Headstrong (20 page)

“That’s natural. Be nervous.”

“I want you to…you know. Like my body or whatever,” she mumbled.

“You must get told you’re gorgeous about a hundred times a day.”

“Maybe, but by jerks. And you’re the first man who’ll have seen me naked in… God, you’re the first
man
who’ll have ever seen me naked. I just hope I look sexy to you.”

“This isn’t about me. This is about you, and you look fantastic. You’re the most textbook-attractive woman I’ve ever had in my bed. Is that good enough?”

She nodded. “I know I’m not very curvy or anything. Like, super feminine.”

“You’re thinking too hard. You’re a sexually excited, half-naked woman who wants to do filthy things with me. You’re the only person in the whole world right now, in my dick’s humble opinion.” Whether Reece liked it or not.

Libby grinned down at the bedspread. “I do believe that’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever said to me, Reece Nolan.”

He smiled back. “We’re not going to accomplish this mission, Angels, unless you are one hundred percent relaxed.”

“Got it, Charlie.”

“I think it’s time for you to embrace your nakedness.”

“I’d prefer for you to embrace it,” she said.

“Maybe I will. We’ll see. We’ll see what you end up talking me into.”

“All right. You have to get naked too,” Libby said. “At the same time.”

“Sure. On the count of…?”

“Three. Okay. One, two, three.”

They each reached down and stripped their bottoms off.

“Well done,” Reece said.

“Thanks. You too.” She took an appraising glance at his body. “Can I ask a weird-ass favor?”

“Weirder than any of the other weird-ass favors you’ve already asked me?”

“Maybe. Would you…look at me? Down there? Tell me if I’m normal and everything?”

“I’m sure you are. You’ve seen a doctor for all the usual womanly stuff, right?”

“Yeah, but not subjectively. You. Please?”

Reece nodded. “Sure.”

Libby lay back and he knelt before her. She took a deep breath that looked akin to the kind one might take before jumping out of an airplane and let her knees fall open. She bit her lip as Reece studied her. “Do I look okay?”

“Of course. You look beautiful.”

“Sorry I didn’t shave or anything—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Reece frowned. “Never apologize for that sort of thing.”

“No?”

“There’s very few things you should apologize for in bed. It’s usually for accidentally bonking someone in the head with a body part or something.”

“Ah.”

“Where did you learn about sex?
Cosmo?
Or the telly? We’ve got, what? Almost three decades’ worth of media brainwashing to undo for you, is it?”

“Something like that. My mother wasn’t good with all that birds-and-bees crap.”

“Well, lesson number one, don’t stress out about your hairstyle down there.” Reece preferred when roles were clearly defined, and he fell gratefully back into his duties as her instructor. “Unless you’re like
into
it, you don’t have to shave yourself into a topiary or rip it all out with boiling wax. If you’re ever with a guy who tells you different, he’s a dick, and he needs to stop reading lad mags and get some female friends.”

“Wow, you’re a little closet feminist, aren’t you?”

“I’ve had teachers too, you know.” Reece thought he caught her frown for a split-second.

“So, I look okay?”

He nodded. “And I’m sure if I got my face right up in there, you’d smell and taste fantastic too. So don’t sweat it.”

“Right.”

He offered her a kind, goofy smile. “You’re going to find out eventually that sex is ridiculous. It’s silly and messy, and you can’t let yourself get hung up about it.” He looked around the room with a long exhale. “We’ve really jumped right in, here. I should have made you buy a vibrator and try this stuff on yourself for a month before I agreed to do this.”

“Oops.”

“Yeah, oops. But basically, don’t expect too much. It takes people a long time to learn these things about themselves. It might be really tricky and frustrating. Are you prepared to forgive yourself?”

“I think so.”

“Well, it’s a prerequisite.”

“Then I am,” she confirmed. “Definitely.”

“Okay. So, what would you like to try? After more messing around, of course. You’ll want to be nice and ready.”

“Would you touch me?” She caught his hesitation. “I know, I know. But trust me, you’re better at navigating lady parts than me. It might take some of the pressure off.”

He furrowed his brow. “I’m going to let myself foolishly accept that logic and indulge you.”

“Thanks, Prof—sorry. Thanks, Reece.”

