by CC Monroe
“Nick is going to come home with me, and we’re going to call the lawyer, see what we have to do.”
“I’m coming with.”
“What? No, you and Melody need to stay with Ben,” I argue.
“Bullcrap. Ben is a grown man who can handle his own. I want to be there for my friend, and I’m not taking a no, so stop while you’re ahead.”
I giggle, shaking my head. “You and Nick are certifiably crazy for doing this for me.”
“No, it’s just the Christian thing to do,” she teases with a wink. This lightens the mood instantly. Grabbing the throw pillow beside me, I throw it at her head, laughing.
“Shut up, smartass!”
Throwing it back at me makes one thing lead to another, and within seconds, we are tossing the pillows at each other, laughing hysterically. It’s not even that funny, but it feels good to laugh in the midst of all the heavy.
“Mama! I want to pillow fight with you and aunty!” Melody comes bounding down the hall of the bus toward us, Ben and Nick in tow.
“Come be on aunty’s team. We can get Mama!” I reach out, taking her hand, barely missing Sadie’s hit with the pillow.
“Yay!” As I hand her the pillow, she runs at her mom, hardly hitting her but thinking she did real damage. Her giggle fills the bus, and just like always, all the other boys come to the back and watch. I swear there is nothing more adorable than watching five badass, tatted-up rock stars turn to putty in her hands.
There is nothing that Melody’s laugh can’t fix and make happy again. She and Sadie end up in a full-on pillow war, and I steal a glance at Nick, sure I’ll find his eyes on the scene everyone else is watching, but they aren’t. He is watching me, and the second my eyes lock on his, he mouths the words “I love you.” I blush, feeling those butterflies only he can cause me. I want to enjoy this brief moment of worry-free, stress-free happiness before our lives become who knows what. But one thing is for sure. I feel more secure than ever, because I have my best friend and my love, the man who has always had my heart, by my side.
Chapter Eighteen
Nick
This is the first time since I became the band’s manager that I have not been on tour with them. I miss it, but not as much as I would miss Kate if she left without me. Besides, my purpose is here. She is where I need to be.
“You really didn’t have to come all the way back to Portland for me,” she says next to me on the plane. We took the earliest flight out we could in order to meet with the lawyer in Eric’s letter. Yesterday, I ensured she was worry-free and took on not only my load but hers as well. I had a lot to do as far as prepping for my departure, but to be honest, my to-do list is bleak compared to Kate’s.
By the time I finished doing everything I needed and contacted the lawyer, Kate was asleep, and I let her have it. Yesterday, just a few weeks after learning she’s pregnant and Eric’s death, she found out the world is now resting on her shoulders. Surprisingly, I didn’t disagree with Kate’s choice to step up and take guardianship of Josie. I would have done the same thing. That’s who we are, both always finding the need to be saviors, no matter the consequences. Hell, I don’t think either of us looks at the consequences before we react.
“I wanted to be,” I admit.
“I know, but still. Oh. I wanted to tell you. My parents called me yesterday. I didn’t answer.”
“Oh yeah?” I try not to show my pent-up anger toward her parents.
“They left a voicemail. I didn’t have the heart to listen. I mean, I’ve already done enough finding hidden information. Don’t need to add to it.” She giggles sarcastically. I would voice what I’m thinking, but Kate would have my neck. My poor Kate.
If I ever said that out loud, she just might throw me off the plane.
“Wise idea. That’s a different journey for another day,” I encourage.
“I need to do my next checkup while we’re home.”
Home. She referred to us as home. Another thing I try not to react to. Things are too up in the air and fragile right now. Everyone has been making Kate’s decisions for her or dumping everything on her that the least I can do is let her make the moves and take us to wherever she feels safest.
“What are we finding out at this appointment?” I move along smoothly with her transition of conversation.
“Measurements. Ultrasound maybe, just a checkup. I don’t get to find out the sex for a few weeks, according to Google and Sadie.”
