For the Fight

by Leah Ashton

  Lou gasped, and her gaze went soft – just for a second. A nanosecond. But he saw it, before she tugged her hand away.

  She still wants me.

  Oh, and how fucking badly he still wanted her. Needed her.

  How could he have been so fucking stupid?

  “I was young and naïve too,” Nate said, his voice rough and raw. “What we had was so intense. The way I needed you was so intense, Lou – do you remember?”

  She didn’t speak, or nod, but he saw the flicker in her gaze.

  Yes. She did.

  “You were in my thoughts from the moment I woke up. You were everything to me. I was infatuated with you, you must have known that. I couldn’t get enough of you.”

  She shrugged, but it was an unconvincing movement. “That was just sex.”

  “You know it wasn’t.”

  She shook her head, and with that she was clear. “No, I didn’t,” she said. Her voice was soft. “Nate, I was twenty-one. I was every insecure young female stereotype in the book. I did not know that at all.”

  Her words were like a punch to his gut. She’d felt like that and yet still had the courage to say she loved him?

  He felt sick with what he’d done to her, in a way he hadn’t felt back then. He’d been so selfish. So stupid. “I was getting shit from my mates.”

  Lou’s expression was appropriately disgusted at how pathetic that sounded.

  “And my dad,” he continued. “My dad was concerned. That’s exactly how he put it: ‘Nathan, I’m concerned about you and this girl’. He said it wasn’t normal, that it wasn’t healthy. That I was going to put my whole future in jeopardy if I didn’t get over this obsession with you.”

  “Obsession?” Lou repeated, clearly disbelieving. “You were so not obsessed with me.”

  He had to touch her now, and so he did, circling his hands at her waist and yanking her up against him.

  “Oh my god, Lou, how can you think that?” She felt so good against him, her softness against his hardness. Her belly, her breasts, her thighs. “I know you can feel how it is between us, how it still is between us.”

  Although, even that wasn’t accurate. Now, it was different. Maybe because they were older, who knew? But what they had now was even more overwhelming than before, that had him listening at her hotel door, or turning up at her doorstep. Just needing to be with her. Close to her.

  Lou just stood there, letting him hold her against him.

  Her arms hung by her sides, but she had her gaze on him. She wasn’t trying to pull away, but she wasn’t reciprocating either.

  She was just still. Warm. Hot. Lou, in his arms.

  And it felt so good … but not enough. Because he needed her hands on his body. He needed her to be as overwhelmed, as obsessed as he felt.

  So, he needed to keep on talking.

  “I was obsessed with you, and everyone I knew had never seen me like that. I was distracted when I wasn’t with you. At work I got pulled aside once. They were worried about me, thought something bad was going on in my personal life. That got back to my dad through his contacts, and he was unimpressed.”

  Oh, it had been a mistake to grab Lou. Telling her this with her body pressed against him was so revealing. He could feel her body tense and flinch as she reacted to the idiotic decisions of his past.

  “I guess I let all that crap percolate in my brain. At first, I told everyone to fuck off, you know? Because I wasn’t going to break up with you just on their say-so. Of course, I wasn’t. And then—”

  “And then I told you I loved you,” Lou said. She looked him right in the eye as she said it, exactly as she had all those years ago.

  Just like that, he was there again. Twelve years ago, with Lou collapsed naked against his chest, their breathing still coming fast and hard after the fucking miracle that was sex with Lou. And then she’d levered herself up, her hands on his shoulders, her hair tumbling down over her breasts and arms. He remembered thinking how amazing she was. How he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

  I love you, Nate, she’d said. She’d said it clearly, and firmly. Like she’d put a lot of thought into it but was now going all in. And of course, it was a big decision for her. A huge decision.

  But he hadn’t said a word.

  He’d kissed her again. Then he’d crawled between her legs and made her come with his mouth and then she’d fallen asleep and he’d just laid staring at her for hours.

  Then, just before dawn, he’d kissed her on her lips as she slept, and said good bye, and sorry, and thought about writing a note but was too gutless to do any of that.

  She’d slept through it all, and then he’d been gone.

  Gone from her life forever.

  But now she was in his arms.

  “The way I felt when you told me that …” Nate said. “It was huge. I thought so many things. Panic, and fear, and also how much I liked you – and what did that mean? I was twenty-two and my whole life was ahead of me, and here I was wrapped up in this girl and my whole life had just narrowed down to you. And I kind of did know it wasn’t healthy, and I was too dumb to think that maybe I could work through that. That I could balance how I felt with you with the rest of my life. Come up for air occasionally but still be with you.”

  He shook his head, because he was thinking aloud, for the first time really unpacking what had happened all those years ago. Understanding his decisions and not focusing on the relief of his dad and his friends when he’d gone back to being just Nate. Nate who was always available to go out with his mates. Nate whose single-minded obsession was work and not Luella Brayshaw.

  “It wasn’t until yesterday that I questioned what I did,” he said honestly.

  Lou shut her eyes at this admission, and took a deep breath.

  “You thought you did the right thing,” she said. “You’d hurt me but it was for the best, right?”

