Beck nods. “Consider it done.”
Now that the business of dealing with Rodney is handed over to his attorney and the police, Nick turns the full power of his attention onto me. As strong and confident and formidable as he is, I feel the faint tremor in his hands as he cups my face in his palms and draws me to him for a kiss.
Wordlessly, he gathers me against him, holding me tight for one long, desperately intimate moment.
“It’s over now, baby,” he murmurs softly into my hair. “Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 22
We don’t speak during the short drive back to the penthouse. Neither of us seems to have the words or the breath to make them.
Nick holds my hand as he navigates the BMW down to the garage below the Park Place building. He only lets go long enough to meet me at the passenger door and help me out of the car, then his fingers find mine again, linking us together as if he understands how deeply I crave our connection right now.
Maybe he needs it too.
We could have lost hold of each other any number of ways in the time we’ve been together, but none more permanent than at the killing end of Rodney’s gun.
The shock of what we’ve just been through doesn’t fully settle on me until we’ve entered the apartment. Then the images swarm in front of me all over again. The terror and the pain. The anguishing, very real possibility that my past sins could have cost Nick his life today.
The weight of that realization makes my legs go weak beneath me. I shudder, my steps faltering. But Nick’s strong hands don’t let me fall.
“Hey,” he says, drawing my shivering body against him. “Jesus, you’re freezing cold, Avery.”
“No.” I shake my head weakly. “I’m afraid, Nick. God, I’ve never been so terrified in my life. You might have been killed today. Because of me. I might have lost you.”
“I’m right here, baby.” He pulls me away from him slightly, his fathomless blue eyes intense, solemn. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Nick.” My voice quivers, but there’s no helping it. My heart is too raw. The fear inside me is still too real, too consuming. My guilt for what I put him through today is even more crippling.
“Come with me,” he says, brushing a kiss over my trembling lips.
Threading his fingers through mine again, he brings me into the spacious master bathroom, parking me on the edge of the tub as he walks over and starts the shower. With the water hissing behind him and silvery clouds of steam beginning to roil up toward the vaulted ceiling, he walks back and settles into a crouch before me.
“Nick, you don’t have to take care of me,” I murmur as he slips my feet out of my flats and sets the shoes aside.
He ignores my protests, standing up to lift my shirt off me then unzipping my jeans and pushing the dark denim off my hips along with my panties. My bra comes off last, and as he removes the lacy cups, he pauses to caress me in his warm hands. Hands that move with an artist’s grace over the creamy swells of my breasts and the taut pink buds that crown them.
His dark head lowers, and as his mouth closes over one nipple, then the other, I moan with the pure pleasure of it. As wrung out as I am from the trauma of everything that’s happened to us today, Nick is a force of strength and calm.
He is my rock, my anchor . . . and my wings.
I urge him up, tunneling my fingers into the silkiness of his ebony hair as I pull him to me for a slow kiss. I am aroused and needful of him, but right now I just need to feel him in my arms. I need him naked with me, if only to feel him warm and strong and alive against me.
I undress him with the same care he showed me, allowing my hands to worship every firm, muscled inch of him. His cock is fully erect, his gaze blazing with desire as he tenderly leads me into the shower and under the hot spray.
Yet instead of taking me with the kind of animal need that’s radiating off him, he begins to wash me with utmost care. I do the same for him, my lathered hands sliding over his skin in worship, in relief, in unabashed devotion.
“Thank you,” I whisper, once the heat of the water and the comfort of Nick’s hands have chased away the bone-deep chill that had been with me since we left the park. “Thank you for everything you did for me today, Nick.”
“There’s no need to thank me.” He strokes his palms down the sides of my arms, water sluicing from us as we hold each other under the soothing spray. “I wanted him gone too. Just knowing the bastard had threatened you was more than I could stand. If I didn’t get rid of him like this, through legal channels, my other solution would have been far less merciful.”
I swallow, acknowledging the danger in his steady, but lethal gaze. He would have killed for me. He still would. His solemn expression leaves no room for doubt.
“When you shut me out of your office today, I worried that I was losing you. You didn’t tell me what you were thinking.”
He smooths a wet tendril of hair away from my eyes. “Beck and I didn’t have much time to put wheels in motion. Once we had our plan, I couldn’t risk bringing you in on it. I needed to provoke Rodney, and that meant your reactions had to be natural. They had to be real. We had to make him show his true intentions in order to give the police plenty to use against him.”
I nod, knowing he’s right. Rodney would have seen through me if I’d been anything but terrified. He would never have let Nick steer him into the trap of his own damning words if there was any doubt that the meeting was his to control.
“What happens now?” I caress my hand over the muscled slab of Nick’s chest, feeling his heart throb beneath my fingertips. As relieved as I am that Rodney can’t harm Nick and I, we aren’t the only ones he was willing to hurt in order to satisfy his greed. “What about my mom? Rodney must have friends inside the prison. What if they retaliate when they hear he’s been arrested?”
“Beck and the police are already on top of it. We contacted the prison this afternoon to explain the situation. They’ve assigned your mother extra security and they’re also going to be looking more closely at the report of her accident to see what they missed.” He cups my cheek in his hand. “She’s going to be okay, Avery. I’ll see to that.”