I laugh, squeezing her knee. “You are better trusting Sadie than the mess of Google. That’s like asking WebMD your diagnosis.”
This brings out a genuine laugh from her. “Oh God, one time it told me I had a brain tumor. I almost believed it, based on all the poor choices I’ve made in life.” I shrug.
“That’s life, kitten. Making poor choices is all part of it. Messy and all, it’s worth lessons learned.”
“Your age is showing,” she teases, and there’s something about the way her eyes sparkle and lips tug into a sweet smirk. It makes me want to devour her in this very spot.
“Careful, Kate. You learned just what my age and experience can do to this body, so you should be very careful how you comment on how old I am.”
That smile turns into a reddened blush. “We are on a plane, fiend.”
Leaning in close, my lips graze her ear. “Any time, any fucking place, kitten.” I nip her ear, and she straightens, clearing her throat as she does. Her squirming isn’t lost on me. I love how she can’t help but react to me.
“Jerk. New topic. The flight attendant is giving me a look.” I peer up at the gentleman gawking at my woman. His eyes look her over, and she mistakes it for judgment, but man to man, I know exactly what’s running through his head. He just so happens to break away from looking at her for a brief moment, long enough to see me. I glare and all but snarl, my look acknowledging his death wish he must be asking for.
Messily, he reacts, trying to busy himself with the tray in front of him, but instead, he drops a bunch of items.
“Nick. Don’t do that. Geez.”
Breaking my glare at him, I now see Kate watched that entire exchange. “I usually don’t get jealous, but you’re different. And I don’t like people staring at you.”
“Don’t you like that they admire what’s yours?” she asks inquisitively.
“No.” I pierce her in place with my look, and she swallows thickly. “I don’t want anyone thinking they can look or touch what’s mine. Don’t make me react, kitten. I’ve spent years mastering my jealousy. You won’t like how bad it can get.”
She looks scared but aroused. She shouldn’t be.
When I was younger and first married, my jealousy drove me to do terrible things. Awful things, because I’m a possessive type of man. What’s mine is mine, and I don’t take kindly to others trying to take it or entertain the idea. Even just putting the idea in Kate’s head that he would take her if she wanted makes red rage through my vision. Then she and Eric started dating, and I had to learn how to lock that shit deep, deep down until it was nothing but an afterthought.
“Entertain me,” she whispers, lust heavily lacing her words. She’s aroused. Her breathing gives her away; it’s labored and deep. Her nipples are peaked, and her cheeks are a dusty shade of pink. Kate is a ravenous lover. Craving me even when life is falling apart around us. I happily oblige to satisfy her.
Leaning back in, I lick along the shell of her ear, eliciting a soft moan from her. I bring my hand higher on her thigh and squeeze forcefully. “Don’t you dare let anyone hear those noises again.” Those feelings I worked damn hard to bury deep slowly boil and resurface. “First, I would put hands on the man that invaded my space. Then I would put my hands on you. I would bend you over, grab those sexy hips, and fuck you stupid. Fuck that man right out of that beautiful brain of yours. My cock would beat your pussy so hard you wouldn’t even know where you were.” I pause, watching her react. Her breasts rise and fall with her heavy breathing. Those teeth
capture her lip, helping her suppress her moans.
I keep going, taking advantage of the moment. Each hour at this point can waver and change our emotions. Right now, life is on the ground, but at thousands of miles above it, we are enraptured by our lust. “I would make you come till it hurt, and when I think you’re numb enough and wouldn’t be able to take anymore, I would put you on your knees and make you choke out my name over and over again as I come deep in your fucking throat. Over and over, kitten, just to make sure you remember who owns you, and who you own.”
“Nick,” she all but groans, her cheeks dusting over with a shade of a rosy pink. Gripping the arms of her seat so tightly, her knuckles turn white.
