity, no tongue. Just him and me, and this moment of perfection. For only me, just as I was, even if “as I was” was smelling like a gross club that I’d dragged him to even though he really, really really didn’t want to go.

I felt my own body getting heavy, exhaustion taking over and pulling me deep into sleep. Nate was already breathing deeply, and right before I nodded off, all I could think about was how nothing could ever screw this up.

***

It was the deepest sleep I remembered ever having in my whole life, wrapped up there in Nate’s arms, warm and accepted. By the time my eyes began to flutter open, there was enough light filtering in through the window that my lids lit up with a warm glow. Nate’s arms went around my shoulders, and his lips grazed against my nose. I sighed, stretching my lips up to his. But when I slid my tongue along his bottom lip, there was an obviously minty taste to his breath.

I pulled away and he groaned. “Hey. What are you interrupting my kisses for?” His arms slid down and around my waist, pulling me close to him. He had thick sweatpants on, and I groaned.

“When did you brush your teeth? And more importantly, why did you put pants on? Why would you want to ruin my morning like that?”

He laughed, a chuckle low in his throat. “I made you breakfast.”

“Does it come with a side of man candy?” I asked, running my hand down his back. Damn, the muscles just didn’t stop.

“What did I do to deserve this objectification?” He cupped my face in his hand and tried to kiss me again, but I dipped my head down, pressing my lips against his neck again, then sliding lower. Oh, Jesus. There was that shoulder muscle. I just had to lick it. I reached up to wrap my arms around his neck, just to get more of myself against more of him.

When I did, the smell from my armpits smacked me in the face. I was rank, and now that I was completely sober, I was actually able to realize it.

My body stiffened, and Nate drew back. “What? Is this about the morning breath?”

“That, and the fact that I partied and drank last night and my armpits could kill you with too much exposure.” He opened his mouth to protest, but I pushed out of the bed. “No way. I cannot do this unless I feel sexy too, remember?”

He rolled his eyes a little and fell back on the pillow, groaning. “Get out of here, then.”

I froze as he rolled over, burying his face on the pillow. My heart completely stopped. No fucking way he was kicking me out for not having sex with him.

“Towels are under the sink. Your hair’s gonna smell like guy.”

I barely made out the words for how muffled they were against the pillow.

I sucked in a breath again. “Holy shit, Nate. I thought you were kicking me out.”

He sat bolt upright. “What? This has something to do with seeing that asshole Jake last night, doesn’t it? Cat, you have to know I would never—”

“No,” I grumbled, tugging open his drawer and pulling an old t-shirt over my head. “Just forget I said anything.” Overreact much? What was wrong with me?

I stood up, mostly covered, and traipsed to the bathroom, grabbing my toothbrush out of my purse, before he could say another word.

I flipped on the water, then stopped at the sink for thirty seconds to brush my teeth. Scour them, more like. After a few more seconds, I’d finally removed the scuzz from my teeth and bad breath from my tongue. I stepped into the shower and sighed. The water pounded on my back, steaming up the entire room. I loved a hot shower almost as much as I loved ice cream or a huge fluffy sweatshirt—it was one of the indisputable pleasures of life. I could feel all the smoke and filth and fuzzy drunkenness washing off of my skin, and as I really thought about the difference between the two feelings—nasty versus clean—I wondered why I’d ever liked going out anyway. Maybe I’d never minded the nastiness of it because I’d never shared bed space with someone the morning after.

There was one bottle of combination hair and body wash in the shower, in a black and ice-blue bottle with an aggressive-looking font on it—guy stuff. I cursed myself for not bringing some of my own toiletries earlier. We’d only been together five weeks—and never talked about how “together” we were—but I stayed over all the time. I fumbled, wet and freezing in the cold air outside the shower, through the clutter under his sink, and somewhere between the toilet bowl cleaner and box of extra razor blades I found a couple of hotel bottles of shampoo and conditioner, and breathed a sigh of relief. At least he was wrong about that—my hair would not smell like boy.

I stepped in, and the water was a perfect scalding hot on my skin. I sighed, and rolled my neck to the front, closing in my eyes and breathing in the steam.

Then I felt a small burst of cool air, and my neck snapped up. The door was open just a crack, and Nate’s muffled voice floated into the bathroom, drowned out by the rushing water and blocked by steam.

I rolled my eyes and smiled, trying to ignore the pang in my heart and twist in my gut from what I thought he’d been telling me earlier. I thought I needed to get in the shower to get away from him. But as his unintelligible speech hit my ears, my heart calmed, and I felt better. Stronger.

“Come in here, crazy,” I said, laughing.

The door opened even further, and I hugged my chest. “Hurry up, though. You’re letting in all the cold air.”

“I just wanted to see if you found everything you needed,” Nate said as he stepped in, and even through the steam, the line of his shoulders was strong. Irresistible. And suddenly, all I wanted to do was grab him. All of him.

“Everything but one thing,” I said, grabbing the sliding glass door and peeking out.

He turned his head over his shoulder, and I’d be damned if those weren’t the sweetest puppy dog eyes I’d ever seen on anyone. “I’m sorry about...in there. I really didn’t mean for you to think...shit, Cat. I’m sorry.”

“No, it was me. I was being stupid.” I was. Nate had never done a single thing to make me think that he wouldn’t want me for not having sex with him. “It was my own stupid paranoia. You’re perfect.” He was.

Nate half-turned and leaned in to kiss me. Then he smiled, keeping his hands to himself. “Okay, well I’m going to continue to be perfect and finish making the breakfast I just started.

I darted my arm out of the shower and grabbed at the chest of his t-shirt. “Nuh-uh. Breakfast can wait. But I can’t.”

I’d known as soon as he’d walked in that this was not going to end without me dragging him into the shower too. I grinned as he leaned in for another kiss, but broke it just as quickly to pull the t-shirt up over his head. The bulge under his pajama pants was obvious, and quickly turning into a tent instead of a bump. He kissed me again, and my thumbs hooked into his pants, pulling him in and them down at the same time. In a second, he was in the shower, naked and muscled and all mine, standing at serious attention.

I giggled.

“What is so funny about this?” he murmured, pressing his hands into the small of my back and pulling me close to him. The sheer sensation of his hot, tight body pressing against mine and the steaming water flowing over us made me gasp into his mouth.

He moved his lips down my jaw and into the crook of my neck, his steaming breath sending shivers through my body. When he sucked on the tender skin at the base of my throat, my hands drifted down to his gorgeous ass, squeezing and pinching like I wanted to climb him. Because I did, desperately.