Gratitude overwhelms me at his earnest promise. But I feel ashamed too. “I’m sorry I kept all of this from you, Nick. I’m sorry for my lies. I should have trusted you with the truth.”
“Yes,” he says. “You should have. If I had known everything you’d been through, I would have been gentler with you from the beginning. God, Avery . . . everything would’ve been different.”
I smile sadly, seeing the softness in his eyes. The regret. “If I had told you everything in the beginning, we wouldn’t be together now, would we?”
He doesn’t answer. I see him gauging the weight of my question, and his careful silence puts my heart in a vise.
When I can’t take it any longer, I answer for him instead. “No, we wouldn’t. Because you would have looked at me with pity in your eyes, the way you are now.”
“Pity?” The word rushes out of him, a harsh denial. “What I feel when I look at you is astonishment. It’s respect. Jesus, it’s more than you can possibly know.” His touch still lingers on my face. I feel the vibration of his deep voice against my skin and all around me. I see the ferocity of his emotion in his darkening scowl and the penetrating heat of his eyes. “You came through fire, Avery. The last thing I feel when I look at you is pity. You’re stronger than I ever imagined. You suffered so much at the hands of someone you should’ve been able to trust, but you survived.”
“So did you,” I remind him gently. We’ve both come through fire. We’ve both had to find a way to survive. To not let our pasts destroy us. I reach for his hands, kissing the pristine one first, then the other. “Why didn’t you tell me about your art? Or that the man who stole it from you was your father?”
“Nobody knows that.”
“Kathryn does.”
He scoffs, drawing out of my loose hold. “And she coul
dn’t wait to use it against me, to try to humiliate me in front of a house full of rich, useless snobs.”
“Is that what you think?” I slowly shake my head. “Nick, she loved you. She was proud of your work. She told me so. She wanted to share your gift with people who would appreciate it as much as she did.”
“And then they could all cluck their tongues and shake their heads in dismay over the poor, mutilated artist as they speculated on what kind of lowlife monster would shove his own son through a window just to make him shut up.”
His answer is so full of anger, so sharp with pain, it takes me a moment to find the courage to speak. “Is that what happened? With your father, I mean.”
“Who knows.” He raises his hands to his head, scraping his fingers over his scalp on a heavy sigh. “Who the fuck knows why my old man hated me so much. He was drunk half the time anyway. Let’s forget it, all right?”
He pivots around and shuts off the water.
“Nick—”
“Drop it, Avery.” The curt reply sends my pulse hammering with concern. The only thing worse is his long, agonized pause, and the tight whisper that follows. “Just . . . enough, okay?”
“Okay, Nick. We don’t have to talk about him anymore.”
I move in close, skimming my hand over the tense planes of his back. His muscles twitch at the contact. I don’t know what I’ve said that’s upset him the most, but the last thing I want, especially right now, is to put distance between us.
I press my lips to his shoulder blade, relieved when he doesn’t pull away. “We don’t have to talk at all.”
I turn him around to face me. He’s still hard and erect. His chest is heaving, his handsome face taut with rage and arousal and something darker that I’m afraid to name.
His neck feels like a column of steel when I wrap my hand around his nape and pull him toward me for my kiss. He doesn’t resist. He moans as our mouths join, his tongue spearing past my parted lips and teeth.
There is fury in his kiss. And need.
So much need.
I slide one hand down the front of him, over the firm ridges of his abdomen and into the crisp hair at the base of his shaft. He groans thickly at the first stroke of my fingers along his length. When I close them around his cock and begin a slow but steady rhythm, his breath leaves him on a ragged sigh.
I break our kiss, my eyes hot on his as I sink down before him and take him into my mouth.
“Avery,” he utters, his voice low. His expression is tender, tormented. “Ah, Christ.”
I work his cock with my mouth and tongue and hands, swallowing him deep, then licking the plush crown, all the while never releasing his gaze.
I want to make him feel as safe with me as I do with him. I want to make him unravel, make him lose that consummate control of his. I want to make him remember what is real.
Me.
Us.
He holds my head as I increase my suction and my tempo, my tongue searching for the spot that will take him to the edge. He closes his eyes on a curse gritted between his teeth. When his lids drag open a second later, there is nothing but heat in his eyes.
His fingers curl into my wet hair, clutching tight. His hips move in time with my mouth now, his thighs spread and braced. His stance is so carnal, so primal and male, as he thrusts into my demanding mouth.
I moan, losing myself to the power of his pleasure too. My sex throbs with each plunge and pull. I’m wet and aching, barely able to resist sliding my fingers into my folds to relieve some of the delicious pressure that’s building between my legs as I suck and fondle and lick him.
“Fuck,” he rasps sharply, his big body convulsing when I take him deep enough to knock the back of my throat. His eyes are hot with warning, with an unspoken plea. “Baby . . . I’m going to come.”
“Mm,” I hum as I swallow him again, opening my throat to take him nearly to the root.