“Don’t ask me then, if you aren’t ready to hear what I have to say.” Removing my hand from her thigh, I place it in my lap against my leg that is spread to hide as much of my aching cock as I can. Enjoying myself, I watch her try to regain equilibrium after our exchange. It takes her a few minutes, and after that, she doesn’t ask me to entertain her for the rest of the flight. But she better believe the second I have her in my bed, I’m going to make good on my words.
§
“Say it louder, kitten.” My body is covered in a thin layer of sweat, my muscles taught in my arms as I grab a fistful of Kate’s hair, moving it out of my line of vision. Her fully pouty lips are swollen from my thick cock. For three hours, I’ve been teasing, fucking, making love to, and punishing her in a way that real lovers do.
Ever since Kate gave her heart to me, I’ve thrived and obsessed over my need to declare her as mine in any way she’ll let me. Never has it been enough, each time, each touch, each kiss. Every time we make love, it’s not enough. My hunger for Kate cannot be sated.
Peering up at me through wet lashes due to the tears from my brutal fucking of her mouth, Kate fails to say my name coherently. I want her to see what my jealousy and possessiveness can be like, because I don’t let it out often. My age, my experience, my respect for Kate to be Kate again, for her to feel like she doesn’t have to be someone’s lifeline again, is very important. In fact, it’s my top priority. But I need her to see this part of me will always be there when she wants it. When she needs it. When she craves it. I will be every type of lover she needs when she yearns for it. I’m her seven fucking deadly sins.
I watch her expert mouth work my cock. There is want in her eyes, a desire to make me come. I can hold off my orgasm after years and years of celibacy and my left hand doing all the teaching needed to master this. Kate doesn’t know this about me, but I prefer to hold off on coming. The torture, the pleasure, it all builds up to make for the best orgasm. It builds me up to watch her come over and over while I stay in control of myself. Kate is in control of the entire relationship, and this small thing is the one victory I can claim as mine, the small amount of ownership and power I have.
My cock slips from between her swollen lips. “Come, Nick. I need it. Bad,” the siren inside her speaks.
“Anything you ask for, kitten.”
Smiling slyly, her brow arched, she seals her lips around the tip of my cock and works up to the root, deep-throating me like a professional for hell’s sake. I twitch, my whole body feeling that sensation. I put my hands behind my head and throw it back. Growling her name out as she rolls my balls in her hand, I explode inside her mouth. She gags but doesn’t miss a beat, swallowing me down.
“Fuck! Kate. Damn, baby.” Looking down, the erotic sight seizes me. My jaw falls lax, watching another spurt of my cum spill out of her mouth and down her hand tightly wrapped around my cock, helping milk every drop of me. I would come again that second if I weren't in the current throes of my orgasm.
“Fuck.” The word keeps tumbling from my lips, as it’s the only thing I can come up with. There are no words in the English dictionary to describe what I’m witnessing. Our eyes connect and do all the speaking we can’t. I love this woman. It almost seems unreal, a false reality, that she’s finally mine. That even in the midst of all the turmoil and heartache, she is freely falling into me and giving me every fucking ounce of herself that she can.
Even if Eric were alive and Kate weren’t pregnant and about to embark on this arduous journey, I wouldn’t have believed she would have it in her to love again. To give herself to someone else after wasting away in the arms of another man who all but destroyed her down to her roots.
But in that look, I see what it is. Trust. Kate Beckett is taking a chance on believing in me and handing her bleeding heart to me in the palms of my calloused, stable hands. That’s a risk; she and I both know this, but that unwavering trust is outweighing the what ifs.
When the peak of our love making rises and falls, our labored breathing now the loudest sound in my room, I remove myself to get something to clean us up with. I wash us down with a wet washcloth then resume my place next to her on the bed. The entire time I cleaned her off, she said nothing. Just touched me where she could reach—my face, my shoulders, my biceps, and the tattoo on my pec. But no words. Finally, after a few minutes, she speaks.
“Will you always love me like this, Nick?”
Pulling her in tight until she’s sprawled on top of my body, I respond, “You have to let me.” I remind her of the only thing that could get between us, and that’s her pushing me away when things become too scary for her.
