Page 23 of Your Fault

I smiled. “Hey, handsome,” I greeted him, watching him furrow his brow as he tried to get the lead out. Without a furrowed brow, Nick wasn’t Nick.

He reached out an arm and pulled me close. “What were you doing, Freckles?” he asked, and his breath tickled my cheek.

“Admiring how extraordinarily pretty you are.”

He grunted. “For God’s sake, don’t call mepretty. Anything but that,” he begged, lifting his head.

I laughed, seeing him with mussed hair and that crabby face that was just like a whiny little boy’s.

“Are you laughing at me?” He distracted me with his eyes, then grabbed me and started tickling me.

“No, no, no!” I shouted, trying to wriggle away. “Nicholas!”

Soon I attacked back, jabbing his washboard stomach with one finger so hard, he leapt up and fell out of the bed.

“Jesus!” I cackled. I was crying; my stomach hurt from giggling so hard.

He got up, pulled on one of my feet, and jerked me to the edge of the mattress. Before I could fall, he threw me over his shoulder like a sack of flour and walked toward the bathroom.

“Now you’re going to get it,” he warned me, turning on the shower.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” I begged, still cracking up.

He didn’t care, and he stuck me under the cold water, where my T-shirt clung to me like a second skin.

“It’s freezing!” I shouted, pulling aside and shaking. “Nicholas!”

At my protests, he pushed his way in and turned the knob, and hot water began to cascade over us.

“Silence. You’ve had your fun. Now it’s my turn,” I said, pulling my T-shirt over my head and standing before him naked.

His eyes traced out every curve of my body.

“I doubt there’s a better way to wake up in the morning,” he said, bending over to taste my lips.

A half hour later, I was wrapped in a towel, my hair dripping, sitting on the balcony while Nicholas ordered room service. It was strange not to hear people shouting in the halls. I had assumed all those drunk students would make it impossible to sleep, but I was wrong. Maybe the walls in the hotel were soundproof.

I turned to look at Nick as he hung up. His hair was wet, same as mine; he was shirtless, and his sweatpants were hanging off his hips, revealing the dark hair that started at his belly button and went down from there. My God, what a body! His abs were rock-hard, his obliques perfectly worked. How the hell did he do it? I knew he went to the gym and surfed, but that body was a masterpiece, something not of this world.

“You looking at me?” he asked, sitting down next to me at the table.

I felt the blood rush into my cheeks. “You got a problem with that?” I asked, ignoring the way the sunlight reflected in his blue eyes at just that moment.

With a wry grimace, he continued. “Come here.”

He pulled me over onto his lap. I was naked under my towel, which slipped up over my thighs when I sat on top of him.

“You don’t have anything on underneath there?” he asked in a tone that sounded surprised, then disapproving just one second later.

I rolled my eyes. “There’s no one here, Nick.”

He looked around. We were totally alone, our only company those spectacular views of the city.

“There could be a pervert with binoculars watching us right now from one of those buildings over there,” he said, holding up my towel.

“Your loss. I’m getting dressed,” I said, getting up and going inside.

Looking at myself in the mirror, I wondered how it was possible that the sad girl from yesterday could have turned into the one staring back at me. I guessed that was love, a roller coaster of crisscrossing emotions and feelings. One minute, you’re up, and the next, you’re on the ground, and you don’t even know how you got there.

---