I turn back to the driveway, looking up, my breath catches in my throat.
Nathan.
He’s here, standing at the top of the drive. His face a mixture of emotions, and I can’t pick a single one out.
My heart crumbles in my chest.
He looks so different, yet exactly the same. He cut his hair short. It looks like it was shaved off and it’s in re-growth. He’d look military if it wasn’t for the fact his stubble is something more resembling a beard. He looks leaner than before, like he’s lost a bit of weight, and he’s wearing his ripped jeans hanging off his hips. His dog tags are around his neck and his feet and chest are bare. And even though he looks tired, his eyes are alert and just as striking as I remember them to be, and they are fixed solely on me.
I’ve imagined this scenario so many times in my head. What I’d do when I saw him again? What would I say? For that matter, what would he say?
I open my mouth but nothing happens. I can’t seem to locate my brain or my voice to find one single word to speak. After everything I rehearsed on my way here, and now I’ve got nothing.
We haven’t taken our eyes off one another, and neither of us has moved. It feels like we’ve been stood this way for an eternity.
Mentally, I probably have been.
Then propelled forward by sheer longing, I step onto the road and walk toward him, holding my breath the whole way. I can feel myself unravelling inside. I’m so nervous I’m pretty sure I might throw up.
When I reach the other side, I stop a foot away from him.
He still hasn’t moved his eyes from mine. He hasn’t moved at all. It’s unnerving. I need him to do something, say something. And the need to touch him is suddenly so overwhelming, I’m not sure what to do.
I tear my eyes away from his trying to steady myself. Find some form of equilibrium. I feel like I need to come up for air.
I’m gasping for breath like a fish out of water.
I take in a deep breath, but all I manage to do is breathe him in.
His scent rinses through me like sun warmed ocean. It makes me ache inside for all things him.
I look back up to meet his steady gaze. Swallowing past the dryness in my mouth, I force myself to speak.
“Hi.”
It’s not much, and my small voice sounds eerily loud in the fragile silence, but it’s all I’ve got.
The sound of my voice seems to do something to him, awaken him in some way, and I watch as his eyes rake over me, almost like he’s looking for clues as to where I’ve been for the last six months.
Then wordlessly, he takes a step closer, erasing the gap between us. Lifting a hand slowly to my face, he strokes his thumb across my cheek, barely touching. I feel the hint of his calloused skin on mine. And that one single touch is all it takes to unravel the last thread holding me together. Now all that remains are slippery emotions.
Hot tears, tumble sore, down my cold cheeks. And in this moment I wonder how I ever had the strength to leave him.
Then he grabs my face with both his hands, and kisses me hard. The passion burns up my lips, searing its way down my body. I open up my mouth and he slips his tongue inside, and I just lose all control.
I throw myself into him, letting him fill the empty hollow places being away from him created. I can’t get close enough to him. I’m already wrapped around him, but I push myself closer.
He tightens his hold on me. Honestly, if I could fit myself into his skin and rest in-between his bones, right now, I would. I’ve never needed to be as close to someone as I do him, now. I just need to feel him inside me.
My feelings for him, the ones I’ve tried so hard to bury for the last six months, are now bursting out of me in a lustful rage.
And it seems so are his. He kisses me harder and harder, his beard rubbing rough against my face, but I don’t care. He could be covered in sandpaper and I’d still want him. It’s Nathan.
With his hands spanning my hips and my bum, he lifts me up, with no effort whatsoever. I wrap my legs around his waist, with my dress now up and around mine.
Without moving his mouth from mine, he carries me down the driveway, in the house, up the stairs, and in his bedroom within a matter of seconds.
We fall onto his bed, a tangle of mouths and legs.
I’m struggling to maintain any real train of thought. Hands. Hands are everywhere. Remember to breathe.
I kick my shoes off. He tugs at my dress. I incline slightly, allowing him to pull it off over my head.
His hands and mouth are straight back on my body, frantically roaming. It’s like he doesn’t know which part of me to touch, kiss, first. His practised cool demeanour I know him so well for, gone. I want to tell him to slow down … and I don’t. I like that he’s so out of control over me. It’s doing all kinds of crazy things to me. And right now it’s almost like he’s never not been touching me.
With my heart pounding out of my chest, I reach down and undo his jeans. Rucking them and his boxer shorts off, I use my foot to shimmy them the rest of the way. Nathan kicks them off. Excitement ripples through me as I feel him against my skin. He slides my bra strap off my shoulder, kissing where it was, then reaches a hand behind me, unclasping my bra, he takes it off. Kissing me still, he reaches down and hooks his thumb under the waistband of my knickers and slides them off too.
It’s strange, almost dreamlike. We’ve not spoken. Done a whole lot of heavy breathing and moaning, but no actual words. It feels wrong, in the right kind of way.
But I want to speak to him.
Need to speak to him. I’m letting the moment carry me away. It’s just so hard to focus on anything when he’s kissing me this way. A way in which no one has ever kissed me before, or probably ever will again. With just complete and utter need.
