For the Fight

by Leah Ashton

  Afterwards, he rolled onto his back, dragging her along with him, so she lay curled against his chest.

  Together, their breathing slowed and eventually, their skin cooled.

  Then, without a word, Nate drew the sheets up and over their bodies.

  And together they fell asleep.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nate didn’t fall asleep.

  Instead, he lay still as Lou relaxed against his chest, and listened as her breathing slowed into the steady cadence of slumber.

  A few minutes after that, he reluctantly slid out from under her. She was so soft and warm and perfect against him, it seemed madness to extricate himself, but then, he was here for a reason.

  And the reason had not been to spill his guts and then have mind-blowing sex with Lou. But he couldn’t regret either.

  It’d been true what he’d told Lou. He’d never questioned his decision to walk away from her until now. He’d hated himself for how he did it, but he’d always softened it with the supposedly knowledge it was for the best. A difficult decision, but the right one.

  But now, tonight, he’d truly realised how wrong it had been.

  How immature a decision it had been. How weak.

  And how obvious it was now why he’d kept tabs on Lou for all these years. Quite simply, he’d missed her.

  To be with her again like this, to be in her bedroom like this as she snuggled beneath the sheets in her sleep felt like a miracle. A miraculous opportunity for a do-over that he hadn’t even realised he so desperately needed.

  But – he wasn’t stupid.

  Lou was understandably wary around him. He didn’t understand entirely why she’d slept with him again, other than she wanted too. He fully expected her to push him away again tomorrow morning, but he was going to work on that.

  He just needed her to understand that—

  Understand what?

  Here, things got a bit fuzzy.

  Nate pushed himself to his feet, and busied himself with the reason he wasn’t sleeping – he needed to go check over the house. He pulled on his boxers, then padded on bare feet through the tiny house, checking each door, each window.

  As he’d expected, everything was locked, and the house was a secure as a nineteenth century weatherboard cottage could be. Which was to say, should the Notechi really wish to get in, they wouldn’t have any trouble at all. However – Nate would definitely hear them coming. There was no unlocked door to slip through, or window to slide open.

  Nate switched off the hallway and lounge room lights they’d left on and headed back to Lou’s bedroom. She still slept, although she’d rolled onto her back, one arm flung across the side of the bed where he should be lying. Her hair was a banner across her pillow, much longer than when they’d been dating, and darker, appearing almost ebony against the crisp white of the linen in the moonlight.

  So, should he hear the Notechi anywhere near Lou’s property or breaking in, Nate’s plan was to call Elite SWAT, and then do everything he could to keep her safe until they arrived.

  Not exactly the perfect plan, but then he didn’t have a CPP team, or surveillance, or even a firearm. Australian gun laws didn’t allow him to just take his firearm home with him, and honestly, a tactical rifle wasn’t something you could carry around in public, anyway. But, he did have a flick knife with him, in the backpack he’d just retrieved from Lou’s living room, although it wouldn’t be a hell of a lot of help against a bullet.

  Still, it was something.

  And he noticed Lou had a baseball bat propped against her dressing table, just as she had in her dodgy old share house bedroom. He remembered her shrugging when he’d commented on it back then: Mum had a few shady boyfriends over the years. Figured if they ever tried to hurt Mum or me, it might come in handy.

  Fortunately, Lou’s mum appeared to have dispatched all shady romantic interests before the baseball bat became necessary, but Nate had to commend Lou’s thinking – both then, and now. It might come in handy, indeed.

  But, most likely not.

  Logically, it still made zero sense that anyone would come after Lou or him. It made much more sense that the shooter had deliberately missed Lou, and that the whole thing had been some stupid bikie gang idea of a show of strength. Probably aimed more at looking tough to the other OMCGs, rather than attempting to intimidate Elite SWAT. Which was a pointless pursuit, anyway.

  Killing a police officer was about as stupid as it got, and there was no way the Notechi wanted the wrath of the WA Police Force descending upon them.

