“You’re scared she’ll get hurt.”
“I’m scared something will happen to her, and then I’ll be that helpless boy again.”
The tears came slowly and steadily, slipping down her cheeks and onto her legs. She refused to wipe them away or hide them from his stare. “That’s the worst…the inability to make it stop.”
Deacon quit digging in the surf. He ambled over and lay his wet back against each of them. Neither spoke for a while. She soaked up Deacon’s strength and Nathan’s support, and stared at the tiny grains of sand.
“My mom never wanted a child, but she screwed around enough that when she got pregnant at seventeen she didn’t know whose sperm had done the deed. When I was a few weeks old she stole cash from my grandfather’s safe and ran. She never called, never let them know where she was, or if she was okay. Momma Catherine told me Papps couldn’t handle the worry. He died of a massive heart attack on my sixth birthday.”
She chanced a look at Nathan, but he didn’t study her like a Rorschach blot. He stared off into the blue, intent on her words.
“Things were hard for a few years. My grandfather owned an investments company and had done all the financials since they’d gotten married. She hadn’t gone to college and hadn’t had a job outside the home since she’d been a teenager. I’d wake up most mornings and find her asleep at his desk using stock portfolios and ledgers as her pillows.”
Madelyn smiled and wiped at her tears. “A wealthy banker tried to force her to sell the business, but she showed an amazing knack for numbers. She bought his bank on my ninth birthday. Those years were the best. Just the two of us taking on the world.
“My mom showed up one Friday. We assumed she wanted money. Shock of the century, but she wanted me. She’d become a model in LA and married some rich record mogul. I didn’t want to go. Momma Catherine didn’t want me to go. She tried to pay her off, to get her to leave, but she was insistent, and the lawyer told my grandmother she didn’t have a chance of custody.”
“Even though she’d taken care of you and was your mother for all intents?”
“It wasn’t that simple. My grandmother hoped her daughter had finally come to her senses. She didn’t want to fight over me. I started school the next Monday eighteen hundred miles away from everything I knew with two strangers. I was scared and upset, but despite my best instincts, I was interested, excited to find out who my mother was, and what it would be like to have a father. Stupid.”
His finger looped around hers. She turned to find his gaze heavy on her for the first time since she’d started talking. “Not stupid.”
“Trusting,” she countered with a hitched brow.
“Young and hopeful.”
She nodded. “As it turned out, she didn’t want me...he did.”
Nathan’s eyes darkened to midnight.
“Not like that. He had my mom for that.”
“Plenty of men have women, but it doesn't stop them from…” He growled a curse.
“He liked to show his dominance with mind games and his fists. When she showed up for shoots with bruises she lost jobs and value in his eyes. So, he used me as his personal punching bag. He used her to get off.”
“And she allowed it.” He didn’t ask. So she didn’t answer the obvious.
“Sunday before school we went shopping. She bought a whole new wardrobe, but insisted on pants and long sleeves. I thought she’d joined some church that required it, but tossed the notion because she dressed like a floozy. Thankful to have any clothes to my name, I dismissed it.
“I’d been there for five days the first time he hit me. Everything had been going so well. We ate at the table like a real family, talked about our day, and then he got a call about some deal falling through. He hung up and by the time the phone hit the receiver I was on the floor clutching my chest.”
She traced a finger over the meat just below her collarbone. “His fat diamond ring left an ugly stamp. If it hadn't been for that, I’d have thought I hallucinated myself onto my side crying into the carpet.” She gave an ugly laugh. “I remember sitting in the corner of the bedroom that night waiting for an argument to erupt. I waited to hear my mom defend me and dare him ever to lay a finger on me again. There were grunts and shouts, but none in rage, and not like I’d ever heard before. Then there was quiet. I waited for her to come sneak me out. I waited until the sun came up and it was time to get ready for school.
“At first I was too shocked to say anything to a teacher, and then I was too terrified. He caught me trying to call my grandmother one night. He told me, if I ever left or tried to lie about my life there, my mother would die of a broken heart. He said, ‘She’ll throw herself off the roof and shatter into a million pieces because you left.’ So, I kept quiet.”
