Page 63 of My Fault

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked, wriggling away only to find that Mario was already walking off. “Are you crazy?”

“Crazy about you, Precious,” he said, lighting a cigarette as if nothing were out of the ordinary.

“You can drop thePrecious.It doesn’t suit you,” I said, crossing my arms.

“It doesn’t, right?” He laughed. “Babe,that’s more my style, I think.”

“Why’d you do that?”

“Didn’t you want that? For me to pretend to be your boyfriend?”

“I meant in front of Dan, Nicholas.”

“Ah!” He clicked his tongue. “Help me out, Freckles, you’re confusing me.”

“Now he’s gonna think there’s something going on that isn’t,” I said, unable to ignore the electricity that crackled every time we were together.

“By which you mean…”

“By which I mean us being together.”

“What do you care what that idiot thinks?”

His voice turned gravelly, harsh. We both noticed.

“I don’t want anyone to think you and I are hooking up. With Dan, it was necessary. But now that he’s gone…”

“He’s not gone yet,” Nick replied, throwing his cigarette to the ground. “I bought him a plane ticket, but he doesn’t leave for thirteen more hours. It’s going to be the longest trip in history!”

I felt bad for Dan. Thirteen hours in the airport and another five in the air…

“You think I shouldn’t have done that? I can go pick him up if you want. We can all go get dinner together.”

I had to admit, I liked his sarcasm.

“Thanks for helping get him off my back,” I said, still struggling to believe Nicholas had gone out of his way on my behalf. “You didn’t have to.”

“I’m keeping track,” he responded. “At this rate, you’ll be my indentured servant before my twenty-second birthday.”

I didn’t exactly like what he’d just said, but it did remind me of what it felt like to have his lips against mine, and I thought,You can make me pay you back for as many favors as you like.

Damn his attractiveness…

“So you’re saying you can’t just do something from the goodness of your heart?” I was getting nervous. He was so close to me, I had to lean back to look him in the eyes.

“I don’t do anything out of the goodness of my heart, love.”

That last word almost made my heart stop, but it was even worse when he bent over, grabbed my neck, and kissed me hard. I couldn’t speak, couldn’t think, couldn’t do anything…

I saw myself reach up and pull him in. There I was again, trapped between him and the car. He reached for my waist with his other hand, and his muscles felt so hard against the softness of my body. Our breathing grew labored. I wanted more, needed more. Nick awakened sensations in me that had been asleep my whole life.

His knee pressed between my legs, and an exquisite heat suffused my body.

Just when I thought I’d been teleported to another world, Nick’s phone rang, waking us from the trance that simple kiss had become.

He stood back a bit and brought it up to his ear. Looking away, I realized how easily he could seduce me with just a single touch—and right there in public, in the middle of a parking lot!

“I’ll be there in a minute,” he said in a tone of voice as distinct as possible from the one he’d used with me just before.