  Surely.

  Still. Nate still felt twitchy.

  So, when he climbed back into bed with Lou, he didn’t sleep.

  He watched her sleep. And he kept his flick knife beneath his pillow.

  Nate woke Lou just after five o’clock.

  “What time is it?” she mumbled sleepily, rubbing at her eyes.

  “Early,” he confirmed. “Want to have a shower with me?”

  She’d barely nodded in acquiescence when he’d scooped her up in his arms and carried her the short distance down the hall to her bathroom.

  “Wha—?” she asked, when he placed her in front of the shower, then reached past her to flick on the taps.

  She turned in a little circle as he watched her notice the fresh towels he’d retrieved from her linen cupboard, and that the small space was already warm from the heat lamp he’d turned on fifteen minutes ago.

  “I’ve been awake for a while,” he explained. In truth, he’d been going a bit mental just watching her sleep and counting the hours until he could reasonably wake her up. A night of admiring how beautiful she was in the moonlight – and pacing the house to check for marauding Notechis – had driven him crazy. His head was full of the need to protect this woman who slept so soundly beside him – and also the need to have her.

  But he couldn’t fully define what have her meant. Six hours of ruminating on what he was going to say to her this morning had achieved absolutely nothing. But he did know he’d need to move fast – sleepy Lou was less likely to kick him out of her house – and her life – as quickly as wide-awake Lou.

  “Do you have a six o’clock start today?” she asked, as he gestured that the water was warm enough now and she could step into the shower.

  “Nope,” he said. He had today off actually, and tomorrow, in the lead up to night shift over the weekend.

  Otherwise he never would’ve deliberately stayed awake the way he had, knowing he’d have to potentially handle a firearm the next day. He had all day to sleep once Lou was safely at Elite SWAT HQ.

  “So, you woke me up in the middle of the night because …?”

  Nate pulled the glass shower door shut behind himself. The shower stall was perfectly proportioned to the cottage – it was tiny – which perfectly suited Nate. They both stood beneath the bite of the water, shoulders bumping together.

  “Because I wanted to have a shower with you,” he said. “And celebrate not being murdered by the Notechi.”

  Lou smiled as she held her face up to the spray, her eyes shut as water streamed over her. “Isn’t that my joke?” she teased, then added, “I suppose that is worth celebrating.”

  Nate pumped some soap out of the bottle in the shelf on the wall, and rubbed his hands together into a lather.

  “Need some help getting clean?” he asked, and Lou’s eyes popped open. He pantomimed soaping up an hourglass shape in demonstration.

  “That’s super cheesy, Nate,” she said, laughing.

  “Nope,” he corrected. “It’s genius. You get clean, I get to grope you. We all win.”

  She laughed again, but nodded amongst her giggles. “Sure,” she said, even as she shook her head.

  He started at her shoulders, the only part of her body he’d felt okay about caressing last night in her sleep without being a total sleaze. She sighed as he massaged the muscles there, her eyes sliding shut. “That feels good,” she said, turning her back to him and lifting her now we
t hair off her back and rearranging it to fall down her front and give him free access.

  “I’m surprised I slept so well,” she said. “Maybe I’m not so worried about the Notechi as I thought I was.”

  Nate’s soapy hands slid from her shoulders to trace matching looping trails down either side of her spine. She was pliant beneath his touch, letting her body shift naturally under the pressure of his hands.

  “Or maybe you just felt safe with me here,” Nate said, and immediately Lou went still.

  “Maybe,” she said stiffly. “Or maybe I knew, deep down, E-SWAT were correct, and there is no threat.”

  To be honest, Nate had come to this conclusion himself at about three in the morning. The longer he sat in the dark waiting for a threat that seemed increasingly less likely to arrive, the more it seemed nuts to disregard the advice of the organisation Nate literally trusted with his life each day.

