Cold needles of worry pricked into her. She shook her head quickly. “Of course not,” she said, her voice rising.
He backed away, shoving a hand through his hair. “Casey,” he said, in a frustrated tone as he reached the doorway to the bathroom, leaning against it.
“Nate, it wasn’t a pity blow job,” she said, closing the distance between them again, refusing to let him shut down.
“You just said you did it because you felt bad about Joanna.”
“I did feel bad about Joanna. I also wanted your dick in my mouth,” she said, choosing to be particularly blunt.
He laughed once, then stopped. “I like the second part of that better than the first. Can you say that second part again?”
She tap-danced her hands up the front of his shirt. “I loved doing that to you. But I’m not going to shy away from saying the hard things. And that’s this—I wish Joanna didn’t have such a hold on you,” she said with a sigh.
“She doesn’t have a hold on me,” he said quickly, perhaps too quickly, too insistently.
The memory of last night outside his apartment flashed before her, and she pressed on. “I think she does, though. She hurt you and seeing her reminds you of how deep that hurt is. Right?”
He sighed, then held up his hands in admission. “Fine. She hurt me. And, fine. I don’t like seeing her. You got me on both accounts. Can we just talk about anything else?”
“We don’t have to talk about her,” she said. “But sometimes I want to talk about the past. I want to understand it. I want to move beyond it, and I want you to be able to as well. And maybe sometimes I want to do something physical to bring you back to the present, okay?” she said, staring hard in his eyes, refusing to let go of this issue. It was important to her. She didn’t intend to let Joanna stand in the middle of them, whether they were friends or part-time lovers. “I hate that she hurt you. I don’t want anyone to hurt you ever. But don’t let the hurt define you. Don’t let her define you. You have so much to give a woman, and I don’t want you to lose out because of what she did, Nate.”
He nodded slowly, then swallowed. “You’re right,” he said, as if the admission cost him something. “Seeing her just reminds of how stupid I was to ever trust her, and how I had no clue what she was up to. I had no idea that it was happening right under my nose. I was such a fool, Casey,” he said, shame thick in his voice. “I went out to dinner with the two of them. They were at our apartment for a New Year’s party once. He even thanked me for supporting my wife and putting her through the MFA program. The whole time they were having an affair. It probably would have gone on for another year if she hadn’t left an email open on her computer when she asked me to check the movie times for a film we going to see that night,” he said, cringing, and she rubbed a hand gently down his arm, as if that would somehow take the pain away. It wouldn’t, but it was all she could do. “What if it happened again? How would I even know?”
“She’s the exception. She’s not the rule. Most people don’t do that. I’ve never done that. I never would.”
“I know you wouldn’t,” he said softly. “And yeah, I’d really like to keep moving past her too. So if you want me to be totally honest, this thing with you,” he said, gesturing from her to him and back, then wiggling his eyebrows in a suggestive fashion, “has done more for me than anything has to put her farther in the rear-view mirror.”
Her lips curved into a smile. “Aha! So this isn’t totally one-sided!” She pumped a fist.
He dropped his hands to her shoulder, clasping her firmly. “It was never one-sided. Get that through your head once and for all. It’s all-sided. It’s me-sided. It’s two-sided. It’s fifty-million sided,” he said. “But if you want to start bringing up exes and talking about the past, I could say the same for you. Because Scott made you think you can’t be true to yourself with a man. That you can’t be forward. But some men love when you talk back and say what you want,” he said, flashing her a naughty grin that was like a shot of sunlight in her chest when he pointed at himself. “Yet he somehow convinced you that you’re not as beautiful or sensual or passionate as I’ve known you to be in just a few short weeks of playing your lover,” he said, and she bristled at the word playing. Right now, she didn’t want him to be playing. She wished they could stop playing, and he could simply be her lover. Not forever, not for all time, but for now.
For real, here in London.
But she focused instead on what he’d said about Scott. If she expected him to be honest with her, she had to do the same. “Yeah, he did a number on me. I felt like a failure in bed after him, and you’ve made me feel anything but,” she said, and there it was again. That flash of vulnerability in his eyes. She’d seen playfulness in them, she’d seen laughter, she’d seen passion, and she’d seen anger. But now, there was something that seemed to go deeper; something that was usually reserved for someone who was much more than a friend.
He raised a hand to her face, softly brushing the backs of his fingers against her cheek. “You didn’t need to learn to let go. You didn’t need to figure out how to give up control. You’re perfect the way you are, and I love what you did to me in the dressing room. Giving up control isn’t what makes for great sex. At least, that’s not what does it for me.”