  “I’m so sorry, Lou,” he said, and his voice cracked and his throat felt strangled.

  “But why do it the way you did?” she said, her gaze locked with his again. “Why without a single word. Without one reply to my text messages, or my phone calls?”

  He smiled, because it was so fucking obvious now. “Because if I’d done that, it would’ve started again. I would’ve been back the second I heard your voice. The second you let me see you again.”

  Lou dropped her forehead against his chest, and everything in him was focused on her in his arms. How her waist felt beneath the spread of his fingers, how her breasts felt against the wall of his chest, how he could feel the warmth of her breathing through the thin cotton of his T-shirt.

  He didn’t move. He barely breathed.

  She was thinking something over. He knew she was. And it was important.

  He just needed to wait. To give her time.

  He had no idea what she was thinking – to throw him out? To yell and scream at him the way he deserved?

  Or something else? The something else that kept her in his arms. That had allowed her body to settle subtly against him as they’d been talking. Because now she was pressed as close against him as was possible with clothes on. And having her close like this felt more natural, more perfect, than just about anything.

  But it could be over at any moment.

  As this time, it was Lou’s decision to make. Not his.

  Because, he knew, utterly and completely that he wasn’t walking away from Luella Brayshaw again.

  Chapter Fifteen

  What was she doing?

  Lou breathed in Nate’s scent as she stood close against him. He smelled like laundry detergent and the same deodorant he’d worn twelve years ago and just simply like Nate. Delicious, and sexy, and overwhelming.

  I was obsessed with you.

  Oh, those words were so seductive. They could so easily override logic and common sense, and soften the memories of the past.

  If she let them.

  That was the thing, right?

  She was in contr
ol here. She absolutely knew it.

  Nate was waiting for her. Waiting for her to react to all he’d said. To tell him to go to hell – as she knew she should. Or … something else.

  I was obsessed with you.

  See, that wasn’t the same as love, for all that Nate had declared they’d had more than sex between them.

  He hadn’t mentioned love at all.

  But then, hadn’t she already told him she’d simply been infatuated too? Maybe she had been right in how she’d minimised their relationship after he’d left, telling herself it was puppy love, not really love. Whatever.

  Maybe she’d just been obsessed too, the way she absolutely was again now.

  Because honestly, she was obsessed with Nate. From the second she’d seen him on that train until right this moment. To believe anything else would just be a lie.

  That obsession was constantly in the air between them. It was in everything they said, everything they did.

  Acting on that would be so easy. So natural. So inevitable.

  But at what risk?

  Nate’s fingers flexed against her waist. His thumbs were just above her hip bones, and she knew he knew how sensitive she was in that little hollow beneath them. If she let him, he could make her feel so good. She could make him feel so good, too.

  They could feed each other’s obsession.

  Would that be so bad?

  She lifted her head, and Nate’s gaze was there waiting for her. She tried to work out what he was thinking, and some of it was obvious.

  Regret – and she believed he felt it now. He felt like absolute shit for what he’d done, and belated or not, he deserved to feel that way.

  Also, lust. But that was kind of a default with them, wasn’t it?

  There was more too, but she suddenly didn’t want to, or couldn’t make herself analyse that. It felt too complicated, too outside this neat new concept that was being simply obsessed.

  Being obsessed with Nate and him with her – that put them on equal footing.

  No risk. So much reward.

  No vulnerability like saying I love you all those years ago.

  Being obsessed could justify reckless behaviour.

  Like pushing herself up onto her toes, and pressing her mouth against his.

  He groaned, maybe she did too, it really didn’t matter, because they were kissing and it was so, so very good.

  Her hands were greedy now, after waiting so patiently by her sides for so long. So now they grabbed at Nate’s clothing, shoving up under the fabric of his T-shirt to slide up the furrow of his spine, and to scrape her fingernails lightly and not so lightly against his skin.

  His lips were hot against hers, their tongues tangled, and no matter how his mouth slanted against hers it was all amazing. Good, great, like no other kiss she’d experienced. Nate was like nobody else.

  His hands were greedy too, cupping her backside through her jeans, grinding her against his erection in a way that made her gasp and go liquid between her thighs.

  At some point she was pressed against the wall but then he was murmuring against her ear, “A bed maybe, this time?”

  And she must have nodded or gestured in the vague direction of her bedroom, because suddenly they were there, and Nate had scooped her up and practically thrown her onto her bed, his huge body following closely behind.

  He shoved her bra up above her breasts, her T-shirt too, and then his mouth was on her nipples, nipping and kissing and sucking and oh fuck it felt remarkable.

  She squirmed beneath him, unhappy that his clothes were in the way, although she kind of liked the abrasion of the fabric of his jeans and hers against her core as she rubbed herself against him.

  He reared up to yank off her T-shirt, and in that moment, he was lit by only the moonlight that pushed through her closed bedroom blinds and the residue of the hallway light given neither of them had thought to turn on a light in her room.

  His body was beautiful, and heavier with muscle than in his twenties, a combination of years of hard work and simply maturity, as at twenty-two he hadn’t been the man he was now. Lou pressed a hand against his chest when he would’ve otherwise laid on top of her again, and his eyes went wide.