His shout ricochets off the tile and glass of the shower. A jet of thick, hot semen floods my mouth. He shudders and bucks as I continue to work him, drinking everything he’s got.
“Ah, God. Avery.” He hauls me up with little gentleness, then claims my mouth in a feverish, possessive kiss. I’m still sticky with his juices, my lips and chin coated with him, but he doesn’t seem to care.
Pressing my back against the marble tiles for support, he lifts one of my legs around his hips and drives into me on a harsh groan. My body arches into him as he fills me, yielding to him completely. He starts to thrust hard and deep, his scarred hand clamped around my hip, his other one splayed on the wall above my shoulder as he moves in and out of my body.
His eyes never leave mine, not for a moment.
We move together, our bodies and gazes bound, our desire for each other entwined.
When my orgasm chases through me a few moments later, Nick studies every nuance on my face. I cannot hide from him, not anymore.
There is no need.
The realization washes over me like a wave. I belong to him now, wholly, completely.
And he is mine.
His raw gaze tells me that, even if he can’t give me the words.
He shouts my name as he comes again, inside me this time, his seed jetting forcefully against my core. He drops his head onto the curve of my shoulder. A hard shudder rocks him as a further burst of heat spills into me.
“Avery,” he rasps, caressing me as he releases my leg from around his hips. “What have you done to me?”
I smile, sifting my fingers through his damp, silky hair. “I should ask you the same thing.”
“I never imagined how deep I was going to get with you.” He draws back now, his face sober. Almost apologetic. “Today brought everything home to me. When I saw that gun. When I thought about the fact that if things had been different today, you might have gone alone. You might’ve gotten hurt . . . or worse.”
“I didn’t. I’m okay. Because of you, I’m okay.”
“Ah, God, Avery.” He shakes his head. “I . . . need you.”
“You have me.” I hold his tormented gaze. “Nick, I love you.”
The words seem to wound him more than soothe him. A scowl knits his brow. “I wish we could start over. Both of us do this right.”
“We can. We are starting over, right now.” I loop my arms around his neck, pressing a tender kiss to the edge of his jaw. “I don’t have any more secrets, Nick. You know them all now. No more lies. No barriers between us, not anymore.”
He studies my face, frowning as he strokes my temple. “Baby . . . “
I forge on, determined to reach him. “I want to make a new agreement with you. Let’s start the clock all over again. This time, we both make the rules. We both decide on the terms. No limits. No more hiding who we are or what we need from each other.”
“And what is it that you need?”
There is a hollowness to his voice that makes my heart skip a beat. Have I said too much? Have I fallen into the trap that I’ve been warned to avoid—allowing myself to get too close?
Part of me senses the danger. But another part of me knows that what Nick and I share is unlike anything either of us have had with anyone before. I trust in that knowledge.
I trust him.
“I need you, Nick.” I stare up into his haunted eyes. “Don’t you know? That’s where all of my wants and needs begin and end . . . with you.”
“Avery.” He whispers my name, claiming my mouth on a hushed curse.
I surrender to him, to the passion neither of us can deny, and to what I hope is the promise of our new beginning.
Chapter 23
The following week, I am seated across from Tasha at Vendange just after noon, sipping a glass of wine and catching her up on everything that’s happened since we last spoke. She’s on break at the restaurant, and the back booth we’ve commandeered affords us privacy from the rest of the staff and the activity in the main dining area and bar.
Her mouth is agape, her soft brown eyes wide as I reco
unt my stepbrother’s threats and harassment, culminating in his arrest.
“Holy shit, Ave.” She reaches for my hand across the table and gives it a tender squeeze. “Thank God you and Nick are all right.”
Of course, I couldn’t tell her about Rodney without first explaining my role in the whole ordeal. She had listened without judgment, without condemnation, as I quietly confided in her about my rape, and my actions in the time that followed.
That I’d been able to recount the details with dry eyes and a steady voice was a surprise to me. A revelation, really. Much of my emotional burden had lifted after I shared the story with Nick. He’s been helping me to carry it ever since, giving me his strength when I need to lean on it, and a soft place to land whenever I fall.
I’ve never felt so safe and protected—so at peace—before in my life.
Nick has given me all of that and more.
For the first time in nearly a decade, I’m not dreading tomorrow’s upcoming anniversary of that horrible day. Maybe someday August twenty-first will come and go without shredding me from the inside out.
“How’s your mom doing through all of this?” Tasha asks. “Have you been able to talk to her?”
I nod, aware that I am grateful to Nick for yet another kindness too. “We just got back yesterday from visiting her at the prison. She’s doing much better. The bone is finally healing, and they’ve even got her walking a little bit at the infirmary.”
She smiles. “You must be so relieved.”
“Yes, I am. It could’ve been so much worse. I’m still sick when I think about what Rodney did. Fortunately, the woman he was seeing who worked in the prison laundry cracked as soon as she heard he’d been arrested. She told the police everything—how he coerced her into pushing Mom down the stairs to get my attention and didn’t care how badly she got hurt. According to Rodney’s girlfriend, he’d gone to New York determined to collect as much as he could from Nick and me, even if he had to kill one or both of us to get it.”