"You're still an asshole. It only stands to reason it started there." I tap him on the tip of his nose.
"Two points for Jessica."
I smile. "Once upon a time, Nathan was an asshole…"
"Right." He tilts his chin. "Nathan was an asshole who fucked anyone he could get his hands on."
The words bite right through me. I pull my gaze down to the bed. Why did I ask such a stupid question? Why do I open myself up to this much pain?
"Jessica." His lips course hot over my cheek. "Listen, you have to listen. No lies, remember?"
"No lies," I repeat back. I'm getting too deep again. I just wanted to use him for pleasure. I thought I could separate my lust for him and my real feelings.
"I started randomly fucking women so long ago I don't remember when." He reaches to grab my hand and pull it to his lips. "Don’t freak out. Please, don't."
"I'm trying." I am. I'm trying to understand. I want to understand.
He kisses my palm lightly before placing my hand on his cheek. "I had to get away from there. I had to leave. "
"Boston?" I question. He's never explained to me why he moved from there to New York. I've always wondered given that he races back every other weekend to see his sister.
"When you fuck that many women, you start to hate yourself." He pushes my hand into his face as he closes his eyes. "I wanted to start fresh here."
"In New York?"
"I took a demanding job because I knew it wouldn't leave me any time to fuck around." He moves his hand to drape it over my shoulder. "Then I met Cassie. She had kids, and a good job and needed me."
I cringe when he says her name. I still think about the look on her face when he broke up with her in this apartment. When he blatantly announced that he was fucking someone else.
"It was boring. Christ, she was so fucking boring." There's nothing apologetic about the words. He said no lies. He's being direct. This is what I wanted. It's what I always hoped for.
"God, Jessica." His hand leaps to my waist as he pulls me into his naked body. I can feel every muscle on his stron
g chest. I can sense that he's already semi-hard again. "Then I saw you."
"At the club?"
"Everything inside of me shifted at that moment in time." He nuzzles his face into my forehead. "It's as if the world stopped and I finally got on it. A world that made sense. A world that I finally wanted to be in."
My breath stalls at the words. How can he do that? How can be such an utter asshole one second and so soft and endearing the next? It's no wonder I feel as though I can’t breathe whenever he's in the same room with me.
"I've never felt these things before." He pulls his hand from me and taps his own chest. "I've never missed anyone this much when I was away from them for ten minutes. I've never craved a woman's body this way. I've never ached inside."
"Nathan…" I can't really form anything in my mind to say. My heart is in control right now and if I allow it to have its way it's going to make me say things I'm not ready to say.
"There was that one night." He pulls back so he can look at me directly. "Do you remember that night?"
I search his eyes for a clue. "What night?"
"You were dancing with the chef," he groans. "I saw you across the club. You were so gorgeous. Fuck, just so beautiful." He grazes his lips across my forehead. "I felt things I never felt before. I couldn't stand the idea of you being with him. I almost took him outside.
"He only wanted my number."
"No, Jessica." He shakes his head. "He wanted to fuck you. He wanted to be inside this tight little body. He was practically drooling over you."
I chuckle at the visual of that. "It wasn't like that."
"You can't see it." He pulls back and grabs my shoulder in his hand. "You can't see what you do to men."