“That was a close one.” He cracked a reluctant smile. “More kissing?”

“More kissing.”

How long he’d been riding, Colin didn’t know. Didn’t care. It could never be long enough.

His clothes dripped with the misty rain drizzling on the shining, streetlight-bathed streets of a dark and soulless Kaiwharawhara. Even after miles of aggressive—downright
reckless
—cycling, the misery of the weather and the cold had done nothing to dull the ache in his chest or slow his racing heart.

This was ridiculous. He’d been able to handle this only a couple of weeks ago for fuck’s sake. He’d even been happy to help orchestrate this for Libby. But now…

It wasn’t a common experience for Colin to be rejected by a woman he liked, but it had happened of course, any number of times over the years. Before now he’d never felt more than a passing flicker of disappointment, a spiritual shrug of the shoulders before moving on. But it was different this time. The stakes felt immeasurably high with this woman and it had nothing to do with her utter inaccessibility.

True, not only had she been interested in his brother from the start, Libby’s very presence in the country was temporary as well. There was no future with her, and no logical reason to get this attached. Christ, though…he wanted her. Deeply. And not just for what she surely had to bring to the table, sex-wise. That was mere icing on a far more substantive cake. Colin wanted her, somewhere in his body…somewhere separate from his brain or his dick or even his heart. Or perhaps all these places. Somewhere in the same place where his sense of personal identity resided, he wanted her.
Needed
her. He hated to even contemplate such a gooey word, but Libby reminded him so much of himself that he felt an unmistakable sense of
completeness
when she was nearby. When she sat beside him on the couch, he felt whole for the first time in six years, at least. Maybe ever.

Un-bloody-believable.

Ten more miserable kilometers shot by in a damp, icy rush. Finally, when the rain picked up and his wet knuckles began to sting from the cold air, when he’d flirted one last time with a major crash out on the dark, slippery roads, Colin threw in the towel.

I’m only crying because I didn’t come,
Libby told herself.

It was most certainly
not
on account of Reece’s parting words following two hours’ spirited effort: “Don’t feel bad. Maybe we’ll try again sometime… Plus, you might want to save this for a boyfriend, anyhow.”

Then he’d hugged her and closed his bedroom door behind her, clocking out like a worker whose shift had ended. It was one grievance she couldn’t call him out on though. Plus he’d done as much as anyone could without risking rapid-onset carpal tunnel. What an idiot he’d think her if he knew how much that had meant to her…

A couple of times, she thought she’d been close—not that she was any expert. And with Reece there, so patient, so kind and dutiful, surely that recipe had every ingredient she required. Apparently not.

She stared at the images flashing by on the TV, taking nothing in.

Maybe it was
her
. Maybe Libby had neglected her sexuality for so long it had expired. She pictured a shriveled houseplant abandoned in a dark room. Yes, that summed up what she was feeling to a tee.

Her head snapped up at the sound of footsteps mounting the stairs, followed by the click of the deadbolt. She wiped a sleeve over her cheeks a second before Colin stepped inside.

“Oh.” He looked just as surprised to see her.

Libby pushed the mute button on the remote and sat up straight as he flipped on the lights. She frowned at his dripping clothes. His cheeks and nose and ears were pink from the cold.

“You’re soaked.”

“Yeah, it’s raining pretty hard again.” He clipped his flat keys back onto the carabiner on his belt, unhooked the whole mess and tossed it on the coffee table with a clatter. He kicked off his sneakers beside Libby’s matching ones.

“I thought you were in your room all this time,” she said. “Where’d you go?”

“Oh, for a ride.” His voice was overly casual as he slipped out of his wet jacket.

She glanced at the glowing clock on the cable box. “At three in the morning? In the rain?”

“Sometimes I have trouble sleeping. Wearing myself out helps.”

“I see,” she drawled, skeptical. “I wondered if maybe romantic duties called you away.” She mustered a teasing grin.

“Yeah, right. How come you’re still up?”

“I can’t sleep either, I guess.”

He looked to the screen. “What’re you watching?”

“I dunno. Some bad Aussie chat show, I think.”

“Reece already gone to bed?”

She nodded, an unwelcome urge tightening her sinuses and chest.
Don’t you
dare
cry in front of Colin.

