Chapter Eighteen
As Nateleft the station for Bella’s, his mom summoned him. He didn’t have time for this today, not when he’d been on his way to see Bella. But if he ignored his mother, she’d keep on at Gabby and his cell until he responded.
Nate pulled up outside his mother’s ranch-style home and took a moment before he went inside. He’d grown up in this house and it still looked the same as the day his dad died. Mom kept everything like a shrine to their father.
Not even Matt had been able to make her change the paint color or fix the sagging porch.
He climbed out of his car. Knowing you were walking into the lion’s den didn’t make it any easier to get your ass in there. Mom had been trying to get him to come around since the party the other night. Best guess was that she needed an ally in her one-woman battle against Pippa. It didn’t matter how many times he refused to take sides or told her the battle was already lost. Mom kept right on fighting.
The entire thing made his teeth ache. Matt loved Pippa and they were good to each other and for each other. Mom only saw the loss of her influence over Matt. Nate had no doubt anyone who married into the Evans clan would be met with the same reception as Pippa. Pippa just had the misfortune to be the first.
As he opened the back door, Mom sat at the kitchen table waiting.
She went through the usual inquiries about his job, the people he worked with, a couple of acquaintances. And then she got down to business.
“So you’re going to be an uncle.” She tittered as she bustled around making coffee. “Quite the change for you.”
“I think it’s great.” The sooner he got this over with, the sooner he could go.
“Isn’t it?” Mom beamed, gave a little sigh, and turned her back. “I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever be a grandparent.”
“Now you are.” Nate added sugar to his coffee.
“Of course, it would have been nice to know beforehand.” And here it came. “Not to find out with everyone else.”
“It’s great news, Mom.” He didn’t know why he still bothered. Hoping against hope that reason would one day prevail.
“Hmm.” Mom took the seat opposite him and sipped her coffee. “I hope Pippa isn’t going to be one of those women who tries to raise a baby and hold down a career.”
His head throbbed. It was like Mom wanted to hold on to her anger and her heartbreak. She clung to them tenaciously, kept the wound fresh. Damn, and people wondered why he’d never married. This, right here, could drive a man out of his mind.
Nate missed his dad. He wished like hell Dad was still alive. Dad wouldn’t have wanted any of them to be stuck in some kind of grief loop.
“Lots of women have children and careers,” he said.
“And the children suffer.” Mom’s eyes flashed fire. “Nobody thinks about the children.”
With Matt married, Eric shuttling between here, Denver, and Salt Lake, Isaac still MIA, and Mom and Jo never able to have a reasonable conversation, it left him as Mom’s go-to child.
He couldn’t do it today or any day. But especially not with the news he’d gotten from Gabby. “Look, Mom, I gotta go.”
She looked up, her face folded into injured lines. “Do you have plans? I thought you might stay for dinner.”
It still got to him, that sense that he let her down all the time. Even though she never knew the worst of it because Matt had protected her from it. “I can’t, Ma. I need to go past Bella’s to see that she’s all right.”
“Bella?” Mom’s eyes narrowed. “What’s wrong with Bella?”
“Official business. I can’t say.” His job was good for some things. He bent and kissed her on the cheek. He loved his mother, but he couldn’t be her bitching board today. “I’ll call you and maybe we can have dinner during the week.”
“Okay.”
She slumped at the kitchen table, a sad, lonely figure. She did it to herself. He knew that, and Eric hammered the point home whenever he was in town. It still didn’t alleviate the guilt. Her thing with Pippa had nothing to do with Pippa, which made it doubly frustrating. If Mom could let go of her resentment long enough, she’d find an ally and friend in Pippa. With the new baby on the way, Pippa would need help.
He stopped with his hand on the door. “Call Pippa, Mom. Tell her how happy you are and offer to help her.”
“She doesn’t want my help.”
“How do you know that?” He dug his fingers into the wood to keep his tone civil. “You never ask. You’re always getting angry at her about one thing or another.”
Mom jerked her spine straight. “I am not the one who gets angry, Nathaniel.”
God help him. “I’ll call you.”
The new information on Adam festered as he drove to Bella’s. The situation had escalated and he needed to get Bella to understand without panicking. It might help if he could keep his own nagging worry down to a simmer. He wanted to tuck her someplace safe until this was over.
He scanned Bella’s street as he turned into it. No sign of a silver Lexus, and he breathed a small sigh of relief. He counted all the vehicles as he passed them, made sure he knew who they belonged to.
Maybe Adam aka Aaron had gotten the message and moved on. It happened. Sometimes.
* * *
Bella sent a text to Liz before starting her Wii. Not being much of a dancer, she’d never take her moves out in public, but with Just Dance pounding away in her living room, she could let her inner wild woman free. If anyone asked, she always said she did it for exercise, but she really liked letting it all hang out until her muscles burned and her lungs demanded she take a load off.