Making every single part of me beg, plead, for more from him. I need to feel him inside me more than I’ve ever needed anything. And I will do anything to have him. I need my fix from him. Like the vampire in me that constantly needs feeding.
But, even still, I know through my cloudy mind, I have to say something, anything …
“Nathan, wait, I …”
He pauses, his mouth on my stomach. Lifting his head, he moves upward until his face before mine. He looks deep into my eyes and … I see nothing there. No real emotion. No questioning. No feelings. Nothing but his bright green reflective eyes staring down at me.
I feel like I’m looking into the depthless ocean. It’s almost like he’s switched himself off to everything … everything but the practicality of this moment.
Then I just feel lost. Confused. Needy. And now I can’t seem to remember just exactly what it was I wanted to say to him in the first place. It’s almost as if while I’ve laid here beneath him, allowing him to stare into my eyes, he’s reached in and stolen the words from right out of my head.
Keeping his empty eyes on me, he reaches over into the drawer in his nightstand, pulling something back out with him.
I hear the crackling of a condom wrapper as he rips it open.
I’m trying not to think why he’s got condoms in his nightstand. I want to think they’ve been in there a long time. That there’s been no one else since me. I can’t think anything else.
We hadn’t used a condom that one and only time we had sex. But then we hadn’t exactly been in the right frame of mind either. The last thing that can happen to me is to get pregnant. So if anything, it’s at least smart.
When Nathan is ready, he lifts his hands up to my neck, searing hot, his thumbs pressing into my throat, he tilts my head back and covers my mouth with his. Kissing me deeply, he pushes himself into me without reserve.
It’s painful and electric at the same time.
Releasing a moan way down in my throat, I dig my fingers into his hard back. Nathan growls a low guttural sound into my mouth. Excitement and need overtakes everything else. Nothing matters except for this. Nothing matters but him. Everything else can wait.
Taking hold o
f both my hands, entwining our fingers, he braces them against the mattress, either side of my head, and starts to move inside me, hard, fast, and ruthless.
There’s nothing gentle or tender about this. This is sex at its most basic. Animalistic. Nathan is marking me, pure and simple.
Chapter 22: Dawning
Waking, I reach my hand out for Nathan, but instead find a cold empty space where he should be.
Fear creeps over me. Did I dream it?
No, he’s here in the room with me. I can feel him, smell him, and his touch is still lingering on my skin too clearly for it to have been a dream.
I blink open my eyes to find him sat on the floor, across the room from me. He’s dressed in the same jeans we discarded to the floor, those few lust filled hours earlier. His back rests against the wall, legs bent up, arms resting loosely on his knees, fingers linked together, and his eyes are on me.
Distant eyes. On me, but not on me, if you know what I mean. He doesn’t look happy like I want him to. He doesn’t look anything, just kind of blank.
All in all, a clear sign something is wrong.
“Hey.” I smile lazily over at him.
Resting up on my elbow, I prop my cheek in my palm and desperately try to pretend I don’t see the dark shadow of his obvious mood.
He says nothing. Not even a smile. He just keeps those bright green steady eyes of his on me. Exactly as he did when he saw me for the first time earlier, and just right before we had sex.
There’s anger and resentment there. And a lot of it.
I let myself ignore it when I first got back, pretended it wasn’t there, covered it with unreal emotions. Now, in the harsh light of day it’s pretty hard to ignore.
His piercing stare is starting to make me feel empty and alone again. And those hollow places, the ones I naively let myself believe he’d filled to whole, are cracking back open.
It’s abundantly clear he’s not happy to have me back like I’d hoped he would be. I’m getting that loud and clear. The only other way he could make his feelings more clear, were if he screamed them at me.
Nathan’s body may have been doing an awful lot of things to me earlier which were telling me he was overjoyed I was back; really overjoyed in fact, it just seems his mind was elsewhere at that time.
There was an obvious disconnect between the two. A disconnect between the brain in his head and the one in his pants.
He thought with his dick, of course, he’s a guy. But now it seems since he’s got what he needed to get out of his system with me, the connection has clicked back in, and now all of him is shut off to me.
I can’t even be angry, even though I feel it in copious amounts right now. I knew it at the time; I just choose to ignore it. I just needed to be close to him. I wanted him.
But now, he couldn’t be further away from me if there were still an ocean between us. I’m just not sure exactly what to do. How to handle this? I feel on edge and uneasy, and completely out of my depth. I don’t bode well in situations like this. I get confused, and easily conflicted. And words, the right words, usually fail me.
Knowing I have no choice, this is all on me, as he’s apparently got nothing to say, so in a pointless attempt to keep things light, I ask in a warm voice, “What you doing way over there?”
“Thinking,” he says, monotone.
Keep it breezy, Alex. Breezy.
“What are you thinking about?”
He looks away. “Things.” He looks back. “You.”
I’m guessing he isn’t replaying fond memories of our reunion over and over in his mind.
I run my tongue around my tacky mouth, readying myself for it. “Any of it good?” I let the warmth slip from my own voice.