“Ah.” He glanced around uncomfortably.

“You want to join me?” She patted the empty cushion beside her.

“Nah, I should try to get some sleep.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll see you in the morning though. Get some sleep, yourself.” He walked toward the kitchen but stopped himself at the threshold. He turned and gave Libby a lame smile. “Actually, I would like to join you.”

Her lips broke into a grin she didn’t suspect she’d have been capable of a few minutes ago. “Oh, good.”

Colin sat, soaked clothes and all. He shut his eyes and rubbed his hands over the wet stubble of his hair, then glanced sideways at Libby. “We’re a couple of right misery-guts.”

She realized he could probably tell she’d been crying. Plus he looked like hell. Libby also realized then that the wine bottle and glasses weren’t where they’d been abandoned a few hours earlier—Colin had been up, after he closed the pub. A rock dropped into her stomach, heavy with humiliation.

No use hiding the facts. Libby rose and strode into the kitchen, found the glasses on the counter and poured the contents of one into the other. She brought it back to the living room and settled in next to Colin.

“Cheers,” he said as she took a sip.

She put the glass down. “Want to watch a movie or something?”

“Yeah, whatever you like.”

She crawled to the TV cabinet and rummaged through the DVDs. “
Purple Rain
?”

“Sure. That’s Annie’s, by the way.”

Libby rolled her eyes. “Sure it is, Tiger.” She cued it up and rejoined him on the couch, trying to act as if everything were fine, as if she wasn’t feeling more helpless than she had in nearly twelve years.

She assumed Colin was watching the movie, but soon a strong arm wrapped around her shoulders and tugged her into a half-hug that obliterated her emotional dam. She let herself sob openly against Colin’s already wet shirt collar, let him rub her back with his big, warm hand and comfort her.

“Sorry, Libby.”

“I’m fine,” she mumbled through her tears and congestion.

“You don’t have to be, you know.”

She cried harder. “I
am
fine. I’m just frustrated. And I’m getting snot on your shirt.”

She felt him run a hand over her messy hair, heard him sigh out a quiet breath above her ear. She listened to the tiny noises of his lips parting, of words nearly forming before he closed them again.

“What?” she asked.

“Nothing… I just hope it’s worth it, that’s all.”

“What about you?” she asked his damp neck. “Is whatever’s bothering you worth it?”

She felt him nod. “Yeah. Although I wish to hell it wasn’t.”

Reece frowned, taking in the scene that greeted him when he made his way through the living room early the next morning. The murmuring television was trapped on the looping menu screen of a DVD, and he clicked it off.

He cleared his throat loudly and consciousness flickered over Libby’s face. Her eyes opened as her gaping mouth closed. Her head, propped on Colin’s shoulder, came upright.

Colin himself twitched awake and blinked for a few confused seconds. “I just had the most disturbing dream about Prince… Morning, Reece.”

“Yeah. Morning.”

“Ow, my neck.” Libby rubbed where it met her shoulder. The imprint of Colin’s T-shirt seam was branded on her cheek.

Reece scowled at the pair of them. “I’m off until supper. I’ll see you later,” he said to Colin, then let a pointed gaze pose it as a question to Libby. His body tensed, angry. It was unfortunate, and a bit irritating, considering how indulgent she’d gotten him to be the night before. His protective, controlling instincts asserted themselves. He didn’t like the thought of Libby letting Colin get too close to her, even if they’d been upright and fully clothed.

Colin waved at him and yawned broadly. “See you.”

Libby spoke after what seemed like a brief period of consideration. “Hey, wait. Are you working tonight? Downstairs?”

Reece nodded. “Yeah.”

“How about tomorrow?”

“No.”

“I have to go to Karori for a night visit, if you want to document me.”

There was some quality to this invitation that Reece couldn’t interpret, one that made him distrust her. Everything about this morning made him distrust her. The affection he’d let himself feel the night before disintegrated.

“Let’s just meet tomorrow afternoon, like we planned,” he said. “I can’t photograph you in the dark, plus your dad’s not going to buy that I managed to slip into a wildlife sanctuary after hours.”

“You could have joined a night tour.”

He shook his head. “Too complicated. Let’s stick to our plan.”