Chapter Forty-Six
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
Nick
HER BACK RISES AND falls with each slumbered breath and I trace every inch of her skin, the same way I’ve done every morning since waking up next to her again. It’s been five days since my wife showed up at the ranch, and every day when I wake up, I’m still scared to open my eyes and find I’m back in my room at Blackwood Ranch with no recollection of who I am or where I’ve come from.
So far, so good…I wake up every morning next to my wife with most of my memory. Some things are still foggy, but the neurologist Nina got me into two days ago said everything should become clearer with time. The nightmares come and go, but at least they aren’t as consistent as they once were.
Her dark hair falls down her bare shoulders, her skin still exposed from our time together under the sheets last night. We made love twice—first when I walked in to find her fresh out of the bath, and again in the middle of the night when she returned to bed from tucking Elena back in. I feel like a high schooler, unable to get enough of her, but every time the opportunity arises, it’s hard to fight the urge. We have a lot of time to make up for, and I don’t plan on wasting it. I’ll take any opportunity to relearn her body and discover new things about her.
Nina shifts beside me, looking up at me through one eye, the other still hidden in the white pillow. “Why are you awake?”
“I like watching you.”
“You’re creepy.”
“And you love it,” I whisper, slinking back under the covers. My hands find her sides and without warning, my fingers dance across her skin. She laughs, trying to get away from the tickle assault, but her attempts only push her body against mine and it does nothing to help soothe my already hard erection. Without warning, I wrap my arm around her waist and pull her body over mine.
Nina gasps when my cock rubs against her entrance. “Shit. That all for me?”
“You, and it’s the morning, but mostly you.”
She hums in approval, grinding her hips against me, and if it’s even possible, my cock hardens further.
Fuck .
Nina braces her palms on my chest and sits upright, giving me a full view of her body, and it’s a fucking sight. How did I get so lucky? I swear she’s gotten more beautiful in the last twelve months…or maybe it’s because I haven’t seen her, but I’m more inclined to believe it’s just her. She has always been beautiful, but the new curves she developed since having our daughter drove me wild. I think about when she was pregnant and I couldn’t keep my hands off her. There was something deep inside me—a primal instinct—that loved seeing her pregnant, knowing I had left a permanent impression on her. A feat that no one else would ever be able to accomplish.
“Dee,” I moan, my fingers digging into her hips as she rubs against my length.
She bends down to kiss me. Our tongues tangle in a desperate embrace. Her left hand digs into the sheet beside my head, but her right wraps around the base of my skull, her nails scraping against my scalp. She’s craving the length I used to have. She hasn’t said anything since I got home, but I remember she was upset when I shaved my head last January. She liked it when it was long enough to curl on the ends, the same length it had been when we got married the first time.
My hands roam across her body before I reach down to cup her ass and she gasps when my length teases her entrance. I pull her bottom lip between my teeth and nibble on the pink flesh. “You want my cock, baby?” She whimpers in response. “Words, Davina.”
“Yes.” She gasps when I roll my hips into her, and she sits upright. Nina lifts on her knees, fully expecting me to guide myself into her, but I’m not going to give her what she wants yet.
I smirk. “Yes, what?”
Her green eyes darken when she looks down at me.
“Yes, what ?” I ask. The anticipation of being inside of her is fucking brutal when the tip of my cock rubs against her again, teasing her. She whimpers, desperate and needy, but I wait for her to say the words.
“Yes, sir .”
Her words send a jolt straight to my dick and I push into her with a shared gasp. She lowers herself until she is fully seated and stretched around me. No matter how many times I’ve had this woman around my cock, every time feels better than the last.
“Fuck, Dee,” I moan when she begins to slowly rock her hips. One of her hands reaches behind her to grasp my knee and her tits bounce with her. This image is one of my favorites.
I reach up to cup her right breast, kneading the doughy flesh. Her head falls back when I pinch her nipple and the ends of her hair feather across my legs, raising goosebumps across my skin.
“Nick,” she breathes, her hands fisting in her hair, tugging slightly.
“You look so fucking beautiful, Dee. I love when you ride me. Fuck, just like that.”
She whimpers in response, her pace slowing down, and I can feel her pussy tighten around me. She’s close. All it would take is a few strokes of her clit and she’d be a goner.
I reach up to grip her throat, applying a faint amount of pressure on the sides, and pull her mouth down to mine. In one quick motion, I wrap my arm around her waist and roll so I’m on top of her. “You feel so good wrapped around my cock, baby,” I say, pulling out a bit and thrusting back in until my hips meet hers.
Nina’s back arches off the bed and her fingers grasp for purchase on the headboard. I leave open-mouthed kisses on her neck before tracing back up the column of her throat with my tongue.
She gasps when I lift her right leg and thrust deeper inside of her. “ Sì, amore mio. ” Yes, my love.
Fuck. I grit my teeth. She knows what her Italian does to me when we’re like this. I’m not going to last if she keeps it up.
“Ci sono vicino ,” she breathes in my ear. She’s close. I know the words are true when I feel her pussy tighten around my cock.
“Dee,” I groan. “You gotta stop doing that, baby.”
“Lo so.” The words and her smirk tell me she knows exactly what she’s doing. She reaches between us, fingering her clit, and the response from her body is enough to throw me over the edge.
