Page 154 of For Better or Hearse
“Listen, if you don’t like this, you can leave, okay?” she says, her voice a sharp challenge. “You can bail at any time or any place and—” At the grin that splits his face, she falters. Her brain fumbles. “What? Why are you looking at me like that? Why are you smiling?”
“I’m smiling because you’re adorable when you’re nervous.”
She scowls. Damn his charm. He’s too perfect and he knows it.
“What if I scare you away?” she breathes, voicing her fear. She searches his face, his pale-blue eyes, for any hesitancy, anywhat the fuck am I doing here?regret.
But there’s none.
“You won’t.” He cups her face, running that big thumb over her lower lip in a tender way that leaves her breathless. “I carried you on a beach, saved you from a mountain, stabbed you in the thigh with a needle. You think I’m leaving now?”
Oh god. Her heart.
“Very true,” she says, flicking a cool brow. “You had your chance to kill me multiple times, and you failed. It’s a shame.”
He scoffs. “I could kill you any time I wanted. Maybe this is all a ruse to get you to let your guard down so I can smother you in your sleep.”
“There’s one thing you don’t know about me.”
“What’s that?”
“I sleep with knives.”
“I look forward to it.” He sobers, stepping forward to take her in his arms. “I want to know you, Ash. Here and there. Wherever you are, I want to know you.”
It sounds too good to be true. Just like him. Just like the last two weeks.
Shit. That’s what she’s doing. Waiting for it to end, to break, to snap. Isn’t she? Treating him like temporary when every single one of his words, every action proves otherwise.
Her eyes flutter closed briefly. “Okay,” she says, her throat tight.
A hint of a smile curves his lovely lips. “One thing you should know about me…I drive like a very tall asshole.”
Nathaniel Whitford’s in her apartment.
It still feels surreal to say that.
Quietly, methodically, he inspects her tiny one-bedroom in Culver City. The moody black gallery wall of art prints. The Victorian highboy she and Tessie thrifted years ago. On top, it’s decorated with flower prints and teacups found at antique stores.
Nathaniel studies it all in that steady, stern way of his. Like he cares. Like it matters to him. It should freak her out. Letting him poke around her apartment feels like she’s opened up all her gory inside parts and put them on display. But it doesn’t scare her. Not with him.
In fact, the situation feels far less strange than she expected. It feels like the last two weeks. Like home. A sense of belonging.
She wants Nathaniel to see her in real life. All the seasons. Her apartment. Every mood. To prove to herself he’s not just a mirage or temporary.
Ash follows his gaze as he looks over a shelf of framed photographs. When he stops and studies one in particular, she says, “That’s me and Tessie.” A dark-haired girl and a blond, mid-laugh on Venice Beach.
She shows him the bedroom with its brick walls and electric-purple velvet headboard.
He eyes the half-made bed, the blankets and sheets rumpled like she left mid–air raid, and says, “I expected nothing less.”
She bites her lip. Tamps down the nerves fluttering through her. “I’m a horror story. I leave caps off the toothpaste too.”
He crosses his arms. “Good thing I’m an expert at putting them back on.”
She tugs him back into the living room. “Now for my favorite part.”
Nathaniel lifts a brow. “Head in the freezer?”