Shallow (18 page)

He wasn’t laughing at my lack of sexual experience. My virginal status and desire to stay that way a while longer actually made him happy. Who knew turning a guy down and telling him he would have to wait could make him so happy?

He sucked my bottom lip and it made a popping sound when he released it. “This is a first for me. I’ve never had to buy the cow before.”

I didn’t need to be reminded that he always got the milk for free. “Okay, you’re damn lucky I know what you mean by that.”

He sat up, pulling me with him and placed a feather light kiss against my mouth. His lips were still against mine as he whispered, “The anticipation of having you under me and being inside you is so much better than any sure thing I’ve ever had in the past.”

Just hearing him say stuff like that turned me on and made me think about what it would be like with him. Suddenly, all I could feel was my heart pounding in my ears and my fingers going tingly.

He gave me a quick peck and leaned away too soon. “I need you to help me figure this out. I’ve never had a girlfriend, so what does a couple do on a Friday night?”

Girlfriend.
I think he just called me his girlfriend. Maybe. God, I loved the sound of the word coming out of his mouth and it made me wanna kiss him bad, but I needed to know for sure what I was to him. “You said you’d never had a girlfriend before. Did you mean that in general or did you mean...?”

“I meant that you’re my first girlfriend. Is that what you want?”

“That’s exactly what I want. I just needed to be clear about it so there was no misunderstanding. And as for what we should do...we can do anything we want. Maybe even more of what we were just doing?”

He looked down at my legs and shook his head. “Not if you want to keep those jeans on.”

He said the hottest things and had the power to turn me on in a second flat. How in the world was I ever going to keep from getting naked with him?

“Most dates are something like dinner and a movie. Maybe bowling or a concert. Something like that, but all I want to do tonight is stay here to talk and enjoy this alone time.”

“No argument here.” He lay on the couch on his side and pulled me in front of him to spoon. “Where are your parents?”

“My dad had a work conference in Vegas and my mom went with him.”

“What kind of work does your dad do?”

My parents weren’t really the what I had on my mind when I said I wanted to talk. “Stock broker. Investments. That kind of thing.”

He gestured to my house with his hand. “
Big time money making
kinds of things. And your mom is an attorney?”

My mom was more of a prima donna in a tennis skirt than a hot shot attorney. Becoming a lawyer was never about law for my mom. It was all about using her career to put her in contact with very rich people so she could find a very rich husband. “She used to be, but she hasn’t practiced since before I was born.”

He found something I said amusing. “You forgot to mention that part when you threatened me with your mom after you rammed your car into mine.”

I had forgotten about that. “For your information, I didn’t ram my car into yours. I gently bumped it and it was all your fault.”

He was amused by that. “How was it my fault when all I was doing was sitting at a red light?”

I laced my fingers through his hand that was draped over my waist. “Jessie was warning me and Claire about you and your man whoring ways. He called you a Sex Tricks Jedi and I got so out of sorts that my foot slipped off the brake and hit the gas pedal.”

“Ah, that’s why you called me Jedi the night we met.” He pulled me closer for a hug and kissed the top of my head. “I’m glad you
gently bumped me
. I’ll have to thank Jessie later for dogging on me, otherwise I wouldn’t have met you and that would have been a tragedy.”

I looked up and over my shoulder at him. “Yes, that definitely would have been a tragedy.”

He kissed my temple. “You’re not going to introduce me to your parents or tell them about me, are you?”

I turned back around so I didn’t have to look at him. “You wouldn’t be missing anything by not meeting them.”

“It’s okay. I get it.” I heard the hurt in his voice. He thought my reasons for not introducing him to my parents was because I thought he wasn’t good enough, but that wasn’t it at all. He was too good for them. That’s not how my parents would see it, but I at least owed him an honest answer about it.

I stroked my hand over his. “Nick, my parents have expectations for who I should date and a Collinsville guy planning to be a police officer doesn’t come remotely close to meeting their approval.”

“So I’m good enough to risk my life every day on the job so they can be protected, but I’m not good enough to date their daughter?”

Yep, he totally got it. “They’re assholes and you’re better off not meeting them. But hey, you meet my approval and I’m the only one that counts. Besides, you are gonna look so yummy in that officer’s uniform.”

“Even when I cut all of this off?”

Cut what off? I turned over to face him when I realized what he meant. My heart stammered because I loved his messy hair. It was one of the things that made him so sexy. “No way. You have great hair. I won’t let you buzz it all off.”

He reached up and gave some a yank. “Police officers don’t walk around with hair like this.”

He was so wrong about that. “Sexy ones do.”

“Umm, that would be the kind that get paid to wear a fake uniform and strip it off at bachelorette parties.”

Whew! That had me thinking thoughts I shouldn’t.” We don’t need to talk about stripping police uniforms off so tell me about something safer. What about your mom? You’ve never mentioned her.”

Silence. At first, I thought he wasn’t going to answer me and I was about to tell him he didn’t have to talk about her if he didn’t want to. Then a moment later, something almost tangible squeezed my heart when he started to talk about his mom. “She left us when I was six.”

“Do you ever see her?”

He slowly shook his head. “Nope. Not since the day she walked out on us. I don’t have a clue where she is. I’m pretty sure my dad knows, but just doesn’t tell us.”

“Do you know why she left?”

I ran my hand up and down his arm as he told me what little he remembered. “I suspect there was another man, but I don’t know for sure. I asked my dad about her several years ago and he wouldn’t tell me anything. I dropped it all together but I have a vague memory of being in his closet and finding a file on her. I must have been pretty young when I found it because I don’t remember much about what it said, but I know she had remarried and had more kids.”

