Nate kissed my cheek. ‘Will you calm down, please?’

‘I’m humiliated,’ I whispered, closing my eyes.

I felt Nate’s chest on my back as he rested his chin on my shoulder, his lips close to mine. ‘Why would you be humiliated? Fuck, Liv, it’s just me.’

I shrugged, not very successfully, against his weight. ‘I took leg cramp. Interrupting sexy time.’

‘Babe’ – humor entered his voice – ‘please don’t make me laugh, because I’m sensing laughter is not good right now.’

I glared at his mouth. ‘You’d be right.’

‘It was funny, though.’ He kissed my cheek again. ‘And not funny in the way that you should be humiliated. Just funny. The Liv I know can laugh at herself.’

I pushed my face into the cushion as if it would somehow hide me. ‘I guess I’m just still not confident about this stuff.’

‘What? You think a bit of leg cramp will turn me off you?’

I half shrugged again.

Nate’s weight lifted from my back, but as he sat up his hands gripped my hips. He jerked my body up so I had to bend my knees to steady myself. I rested on my elbows, the breath whooshing out of me as I stared at him over my shoulder. ‘What are you doing?’

He caressed my ample bottom, his eyes filled with a dark intensity as his knees nudged my knees apart. Without a word he slid inside me.

I gasped, watching as he closed his eyes as if savoring the feel of me. He pulled back and this time he slammed into me. I bit out a cry, watching as his eyes opened, his grip practically bruising on my hips. Through clenched teeth, he asked, ‘Does this feel like I don’t want you?’

I reared against him, silently begging for more. ‘No.’ I shook my head, and then arched back as he thrust into me. Just like that, Nate began to screw the mortification right out of me.

My head fell forward, my hair spilling across the couch, my cries mingling with Nate’s grunts as he rocked into me with increasing desperation. When his movements suddenly slowed, thus delaying my encroaching orgasm, I glanced over my shoulder at him through the strands of my wild hair. ‘Why?’ I moaned.

‘I want to feel you,’ he responded, his voice rough as his hand slid up the damp skin of my stomach. The pressure of his hold forced me back against his chest, changing the angle of him inside me.

‘Nate.’ I sighed in pleasure, my head resting against his shoulder.

He cupped my breast lovingly in his right hand while his other tickled back down my stomach. My hips jerked in reaction to the press of his fingers against my clit. As he worked me with his fingers, he began to work me again with his cock.

I moved against him, finding rhythm to his sensuous torture, sliding up and down on his dick, feeling out of my mind with sensation. I wrapped my arm behind me, my fingers biting into the back of his shoulder as I held on to him for dear life.

‘This is me and you,’ he panted, driving faster and harder into me. ‘Don’t ever run. Not from me.’

‘Okay.’ I shook my head against his shoulder. ‘Okay.’

He stilled his fingers on my clit. ‘Promise me.’

‘Nate, don’t stop, don’t stop,’ I whispered hurriedly. ‘Please, I’m so close. I’m so close.’

He rocked up into me and stilled.

‘Nate!’ I keened, my hands dropping to his hips, gripping him behind me. ‘Please!’

‘Promise me. Tell me you won’t run.’ He bit my ear, the nip almost painful. ‘Tell me you won’t run from me ever. And then beg me to fuck you.’

My brain was too busy firing neurons for me to even question it. ‘I won’t ever run from you,’ I gasped, urging my ass down on his lap. ‘Now please, please fuck me. Make me come.’

Suddenly I was on my stomach, Nate’s chest to my back, his animalistic grunts and growls filling my ears as he thrust into me over and over, pounding me into the couch, and pounding me toward an orgasm that blew my head off.

My scream of release filled the apartment, muffled only somewhat by Nate’s own hoarse shout as he came at the first clench of my climax.

17

The following Saturday I huddled under an umbrella with Jo as we waited for Ellie and Joss to step out of the house on Scotland Street. The estate agent, Ryan, an ex-colleague of Jo’s from when she’d worked at Braden’s estate agency, Carmichael & Co., began talking to Ellie as Jo threaded her arm through mine.

Adam and Ellie had found a place they liked. The spacious Georgian flat had stripped wood floors, high ceilings, and period details. Any work that needed done was merely cosmetic. Ellie was in love, Adam really liked it, and Els wanted our opinion.

It was a resounding ‘yes’ from us girls.

Once Ryan left, Ellie grinned at us excitedly. ‘I’m so glad you guys like it. I really appreciate you coming out to see it.’ She started down the stairs and Joss rushed to get under her umbrella with her as we followed. ‘Especially you, Liv.’ She smiled curiously over her shoulder. ‘You’ve been so busy lately.’

I smiled back in response, hoping it wasn’t a slightly startled, panicked smile.

Jo squeezed my arm against her ribs. ‘It’s funny,’ she murmured so only I could hear, ‘but Nate’s been busy lately too.’

Forcing myself not to react, I couldn’t say anything. I didn’t want to lie outright, so that meant I was left with ignorant silence. In truth, we were five weeks into our lessons – could we call it lessons anymore? – and now I was getting a little desperate to talk to someone about what was going on with me and Nate. Jo was more experienced than I was about relationships, and men in general, and now I was at a point where I was so in need of advice that I wondered if I should let that need overshadow all the reasons I had not to go to her.

