Chapter Fourteen
Nate
Once we enter the hotel, I bring up the subject of dinner, but all three of them shake their heads, insisting they just want to sleep. Alice’s phone beeps again. I tell Summer and Blake that they can go to their rooms, and I’ll wait for Alice. I pace the lobby while she talks in a low and soothing voice. I catch a few sentences, enough to learn she’s talking to Jenna.
“Everything okay?” I ask once she hangs up.
“Yeah. Mom was just checking in again.”
“Let’s go upstairs, then. Both our rooms are on the fourth floor.”
“Elevator’s this way.” She throws her thumb over her shoulder.
“After you.”
Turning around, she walks in front of me. Without heels on, Alice is tiny. But it’s not just her height that has my protective instincts on high alert. It’s the way she hunches her shoulders. When Alice is hurt or afraid, she has a way of curling up, like she’s trying to shrink inside of herself. She rarely allows her hurt to show. This is one of those times. The other one I remember vividly was when Pippa’s first husband turned out to be a complete douche, and Pippa was devastated. That time Alice’s hurt was short-lived, quickly replaced by anger. Now she’s just exhausted from so much worrying, and I don’t want to leave her alone because I know her. She’ll worry herself sick right until the morning.
When we reach our floor, she leads the way again, sashaying down the narrow corridor before coming to a halt in front her door.
“This is me,” she announces, jingling her key between her fingers. She’s not ready to say good night either. I step right behind her, swiping her hair to one side, bringing my mouth to her ear. “Some schools of seduction consider playing with keys as a sign that you want to be kissed.”
I exhale sharply as goose bumps form on the skin of her arms instantly.
“The Nate Becker school of seduction?”
“Nah.” I run my fingers up and down her exposed forearm. “It’s a thoroughly researched theory.”
“I don’t want to say good night yet.”
“I can come in with you and keep you company for a while.”
Wordlessly, she unlocks her door, pushes it open, and steps inside.
“Sit down.” I point to the couch in the center of the room. “I’ll make you some tea. Was your mother still worried on the phone?” At the four corners of the room are lamps, casting a yellow glow in their corner, yet leaving the center where we are in a pleasant dimness, which is both smooth and inviting.
“Yes. She’ll only really believe he’s okay when she sees him.”
“That’s true for you as well, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
When I hand her the tea minutes later, she’s reading something on her phone, a look of intense concentration—and worry—on her face.
“What are you doing?”
“Just reading through my e-mails.”
I snatch her phone.
“Come on.”
I glance down at the screen. “I knew you’d be reading something like ‘Top 10 dangerous injuries not immediately apparent to paramedics.’ Shitty title.”
Pointing a menacing finger at me, she says, “If you don’t return my phone, I’ll tickle you, Nate Becker.”
“If I were you, I wouldn’t.”
“Why not?”
I lean over her. “Because I’d wrestle you away from me, which might lead to very inappropriate things.”
She licks her lips, looking away.
“You’ll get your phone back tomorrow. I don’t want you to worry yourself sick overnight. You need a good night’s sleep, and I’m going to make sure you get it even if I have to stand next to your bed and watch you all night.”
“Please morph back into your cavemanish and arrogant self.”
“What?”
“I can go toe-to-toe with that version of you. It’s hard to say no to this caring version.”
“Then say yes.”
***
Alice
His voice is low, husky. This is Nate’s bedroom voice and I love it. He fixes me with his gaze, and I stubbornly hold it right until I feel the rush of heat in my cheeks, then look away. A prickle of pain stabs me at the spot right where my neck meets my back. I run my palm over it, attempting to assuage the ache.
“Damn, I hate it when this happens.”
“What’s wrong?” Nate asks.
“Whenever I’m stressed, it seems all the tension accumulates at the back of my neck.”
“Turn around,” Nate says unexpectedly.
“Hmm?”
“I’ll take care of you.” Wiggling his eyebrows, he adds in a lower tone. “I’m good with my hands.”
His words travel straight between my thighs, and I have to press my tongue against the roof of my mouth to keep a sigh from escaping me. Not trusting myself to speak, I simply turn around. Nate places the teacup on the coffee table in front of me, then sits next to me on the couch. I’m half turned to him and Nate pushes my hair to one side, baring my neck to him.
“Show me the painful points.”
I gesture to my neck, running my fingers over the specific spots. No sooner do I place my hand on my lap than Nate presses his thumb exactly on those points.
It relieves the pressure somewhat, and also turns me on. I can feel every rough patch on the pad of his fingers, and I remember how it felt when he had me up on the counter, one hand supporting my ass, the other bringing me over the edge. I remember it all so clearly, the pleasure and the ache. I ache now too.
Belatedly I realize why—Nate hasn’t stuck to the points I showed him. Instead, his wandering fingers reached the spot at the edge of my hairline. Those damn fingers are not to be trusted at all.
“Sweet spot?” he asks.
Instinct probably tipped him off, and the explosion of goose bumps was a dead giveaway.
