Kate Nate kissed me until every doubt and every worry had been wiped from my mind. Until my heart was racing and every nerve ending was lit up. For him. Not CB. Not because of history, confusion, or years’ worth of wanting, but because he, Nate Westwood, had always felt right. I couldn’t explain it even to myself. I had no idea why it had felt that way since the very first time he’d kissed me, but there was no way around it. It was just a fact, and I was slowly making peace with it. So when he took my hand and led me upstairs to his bedroom without another word, I followed, not second-guessing or overthinking the decision at all. Right now, in the midst of all this confusion, the extreme shock, and the absolute incredulity, he was what I needed. Nate still felt like my port in this particular storm, and when we got upstairs to his bedroom, I didn’t even look around. I just clung to the same hand I’d been holding all along and spun myself into his arms, sliding my own around his neck. When I pushed up on my tiptoes, my gaze locked on those blue eyes that had been more of a silvery- gray ever since we’d found out. He slid his hands to the small of my back without hesitation and pulled me closer. I pushed my hands into his hair and pulled him down, pressing a hard, meaningful kiss to his lips, but he lifted his head away before I could de epen it. “Kate, we don’t have to—” “I know,” I murmured against his mouth. “This isn’t about having to or being expected to. I just need to be with you right now, Nate. For whatever. Even if it’s just lying in bed together. It’s just that if we just lie there...” “We’re both going to start thinking again?” “Bingo.” My head cocked as I held his gaze, but I lowered down from my tiptoes, fitting myself against his front. “So what’s it going to be, Westwood? You want to think all night?” “Fuck that,” he said, so confident he sounded almost fierce, but then his mouth was back on mine and his hands were tearing at my clothes. Now that’s more like it. This time, I undressed him just as urgently as he was getting me naked, but I didn’t feel as wild or as dazed. It was much more deliberate for me now, at the front of my mind that this was Nate—and I was Kate. It had nothing to do with our alter egos when he pushed me down on the bed, following me without so much as skipping a beat. This felt so much more familiar, the same page we’d been on since the first time we’d kissed —as just ourselves.
Nate and I were back, our chemistry off the charts and the drama of the day melting away as he devoured my mouth just like he always did. Like I was an oasis in the middle of the desert. But it was also a little different this time, because now, we were both free. There was no more guilt. As he slid his hand up my thigh, I moaned loudly when I realized this was it. I gasped as his fingers teased my entrance, my nails digging into his shoulders. “Shit, Nate. We’re not cheating anymore.” He nipped at my lips. “We’re not thinking right now, remember? Stop it.” As if to make sure he toppled my brain completely, he slid two fingers into me. My muscles tensed, my eyes sliding shut. In the same movement, I reached for him, wrapping my fingers around his hard cock and pumping him once, then again, as merciless as he was being with me. We were all breath and teasing then, finally able to be together without anything weighing us down or making us hold back. After Nate had finally sheathed himself in a condom, he took my hands and looked into my eyes as he sank into me, feeding himself in one delicious inch at a time. After stilling for just a beat, his jaw tensed, but he finally started moving and I matched his pace, squeezing his fingers and rolling my hips until he was hitting me everywhere I needed him to be. Our history ceased to exist in that moment, both of us so intently focused on the other that my own orgasm caught me by surprise when it stormed me like a freaking conquering army. Moaning his name, I shattered around him, mercifully aware enough by the time he finally tumbled over the edge himself to see his lips part and his brow furrow with concentration. His hips thrust one final time, and then he relaxed above me, dotting kisses to my shoulder as our bodies calmed down. After he’d taken care of the condom, he flipped off his bedroom lights and crawled back into bed with me, pulling me close and pressing a kiss to my forehead. “Sle ep now, Katie. I’ve got you, okay? I’m not going anywhere.” I cuddled into him, my hand on the side of his neck when I closed my eyes. “Neither am I, Nate. Try to get some sle ep too, okay?” He hummed his agreement, and although I thought there was no way I would be able to sle ep tonight, I felt myself starting to drift immediately. Despite the insanity of the day, I knew I was safe in Nate’s arms, and somehow, I trusted that eventually we would work this all out together.
