Oh yeah. She’d rather stare at his arms than answer that question.
Nate seemed to notice her hesitation because he turned to glance at her, a small frown marring his brow.
“Um, well,” she fidgeted with a few strands of her hair that had escaped the bun she’d pulled them in. “After that... day, I was not in a very good state, and coming back to my apartment I realized that I’d let a lot of the things that made memefade through the years and I hated that. So, I thought I’d bring back some of the magic I felt going back to those years where I was surrounded by everything that made me happy, and comfortable, and calm.”
The silence that followed her words was deafening.
Maddy looked up from where she’d been staring at something on her carpet, to find Nate wearing an expression of pure anguish.
She didn’t want that expression on his face.
He made a move to come closer. “Mads, I’m so—”
“Stop it, don’t say another word,” she interrupted him, her voice steely. “I didn’t tell you this to make you feel bad or to make you apologize. It wasn’t your fault. It just was what it was.” Maddy heard how her voice went softer and softer, as she kept talking. In most cases she didn’t want to appear vulnerable in front of other people. But she wanted to be honest because it mattered.
“It was just that I missed my friend and the person I had gotten to know all those weeks, who I dragged to things he didn’t really want to do but who still let me. Who made me laugh and let me be me and liked me for that. And I just wanted to have something with me here that would make me feel like myself again.” She peered into the chocolate-brown eyes she couldn’t get enough of. “I just missed you so much, Nate.”
It was like watching a dam break.
They’d both been sitting on the floor, separated by a few feet as they worked on their respective corners.
The next thing she knew, Nate had crawled the short distance towards her, his face hardened with determination, his eyes burning.
Maddy felt his hands span her waist, before he was lifting her and pulling her on his lap. She always seemed to forget how tall he was, but she was reminded of that fact when even in her current position, she was eye to eye with the curve of his neck and his sharp jaw.
His hands didn’t loosen their grasp for a few heart-pounding moments, before they reluctantly seemed to release her.
But only, she realized with a gasp, to trail upwards in a way that bordered on reverent. She felt the soft brush of his hands on her arms through her sweater, as they made their way to her shoulders and her sensitive neck. His gaze never left hers even throughout his exploration, even as one of his hands cupped her nape while his other arm returned to encircle her whole waist.
“I missed you so fucking much, Maddy.”
Maddy.
He’d never called her Maddy before.
She loved when he called her by her full name, or Mads when he wanted to be playful.
But hearing him call her Maddy made her melt in a way that was inexplicable.
“I thought I was going crazy those weeks after the accident. I knew deep in my bones that there was something missing, always beyond my reach and it was torture,” he said hoarsely as his hand drew lazy, soothing circles where he was holding her. “You were a phantom limb, Maddy.”
It was a good thing that he was holding her in so many places or she would have slid to the floor in a puddle of former human being. She was already feeling like she was losing control of all her bodily functions. She couldn’t swallow, her mouth was dry, and her heartbeat had lost all modicum of normalcy, simply drumming erratically in her ears.
In an unconscious move, Maddy licked her lips to ease the dryness, which only served to draw Nate’s look, his whole body going tense underneath her. He was taut as a bowstring, his eyes shifting from her mouth to her eyes, speaking his next words so close to her lips he might as well be breathing them into her.
“I thought I could come back to your life as only your friend. I thought I could take a step back and stop myself from pushing you into anything that you might not want anymore.”
Something she might not want anymore?
Is that what he thought when he was quickly becoming her own personal form of sustenance?
“But,” he paused, exhaling a shaky, shallow breath on her lips.
“Fuck it.”
Nate’s mouth descended upon hers and Maddy wondered as her brain fizzled slowly into nothingness, if this is what it felt like to be devoured. If this is what bottled desperation tasted like. Sweet and hot.
Nate sucked on her bottom lip, a tug that felt like pure electricity had been poured into her veins. Her hands released his shirt where they had been holding on for dear life, and found their way into his hair, where she gave it a tug of her own, causing Nate to hiss against her mouth.
