Page 6 of Need

It shouldn’t have mattered, either way. Not now. And really, it didn’t. I’d resigned myself long ago to the reality that the facts on the ground weren’t likely to change—and to the bitter implications of that conclusion.

When a woman finds herself in an untenable situation, she’s got two choices. She can make the best of it and accept it for what it is.

Or she can change things—radically, if necessary. No matter how much it might hurt.

That I’d chosen the latter wasn’t really a choice, at least not at the time. He’d forced me into it, his stubbornness and arrogant refusal to see the sad, uncomfortable truth of what our relationship had devolved into a roadblock, a barrier to making things better that I just didn’t see a way around.

So, I gave up trying. I thought I’d given up on everything.

Now? I wasn’t so sure anymore.

“Things were actually fine until Nick started pulling theruleshit. A little awkward, sure, but fine. God, I want to slap Dennis for including that!Whywould he do that?”

I could just hear the shocked expression on Michelle’s face. “I mean…what did you do, though? When he told you to do that?”

I didn’t want to say it, as if verbalizing what I’d done somehow imprinted it upon time in a way that I could no longer deny or rationalize away.

“I did it—once I realized he wasn’t going to let me talk him out of it.”

“Jesus, Eva, do you think you…might have tried harder?”

I groaned, then downed the remnants of my wine, stooping down to set the glass on the floor of the balcony. I slipped my heels off. “I guess it was a challenge or something. A dare? I don’t know. I wanted to show him that I wasn’t going to be a little whiny baby about this.”

“I can think of several other ways you could have shown him thatinsteadof showing him your tits.”

I laughed bitterly at that, knowing it was true and yet struggling with an unaccountable defensiveness that made absolutely no sense. What I’d donewasdumb. I couldn’t talk my way out of that being true. But I’d have been a liar if I’d said a tiny part of me hadn’t been playing along just to fuck with him a little bit.

“I’m going to sound like a total bitch for saying this, but… I kinda wanted to see if it would draw a reaction from him.”

“A reaction?” Michelle sighed. “Like what? A boner?”

I laughed again, louder this time. “No… I mean, maybe? I think, though, I just needed to see him care. To give a shit… aboutanything.”

“And do you think he… cared?”

I couldn’t suppress a tiny smile of satisfaction. “Yes, I think he did. The bulge at the front of his fucking jeans—and God, they looked good on him—was…growing quite a bit once I did it.”

“Well, I’d say this little adventure just got a whole lot more interesting.” Michelle’s mirth came through loud and clear.

“I don’t know.” I turned, pressing my ass to the balcony’s railing, the cold of the metal sinking through the thin fabric of my slacks. “It’s just a week, right? Then it’s over with.”

“Maybe…”

“What’s that supposed to mean, Michelle?” I rubbed my chin with my palm, my skin suddenly feeling prickly and hot. “Look, I gotta get back inside. I’m sweaty and I need to get a shower. I’ll call you tomorrow night, okay?”

“Sure.” Before I hung up, though, she said something else. “But I have a feeling that tomorrow night… talking to me is going to be the very last thing on your mind.”

Chapter 4

Nick

What I hadn’t expected was the surge of dark, selfish satisfaction as I’d given her that first order.

I took a long drag from the bottle, the beer going down cold and refreshing. The living room was deep in shadow, only the cool tone of the under-cabinet lights from the kitchen behind me lending the great room any sort of illumination at all. Now and then, the air conditioning kicked on with a spooling hum. That was something rather unusual for late spring, but the night had ended up close and unseasonably warm.

There were many things I still wondered, questions I burned to find the answers to, but there was one conclusion above all else that could clearly be drawn about how our littletête-a-têtehad gone earlier in the afternoon.

She’d been caught completely off-guard.

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