And immediately she knew the answer of what they represented before she even had the chance to ask the question.
“This one right here,” he said, pointing to the one that also featured a tattoo that said what’s past is prologue. “This was the day I met you at the psychologist’s office. This one”—he pointed to the ribs on his right side—“was the first day I kissed you.” His finger trailed over his body and paused periodically as he explained. “Your sixteenth birthday. The day we moved in together. The last day I saw you. The day I came home off tour to an empty house and my hoodies on the bed.
“I know you hate them, but they were the only connection I had to you, knowing you were underneath them just like I was.”
Tears filled her eyes. He used his thumb to wipe the ones that spilled over away. She was all over his body in the same way he was stamped all over her heart.
“Don’t cry, please.” He tugged on the strings of her hood. “You’re enough, Jenny. You always have been.”
* * *
As much as his dick, which was currently standing at attention, had other plans, Nik quietly slipped out of the large four-poster bed and left Jenny sleeping. There would be time for showing her physically just how much she meant to him, but after the emotional purge she’d gone through the previous night, he thought it best to let her rest.
He walked downstairs and found their bags, still in the hallway where he had left them when they’d arrived. The house was chilly, and he quickly pulled on track pants, a hoodie, and some warm socks. In the living room, as he turned up the thermostat, he found the evidence of how the night had ended. When Jenny had dissolved into tears, he’d brought her back inside and found tissues in the bathroom. Then the two of them had talked for hours in front of the fireplace. She’d finally fallen asleep, her head resting on a cushion on his lap, at around two in the morning.
Carefully, he’d lifted her into his arms and carried her to bed, where he had gently removed her clothes but left her underwear on so she didn’t feel completely exposed. Talking had been good for them. He folded the blankets they’d pulled from the back of the sofa, replaced the cushions, and collected the tissues that had been left on the floor. On the way to make coffee, he dropped them into the garbage.
Once he had coffee and one of the blankets, he opened the sliding doors and stepped out into the cold November sunshine. He headed down to the dock, where four red Muskoka chairs sat facing out over the water and took a seat, putting the blanket around him. A slight mist hovered over the lake, and the call of a loon drifted by. Nik took a sip of the coffee as he planted his feet firmly on the dock. The low-grade headache he’d had for weeks was beginning to lift.
Jenny had no idea how much he’d understood what she was going through. The one thing he’d realized talking to Steve, the TV show producer, was that he’d spent most of his life feeling unwanted. That he didn’t belong anywhere. He lived in a no-man’s land. But where Jenny had gone off to create the life she’d wanted for herself, an action he admired, he’d molded himself into what he thought everyone else had needed.
Now, as he looked over the lake, he knew he didn’t want to be that person forever. He was fed up of dealing with everyone’s disagreements and fallouts. He was frustrated that he didn’t get to make the kind of music he wanted. He didn’t even want to go out on tour again because he needed more time with Jenny to rebuild everything he’d eroded before he left her again feeling vulnerable.
“Hey,” Jenny said roughly as she came to stand in front of him. Her hair was all mussed up, her eyes heavy, her lips still plump from sleep.
His heart thudded solidly in his chest. You love her.
He couldn’t believe she was here, that her very presence was her taking a chance on the two of them, something he would never take for granted ever again.
She wore his hoodie with plaid pajama bottoms she must have brought with her. Her feet were bare, and she hopped from foot to foot, pulling the other blanket he’d folded earlier more tightly around her.
“Come here,” he said, offering his hand.
Carefully, so as not to spill his coffee, she sat on his lap, and he tried not to groan at the delicious way her ass now pressed up against his dick. “Hold this,” he said, handing her his cup while he fixed the blanket so it was wrapped around her toes. “Better?”
“Much.” Jenny took a sip of his coffee then handed the mug back to him before snuggling against his chest.
This was what all of their days should have been like. Waking up together, talking together, doing nothing but sitting in silence together. Between Jenny and the peace of the dock, of being one with nature, he could feel his soul being filled slowly but surely.