I woke up in the middle of the night, and for a moment, I didn’t know where I was. Panic flooded my veins as I became aware of my surroundings, a dark, unfamiliar room. Then I became aware of warmth at my back and the solid weight of an arm draped loosely over my waist, and everything came rushing back. Nate. New York. Central Park. All of it. His breathing was slow and even against the back of my neck. One of his hands rested against my stomach like even in his sle ep he refused to let go of me. I felt my panic recede as I relaxed into him, my heart rate slowly normalizing. Lying there with him was so surreal, but I definitely didn’t hate it. His skin was warm against my own, the rhythmic sound of his breathing combined with the spicy scent of him lulling me half asle ep again within seconds, but even as I closed my eyes, I couldn’t fall asle ep fully. My mind k ept whirring. Clips played out like short films behind my eyes. Memories of our chats on Discord and my cautious excitement when we’d first switched over to email. Eventually realizing that I was just going to wake him if I stayed, I carefully lifted his arm and slid out from underneath it. He shifted a little, but didn’t wake. His breathing was still de ep as I climbed off the bed and grabbed a robe from his ensuite bathroom. With no real destination in mind, I padded downstairs, wrapping the robe tighter around myself. It was cooler down here, the apartment quiet in a way that reminded me of my late-night chats with CB. So many nights, for so many years, when the world around me had grown quiet like this, I’d reached for my phone and he’d always been at the other end. CB. Nate. I was still having trouble getting my head wrapped around the fact that they were same person. I passed my phone on the kitchen counter where I’d left it earlier, swiping it up out of habit. The screen lit up, the brightness making me squint for a moment, but then I saw the notifications. So many notifications. What the heck is going on? I clicked on a notification and an article opened up. Slightly jarred by the headline that jumped out at me, I sank down on the stool at the island. Billionaire Nathaniel Westwood Officially Off The Market. Underneath it was a picture of Nate climbing out of the car at the party in New York. His jaw was tight and his eyes were sharp under the camera flashes. Another picture showed him inside the venue, one arm around my waist and my face turned up toward his like there was nowhere else I’d rather be looking. My left hand was visible at my side, a gaudy circle drawn around the ring.
I rolled my eyes at the shot, deciding that no matter what happened, I would ignore the paparazzi and what they said or thought about us. My own family had been featured in these shitty tabloids for a while after we’d moved from Detroit to New York. Because our last name had dwindled from relevance back in what I personally thought of as the Stone Age, it had been big news that my father had emerged as a financial genius, taking the city by storm. All of that had been bullshit, of course. Dad was smart. For sure. But he’d also worked unbelievably hard, starting a hedge fund from our one-bedroom apartment in Detroit the year I was born and working his way up to where he was today, running a multi- billion-dollar company. Occasionally, some photographer would decide it was time to catch the world up on the Vanderhauls, but outside of that, we’d mostly managed to fall off their radar. The company—and the family—were doing well, but not well enough to warrant the kind of attention the Westwoods got. The next article I clicked into was worse, the headline sensationalizing Jane’s admission to the hospital after a shocking incident. I frowned as I opened it, wondering if I’d missed something, but I soon realized the wording had simply been chosen to make it sound like she’d nearly died, turning her brief stay into something tragic and scandalous rather than frightening and precautionary. Like her health and the heath of her child were nothing more than meaningless clickbait, entertainment for the masses. I locked the screen and stared at my own reflection in the dark window, my mind tripping over what it was going to be like being part of this family. While they weren’t quite as stalked by these r eporters as some celebrities or athletes, they certainly seemed to attract a fair amount of public interest. In that sense, it was no wonder Nate had sought refuge som eplace where no one knew his real name. In the cyberspace where I’d met him, he’d simply been Colonel Brandon and then CB. Since we both loved rules, we’d decided early on to make some and one of the first had been no real names. At the time, I’d agreed because why not? It wasn’t like being a Vanderhaul had always been a picnic, and besides, the anonymity of it made it feel safer in a way. I hadn’t felt as exposed opening up because he had no clue who I really was. Looking at it from his point of view, however, it must’ve been so much more important to ke ep that mystery alive. To be able to be entirely himself without the name Westwood having anything to do with it. The thought brought a smile to my lips. How freeing it must’ve been for him.