  “You want to stop?” he asked, with what could only be described as horror in his gaze.

  Lou laughed. “No,” she said, and then she moved until she was kneeling in front of him on the mattress, and then she reached out and placed her palm flat against his heart.

  Nate went still as her other hand joined the first and then slowly she slid her hands down his body, her fingers discovering the curves and undulations of his musculature. His skin was smooth and so, so warm. His body stunning.

  “You’re the same, but different,” Lou murmured.

  Nate leaned forward as her fingers reached the waistband of his jeans, his breath hot against her neck, her ear. “You’re so beautiful,” he said. “I can’t believe I was so fucking stupid, Lou, that I—”

  She leaned back and pulled her hands away. “No, Nate,” she said. “Just don’t, okay?”

  She didn’t need reminding of his rejection, no matter how prettily he’d justified it, not now when she was about to be naked in his arms.

  This was about being reckless, being obsessed in the now – not being distracted by the hurt of the past.

  And as if to remind herself, she grabbed the edges of the T-shirt that had worked its way back down over her breasts, and tugged it up and over her head, her bra following close behind it.

  “Lou …” Nate breathed, looking his fill just as she had only moments before. This was probably the moment she should feel self-conscious, but she didn’t. Not at all. It just all felt so good with Nate, the way he touched her, the way he looked at her.

  He reached for her again, his fingers curling into the waistband of her jeans, and then somehow, she was on her back and her jeans were being shimmied away. Then his breath was hot against the satin of her knickers, his fingers sliding just under the edge of the elastic, but no further.

  “This okay?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said. Begged, really. “Please,”

  Then the satin was gone and his broad shoulders had spread her legs as he settled between them.

  “Shit, Lou, I missed this.”

  And she was way too far gone to tell him off for mentioning the past, and honestly this wasn’t really the time as the moment his tongue touched her clit … oh fuck …

  His tongue knew exactly what she liked, how hard, how soft, how everything. As her insides swirled and tightened with sensation, one big hand cupped her arse and the other was – oh my god, that was new – at her core and then he slid two fingers inside her wetness just as he sucked hard on her clit. Just like that she was coming hard, her butt coming off the mattress as her heels dug into the sheets.

  When the waves of her orgasm had begun to dissipate and she was capable of controlling her limbs, she propped herself up onto her elbows to look down her body at Nate, who still lay between her legs, his breath still fanning her sensitive skin.

  It was incredibly hot to have him like that, her legs still akimbo around his shoulders, the sheer size difference between them both juxtaposing his strength and power and her supposed vulnerability in this position.

  But she didn’t feel vulnerable. At least, not physically. Just like she had in the hotel room last night, she felt powerful with Nate like this. He made her feel powerful, in the way he responded to her, and the way he so obviously took pleasure in the way she responded to him.

  On cue, he smiled. A sexy, devastating smile, that had her reaching down to tug at his shoulders and urge him up her body for her kiss. She could taste herself on him, and she luxuriated under his weight as they kissed and kissed, his hands sliding up and down her sides, shaping her waist and hips and butt.

  Then she pushed on his chest again. “Onto your back,” she said between kisses, and when he was, she traced her way down his sternum and belly with her tongue, t
hen smiled against his skin when he groaned as she reached the button of his jeans.

  He helped her tug them off, then his boxers, and then finally she held him in her hands, her fingers encircling his cock as she licked her way around the tip.

  But before she could take him into her mouth he was grasping at her shoulders.

  “Lou, fuck that feels so good but I don’t want to come in your mouth tonight and honey fuck I will if you do that.”

  So instead she straddled his body, and he kissed her again and again as she reached between them both to guide him where she was hot and wet and so ready for him.

  She hissed as she slid herself onto him, loving how he stretched her, amazed at how desperately she’d needed to be filled by him, needed to have him like this: so close, so hot, so right.

  She sat up on him, her hair loose now having lost its tie who knew when, and it cascaded down her shoulders. She closed her eyes, just giving herself a moment to enjoy this, to feel this: how good it felt to have Nate’s cock buried deep inside her, how powerful she felt to know how desperately Nate wanted to move – but that he was waiting for her. He was watching her from hooded eyes, letting her take her time, but she could see the tension in his jaw, could hear the need in his harsh breathing.

  Hell, she could hear the need in her breathing, she could feel her need in the way her body vibrated around him, in how her hands gripped his shoulders tight.

  “Nate,” she whispered.

  Then finally, she moved.

  He gave her a moment – like, literally moments, to ride him slow, to roll her hips the way she knew they both liked, before his hands dug into her waist and his words were harsh and desperate. “Lou – please, can I …”

  She got to smile the devastating smile now as she nodded in response.

  “Yes,” she said. “Please.”

  And his desperation was so sexy as he flipped their positions. She wrapped her legs around his hips and held on as he slammed inside her again and again, murmuring praise and encouragement in her ear as he fucked her.

  “You feel so good, baby, you’re so fucking perfect …”

  Then, he pressed his thumb against her clit and she was coming all over again, her body breaking up into a thousand pieces as he groaned in her ear and spent himself inside her.