“I don’t think I could ever stop loving you the way I do. You are healing me, and I hate to admit I need you that much.”
“You don’t have to be ashamed to need someone when they need you just as badly, Kate. Would that help you?”
“What?” Perching her chin on my chest, she peers up at me.
“If I tell you every day that I love you and need you. That I depend on you just as much as you depend on me. That my lifeline is in your hands. Would that make you believe me?”
She searches my face. Does she not believe me?
“I don’t want to believe you, but I do.”
“Why don’t you want to?”
“Because that means you have the power I never wanted to give another person.”
“It’s not supposed to be scary if you give it to the right person. I promise to always have your back, Kate. Always.”
She smiles through her watery eyes and heavy emotions. “Like a best friend?” she questions.
I chuckle. “Like a best friend. Lover. Partner. Whatever I need to be.”
Kissing my chest all over she snuggles in closer, taking comfort in me and my words.
We fall asleep this way, comfortable, safe, assured of one another and where we stand. Tomorrow, we’ll begin that road to whatever is waiting unknowingly at the end. Until then, it’s Kate and me just how it was always supposed to be.
Chapter Nineteen
Kate
I dreamed of Eric last night. Could it be because he’s officially been gone a month? Is it because of Josie? Either way, it was a nice one. It was a recollection of a beautiful moment we shared. One of the memories I stored in my mind and constantly recalled when we were going through the lows of our relationship. It made me miss him. Not us. Just him.
I wish Eric could have lived to meet his daughter, to meet our child—to get the chance to love in the way I love Nick. After the dream, I woke up and reread the letter he wrote me. Even though the letter basically changed the direction of my life, I read it with a softer heart this round.
Eric could never tell me how he truly felt. Besides the day we ended things, this letter is the only other genuine apology and recollection of all the pain he put on me. It feels like closure, this letter. The guilt for moving on gets less and less every day. Loving Nick doesn’t mean I never cared for Eric or that his death was insignificant to me. No, Eric has a part of me, as I have of him. I’m carrying his child, and I will always keep pieces of him with me, but not the ones I share with Nick.
No one will ever replace Eric. He will always be the most tragic but self-discovering years of my life.
Nick slept in a little l
onger than I did, and I spent that time soothing my spirit, putting myself in a place that can prepare me for this day. This is the first morning I’ve woken up without a heavy heart. Meeting with the lawyer is the only thing I can really focus on at the moment, and I need to get through that without being a total wreck. Feeling good with the odds of that happening. I step out of the shower and begin doing my makeup. Nothing too heavy, I keep it natural. Next, I work on curling my long hair, making note that it has become unruly and undermanaged. I add a haircut to my mental checklist.
“Good morning, kitten, how are you?” Stepping up behind me, Nick places his hands on my hips and kisses my shoulder. Butterflies go wild in my stomach. Last night was extremely intimate, and to be honest, just the memory of it makes me blush.
“I’m good. You?”
He catches on, looking intensely at me through the bathroom mirror. “You shy, baby?”
Biting my lip, I risk a glance, and my knees nearly buckle. The man—not young man, but all man—looking back at me with so much confidence is intimidating but erotic. “Yeah, I’m just thinking about last night.”
“Mmm, me too, kitten.” Moving my hair to the side, he keeps his eyes on me in the mirror. “I will think about last night often.” Reaching behind me, I grip the hair at the nape of his neck, tilting my head to give him better access. Since I’m in nothing but my panties and bra, his hand roams over my bare stomach, which is still flat under his wandering hands.
“I love you. You know that, right?” I don’t want Nick to think my love for him isn’t there just because of my anxiety and fear over my past.
“I know. I can feel it.”
I smile. Loving that answer. “Good. You sure you’re ready for today?”
Detaching his lips, he removes himself from me and moves to the side to brush his teeth. “Sure am, baby. I’ve met with many lawyers before. You know who Ben is, right?”
I laugh. “True, but I don’t think you’ve had to help him with adopting a child.”