We came to an abrupt stop on the sidewalk as Joss’s cell rang. She fumbled in her purse for it and smiled apologetically at us as she answered.

Watching her was disconcerting. It was disconcerting because something I didn’t understand but definitely didn’t like entered her eyes. Growing pale, she muttered her thanks to whoever was on the other end of the line and let her phone dangle in midair as she stared off into space.

‘Joss?’ Ellie shook her gently, sensing what both Jo and I did.

Something was seriously wrong.

‘Joss, what is it?’

She blinked suddenly, and looked over at us, her eyes glassy with fear. ‘I have to go.’

‘Joss?’ Ellie took a step toward her as she began to back away. ‘Jocelyn?’

‘I have to go.’

‘Go where?’

‘I … just’ – she touched a hand to her forehead, turning paler by the second – ‘I have to go.’

‘Seriously, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?’

‘Ellie,’ she snapped, but as soon as her eyes clashed with her sister-in-law’s she softened. ‘Just … I need to be alone for a little while.’

After a moment’s thorough contemplation Ellie finally nodded. Silently, we watched as Joss turned on her booted heel and slowly walked away from us, her arms crossed over her chest, her chin tucked.

Ellie, Jo, and I shared concerned looks. ‘What. Was. That?’ I asked, feeling my stomach shift with unease.

Ellie didn’t answer as she pulled out her own cell with shaking hands. She flicked the screen a few times and began typing quickly.

‘What are you doing now?’ Jo looked down at Els’s phone, then turned her gaze back in the direction of where our friend had taken off.

‘Texting Braden to let him know.’

I burrowed closer to Jo to comfort her. ‘Does anyone know what that phone call could have been about?’

‘Not a clue.’ Ellie hugged herself, almost causing her umbrella to hit a person walking by. But Ellie wasn’t aware of anyone else at the moment, and her panic was making my unease increase. ‘But I haven’t seen Joss so guarded in a long time. It’s definitely not good.’

‘She’ll be okay,’ Dad reassured me, pulling me into his side for a hug.

After Ellie texted Braden she’d jumped in a taxi to go home to Adam, and Jo and I jumped in a taxi to head back to her flat. When we got there, the boys were back from judo class and we told them all what had happened with Joss. No one had a clue as to what it meant.

It was only afterward, as we were sitting around the living room, that I realized it was the first time in two weeks that Nate and I were in the same room with our friends. This time it felt weird. It felt weird because after I’d been watching four loving couples for the last few months it seemed to me that what Nate and I had wasn’t that different. Not only were we having mind-blowing sex, but we hung out, we talked about things that bothered us, we laughed … we snuggled. Nate joked and teased with me and stole my phone to take random snaps of me all the time.

We cared about each other.

A lot.

Hiding what we obviously had behind the excuse of lessons in sexual education and keeping it a secret was beginning to gnaw at my gut. Mostly because I knew Nate.

He wasn’t over needing to see that ‘A’ on his chest in the mirror every day, and I didn’t know if he’d ever be. It was becoming increasingly obvious to me that I was in danger of getting hurt.

Yet somehow I wasn’t smart enough to extricate myself from the situation.

A few times that afternoon I felt his eyes on me and it made me squirm uncomfortably, as if he could see inside me to exactly what I was thinking.

Soda Pop, if he knew what you were thinking he’d be out the door faster than a fugitive.

So when my dad called and invited me over for an early dinner I jumped at the offer, hurrying out of Jo and Cam’s with barely a good-bye to Nate.

Dad had thrown together marinated chicken, potatoes, and salad, and I sat on the stool next to him, picking at my food while he reassured me after I told him about the Joss incident.

I shook my head at his assurances. ‘You didn’t see her face. She looked … haunted.’

‘Braden found her, right?’

‘Yeah. Els texted to say he found her at the castle, where he thought she’d be.’

‘Well, we’ll just need to wait and hear from them.’

I nodded but kept pushing my food around my plate, my thoughts consumed by Joss and Nate.

‘You’ve lost weight,’ Dad commented. ‘Eat up.’

That was another upside to constant and active sex. I really had lost a few pounds and even toned up a little. Not that I could tell my dad the reason why. My cheeks burned just at the thought. ‘I’ve been really busy. Not a lot of time to eat.’

Dad raised an inquisitive eyebrow. ‘I have noticed these last few weeks you’ve been a little distant. Is it work keeping you busy?’

‘Yeah, work … and, you know, sometimes I help Nate out with his job as a reviewer.’

I caught the curl of his upper lip out of the corner of my eye. ‘Surely he’s getting paid to do that himself.’

‘He’s my friend, Dad,’ I warned.

‘I can’t help it. He’s twenty-eight years old and hasn’t bloody well grown up. He swans around taking photos and playing video games and watching movies, and he takes to bed anything that moves. That’s not a man, Olivia. That’s a boy. One that’s trouble. And I don’t like him sniffing around you.’

‘Hey, that’s enough!’ I snapped, my fork clattering to my plate.

Dad stared at my angry, flushed face in surprise.

‘You don’t know him,’ I said before he could reply. ‘You don’t know anything about him.’

‘Then enlighten me. What is it about this guy that you find worthy of your respect and time?’