Page 29 of Already At Risk
“Fine.” She dropped her forehead to my chest, and I hope she couldn’t tell the way my pulse picked up. “I’m so…mortified?”
The words were muffled against my shirt, and I gave her a little shake to look up at me.
She did, and her green eyes bored into mine, startlingly clear. My breath momentarily vanished, and when I didn’t say anything, Natalie bit down on her lip, tugging it between her teeth in a way that was so fucking tempting and seductive. I knew it wasn’t on purpose, but holy hell. And then her gaze dropped tomylips, andfuck—could I kiss her? I just wanted to kiss this woman. At least once. I’d been waiting for six whole months.
But instead, I said, “You don’t need to be.”
She tore her gaze away from my mouth and whispered, “You can put me down.”
My movements were stiff, but I did as she directed, knowing it was for the best. Natalie landed on her feet and then immediately dropped to her bed. I looked away, needing tonotsee her in a bed at the moment, especially one that looked so inviting. It gave me achance to take in the rest of her room, which was a decent size, considering the narrow hallways on the way up here. It had dark trim that matched the original woodwork in the rest of the townhouse and light walls with other neutral decor that had a calming effect, like Natalie had purposefully made this room as unstimulating as she could, an oasis of sorts.
“If I knew you’d end up in my bedroom anyway, maybe I wouldn’t have bothered pushing you away that night,” Natalie said thoughtfully, pulling my attention back to her.
She was on her back now, looking up at me. Her honey-colored hair splayed out across crisp, white pillowcases, and I shoved my hands in my pockets to make sure I kept them to myself. Did she even realize what she looked like, lying there like that?
“Why don’t you want me in your bedroom, Sunny?”
I needed to know the answer to that like I needed air.
“Because it’s a bad idea,” she laughed, but it lacked humor.
“I mean,nowit is,” I acknowledged, using that reminder to take a step backward, toward the door. “But why was it a bad idea before?”
She stared up at the ceiling, not meeting my eyes. “Because I hadn’t had time to practice yet.”
I stilled. “Practice what?”
“Doing all the right things.” I was about to tell her that therewereno right or wrong things when it came to the bedroom, but then she added, “I mean, doing it the rightway. So it doesn’t end up like last time.”
“Natalie—”
“I didn’t have time to warm up to the idea of you in my bedroom. And maybe it wasn’t going to go that far, but itfeltfast. And last time, itwasfast. And it ended badly.” She flopped her hand over her head. “I’m too tired to articulate myself well, Cameron.”
“You don’t have to articulate yourself well,” I insisted, even though I wanted to let her keep talking. I wanted to hear all thethoughts Natalie kept to herself, wanted to know about the barriers in her head, the ones she put up, the ones I smacked headfirst into that fateful night. I knew she had good reasons, and I wanted to know what they were. “You don’t have to articulate yourself at all. I’d actually feel better if you just went back to sleep.”
I shouldn’t have peppered her with questions. Iknewnow wasn’t the right time for this conversation, which was why I’d stopped myself short of asking a question I shouldn’t downstairs.Maybewe could have it later, when she had the bandwidth for it. Or, more importantly, when she wasn’t already lying in bed.
It was so incredibly distracting the way she was stretching out across her sheets. We were already toeing a very dangerous line, and I didn’t intend to make it any worse.
“Sleep sounds good,” Natalie said with another wide yawn. She stifled it with her hand before turning on her side and peering up at me with that brilliant emerald gaze. “There’s a keypad on the back door, if you don’t mind going out that way and locking it behind you. The code’s 1234.”
She collapsed into her pillow then, but I was too busy comprehending her words.
The code waswhat?
“Natalie,” I groaned, tipping my head back.
“What?” She looked sleepily up at me.
Adorable. Fucking adorable.
“Please change that code.” I sighed. “Tomorrow.”
“Why?” Her brows furrowed. “Do I need to worry about you breaking into my house?”
“No, that’s just the worst fucking code in the history of all codes.”
“Oh, yeah. I know.” She heaved an exhale, her lashes fluttering closed. “I can’t figure out how to change it, though. I only installed it a few days ago, but now I can’t find the instructions. So I was maybe going to buy a new one, but?—”