  “Or maybe you just felt safe with me here,” he repeated, knowing he was being stubborn, but suddenly needing Lou to acknowledge she’d felt protected. That she’d needed him here, in the same way he’d needed to protect her.

  She turned around, and his hands fell back to his sides. “No,” she said firmly. “I don’t think that’s the case at all.”

  “Really?” he said, and barked out a false laugh. “You would’ve slept just as soundly if you’d been alone last night?”

  Her gaze narrowed. “Yes,” she said. “I didn’t need you here at all. If you remember, I didn’t want you here at all.”

  Just like that, it was no longer clear if they were talking about fear, or the Notechi at all.

  “I don’t believe you,” Nate said.

  Lou shrugged. “Believe what you want.”

  “Really?” Nate said, stepping closer, knowing he was being a bastard by crowding her against the white wall tiles, but needing her to tell the truth.

  He didn’t touch her, but he was close enough to see the drops of water snagged on her eyelashes. “How about I believe you were relieved when I turned up on your doorstep last night. That I believe you were fucking scared but too stubborn to tell me, and too proud to admit it to Elite SWAT.”

  Lou shook her head, and she lifted her chin to hold his gaze. “No,” she said.

  Nate’s gaze traced Lou’s face – her expressive blue eyes, her strong nose, her stubborn jaw she’d lifted in defiance.

  “How about I believe you’re strong and brave,” he said, his voice low and husky now. He watched as Lou’s mouth dropped open in surprise. “That I believe I’ve never seen anyone as amazing as you were on that train yesterday. The way you stood up to Carey. The way you wouldn’t cower when he could’ve shot you. The way you considered everyone else’s safety before your own. You’re even doing it right now – it’s why you’re not staying with your mum, or a friend, even though being alone last night fucking terrified you.”

  “Nate—”

  “Lou, it doesn’t make you less strong or less brave to want me here with you.”

  Her eyes flashed with annoyance. “That’s ridiculous,” she said. “Of course it does. Wanting you here is not good, Nate. It doesn’t make me strong. It makes me feel useless, helpless. Vulnerable. I don’t like it. I hate it.”

  Her gaze was travelling all over his naked body, darting everywhere, settling nowhere. She’d curled her fingers into fists she kept at her side.

  Yet, she didn’t move away. Sure, he was standing close to her, but she had space to step around him. She was far from trapped. Yet she stayed. Close. With Nate.

  He stepped even closer, the water hard against his back and lowered his head so he spoke into her ear.

  “Wanting me here is bad, Lou?” he clarified. “Or just simply wanting me?”

  She closed her eyes and rested the back of her head against the tiled wall. “You are so damn smug, Nate. So sure of yourself.”

  He arranged his lips into something like a smile. “I know you want me, Lou.”

  Lou snorted, and kept her attention on the ceiling.

  “But I don’t want you to hate wanting me. I don’t want that at all,” he said. “Last night, and the night before – you wanted me against your better judgement. At the hotel it was a once-off. You told me that. Last night, you told yourself it was definitely the last time, right?”

  She looked at him directly now. “It can’t happen again.”

  He looked her up and down. Slowly, and deliberately. “Yet here you are, naked, with me.”

  “You caught me at a weak moment,” she protested but with the ghost of a smile.

  And her gaze had wandered now too, drifting from his face, to his chest, to his belly, then lower.

  “Nate!” she said, as if she was surprised.

  He laughed. “As I said, Lou, here you are, naked, with me. Seems a pretty obvious reaction, don’t you think?”

  She leaned back against the tiles again, once again staring at the ceiling, biting at her lip and taking deep breaths as if she was trying to focus. Remind herself why this was a bad idea.

  But honestly, Nate couldn’t work out right now how leaning forward to kiss the side of her neck was anything but the best idea. So, he did it.

  He kissed her soft, damp skin, just below her jaw. And beneath his lips, he felt her pulse accelerate.

  “Nate,” she said, “how do you do this? I was literally just telling you – telling me, I don’t know – that this can’t happen again. That I don’t want it to happen again. That I hate how wanting you makes me feel.”