“How long?” Nathan’s voice ground like sandpaper on concrete.
“Four years. No matter what he did, I never fought back. But then I turned sixteen. My peers started driving, started experiencing freedom. I knew I couldn’t endure for much longer. I knew it was me or him, suicide or murder. I’d sit in class and daydream scenarios of how I’d fight back…one day. I never thought I’d have the guts to go through with it. And I thought, if I tried, he’d overpower me and I’d die in the process.
“Self-defense. They called it self-defense, but I meant to ram the knife into his belly that night.” The brilliant day plunged to darkness and she was back in the cold kitchen. One hand gripped the handle of the industrial-sized freezer to bridle his advance, while the other reached blindly for the icy handle of the butcher’s knife. Remembered adrenaline hijacked her heart and sped it back through that horrible night.
Nathan’s arms slipped around her. In one fluid motion he lifted her onto his lap and cocooned her in his corded arms. He tucked her head in the lee of his scruffy chin. His scent and his hold grounded her in the here and now. She wrapped both arms around his middle and held on for dear life.
“I screamed with everything I had, ‘I’m going to kill you, you son of a bitch.’ My mom’s shrill voice filled the kitchen. She screamed, ‘No.’ He pushed the freezer door so hard it pinned me to the counter. I thought that was it, I was going to die, and something snapped. I arched the knife wildly, blindly around the corner. He yelled, and the pressure let up, but only for a second. I started to slide out from between the two, and then the weight forced the door back again. It slammed into my forehead. I caught myself on the counter. The knife shifted in my grip. I reared back and stabbed around the door.”
The resistance of the blade sliding into flesh and muscle still tingled her palm. Madelyn’s entire body shuddered. “I hate that I can still feel it in my hand. I can still feel her blood coating my fingers.”
“I wake up some nights,” Nathan’s voice rumbled in her ear, “and I still hear their grunts. I still hear the horrible things they said to my mom.”
“Will the memories ever go away?” she asked.
“No. Will they fade? I hope so.”
Madelyn levered back to see Nathan’s face. Her cheek nuzzled the sun-heated skin of his shoulder. Strands of her hair caught on his stubble. His hand slipped up her neck and splayed over her jaw. The light touch chased away the worst of her remembered fears. He smoothed the locks down her back. Then he urged her on with an easy nudge of his chin. And the strangest thing happened…the burden of telling the story lightened.
“She hadn’t defended me—her flesh and blood—a day in her life. But she protected a grown man—an abusive, egotistical, maniac—from her battered daughter and died doing it. When I came around the door and realized what I’d done, Glenn was gone. I called the police. Things were so crazy for so long. I’ve never answered so many questions in all my life. I’d never been so scared and conflicted. Yes, he couldn’t hurt me anymore, but I’d taken a life…my mother’s life.”
“What happened to Aldrich?”
“They eventually found him at a high class brothel. He tried to claim he hadn’t been home that night, b
ut the evidence was there on his face and in the blood all over the house. I’d flayed open his cheek. My grandmother came out for the funeral and trial. They charged him with abuse and capital murder. My scars and old fractures along with testimony from the school district counselor and a few teachers, and the crime scene gave them all the evidence they needed to put him away for life.”
“That’s why you were so sure it wasn’t him committing these crimes.”
“Yes.”
“And your grandmother passed away…”
“I moved back in with her after the trail. We had a couple of hard years, and then she had a massive heart attack. Clogged arteries due to years of good eating. That’s what the doctor said anyway. I think my mother and I broke her heart.”
“Not you.”
“Either way. That’s my story.”
“Thank you.” Madelyn stared at his supple lips as they formed the words.
“For what?”
“Trusting me.”
She should thank him for making her talk about it. She should tell him that she hadn’t felt such peace in her entire life. She should warn him to run away because little by little she was falling in love with him. But one sentence shouted over all the others, and it was the one her mind and body agreed upon.