Knowing what I knew now, it was almost an honor to have been on the other side of that. To have been able to give him that space to just... be. I unlocked my phone again and opened my messages, clicking into CB’s name near the top. The thread stretched back years, pages and pages of words we’d written to each other. Jokes folded into confessions, late-night thoughts tangled up with early-morning realizations. It hurt to look back at it all like this. A dull, aching kind of sadness settled behind my ribs. I scrolled slowly, reading pieces at random. I really had loved him, my CB. I’d built space for him in my life day by day and year by year. I’d trusted him implicitly without ever seeing his face or knowing what his voice sounded like in person. As I k ept scrolling, something slowly started shifting. A phrase here and a joke there, a familiar turn of words and that dry sense of humor. My brow furrowed, but the longer I read, the more it leaped out at me. The way he spoke. The jokes he’d made. It was all just so Nate that I couldn’t believe I’d missed it, but on the other hand, I’d only really gotten to know him like this recently. My chest tightened anyway, because I’d been so in love with CB, so completely, hopelessly, head over heels in love with him, and all along, he’d been Nate. Nate had been that person I’d reached for in the dark, my reliable, sharp-witted, de ep-thinking, highly intelligent knight in pixelated armor. And now we were getting married. Some people would probably call that fate. Or maybe destiny. Whatever other term they used for something romantic and inevitable. I huffed a quiet breath at the thought. I’d never been a romantic. Not until I’d let CB into my life and my heart anyway. Meanwhile, Nate still felt foreign. Familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, like a place I’d seen in pictures but had never actually visited. “Hey.” I jumped, twisting in the same motion to see him standing at the bottom of the stairs. The house was dark enough that he was mostly a silhouette, just broad shoulders and rumpled hair. “Are you okay?” he asked as he came a few st eps closer, his voice still rough with sle ep. My first instinct was to say I was fine, but as strange as it was, he was still CB, the person I’d been spilling my innermost thoughts to for years. He was also truly perhaps the only person in the whole world who knew exactly how I felt right now.
“Is it weird that I’m sad about this somehow?” I asked quietly, locking my phone again and setting it back down on the counter. Nate was quiet for a few beats before I finally saw his shoulders rise in a shrug. “I think it’s a perfectly normal way to feel.” He said it gently, but there was a hint of tension threaded into his tone. I waited for him to continue, to say whatever it was he seemed to be holding back, but it looked like I wasn’t the only one struggling with this whole opening up thing in person. God, maybe we should just go back to texting. Wisps of fear and frustration sw ept through me. What if we’re never going to be as good together in real life as we were online? “You should come back to sle ep, Katie,” he said, saying the nickname slowly, like he was testing out the feel of it in his mouth. “We’re probably going to have a long day tomorrow.” “You’re probably right. Mondays are always a bitch.” Even so, I didn’t move. After a moment, he sighed softly. “Kate.” “I’m not really tired.” “That’s not the point.” “I’m fine down here. I’ll be up soon. Don’t worry.” He paused again, then suddenly closed the distance between us and wrapped his arms around my hips without hesitation. I yelped as he lifted me clean off the stool, the movement so quick and effortless that I absolutely had not seen it coming. “Nate!” He didn’t answer, just tossing me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing and striding back toward the stairs. I squirmed and wriggled, grabbing his hips to steady myself when he started climbing. “Nathaniel Westwood, put me down. Put me down right now.” “No.” “I mean it.” “I know.” “This is caveman behavior,” I muttered, but gave up the fight as he let out a quiet laugh, one hand steady against the back of my legs as we ascended. “You’ll survive, Katie. I promise.” I sighed dramatically, but he set me down so gently on the bed that I couldn’t be mad about it. The sheets were still warm when I climbed back in. Nate followed a moment later. He settled in behind me like he had before, one arm finding its way around my waist again and pulling me closer. Tiny little butterflies erupted in my stomach, wildly flapping their wings in approval. “Sle ep now, Kate,” he murmured against my hair, shifting until he was comfortable and my back was sealed tight against his front. “We’re going to figure all this out, okay? We just don’t have to do it at two o’clock in the morning.”
I sighed and cuddled into him, finally allowing my eyes to slide shut again. No doubt I wouldn’t fall asle ep right away, but it was hard to argue when he was absolutely right—and even harder because now that I was back in his arms, I really didn’t actually want to leave again.