No Strings Attached

Chapter Ten

She chuckled softly, flicking through her CD collection, “No danger there!”

“Oh, honey, no! Are you still on a drought?”

She stiffened in her seat, her body on hyper-alert as the memories of Nate’s hands on her flesh rolled through her, almost as though his fingertips were ghostly beings whispering over her skin.

“Um, not exactly,” she muttered, turning the key and putting all of her concentration into reversing out of the winding driveway.

“Oh my God,” he squealed next to her, “Tell me details!”

 “Um, no,” she muttered, a blush rising over her skin slowly. Fuck, Rory would blow a gasket on this, why did he have to ask that question, she could have avoided it if he hadn’t asked! But she couldn’t lie to him, he knew her too well.

He considered her a moment, watching the colour rise beneath her olive skin, and the wary look in her dark eyes.

“Nate?” he asked, clenching his teeth, “Nate fucking Casey?! Have you hit your head somewhere?!”

“It’s not like that,” she said, subdued by the harsh tones in his voice.

“I don’t see how it could be any other way with the way you feel about him!” he rubbed his hands over his eyes in frustration, “Seriously? Have you forgotten last time? It took me two years to get you to so much as fucking smile again Shannon, and now you want to drop in there for round two?”

Her eyes darted to his angrily, “I think that was probably an amalgamation of things Rory, what with losing my child and all! Don’t throw that in my face right now, don’t you fucking dare!”

He groaned, knocking back his head against the headrest, “Fuck, I’m sorry, babe. I know it was, but if he wasn’t such a bastard to you, you’d never have been in that position! I’m just worried about you babe, you’re vulnerable right now! I just ... a man like that, a man who’s that fucked up, he’s not good for you.”

Rory was in no position to judge her, as far as she could see, and his words brought a stiffening defence into her blood. Nate wasn’t perfect, she knew that, but he probably was the only person she could ever feel so pulled to, so comfortable with, given her past.

“Maybe not,” she shrugged stiffly, “But I can’t really see anybody that ever would be.”

“So what, you’ll be condemning yourself to a life of emotional torture?”

She shrugged, keeping her eyes trained on the road, “Who knows? It won’t happen again, I know that much.”

“It really is a shame you don’t even put a twitch in my dick,” he remarked, “Because we’d be fucking perfect together.”

 “I’d give it an hour,” she chuckled, “Before you gave up and went after the first hole you spotted.”