“Nathan, make love to me.”
His fingers bit into her hip, and then her world shifted. Thrust from the shadow of his neck, she squinted at the brilliant, streaming light. Uneven sand cooled her back. She spun from the abrupt switch. Top to bottom. A lump, too juvenile and chaste to have existed in her hedonistic body, made swallowing impossible. Deacon scrambled up from the blanket and trotted off.
Somehow her body coiled around his as though it were an intrusive species of vine. Her legs wrapped behind his thighs while her bottom pillowed his crotch. He levered over her, blocking the sun with his chest. His face crowded close, much like it had the last time he had her flat on her back in the sand. Only this time, he didn’t wear a mask.
He held himself inches away. His eager breaths heated her cheeks. Or maybe the sight of him, barely contained, all bulging muscles and bedroom eyes did that. His hand plowed into the hair at her nape. Her lips arched toward his mouth. An eager moan slipped between them.
“I’ll make love to you. I’ll fuck you. I’ll make you forget the day of the week. The year. Hell, Madelyn.” His mouth quirked and his lips may as well have been on her clit for the potent effect they had on her aching lady bits. “If I really put my mind to it and some of your gadgets, I’ll make you forget the century. But, I think we need to start with a kiss.”
“A kiss?” she gulped.
He skated a finger over her lower lip, persuading her mouth open. “You make it sound so innocent.”
Saliva pooled on her tongue. Her breaths came faster.
The calloused pad skidded across the top bow of her lip. “So mundane.”
Wet heat slipped over the edge of her bottom lip. Her lids, which had fallen to seduction, exploded open. He eased back and spread the moisture over her mouth. The pliant skin shifted under his more ardent touch.
“Every great love. Every great lay. They start with a kiss.” He dropped his mouth where the barest heat of his lips brushed her. “Don’t think for one second that this is harmless.”
Her patience evaporated in the heat of their intimacy. Madelyn latched onto his shoulders and pressed into his kiss. At least, she tried. The hair at her nape grew taught.
“You have no idea how much I want to tear these ribbons from your body and bury myself inside you,” he growled. “No matter how much it hurts, I won’t rush this.” His teeth nipped lips. Madelyn ground her ass into his lap and moaned. “It seems you have no qualms about it though.”
“I did,” she moaned. “Just can’t find…a single one right now.”
Nathan lunged into the kiss. Sweet contact thieved her breath. His chest flattened her breasts and the hard ridge of his dick pushed against her bottom. Supple but firm, his lips maneuvered the bow of her mouth. Her lips molded to his, inviting and caving to his need, to her need.
His chin nudged hers. Madelyn’s lips parted wider. The tang of citrus bit her tongue as his eagerly caressed it. Her fingers explored the slopes and edges of his back, and then plunged into his hair. Their mouths danced a seductive tango that left her drunk.
Before long his hips rolled in time with hers. Each decadent surge brushed the throbbing tip of her clit down his arrogant length.
Yes. Yes. Yes.
He sucked her bottom lip into his mouth for the barest of seconds and popped it out. Tension gathered in her core. “More. Please, Nathan. I want more.”
“I said a kiss, and that’s all you’re getting, Madelyn.” His words punched her in the gut, but his fingers eased the pain. His fingers promised more. They pressed against her throat and over her abdomen. His palm flattened onto her hip, snuck under the string of her bikini, and tugged at the material. “But a kiss given in the right way, in just the right spot, should take you where you want to go.”
“Yes,” she breathed against his mouth.
“Damn, I’m going to enjoy taking you there.”
Nathan guided the tiny bottoms off her round butt. The material seared a path down her legs and fell away. He shifted her ass to the corner of the blanket. Before she could blink, his weight settled in the crook of her thighs.
What a difference a few days could make.
She arched, grinding her swollen flesh onto his crotch. The rough khakis chaffed her naked labia, but didn’t stop her thrusts. His barring grip did though.