She’d hesitated before inviting Liz, but then done it anyway. Liz had no filters, true, but she also didn’t judge people, and Liz certainly had an inner wild woman. And an outer wild woman too.
First, though, she checked to make sure her doors and windows were all locked. Although she hadn’t had a message from Adam in days, in part courtesy of her new cell-phone number. She really didn’t look forward to explaining all this to her family. The easiest, and most cowardly way, would be to send them an email to explain why she had changed all her coordinates.
Unfortunately, the picture forming in her mind wasn’t pretty. Nana would have a shit fit and then lecture her about men and bars. In the next breath, she would go on and on about her settling down. How the hell she could find a nice guy at the same church social dating pool she’d fished dry years ago, Nana couldn’t say. A Christmas alone had seemed like such a great break from routine. A chance to do something different. Be someone different.
She selected her favorite song and hit Play.
Mom would cry and Dad would exhaust himself trying to appease her, Nana, and Mom, and make everything okay in their world again.
This was the other reason she liked to let fly with her Just Dance. You couldn’t very well think and follow the dance routines at the same time. With Bella, one definitely messed with the other. So she stopped the thinking, punched up the volume, and found her groove.
It took her a while to register the pounding on the door. Pausing in midsong, she ran and whipped the door open. “You changed your mind.”
“Shit, Bella, the music is so loud—” Nate’s hot gaze swept her from head to toe. “What the hell are you wearing?”
Bella tried to use the door as a shield because finding your groove demanded the right sort of outfit. In her case, booty shorts and a crop top. “I thought you were Liz.”
“Nope.” He pushed the door wider. His voice dropped deeper. “And you really should check before you answer the door.”
“I locked it.” The look in his eyes dragged what little breath she had left right out of her.
“Good.” He stepped into her entrance hall. His gaze made it back to hers, and her mouth dried. She’d seen that look on his face before, just not directed at her. Nate Evans on the prowl.
She crossed her arms in front of her. They didn’t cover up much, but it made her feel a little less exposed. She shivered.
Nate shut the door with a soft snick and locked it behind him. “I gotta say, babe. I’m struggling for words here.”
“I was dancing.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Is there something you wanted?” Damn, shit, bugger! That sounded exactly like a come-on.
Nate thought so too, because his eyes smoldered. “I actually came here to talk to you.” He shook his head. “But that’s not gonna happen with you prancing around all covered in sweat and nearly naked.”
“Talk to me about what?”
His jaw tightened. “Babe.”
Her belly dropped in a whoosh of heat. Words formed but darted away before she could say them. Some women would have something sexy to say in return, a sassy comeback to bring him to his knees. But she stood there, like he’d planted her in the quicksand of her own longing. “I should get dressed.”
Really? Really! Dr. Childers threw up her hands and left Bella’s head, slamming the door behind her.
“Your call.” Nate’s stillness prickled along her skin. “I’m really partial to what you’re almost wearing right now.”
Nate stepped closer.
Bella held her ground.
He traced the line of her shoulder with his fingertips. “I came here to talk.”
“You did?” Her eyelids grew heavy as she watched his thick, blunt fingertip trail the edge of her top to the curve of her breast.
“Bella, this shit is getting out of hand.” His fingers moved across the swell of her breasts.
Bella’s nipples tightened in response.
His other hand slid behind her nape. “I can’t seem to stop thinking about you.”
Some garbled response that sounded vaguely like an agreement came out of her mouth.
“Tell me to get the hell outta here, babe.” His fingers pressed into her nape, urging her closer.
“I can’t.” The truth of that resonated through her. She’d wanted this man for far too long. Craved the hunger she read on his face. She stepped into him.
He sucked in a deep breath. “I want you.”
Bella slid her hands up and over his shoulders. His coat whispered to the ground. Her heart thundered in her ears. “Stay.”
“Last chance.” His head dipped.
Bella fastened her hands in his silky hair and tugged. “Duly noted.”
On a groan, he fastened his mouth on hers. Sweeping his tongue between her parted lips possessively, his mouth took hers.
Bella surrendered to the inevitable. She stopped second-guessing, questioning, and tiptoeing through her life. She wanted Nate, and by some miracle, he wanted her. Only a stupid idiot walked away from this much hot in her life. Satisfaction blazed through her as she returned his kiss, pushing her breasts against his hard chest.
He freed his mouth from hers. “Be sure, Bella.”
She wasn’t sure of anything right then, other than that she wanted to feel the kind of alive he offered.
His mouth seared the skin beside her ear. He licked and nibbled along her neck, sparking her nerve endings.