His eyes drift down to the carpet. “Some.” Silence. “Some, not so much.”
He shrugs as his eyes briefly meet with mine, then flicker away again. But I see everything I need to in that one look.
As I guessed, our reunion is well and truly over with. Gone with the night. And now dawn is here, so is reality, and he’s pissed.
I left him in that hotel room even though it was with all the best intentions. I left and he’s angry about it, and quite possibly about the last six months of zero contact. Six months of nothing from me. Not knowing where I was, if I was okay.
I guess that part of it never occurred to me before. I never thought of it from his point of view.
Nathan likes to be in control. It’s who he is. I took that control away from him the moment I left. I know that will have hurt his pride. And gauging by his mood right now, I’m guessing it hurt his pride severely.
Sitting up, I wrap the duvet around myself, get out of bed and go over to him. I sit at his feet. His body tenses, and he shifts position, moving his legs away from me.
It doesn’t make me feel great. At all.
“Will you talk to me?” I ask, in attempt to move thing in the right direction. Well, any direction but the one I know this is heading toward. I feel like I’m in a car, with no breaks, careening toward the edge of a cliff.
Head turned away from me, he stares out toward the window, ignoring me.
He’s behaving like a child.
Frustrated, I sigh. “Look I get you’re angry, so why don’t you just say whatever it is you want to say to me–”
“What makes you think I’m anything for you?” He turns my way and hard eyes burn into mine.
Ahh shit. That hurts. My eyes sting with unexpected tears.
I see something flicker in his, and if it’s regret; it doesn’t press him hard enough to take it back.
“Why are you here?” he asks, coldly.
I don’t even know how to begin to answer that, and even if I could, I don’t think I’d be able to talk right now, my throat is so clogged up with tears.
I feel sick. And stupid. So very stupid that I’d let myself believe everything would be okay by coming back here. Of course it wouldn’t be. Everything is different. It’s been six months. I don’t know what’s he’s been doing in that time. His world didn’t stop turning just because I wasn’t with him, even if mine did.
He doesn’t want me here. Why would he?
But why have sex with me? I know he’s a guy but Jesus, if he’s this angry and so turned against me, then why.
To hurt you.
A chill slices straight through me.
I’m dumb, so very fucking dumb. I should have guessed that the second he kissed me. Because prior to that he wasn’t exactly jumping for joy, throwing his arms around me.
The sex was hard, raw and angry.
But even still, I can’t bring myself to ask him the question. Because I might be right. And I know I won’t be able to handle it if I have to hear back the exact words that just echoed in my own mind, from his voice. It will all but kill me.
Withdrawing, I quietly get to my feet, holding the duvet wrapped tight around my body. Numbed, I sit down on the edge of the bed.
I’m not pissed off anymore. I’m hurt. And without my anger I’m simply left naked. No shield for whatever else he has to throw at me.
Reaching down I pick up the discarded underwear and dress up off the floor, and set about dressing myself. I’m tying up the belt on my dress when he speaks again. “Are you ever going to answer my question?” His tone is hard.
I’ve actually forgotten what he asked me. I search my brain.
“Why are you here?” he says.
I cast a glimmered eye glance in his direction. He looks so closed off, so hard. I can’t speak to him about it now, not even if I had it in me to, and especially not while he’s in this mood. He wouldn’t listen to a word I’ve got to say. I know Nathan; he’ll only hear the words he wants to hear, not the words I actually say.
He’s good at interpreting his own versions of things.
“Not at the moment, no,” I utter quietly.
He lets out a sharp laugh. It scratches over my skin.
“I thought you said you wanted to talk?”
r /> I don’t think I’ve ever heard him sound so bitter, not even after Sol died. Things are so much worse than I anticipated.
“I did, then.” I shrug. “Now, not so much.”
Nathan’s mouth opens and I stare at him willing it back shut. Because whatever he says will undoubtedly be covered in barbed wire.
But he ignores my silent pleas and speaks anyway, “So should I take it you’re leaving again? Well, at least I’m awake to see you go this time.” The sarcasm practically drips off his words and down onto the carpet.
I pull in a breath. Can’t say I didn’t deserve that one.
“No, I’m not leaving.” I try to keep my voice even, calm. I brace my hands on my thighs trying to drum up some inner strength. “Not unless you want me to?”
Holding my breath, I lift my eyes, looking at him, hoping to force something, anything, from him. Well anything except that he wants me to leave.
He looks away, saying nothing.
I exhale. Well, at least he didn’t tell me to leave, I guess that’s something. A small start.
I slip my shoes on. “There are things we need to talk about,” I concede. “But I just don’t think now is the right time.”
He doesn’t argue with me.
I start to walk toward the door. My feet feel like they’ve got suction cups attached to the soles. Each step, a really huge effort. I actually feel like I’m leaving him all over again. Except this time he’s here to witness it.
When I reach the door, I glance down at him.
He’s already looking at me. I see his eyes do a quick sweep of my body, up and down. A dark look passes over his face.