“So you have brothers or sisters you’ve never met?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. After she left, I was so hurt and angry that I told people she died. I was only six and I guess I thought it hurt less to think of her as dead than not loving me enough to stay.” He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed it. “You’re the only person I’ve ever told all this to.”

I held his hand as he told me what it felt like to grow up thinking no one could love him if his own mother didn’t. I wanted to go back in time and tell him how wrong he was for thinking that, but the best I could offer was to listen.

He might have been with a lot of girls, but he just gave me something he had never given to a one of them...a part of himself.

Nick’s mother was the reason behind that tattoo spread over his heart and the reason he tried unsuccessfully to find comfort in any willing girl. Her selfish choices had almost ruined him. Almost. I found myself hating a woman I would never know and wondered if I would be able to fix the cracks she left behind on his heart.

18 Say My Name

Nick

It felt good to open up and tell Payton about my mom and what she had done. Most importantly, I was finally able to admit how painful it was. When I decided to share that part of my life, I didn’t realize how I was opening my heart to her. With only one look into her eyes, I knew I was offering her a piece of myself and she was happily accepting it.

She didn’t try to give me generic words about how it wasn’t my fault or how everything was going to be okay. She simply held my hand while she listened to me tell her how damaged I was and that’s when I had no doubt. I loved this girl and I finally understood that place my dad warned me about...the point of no return.

Payton and I were stretched out on the sofa side by side in the dark with only the light of the moon coming through the window. It had been a little while since either of us had said anything. Payton was motionless and I thought she had fallen asleep but then she rolled over to face me and put her arms up around my neck. “Don’t go.”

I gave her a gentle kiss and tugged on her bottom lip with my teeth. “I’ll stay as long as you want.”

“That’s not what I meant.” She feathered a kiss across my mouth. “I’m not going to Tillie’s and I want you to stay with me.”

Any other time I would have taken that as an invitation for sex, but not with Payton after our discussion and I was okay with that. “I will if it’s what you want.”

“It’s what I want.”

“I’ll need to let my dad know I’m not coming home tonight.” I reached for my phone in my pocket and texted my dad.

“Staying at a friend’s tonight. CU in a.m.”

He would ask where I had been when I got home and I didn’t plan on lying. It would no doubt cause an argument so I guessed Payton and I were in very similar situations. When it came to our parents’ opinions about us being together, they would be in agreement on keeping us apart even if the reasons were polar opposites.

I wasn’t going to waste another minute of my precious time with Payton worrying about my confrontation with my dad because all I cared about now was having her in my arms.

“Can I call Claire real quick? I sort of need to check in with her and Jessie because I could possibly owe them an apology.”

“What happened?”

“I went over to Claire’s this morning because I needed to talk to her. When I walked in, the house was super quiet so I thought everyone was at work and she was sleeping late. I was gonna wake her up by jerking her covers off and screaming, “Rise and shine.” Well, there was some rise and definitely some shine because Jessie was in bed with her and they weren’t wearing clothes.”

“I knew he was sneakin’ into her bed.”

Payton’s phone rang right before she reached for it and she saw that it was Claire. “I swear I think we have telepathy sometimes.” She slid the bar and said, “Hey, I was just about to call you to tell you again how sorry I am for walking in on you and Jessie. I had no idea. I swear I thought he was at work.”

She looked at me and smiled. “He’s at my house right now.”

She drew an invisible heart on my leg with her finger. “We’re
together together
.”

She pointed to her phone and rolled her eyes. “I know that. We took the same Biology class. Remember?”

That had the ring of a safe sex talk about it.

“Maybe you should take your own advice because I’m pretty sure that was you I found naked with your boyfriend this morning. The same boyfriend who you say you aren’t having sex with.” Yep, she was definitely trying to give Payton the safe sex talk.

“I believe you.” She held the phone out to me. “Jessie wants to talk to you.”

I fell back against the couch and groaned. For real? When was he gonna stop this protective brother bullshit? I was gonna seriously blow my top if he tried to add insult to injury by giving me the safe sex talk when I wasn’t gettin’ any.

I took the phone from Payton, prepared to tell Jessie to screw himself if he started lecturing me. “Waddup?”

“Claire says you and Payton are together now.”

I felt myself immediately becoming defensive. “That’s right.” Wait for it. Wait for it and here we go with the warnings about how I better not hurt her, but that’s not what came next.

“I’m happy for you, man. I think you’ll be good for each other.”

That wasn’t what I expected to hear. “Thanks, man, and just so you know...I plan on being good for her.”

“I believe you, but if you hurt her, Claire will make good on her threat to yank your balls up over your ears.” Now, this was more like it. That’s more like what I expected to hear out of him.

“Neither of you have to worry because I’m not gonna hurt her. I swear it.”

I wrapped up my conversation with Jessie and passed the phone back to Payton so she could say bye to Claire. When she got off the phone, she looked at me and smiled. “Overprotective, huh?”

“Maybe a little bit.”

“A little bit my ass. I think they’re afraid we’ll get it on before they do.”

“What? They live in the same house. Do you really think he’s not banging her every night?” Ooh, bad choice of words to say to my new girlfriend. “Sorry. That didn’t come out right.”

“Nick, I may be a virgin but my ears aren’t. I’m okay with you calling it ‘banging.’ I happen to have some very colorful names for it myself.”