“Thank you for taking care of me last night,” Jenny said. “And for this.” She tipped her head in the direction of the lake. “It’s perfect. I mean, I love my work, but sometimes it’s nice to lose all labels, especially when so many of them don’t always fit. Like ‘employee,’ ‘daughter,’ ‘friend,’ ‘student.’”
“I know exactly what you mean. ‘Musician,’ ‘brother,’ ‘celebrity.’ They’ve somehow come to define who I am.” Nik sipped at his coffee. “I don’t know if I want to record another album with the band.” His heart pounded at the admission. It was the first time he said it out loud to anyone, and even as he said it he wasn’t certain it was completely true. “I mean, maybe I do, or maybe I just want to go off and do some other things for a little while. It just feels like I’ve been living my life for everybody else so long that I’ve forgotten who I really am.”
Jenny gave him the one thing he really needed. Silence. But she did wrap herself a little tighter around him and place three kisses on his jaw.
His coffee cooled as they shared it, sitting bundled together and watching the sunrise burn away the mist over the lake. There were no cottages in sight, as per his request. It was completely private, their own little hideaway from the world.
“Who do you want to be, Nik?” she asked.
He ran his fingers along her thigh under the blanket. “That’s the million-dollar question, isn’t it? I know the answer to one thing for sure. I want to be yours, Jenny.” He placed his knuckle beneath her chin to urge her to look up at him. “Everything else is driving me crazy right now. There’s a constant buzzing in my head of shit that needs to get done. But sitting here with you, it’s all silent. I see the woman you’ve become, I see the way you care for those kids, and I want to know her better. And it’s important that you know I love you, even though you can’t say that back to me yet.”
Jenny’s eyes went wide at his words. He ran his thumb over her lip before he kissed her gently, feeling the way she softened against him.
“You asked who I want to be. I want to be the man you say ‘I love you’ to eventually.”
Jenny slid her hand around the back of his neck and wrapped her fingers into his hair, tugging on it gently to bring him closer. “Take me inside and make love to me,” she whispered, her breath warm against his lips.
Nik left the coffee cup and blankets on the dock and stood with her still in his arms. Gently, he walked back into the house, pausing only to grab condoms from the top of his bag, and took her straight up to their bedroom, which was now filled with the most glorious sunlight. He laid her down on the bed, her golden hair spreading out across the pillow.
“Do you know what you do to me?” Nik asked as he stripped out of his clothes and ran his palm along the length of his dick. “You make me so fucking hard that it’s almost unbearable. And when I see you lying there, I can barely believe we found each other again. The last time I ever made love to a woman was May 23rd, 2009. Everything else in between has been a draining distraction, meaningless.” A cycle he’d chased for years until he’d seen sense. But seeing her lying there, looking up at him like he was fucking hero, he regretted every single moment. Yet they had all led him to here.
To this.
To her.
“But you,” he s
aid as he reached for his hoodie and slipped it off over her head. “You fill me up.” He took off her pajama bottoms next. Sometime between putting her to bed and her arrival down at the dock, she’d gotten rid of her underwear. Nik slid his hand along her stomach, between the valley of her breasts to her neck, where he caressed the pulse he found beating fast. “You always were the softness to my hard edges, Jenny.”
Jenny opened her arms to him. “So, come join me then,” she said quietly.
Unable to resist, he crawled onto the bed to join her, then pulled the covers back over the two of them. Jenny ran her fingernails down his spine, which made him shiver. “God, I love it when you do that,” he said, pressing his lips to hers. He didn’t rush, didn’t hurry to the next base or to getting off. Just enjoyed the feel of Jenny’s naked body pressed up against his. He savored the lazy way his fingers stroked up and down her back as he reacquainted himself with her body.
“Nik,” she whispered breathlessly as he rolled onto his back, taking her with him. “Can you feel what you do to me?” She placed her knees on either side of his thighs and sat astraddle.