  “Do you want me to stop?” he asked against her skin. “You know I will if you want me to.”

  She nodded.

  Immediately he lifted his head and stepped away, disappointment hollow and heavy in his gut.

  “I’m sorry Lou—” he began. He’d been so sure she—

  “No!” she said, pushing herself away from the wall and flush against him, her hands flying up to snag behind his neck. “I meant, I know you’ll stop if I want. Of course, I know that, Nate, but right now I don’t want you to. No matter how much I hate it.”

  He still didn’t like that, he didn’t want hate having anything to do with what they had together.

  But she was naked and pressed against him, and now she was tugging him down to her lips – and suddenly it all just felt like semantics. Hey, wanting was good. This was fucking good.

  Her mouth was desperate beneath his, her kisses immediately deep and intense. She clung to him, pressed all the way down his body, his hardness pressed against her belly, the water still at his back.

  He realised, very belatedly, that he was hogging all the water, and had been for some time. So, as he kissed her, he turned them both until it was Lou beneath the warmth of the water. Then, after he shaped the curve of her shoulders, waist and butt, he gripped her hips, breaking their kiss temporarily.

  “Turn around,” he murmured, and she did.

  She pressed her back against him so the jets of water sprayed her chest and arms, and Nate’s hands followed the journey of the water, cupping her breasts and sliding down her belly, slowly, slowly, until his fingers slid between her legs. She closed her eyes and rolled her head back against his shoulder, and he couldn’t think of anything much more perfect than this. Than Lou – so perfect, so sexy, so trusting.

  He explored her, loving how the water flowed in rivulets between her folds as he caressed her, before settling his fingers at her clit and circling the nub the way she liked. He loved how she sighed, and gasped and moaned as he touched her, as her body grew hotter and tighter, and as her hips began to shift against his touch, urging him on, wanting more.

  “What do you want?” he asked, as he kissed his way along the curve of her neck.

  “You,” she breathed. “Please.”

  “Can you be more specific?” he asked, as his fingers on one hand pinched her nipple, and the other between her legs moved faster, harder.

  She pushed her butt against his cock in response but he was enjoying this too m
uch. Enjoying witnessing Lou wanting him, and losing herself in that want. She was so fucking beautiful, so perfect.

  “My fingers?” he prompted. She was clearly capable of only nodding her head urgently at this stage, because the moment his pushed two fingers inside her heat, she was gone – her orgasm gripping his fingers as her hips undulated, her sighs and sounds of release rising louder than the beat of the water.

  He wrapped his arm tight around her waist, anchoring her to him as the aftershocks faded, until eventually she lay still against him.

  She looked up, and met his gaze.

  Her hair was slicked back from her face, and her eyes were wide and clear, her lips a deep pink. She looked sated. Beautiful. But also, unsure.

  Before she could say whatever she intended to say, he kissed her.

  But this was a different kiss.

  She was naked in his arms, but this wasn’t about sex or his need for her that was absolutely raw and primal. This kiss was about the vulnerability she’d spoken of before that she hated. That supposedly made her feel weak, and useless.

  But the vulnerability Nate was feeling now had nothing to do with the Notechi – which he was pretty sure Lou hadn’t been talking about either. This was a vulnerability he felt deep down inside himself. Beneath all the layers of his identity – of being elite at what he did with a single-minded focus. Of making his father proud. Of being the man he’d always felt he’d wanted to be. That he’d expected himself to be.

  Underneath all that was the young man who’d lost himself in Lou and – he realised now – had remained lost.

  For all these years he thought he’d walked away from the relationship that threatened his future, but he hadn’t done that at all.

  He’d walked away from the relationship that had exposed him in a way he couldn’t handle. That had felt too big, too intense, too impossible to fit into the life he’d planned.

  He’d been such a fucking idiot.

  Because it was only now with Lou that he fully understood what he’d thrown away.