“You are magnificently stubborn.” His gaze tightened.
Madelyn opened her mouth to protest, but Nathan opened his and clamped it around her hidden nipple. She bowed deeper off the sand. The silk of his short hair rumpled in her fists. Imposing suction knotted the ever-expanding tension that had traveled from her center to every extremity.
The ties at her back and neck gave way. Nathan fisted the triangles and tossed them to the side. His knees pushed beneath her thighs and his hands moved to her back just below her shoulder blades. He held her up as if in offering and feasted on the descended red nubs.
Helpless to fight the pleasure he poured on in tidal waves, she relaxed into the praise of his mouth. Arms spread wide, she gripped the sand in one and the blanket in the other and rode straight down the barrel.
“What was that? Did you have an argument to make?”
She wanted to launch a snappy comeback, but her brain was busy following the progress of his hands. They molded down her abdomen, over her hips, and then braced on either of her spread legs, inches from her exposed intimates.
“Hmmm.” The muscles in his jaw contracted. He shifted his hips back and leaned so close to her pointed clit she braced for his electric touch. But he hovered there, exploring her with his hot eyes. “I knew you were beautiful, but this is a little too close to perfection.”
“It’s just a pussy, Nathan.”
“It’s not just your pretty cunt, Madelyn. It’s you. Look at you, spread wide, on display, not a shy bone in your body. You’re here with me every step, ready, and willing to give yourself to me. And not because I’ll make a good prop for your Christmas cards. But because you see me and you let me see you.”
He started with maddening tenderness, placing not-so-innocent kisses on the lips of her sex. When her hips shifted restlessly his hold on her thighs pinned her to the ground. His mouth eased lower. Her belly convulsed. The anticipation ratcheting higher and higher. His lips pressed against her entrance, and then sealed there.
He schooled her in the most intimate art of French kissing. His tongue pierced her vagina with rhythmic thrusts and deviant twists. If his hands didn’t hold her in place, she’d rocket into space. His near-onyx hair bobbed between her legs. Veins and muscles coursed his steady arms.
Madelyn cupped her breasts and moaned against the maddening sensation. She wanted to buck and grind into his touch.
“Yes. Yes.”
Nathan’s eyes sparkled. He leaned in and bracketed her pulsating clit with his mouth. While she watched, transfixed, he jacked her erect bundle of skin and nerves. He used firm lips and a forceful suction that curled her off the blanket. Madelyn braced both hands behind her back and panted. Her incoherent noises caught on the breeze and scattered over the water.
Her toes curled. Her fingers sank into the sand. The pad of his tongue flattened and swirled around her clit. Every nerve ending in her body celebrated his expertise by exploding. The force rippled through her, incinerating everything in its path. Her ability to speak included. She collapsed half on and half off the beach blanket and worked harder than normal to breathe.
Nathan lapped up the last of her orgasm, and then closed her legs so that she curled onto her side. The unusual sensation of her swollen sex pressed between her thighs reinvigorated her spent libido. He placed a kiss on the round of her hip and stood.
A massive erection ballooned the front of his pants. Madelyn swallowed the saliva that pooled at the sight. Nathan’s hands laced behind his nape, causing every muscle in his torso to flex. His gaze drank her in. His chest rose and fell in measured breaths.
“Nathan, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” He licked his lips and his eyes clamped shut as though in ecstasy or misery.
“Then come here.”
“We should get back.” Nathan scrubbed a hand over his face and took another step away.
“You’re not getting off this island without getting off.”
His eyes opened, appearing like tiny coal-burning furnaces, but his head shook back and forth. “I don’t have a condom.”
“And you think intercourse is the only way to do that?” She eased onto her knees, and then stood on noodle legs. With a sweep of her lower back and brush of her hands the sand cascaded to the beach. She took a step forward.
“I know it’s not. But with what happened…”
“The thought of a woman on her knees with your hot cock in her mouth doesn’t turn you on,” she supplied.
For All to See (Bureau Series Book 1) Page 16
