That low voice of his made it hard to think of anything else, though. We’d both been under tremendous stress with our jobs and the issues with my family. I couldn’t even remember the last time we’d had sex. It had to have been up against the lockers at the gym the night everything went wrong.
We deserved to take an evening to pretend that nothing existed outside of these four walls. It wasn’t as if there was a pressing need to have the conversation tonight.
“Shower. Now,” Nate ground out, reaching over to turn off the burner.
My body was one large erogenous zone, leaving me highly sensitive and painfully aroused just from the sound of his voice. I nodded and let him lead me down the hall and into our bedroom. We bypassed the bed, leaving a trail of clothing in our wake as we moved toward the large glass shower.
Nate cranked the knobs, sending a cascade of hot water from the three showerheads along the wall and the oversized rainfall one mounted to the ceiling. It was my favorite feature on the house, hands down.
I stood swaying from one leg to the other in nothing more than my bra and panties while he stripped off his boxer briefs. He cocked his head to the side as he stepped into the shower. “You coming?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. I did want to come… over and over and over again. It had been too long.
The hot water beat against the muscles in my back like a massage before Nate pushed me up against the wall. “Spread for me, babe. Let me see you.”
I licked the droplets of water from my lips and hopped up onto the narrow stone ledge under the large frosted glass window, letting my knees fall open. “Like this?”
It didn’t matter if the stones were digging into my backside or not. If he wanted me laid out like an offering, I’d do it.
Nate nodded and knelt in front of me. The corners of his lips turned up into a soft smile while he stared at me as if suddenly seeing me for the first time.
He coated his fingers with the wetness between my thighs, a mixture of the water from the showerhead and me. His eyes stayed on mine as he lifted the fingers to his mouth and sucked them clean.
The breath faltered in my chest, and I held the ledge in a death drip, fighting to keep from melting down to the floor. Nate hooked his hands under my thighs and pulled me forward until I was dangerously close to falling off.
Until his nose was buried against the junction between my legs.
“Oh,” I gasped, completely unsteady.
“Oh?” He looked up with a grin. “Should I stop?”
I jerked my head back and forth. “N-no… it’s good.”
“Good? Let’s shoot for great, shall we?” His tongue pushed into my opening before making its way up to my clit. I gave up on the ledge and brought my hands down to grip his hair, holding him firmly in place.
I was close. So close.
Nate tilted his head back to look up at me before slowly pushing a finger inside of me. Before I fully adjusted to the one, he added another and brought his mouth back down.
He knows more about that night than any of us.
I pushed the words from my mind, focusing only on the pleasure my husband was giving me. Comedian was wrong.
Nate would never do anything to hurt me.
His fingers and mouth worked in tandem, and I sucked in a breath as my orgasm hit, leaving me mumbling words of nonsense.
“Stand up, Katy girl,” he demanded, pulling me from the ledge.
My legs were as limp as the spaghetti I’d boiled for dinner, and it took Nate supporting me to remain upright. He kept one arm around my waist before reaching for the handheld showerhead.
“Hold yourself up with the bar, then spread your legs for me.”
I did as he asked, dropping the back of my head down to rest against the tiles. He held the showerhead to his chest, letting the water run down. His dick jutted up against his abs, and I licked my lips again, wanting the taste of him on my tongue.
As if reading my mind, he pointed to my mouth. “Open up, babe.”
I did as he asked, already moving down to my knees. Nate shook his head and guided me back to my feet. “Not yet. You see, I haven’t fucked you in months, and I’m a little out of practice. I’m having enough trouble not coming just seeing you like this.”
The fingers that had been inside my body now moved up to rest against my lips. Knowing what it was he wanted, I closed my eyes and opened up, sucking them in.
“So, I’ve had this fantasy,” he whispered.
I blinked the water from my lashes and released his fingers before biting down on my lower lip with a smile. “Oh, yeah?”
Nate nodded and turned the handheld showerhead until it was spraying against my breasts. “Yeah.” He moved it down toward my belly. “Every time I’ve gotten into this shower, I’ve found myself wondering what it’d be like to use this on you.”
I swallowed the pooled saliva in my mouth and widened my stance, giving him the green light.
One side of his mouth lifted as he positioned the shower head between my legs, forcing a loud moan from between my lips. The water pressure was intense, quickly pushing me to the brink of another orgasm.
As if sensing I needed help, Nate thrust two of his fingers inside me again while aiming the shower head at my clit. I screamed his name when it hit me, coming so hard that my vision swam in black.
I was still twitching from the aftershocks when he pulled his fingers from my body and returned the showerhead to the wall.
“You ready for me, babe?” He growled, stroking his dick. “It’s gonna be hard and fast.”
I was still nodding dumbly when he lifted my body up and pushed into me in a single thrust. His eyes slammed shut, and he froze as if holding himself back.
“Fuck, I missed this.”
I tightened my legs around his waist and rocked forward in response, no longer capable of saying anything coherent thanks to the friction against my extremely sensitive clit.
“Nate, I—”
“Do it, Katy girl. Come on my cock.” He lowered his head to my breast, sucking the nipple in between his teeth.