Against her stomach, his erection pressed hard and insistent.
Her breathing came in pants. His shirt buttons irritated her, standing between her touch and all that beautiful skin of his. Her fingers fumbled and she tugged impatiently.
Nate hooked his hands under her thighs.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and dragged his mouth back to hers.
“Bedroom?” He managed to growl against her mouth.
Bella whimpered at the heat of his stomach against hers. “Too far.”
He moved with her into the living room. Tossing her onto the couch, he ripped his shirt off and came down on top of her. His thighs pressed between hers.
Bella opened to him, clamping her thighs around his hips. His cock pressed where she ached and Bella tilted her hips up to increase the friction.
Rearing up, he whipped her top over her head. Then he stilled. Hungry gaze locked on her breasts, he ran his hands, slowly, almost reverently up her rib cage to cup their fullness. “You’re beautiful.”
His mouth on her nipples seared Bella. She arched into his mouth, her hands on his head pressing him closer.
He sucked her deep into the heat of his mouth, first one breast and then the other.
The ache between her legs grew urgent and soft pleading noises came from her throat.
His hand slid beneath her ass, palming it, squeezing and pressing her closer to his cock.
“More.” Bella writhed beneath him.
His fingers slid beneath her shorts, seeking the wetness between her legs.
“So wet,” he murmured against her mouth. “Wet and ready for me.”
“Yes.” To all of it. Everything he had to offer. She dug her nails into the smooth skin of his back, hanging on to him as everything spun around her.
He raised his hips to slide her shorts off her legs, taking her panties with him.
She grabbed his belt and tugged it open. Her fingers shook on his zipper as she lowered it. Underneath his boxers, his cock strained against the fabric. Bella fastened her hand around him and stroked.
Nate dropped his head back and growled. “Shit. So good.”
Between her thighs, she throbbed in response. Knowing how hard he was for her cranked her up another notch. She shoved his pants off his hips, desperate to feel all that hot and hard inside her.
Nate stood and shucked his pants. He bent to untie his boots and toe them off.
He was so much more beautiful than she’d imagined. And she’d spent a lot of time imagining him like this. Sculpted muscle bunched beneath his smooth skin. A happy trail snaked between his perfect abs to his cock. Nate dropped to his knees at the side of the couch. Fastening his hands around her thighs, he tugged her around and to the edge. He bent forward and licked between her folds.
Bella jacked up on a low moan.
His head lowered between her thighs and his tongue and lips were right there.
She dug her fingers into his hair and he worked her over with that clever mouth. Sucking on her clit just right, circling with his tongue, driving her closer to coming with each touch.
“Nate.” It came out as a garbled whimper. “I’m going to—”
“Come for me, Bella.” He brought his fingers into play, sliding first one and then another inside her, as he continued to feast on her.
Her orgasm built hard and fast and she came on a low keen. It roared through her body, tightening her muscles, and she clamped her thighs over his ears to keep him there.
He pressed her thighs away with a soft chuckle. “I would ask if that was good, but my ears are ringing.”
“Shut up,” she whispered, her boneless body at one with the soft cushions beneath her.
He grabbed a condom from his wallet. “Let’s see if we can build another one.”
The head of his cock pressed against her entrance. Broad and blunt, he eased inside her, filling her. Tugging her up, he pulled her off the couch and onto him.
Bella slid farther down him, her knees bracketing his thighs.
“Okay?” His voice had grown hoarse.
Bella nodded. She had no words to describe how good he felt inside her. Beyond good. Perfect.
Tendons strained along his neck and he bent to kiss her. Hard hands gripped her hips as he surged up into her, pulling her down on him at the same time. His thrust ricocheted through her.
Angling his hips, he thrust again, hitting a sweet spot that made her cry out.
“That’s it, baby.” He thrust harder, his breath coming in muted grunts. “Let it go, Bella. I want to feel you come around me.”
If his cock and that angle didn’t do it, his filthy mouth would for certain. He whispered to her between hard thrusts, telling her all he could feel, driving her deeper and deeper into his dark world of lust.
“Yes, baby, I can feel you tightening around me.” He thrust harder and faster. “Let it go. Milk me dry.”
Bella grabbed onto his shoulders and came in a slow, building wave that went on and on.
Beneath her, he kept pounding until his hands gripped her hips almost painfully, and with one last thrust he joined her.
He dropped his forehead onto her shoulder and rode the wave with her.
His hands slid around her waist. Sweat slicked their bodies together.
Nate pressed soft kisses on her shoulder. “Babe,” he murmured. He lifted his head and met her gaze.
His expression was gentle, unguarded, and it cut straight through Bella.
She needed to lighten the mood before she did something crazy like start crying. “Now I really need a shower.”