“Yes.”
He places his other hand on my waist, splaying his fingers wide. My breath catches, as if someone sucked the air out of here. Then he pulls away.
“What are you doing?” I complain.
“You had a rule. Five dates, remember? I respect you and I respect your choices, even if I want you so badly it hurts. But respecting that means keeping my hands away from you or I’ll die from frustration.”
Licking my lips, I say in a low voice, “The rule wasn’t as set in stone as I made it out to be. I just needed to be sure you wanted me. Us.”
I hear him move on the couch, feel the leather cave in with his weight as he’s right behind me again.
“I’ve always wanted you. That was never the question. It’s always been yes.” Only our heavy breaths fill the silence for the next seconds. “Alice, do you want me to go to my room tonight?”
The implication in his question is clear, and it sends all my senses into a tailspin. I answer without a morsel of hesitation.
“No.”
That one syllable is enough for the tension between us to explode. Taking his thumb away from the sweet spot on my neck, he tilts my head slightly, placing his mouth on the exact same spot. His gorgeous, hot mouth. The sensation travels straight to my sex, and I can’t stop a shudder. He reaches to the lower hem of my shirt, pushing it up, barely a fraction of an inch. The gesture is a silent question: He’s seeking my permission. By way of answering, I push the fabric further up. My breath catches at the same time he exhales sharply.
“Nate.” Licking my lips, I dig my nails into the leathery surface of the couch, seeking to ground myself. “I want you too. So much.”
Before long, we’re both completely naked. I drink in the sight of him, all hard and hot, ready to love me and be with me in all ways. His hand on my chest, he pushes me onto my back on the couch until I’m lying with my head on the armrest. His gaze rakes over me and my nipples turn to pebbles under his scrutiny. When he leans over me, placing a chaste kiss right on my abdomen, I shudder. He trails upward to my neck, and finally my mouth. With every kiss, he steals more of me until he owns me so utterly and completely that it frightens me. This man has a power over me that I haven’t given anyone else. No matter where his lips touch me, I feel his kisses everywhere.
“I like seeing you like this, trembling with anticipation,” he whispers.
“Better make all this anticipation worth my time,” I tease, pointing to his hard length between us.
“Ah, sweet Alice, don’t you know that pleasure is best savored only after yearning for it?” He grips his erection at the base, placing the tip right under my navel, sliding it down a few inches on my belly. “Anticipating it until it’s almost painful?” He slides farther down until his tip is on my clit, and I go up in flames. A tremor shakes through me, the ache low in my body so real and deep I can’t stand it one second longer. “Fuck, I want you so badly.”
“I’m clean and on the pill,” I tell him. He blinks, as if not quite understanding. And then his nostrils flare as he exhales sharply, the meaning of my words clearly reaching him.
“I’m clean too, but are you sure?”
“Yes,” I say confidently.
“Because I want nothing more than to be inside you with nothing between us, nothing at all. Just your pussy squeezing me—”
His words detonate a million tiny explosions across my skin, deep in my body, unleashing a rabid desire.
“Yes.”
He tilts my head back for better access, kissing my neck. The tip of his erection slides up and down my folds, coating himself in my slickness.
“So wet and ready,” he murmurs in my ear, right before sliding inside me. He does it slowly, giving me his erection inch by inch, stretching me. I love that he’s careful and considerate. And I love that he’s shaking, which means it’s taking every ounce of his control not to unleash all his passion.
“So good. You’re so tight.”
“You’re just big,” I whisper. “Don’t hold back, Nate.”
“Oh fuck. I’ll be a brute.”
“I want it. I can take it.”
He slams against me, pulling out and slamming back again, not holding back. I drink up his passion, reveling in it, basking in every sensation he awakens in me. He owns me right now, every single cell in my body.
Digging my nails in the back of his neck, I drag them down the expanse of his back, feeling every ridge, line, and muscle under my fingers, slipping lower still until I reach his ass. Yummm… those sculpted muscles are a work of art. Planting my feet firmly on the couch, I push against him, meeting his desperate thrusts, moan after moan tumbling from my lips. Realizing how loud I am, I attempt to muffle the sounds by burrowing into one of his strong, muscle-laced arms.
“No!” he commands. “I want to hear you.”
“The neighbors will hear,” I tell him just before yet another moan—a cry, really.
“Let them hear.”
He slams into me deeper still, and the friction at the base applies pressure on my clit, sending an electrifying jolt through me.
“So close,” I murmur, digging my nails deeper in his skin. When I feel him widening inside me, I know I’ll tumble over the edge in seconds. “I’m gonna—oh!”
Blinking my eyes open, I want to focus on his beautiful face. I want to see what he looks like when he’s on the cusp of pleasure, but his edges blur, the room behind him a mass of indistinguishable colors. As pleasure ripples across my skin, he covers my mouth, claiming my cry of pleasure while giving me his.
We stay entwined for what feels like hours, regaining our breath and our composure.