He sucked in a breath as she slid along the length of his cock, coating it in her wetness. “Show me,” he answered, his voice gruff. Nik ran his hands along her thighs and let his thumb brush her clit, causing her to gasp.
Jenny raised onto her knees. Gripping him firmly in one hand, she slowly lowered herself onto him. Just a fraction of an inch, enough for his head to rub mercilessly against her opening. Unable to do anything else, he watched as she took him further, and as fucking hot as it was, he sat up quickly, placing his hands on either side of her face and kissing her as if his very life depended on it. Because in a way it did. “As incredible as it feels being inside you unprotected, we need a condom, babe. But you should know I’m always safe and get tested ahead of each tour for the insurance company. I have the papers on my phone if you want to see them.”
“I’m on the pill, and I’ve always used condoms, but I’ve never had a reason to get tested. Nik, I—”
“I trust you. More than anyone else in my life . . . I trust you, Jenny. Let me feel every part of you. I want to know what it feels like to come buried inside you. I want to feel how wet you get. Let me,” he pleaded. He placed his hand on her hip and urged her to lift as his other hand lined up his cock with her opening. “Open for me, Jenny. In every way that matters. Let me in.”
With her breasts pressed up against his chest and his hands gripping her ass and holding her close, she lowered back over him. God, she was so wet as she took all of him until he was seated so deep inside her that he could barely breathe. For a moment, she stayed there, pressed tight against his groin. Their hearts pressed against each other so tightly Nik could swear he could feel the beat of hers in time with his.
Jenny wrapped her hands around him and rested her forehead against his. “I didn’t think it was possible for this to get better between us.” Slowly she lifted and slid back down on him, making him groan. “But somehow it has.”
He knew she meant physically, not necessarily emotionally like it was for him, but he pushed it to one side. She was here, and that was all that mattered.
Nik lay back down on the bed, taking her with him, holding her tight against him while he took control, easing in and out of her, holding back from the need to flip her over and take her so he could savor what she was offering him. Connection. Intimacy. Love. He could barely speak. Knew he couldn’t trust his voice. So he kissed her, cradled her head in his hands. His thrusts began to speed up as she began to press down against him.
“Oh. God. Nik,” she gasped, breaking free of his hold to rise above him like the fucking angel she was. She leaned back, her breasts high and proud, nipples tight, and began to ride him.
He watched the way his cock, shining with pre-cum and her own juices, slid inside her. Fuck, he’d never been more turned on.
She squealed as he sat up quickly, wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her back down so they lay facing each other on their sides, her legs still around his waist. Her eyes were heavy with lust, her body flushed with need, need he wanted to take care of.
“You’re beautiful,” he said, pressing his thumb to her clit as he continued to thrust deeply inside her, watching the way she shed her inhibitions to move against him, gripping him, taking him deeper until he groaned from the pressure of it.
“Nik,” she gasped. “Don’t stop, please, I’m—” Her own cry of pleasure cut her off as she clenched against him, her orgasm tensing her entire body.
Reveling in the enormity of it all, he came deep inside her.
CHAPTER TEN
Jenny thought about all the times they made love before they’d flown home as she watched Nik hang the floating shelves in her small apartment. The ones she’d mentioned she’d seen at IKEA that would be perfect in the kitchen, the ones her landlord had agreed she could add but that she had never gotten around to buying and installing. The ones he’d just shown up with when she’d gotten home from work, asking her where she wanted them.
And he’d learned. They weren’t some fancy shelves. They were practical and inexpensive and exactly the ones she’d picked out. More importantly, he’d gone to buy them for her, which had involved borrowing Dred’s Range Rover to bring them home.
It had taken a day for her to reconcile her feelings as she fought the flickering sparks of love that threatened to engulf her if she let them. But the more time she spent with him, the stronger they got.
The mail sat unopened on the small table by the door, and she was at risk of chopping her own finger off because watching Nik’s back flex under his dark Henley was way more interesting than the chicken she’d picked up at the grocery store. As were his shoulders as he slid the final shelf over the floating bracket.
