Page 43 of Hale Yes (Highway to Hale #1)

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

I’m a man of my word

Helix

I pause at her words. I know she’s tired, but I can’t just let a statement like that go.

“What do you mean you miss hugs? Do you not get hugs a lot?”

She hums, her eyes closed. “Yeah, from my friends sometimes.”

“What about your family?” When we were in New Jersey, I noticed the brief embrace with her dad seemed forced and awkward, and her mom and sister hadn’t hugged her at all. Though I didn’t think too much of it at the time, assuming they just weren’t a very affectionate family.

“No,” she mumbles. “They don’t hug me.”

My hand smooths up her back into her hair, running my fingers through the curls. “Why not?”

“My mother,” Nicolette sighs.

I should really let this go. It’s none of my business, but I can’t. “Your mother?”

“Mmhmm. When I was a kid, I noticed she always hugged Angelica and not me so I told her I wanted hugs too. So she started hugging me, but I noticed her hugs were different from my dad’s. They hurt.”

I have to make an effort not to jolt, and I look down at her closed eyes. I’m not even sure if she’s fully conscious. “What do you mean they hurt?”

Nicolette’s face scrunches up. “Ma hugged me really tight and sometimes she would pinch my side. It just… hurt. I didn’t like it.”

Her voice sounds higher, almost childlike, and my heart is about to beat out of my chest. I thought Nicolette’s mother was just a bitch, someone who clearly favored one child over the other, but it’s more than that. She's fucking evil.

“What about the rest of your family?” I ask.

She hums again. “After I told Ma I didn’t want her to hug me anymore, she told everyone else not to hug me either because I didn’t like it, but I do. Hugs feel good when they don’t hurt.” Nicolette lets out a sigh. “I miss Pop hugging me.”

Now I understand her tattoo a lot better since oxytocin is known as the hugging hormone or the love hormone.

Affection was something she was denied as a child, so she had the molecule permanently imprinted on her skin.

The tat is on the back of her shoulder and I can’t reach it with my mouth right now, so I kiss my fingertips and rub them against the ink.

Tears well in my eyes and I pull her just a little bit closer, burying my nose in her curls as I whisper, “I’ve got you, baby girl. I’ll be your hug.”

I awaken with a warm, gorgeous body draped over mine, and I’m a little confused at first. I haven’t had a sleepover with a woman in years.

When my mind wakes up enough, I remember last night and smile. It was an amazing night… until what she said in her sleepy confession. Wanting to hold her closer, I haul Nicolette all the way onto my body.

She shifts, and her pussy finds my morning wood like it knows where it belongs. After a couple rocks of her hips, she slowly opens her eyes and smiles down at me, her face all drowsy and beautiful.

“Am I attacking you in your sleep?”

I laugh, the sound dusky in the dimness of pre-dawn. “Yes, and please continue.”

Her legs are straddling my hips, putting her in the perfect position to feel how hard I am, and her pussy weeps in response.

“You just had to prove you needed all three of those condoms, didn’t you?” she teases.

“I’m a man of my word.”

It only takes another minute of her dragging that juicy pussy up and down my dick before I’m rolling on the rubber and settling her on top of me.

This time, the sex isn’t hard and frenetic like our previous times.

Instead of Nicolette sitting up and riding me like a cowgirl, I hold her close to my body and rock up into her.

We move in perfect synch, a melding of bodies in a slow and sensual dance. Our lips are connected the entire time, and I feel something inside me loosen, like a tightly-bound ball of string that’s being unraveled with every move of her soft body over mine.

I want more with her. That realization slaps me in the face when we come at the same time, swallowing each other’s euphoria.

I’m still thinking about it after we nap for another two hours, and it’s still at the forefront of my mind while we shower together, along with something else I told her last night.

I trust Nicolette Bell. And that scares the shit out of me. My natural fight or flight instincts tell me to end this before I get in too deep, but another part of me—a significant part I can’t quite define—craves the connection we’re building.

She’s ensnared me with her brain, her body, and especially with her heart.

“You’re quiet,” she notes as I rinse the conditioner from her long hair.

“Just thinking,” I say absently, trying to sort through those dreaded things called feelings.

Nicolette kisses her way down my body, her tongue flicking my nipple before sliding over my abs. “I’m sore, but maybe I can take your mind off things in another way.”

I snap out of my reverie and hook her beneath the armpits before she can sink to her knees. Am I really turning down a blow job? Who even am I right now?

“Maybe another time,” I tell her, softening the rejection by pressing her against the tiles of her shower and kissing the hell out of her. When I pull back, I give her one more soft peck. “Why don’t we go to brunch and talk about those labels?”