Page 72 of The Write Track
We were under the sheets but the blanket had been pushed down to the foot of the bed. Who needed a blanket when the man emitted this much heat on his own? The naked man.
My heart skipped ten beats as I desperately tried to remember what we’d done the previous evening.
I remembered sitting on the ground between his legs to mess with Preston.
There’d been a shoulder massage at some point. Nathan kept stroking my hair and commenting on how soft it was. I’d told him about my mother’s homemade shampoo and conditioner, which had led to a discussion about her makeup, which had led to a discussion about how she’d eased me into conversations about the birds and the bees when I was younger.
Preston had been horrified, the look on his face reflecting the disdain he held for my mother. Everybody else, including Daisy and her friends, roared with laughter. My mother was a bit flaky, but she was good to her core. She made everybody around her feel better, and she wasn’t afraid to make herself look like a fool to boost somebody else’s spirits.
She told me when I was growing up that it took so little grace to be kind that she didn’t understand how people could be anything else. At the time, I’d been crying about being bullied because I’d decided to put blue streaks in my hair. She’d offered to help, but I’d insisted I could dye it myself. The results had been uneven, to say the least.
As she’d brushed my hair, she explained about mean people. I remembered thinking that my mother should have been the one to give people lessons on being kind. She was that good of a person. I’d let her fix my hair, and the next day when I’d gone to school, everybody had been jealous. I raced home to tell her about it, and she merely smiled.
She said, “Bella, it’s not about being the coolest girl in school. It’s about being yourself. If you’re always yourself, people won’t be able to help themselves from falling in love with you.”
I’d been convinced that she was just saying what I wanted to hear. Now I knew better.
I was still in a pickle. I was naked, held tight against my fake fiancé’s chest, and about to have the most awkward morning ofmy existence. Despite that, I couldn’t stop myself from taking the time to run my hands over his defined muscles. He didn’t have a full six-pack or anything, but he was all lean muscle, proving he worked out.
He had a thin layer of hair on his chest, and it tapered down… well, under the covers. I could not think about what was under the covers. Then, of course, since I’d already thought about it, I couldn’t get it out of my head. What, exactly, was going on under the covers?
Our return to the cabin the previous evening was a blur. We’d both had one too many drinks, which resulted in a lot of laughing. I had a vague memory of him pretending to be Freddy Krueger. There was an outdoor flood light, and he’d stood in front of it and cast a shadow to delight me. He’d even affixed sticks to his fingernails to resemble Freddy’s trademark glove.
I’d screeched when he chased after me—in a playful way—and we’d gotten a warning from Preston the downer, who was returning to the administration building. I’d yet to figure out what his digs looked like, but I was doing as little thinking about him as possible.
Nathan had offered a saucy salute, tossed me over his shoulder—while I was still screeching—and marched off. That was the last thing I remembered.
Had we lost our heads when we got back? Had we allowed the physical spark to smother our smarts? We wouldn’t have done that, would we?
I had to test my theory. Even though Nathan’s chest was bare, I was gratified to find I was in a tank top. There was no bra to be found, but the tank top had to be a good sign, right? Maybe I’d made it to the bathroom, Nathan had stripped to his boxers, and we’d accidentally snuggled in our sleep. That wasn’t ideal, but there were worse things. Heck, accidental snuggling was atrope in romance books for a reason. It was feasible because you couldn’t control your actions.
The only way my theory would hold up, though, was if we had bottoms on.
So I moved my hips to see if I could pick up the rub of fabric against the sheets. The rub of fabric against his crotch would also be welcome. I did this for about a minute, trying to decide what was sheets and what was underwear. I was so lost in my task that I didn’t notice when Nathan’s breathing pattern shifted. I didn’t feel his eyes on me, although they’d very obviously been there for an extended period.
It wasn’t until he cleared his throat that I froze in place.
“Bellarino,” he said in a rusty voice. “I don’t suppose you would care to share with the class what it is you’re doing, would you?”
I wanted to find a hole to hide in. “Um…” I pressed my lips together and debated my options. There weren’t many. On a sigh, I lifted my chin and found myself staring into the warmth of his eyes. I wanted to go swimming in the sea of amusement. There was something else there—something that I didn’t want to think too hard on—but his smile had me forgetting about his eyes and focusing on his lips.
His mouth was only about six inches from mine. If I shifted ever so slightly, I could close that distance and know what all the fuss was about. And there was a fuss about him in private author circles. On one message board—I had to pay a fee to join, so I figured it was a good group—there was a private board that talked about other authors and what to expect if you crossed paths with them.
RG James, for example, was a complete and total predator. He’d been secretly booted from three conferences because he’d sexually harassed his own assistants, other authors, and vendorrepresentatives. He was married, although rumor had it his wife was leaving him.
Then there was KD Huntington. He was also married, but his MO was to arrive at a conference, love bomb a particular author (the younger, the better), then when he got what he wanted, he would “forget” he’d ever met them. The next conference, it would be somebody else, and he was unbelievably cruel when shutting down his former conquests. The women on the board were planning a terrible retribution for him.
Kyle Martin was a mansplainer. Women hated how he condescended to them. I’d seen him in action a few times and had bad news for those who had built him up to mythological proportions in their heads. He wasn’t a mansplainer. He did it to everybody. He was just a splainer and seemed to be incapable of reading a room and figuring out how much he was annoying people.
Nathan was low on the list in these groups. A lot of the female authors had a story about hooking up with him, but none of them hated him for it. Both sides had agreed to a conference fling. Nathan was kind when talking to them and didn’t run from the hookup after. The one thing everybody agreed on was that he was completely upfront about his intentions. He was not looking for a girlfriend. He might entertain a repeat rendezvous if he happened to be at another conference with a previous fling. That was it, though.
He was described as charming, attentive, and fun. He had a reputation as a dog, but more like a golden retriever who refused to stop humping legs. He was not a predator, and he wasn’t a bad guy. He just wasn’t ready to settle down yet.
“Bella.” Nathan snapped his fingers next to my head to get my attention. He looked concerned.
“What?” I asked dumbly. We were still wrapped around one another, and it was beyond distracting.
Nathan grinned. “What are you doing? When you rub against me like that, my mind goes to a really dirty place.”