I made a noise of frustration and dug my fingernails into his shoulders before coming again with a scream. Nate surged forward, each shift of his hips hard enough to hurt, but leaving me panting in ecstasy.
Nate’s thrusts turned erratic. “I’m close. Where do you want me, babe?”
I knew he was really asking if it was safe for him to come inside me. Like the last time… and the time before that. Things were different now.
You came here, lookin’ for answers…
Ask him.
“My mouth,” I said quickly, and he looked up at me in shock.
“Yeah?”
I nodded, trying not to think of that night as I breathlessly answered, “Yeah.”
He pulled out and lowered me to my knees while jerking himself off. “Open.”
I obeyed, and he thrust past my lips all the way to the root, gagging me. I should’ve been disgusted with myself, but I liked it when he was rough with me. I liked the feel of him using my body to get pleasure.
I kept one hand on his thigh, squeezing to ensure that he was watching me look up at him from under my lashes, before slipping the other in between my legs.
He kept my hair in a death grip while I angled my lower body, rubbing myself where I needed it the most. Two simple words from him pushed me into a free fall one last time. “With me.”
Come with me.
Without warning, my orgasm swept over me, sending goosebumps racing across my skin. My throat relaxed, and he buried himself deep, bringing tears to my eyes as I fought to take as much of him as I could.
Nate murmured my name over and over, praising me as he filled my throat. I continued sucking, still shuddering from the effects of my own orgasm until his hands loosened from my hair, and he pulled away.
He shut off the water before sinking down to the tile next to me with a contented sigh. From somewhere in the kitchen, my phone chimed, al
erting me to an email.
The world was fighting to break in, but it could wait. Tonight was about us.
“Jesus, Katy girl,” Nate panted. “I fucking love you.”
“I love you too,” I whispered breathlessly, letting my eyes drift shut just as my phone chimed again.
“You’re popular tonight.”
I wiped the stray droplets of water from my face before looking at him. His expression was unreadable, leaving me to guess as to whether he was joking or not. “Hardly. It’s probably the office updating my caseload for tomorrow.”
His eyes began to drift closed as he asked, “Is your mom still trying to reach you?”
Here it was.
My chance to ask my husband what really happened the night my father was shot. He’d just given me the perfect segue. All I had to do was open my mouth and ask.
“No,” I lied, the words I needed lodged somewhere deep within my chest.
He hesitated and rubbed at his temple before stating, “Good.”
“The night,” I began. “The night of Dakota’s wedding—”
“C’mon, Katy girl. Let’s get some clothes on. I’m fucking freezing to death in here.” He jumped up and grabbed a couple of towels from the warming rack, wrapping one around his waist and the other around my shoulders.
“Nate,” I tried again.
“Look.” He stopped in the doorway. “I’m exhausted. Can we discuss this in the morning? I just don’t see the point of rehashing the same shit we’ve already talked about when I could be resting, you know?”
I swallowed, the taste of him suddenly bitter against my tongue. “Yeah. Get some rest. There’s chicken on the stove—”
“I’m just gonna crash, babe.” He leaned down and kissed my forehead before going into the bedroom. I followed him, watching in confusion as he stripped the towel off and climbed under the sheets with a sigh. “God, what a fucking long day. You coming to bed?”
“I—” I gnawed on the corner of my lip. “I’ll just clean up the kitchen. Want me to bring you a plate?”
There was no response. His soft snores filled the room, and I realized, with more than a little frustration, that he was already asleep. My concerns had been dismissed as nothing more than the ‘same shit’ while the dinner I’d spent an hour making went to waste on the stove.
I grabbed my bathrobe off the back of the bathroom door and tied the belt around my waist before slipping back out into the kitchen.
It wasn’t the first time it had happened. There were some nights he barely made it through the door before collapsing in exhaustion.
I scraped the chicken into a large plastic container before dropping the skillet into the sink, hoping the noise had been enough to wake him.
My actions were petty, I knew that. Nate had never been one to stay up late when he’d just come off a long shift at the hospital, but tonight of all nights, I’d needed him to do just that.
“He wasn’t too tired for sex,” I noted wryly. I started the dishwasher before glaring down at the sink full of bubbles, deciding to leave the skillet for Nate to take care of in the morning.
“Just too tired for any conversation related to the Quinn family,” I muttered as I retrieved the counter cleaner from under the sink.
I needed to put the rumors to rest, to quiet the chaos of my mind.
Didn’t he understand that?
I jumped when my phone chimed again, alerting me to yet another email. The illuminated screen showed that I’d missed a call and had a voicemail from Dakota.
She usually preferred text messaging to picking up the phone and having an actual conversation. My skin prickled with worry that something might’ve happened with the baby and I dropped the dishtowel on the counter before playing it.
“Hey, Kate. I guess you’re still ignoring all of us because… sweet potato fries, I don’t know why you’re avoiding us. Maybe you think that if you stick your head in the sand then you can pretend that nothing ever happened, but you’re wrong. Dad’s still out there and—what? I am getting to the point… just give me a second. Lauren says hi.”
