Page 101 of Touch in the Dark

“It’s a lot to wrap your head around,” I point out. “Tell her when you feel stronger about it.”

“Thank you,” he says, after a long period of silence.

I sit up a little and tip my head back to look at him. “You don’t need to thank me.”

He kisses my forehead. I lean into it when he leaves his lips there. I know nothing is going to progress from that. It isn’t what Nick needs right now. After a while, his head is nodding slightly so I encourage him to bed. I lay beside him staring at the ceiling, our hands clasped on his stomach. I stay that way as he falls asleep. I’m not sure how I came to be in this position but I’m glad I am.

Remi and everyone else are right. I’m in love with Nick Chambers and no matter how he feels about me, that is never going to change. I’m hopelessly gone for this man. I want to take his pain from him. I want to take care of him and show him what it feels like to have someone who is there for you. Not like his band, men he considers his brothers. Not even what he gets from his grandmother. A different kind of love, the kind he has never let into his heart before.

But most of all, I want to find Derrick Atwater and kick his ass.

I awake to the sun shining in through the windows, a miracle for New York a few days before Christmas. Nick is facing me, his hand lightly trailing down over my collarbone.

“Didn’t mean to wake you,” he says.

“You didn’t. This is my body clock. Did you sleep okay?”

“Surprisingly, yeah,” he nods. “Think I know why.”

“Comfy bed?”

“The person in it with me.”

I stare into his icy blue eyes. I hope I’m conveying how happy I am to hear that. I don’t know how else to respond other than to give him a kiss. It’s just a quick and gentle touch of our lips. That doesn’t seem to be enough for Nick because he cups the back of my head and pulls me into a deeper kiss. When he lets me up, I’m breathless.

“This time neither of us brushed,” he grins, and I laugh, ducking my head. “Do you have plans today?” he asks.

“I have a meeting with Louis.”

“From Instinct?” he asks.

“Yeah, she wants to talk to me about another shoot.”

“As in modelling?”

“No, God no. I meant it, that was a one off. About my actual makeup artist job.”

“That’s great. The job is in New York?”

“I don’t know yet,” I narrow my eyes. “What would you know about that?”

“Nothing,” he says. “Why would you ask me that?”

I stare at him for a few moments, and he grins. I’m not sure if he has anything to do with it, but seeing him smile, makes me smile. Then his stomach grumbles, loudly.

“How about breakfast?” I ask with a chuckle.

We get up and head to the kitchen. He helps me cook breakfast, if his idea of helping is standing right up behind me, his arms around my middle, kissing my neck and touching me in parts that he shouldn’t while I’m manning a hot pan. But I get it done without any funny business and make sure he eats it all, and drinks one of my smoothies, which he initially pulls a face at but then agrees it’s pretty good.

He takes a call from Adam while I’m clearing up, going out onto the terrace, even though it’s below thirty degrees. He’s fully dressed and doesn’t seem to be letting the weather affect him. Knowing the conversation he is having with Adam right now, destroys me. Why do people have to be so cruel? I check my watch and realise I need to get moving if I want to make the meeting with Louis on time. I get Nick’s attention and show him my watch, he nods and blows a kiss, then goes back to his call.

Irrationally, given the situation, I’m almost bouncing down the stairs.

“We were really impressed with what you did on the last campaign,” Louis tells me.

She is sitting behind her desk in the Instinct offices in Chelsea. The place is quite funky but modern and there are pictures on the walls of most of the models that have worked with them. She showed me a blank space near her office on the way in that is going to have images from the latest campaign, winking as she says it.

“I know you said you would prefer to stay behind the camera, and that is absolutely fine, but we were really blown away by your images, Elsa. You could make it really big if you went into that field, but I understand it’s not for everyone, so I am not going to put any pressure on you. But you showed yourself to be adaptable, you were always there on time, professional,” she narrows one eye, in a wink when she says that.

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