“Less staring, more chopping,” Nik said as he turned to pick up one of the fixings and caught her staring.
Confidently, she held his eyes. “Thousands of metal heads across the world would probably hate me for saying this, but I think I prefer construction-worker Nik to rock-star Nik. It’s like one of those fantasies, you know the ones where a hot handyman comes over to fix the boiler and strips off his shirt and the woman can’t stop drooling over him.”
Nik laughed as he walked toward her. “I think you’re confusing that with porn, babe.”
She tossed the tea towel at him and scoffed in disgust. “I am so not confusing it with porn. First, Kings of Leon are playing, not some bow-chicka-bow-wow soundtrack, and second, if it was porn, there’d be a whole less talking and so much more doing.”
He lunged for her, sliding her hands up inside her cream blouse. “You want more ‘doing’? I can totally get behind that. Or on that. Or under that,” he said as he pressed kisses to the side of her neck, making her shiver and giggle in equal measure.
“Nik,” she gasped. “I was teasing, we need to be over at the Four Seasons Centre for Lexi’s opening night in ninety minutes.”
Nik pulled her close and groaned. “I’m being cock-blocked by Nijinsky, a dead Russian schizophrenic ballet dancer.”
“No. You’re being cock-blocked by me because I really want to see the rest of the guys.”
Nik pouted. “I can be quick, I promise.”
Gently, she shoved him away. “Well, I can’t when I get in bed with you.”
“That could be the sweetest thing you ever said to me.” Nik grinned. “What can I do to help if you aren’t going to let me anywhere near that magical pussy of yours?”
She blushed, couldn’t help it. “Chop veggies. The stir-fry won’t take long to cook.”
Nik began to sing old classics as he chopped. She’d avoided listening to Preload’s music after they’d split up. It had been too painful. But now, with the sound of Nik’s voice filling her apartment, she realized she’d forgotten just how wonderful his singing was. No reverb, just clean crisp notes.
After dinner, Nik insisted on cleaning up. While she waited, she opened
her mail, wondering why she’d scheduled for all her bills to come at the end of the month. It was hard to believe it was nearly December, and she wondered what Nik’s plans were for Christmas.
The final envelope held her attention. It was from her lawyer. She ripped it open, and found another envelope inside addressed to her in her father’s handwriting.
Nik had his back to her as he rinsed the dishes before putting them into the dishwasher.
Quickly, she tore into it before she could back out.
Dear Starburst,
I have no words to express the pain I feel at seeing my name instead of “Dad” at the top of your letter. I know I don’t deserve the privilege and honor of that title, but knowing you no longer use it hurts immeasurably.
This will be my last letter to you, but I needed to take one more chance to make amends before I disappear from your life completely. You see, I am dying and will not live to step outside prison walls again. I was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer two months ago and unfortunately, as a simple internet search will show you, it is one of the most aggressive and least treatable forms of cancer.
My hope in telling you this is not to command sympathy, for I know I deserve none.
But I live daily with regrets. They eat away at the insides of me. In some ways, this diagnosis is a blessing and will put me out of my misery. I worry that if we don’t connect, regret may consume you at some point in the future.
So I encourage you to come see me. Ask me the questions you want to know, however difficult they are, and I will answer them as best I can. Come and yell at me, take any remaining anger and frustration you may still have out on me. I will take everything you wish to throw at me if it means I get to see you one time before I die.
Dad
As she tried to process the letter, everything suddenly felt out of balance. As a victim of his crimes, she couldn’t find an ounce of compassion. But the finality of it was heartbreaking. Questions had haunted her for nearly twenty years. Why had he insisted her mother go first? How had he persuaded so many people to join him? How could he stand there while people drank the poisonous concoctions? When had he planned to get her to drink it? How close had she been to dying before the police had raided the property? Did he still believe the things he had believed back then . . . that a comet was truly going to save them all? That it would kill only those who fell afoul of the cult’s beliefs, leaving the true followers to inherit what was left of the Earth?
Nikan Rebuilt Page 18