I shook my head with a smile, suddenly missing her so much that it made my chest ache. I longed for her long-winded rants where even she had no idea what she was talking about by the end of it.
“Anyway, so something happened this afternoon. I was shopping for baby furniture with Mama—before you get all butt hurt, I did invite you, but you never got back to me. So, we were at the boutique and Lauren met us. I don’t think this line is secure. Lauren, do you think it’s okay?”
Secure?
Had my mother somehow convinced her that she was living in a spy novel?
“Lauren thinks it’s fine, but I’m more comfortable using code, okay? So, Lauren showed up and said that she wanted to get the, um, cookies that Dad always wanted to have. Mama tried to tell her that it was dangerous because of… cholesterol. God of thunder, this is hard. Mama wouldn’t let her because—”
Her voice cut off in a sob and I heard someone, I assumed it was Lauren, murmuring words of comfort to her.
If I was understanding Dakota’s ‘code’ correctly, Lauren was going to go after the biker gang that shot my father, and my mother had tried to talk her out of it.
“I’m sorry, Kate. I just can’t stop thinking about it. She said—she said that these men wouldn’t care if we were pregnant or not. That being pregnant made us a better target and that they would use their bodies to hurt us until— until we lost our babies. Kate, I think that happened to her. Just—just please call me, okay?”
Have you ever asked your mother for the truth?
I stood frozen with the cell phone still firmly gripped in my hand, even as the voicemail ended. Nan had spent years drilling it into our heads that my mother hadn’t wanted us, that she’d been an unfit parent. I’d become so familiar with hearing it that it became truth in my mind.
But what if it was all wrong?
I’d counseled rape victims and women who’d suffered miscarriages. Even as separate events, the trauma could leave lasting scars. If my mother had endured both, it would’ve affected her ability to parent. Hell, it would’ve affected every aspect of her life.
Had my father known?
The anger that had been directed at my mother shifted over to my father at the thought of him leaving her to carry the burden all alone.
My phone screeched against my ear, alerting me once more to another email. I stabbed at the notification with my index finger, wondering what was so important that it warranted multiple late-night messages. The email had come through six times just in the last hour; all from the same dummy account.
Subject: The truth
Secrets don’t always stay buried…
I clicked on the attachment at the bottom of the message and immediately went down to my knees on the vinyl flooring with a cry of surprise. For weeks I’d convinced myself that Comedian was wrong, sure that Nate knew nothing about that night other than what he’d already told me.
The truth was there, in grainy black and white footage from a hospital security tape. Nate, talking with a very tall someone in a hoodie, before sneaking him out of the hospital.
I tried to rationalize it, to tell myself that it was a coincidence until I saw the date and time stamp on the bottom of the screen.
January 1, 2017.
Tears blurred my vision as I pulled up my contact list and dialed. My hands shook as it rang. If my father had been shot like the doctors had told us, then surely, he wouldn’t have been able to leave the hospital on his own. I didn’t even know where to begin unraveling the lies.
“Hello? Kate, are you okay?”
I tried muffling my sob with the back of my hand before giving up. “Jeremy, I need help.”
Chapter Ten
Dakota
“Dakota, try to keep both eyes open this time and see how that feels.”
I gave Jimmy a thumbs up before raising the Glock again, feeling less like Black Widow and m
ore like a Stormtrooper.
Who knew that aiming a gun would be so complicated?
The empty beer bottles mocked me from where they were lined up along the fence. Lauren nodded encouragingly to me before quickly moving back up onto Angel’s front porch. The older man had given us free rein over his house and yard while he helped Mike sober up.
“C’mon, Cap,” Little Ricky called out from across the yard. “Make me proud.”
“I’m trying,” I said, moving my hands over the gun until they were in position. My tongue poked out from between my lips as I set sights on my target.
Failure wasn’t an option.
I slowly depressed the trigger, instinctively squeezing my eyes shut. Instead of staying where I wanted it, the gun dropped down. The air was filled, not with the sound of breaking glass, but that of a bullet whizzing through desert grass.
I released a heavy sigh before lowering my weapon. “I did it again.”
Jimmy stepped forward with a nod. “You’re flinching. That makes you a threat to everyone around you. Think about it, Dakota. If you raise your gun, you have to be prepared to end someone’s life. You’re overthinking it.” He tapped the side of his head.
“Your targets won’t sit along the fence, waiting for you to get it right either,” Lauren added. “They’ll likely have their own guns pointed at you. You have to be faster than they are. When you shoot, you’re shooting to kill. Not wound… or maim.”
I nodded and handed the gun back to Jimmy. “I just need some water, and we can go again.”
“You’re doing great, Dakota. This isn’t easy, but you’re trying.”
Zane grinned at me from the porch swing as I climbed the steps, rubbing his shoulder as if it were in pain.
I stabbed a finger in his direction. “Don’t say a word, Big Guy. Not one word.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it, Cap. I happen to like my balls where they are. You’re aim’s improving, though.”
Pride filled my chest, and I stood a little straighter. “Yeah?”
Savior: Silent Phoenix MC Series: Book Five Page 12