My fingers dig into the flesh of her hip as I drive into her through my orgasm. I kiss her neck, swirling my tongue along her skin in slow, languid strokes as her walls clench around me and her body trembles reaching the peak of her orgasm. Pure, unadulterated ecstasy runs through my veins, and I push into her one final time.
“Buongiorno, amore mio,” Nina whispers when we’ve both come down from the high, and her fingers lightly trace my face.
“Good morning, vita mia.”
She kisses me and I roll next to her. Parting, she runs her nails along my jaw through my stubble. “Elena will be up soon.” She yawns and snuggles into my chest despite what she just said.
“Should probably get moving, then.” I kiss her forehead and with one final kiss on her lips, I peel myself away from her and force myself out of bed.
A few minutes later, she follows me into the bathroom. We get ready for the morning in a dance that feels so familiar it makes my heart soar. The tension—the awkwardness—that had been there the first two days of my return is gone. Our bodies move in tandem with one another.
“Your life, huh?” Nina asks when she finishes brushing her teeth. Hip leaning against the bathroom counter, she waits for me to pull the sweater over my head.
“What?”
“That’s what you said… Good morning, vita mia .”
A blush creeps up my neck into my cheeks when she repeats the words I said not ten minutes ago.
She drapes her arms over my shoulders and stands on her tiptoes to kiss me. “You’re adorable, Fossette .”
When I walk into the kitchen later, the wall of silence practically smacks me in the face. I can almost feel the chill radiating off my brother as he moves from the fridge to the sink and finally the breakfast nook with a bottle of water and a yogurt. Nina watches him from the corner of her eye but focuses on the pizzas she’s making for lunch at Elena’s request. Are these two ever going to talk about what happened between them, or are we going to continue to act like nothing happened? It’s been this way all week with no signs of it getting any better. No matter how much I ask Pop what happened, he still won’t tell me. He says I have to ask them, but I don’t think they will tell me.
“Oh, don’t leave on my account,” I say when my brother gets up after finishing his yogurt. “Seems like you two are having a good ol’ time in here.”
“What are you talking about?” Alex rolls his eyes.
I cross my arms, blocking the doorway. It’s time to have this conversation. “I’m talking about whatever is going on between you two.”
“There’s nothing—”
“Cut the crap, Alex. I may still be trying to remember some things and some stuff may be a little hazy, but I can tell you whatever is happening here wasn’t before.” I raise a brow and look between them, but Nina still hasn’t looked up from making pizza. “Nina?”
She sighs, but still doesn’t look up when she asks, “What?”
“You want to tell me what’s going on?”
“Nothing!” Alex throws his hands up in the air.
“Nick.” Nina sighs. She drops the pepperoni she’s been spreading across the dough, and when she looks up, the fight behind her green eyes is obvious. She’s protecting him. Whatever it is, she doesn’t want me to know. “It’s nothing.”
“See,” Alex says. “I told you. It’s nothing.” My brother shoves into my shoulder when he pushes by me to leave the kitchen, like a little kid throwing a tantrum.
I join my wife at the island. “Dee, what is going on?”
“Nick—”
“Davina Bay, don’t you dare say nothing again.” I grip her chin and force her to look at me. “Nina, please tell me what’s going on. Tell me whatever stupid thing he said so we can move past this. I hate seeing you two avoid each other like this.”
Nina bites down on her bottom lip and steps back, rubbing her eyes. “Nick, please don’t get mad. I’ll tell you if you promise not to get mad. Not to…start something.”
Well, that depends on what he said.
“Nick, promise me.”
“I can’t do that, Nina.”
My wife stares at me for a moment longer before she lets out a defeated sigh. “He was just…concerned.”
“About?”
“Nick, please. Please let this go. Don’t make me do this.”
I have no intention of letting it go, especially not when I know how much it’s affecting her.
Slowly, her resolve breaks, and she takes a deep breath. “He felt like I didn’t do enough to bring you home. He thought I was…happy you were gone. He had his opinions on me and B—”
Without hearing the rest, I leave to find my brother. Nina calls after me, following me through the house and pleading with me to let it go. I won’t let this go. I can’t. Not when he’s treated her with utter disrespect.
It doesn’t take long to find him. He’s playing in the treehouse in the backyard with Lara, Brie, Ophelia, and Elena.
“Brie, take the girls inside,” I demand before adding a quick “please.” Without question, Josh’s oldest daughter does as she’s told, only looking over her shoulder once before they disappear into the house.
“I’m not doing this, Nick,” Alex says, trying to follow, but I grip his shoulder and push him back a step.
“Did you tell Nina she wasn’t doing enough to find me?” I ask, starting small, but he doesn’t say anything. My brother shoves his hands into the crooks of his elbows, eyes downcast on the ground beneath his feet. “I’ll take that as a yes. Did you also say she was happy I was gone?”
He looks up at me before his glare turns to Nina, now next to me. “Of course, you told him. I will say, I’m surprised you lasted this long.”
“Don’t blame her. She is still trying to protect you, but I’m over this avoidance game between you. We’re adults, Alex, take ownership of your part of the problem.”
“My part of the problem? She’s the one who was fucking the sheriff! Instead of looking for you, she was too busy spending her nights in bed with him and—”
“So what if she fucked Beau?”
“So, it is true,” he hisses toward Nina, and I step in front of her. “And you’re okay with it? She cheated on—”
“She thought I was dead, Alex. She slept with him one fucking time. And I’m not blameless, either. I messed around with the daughter of the guy who took me in.”
“You didn’t know who you were! You have an excuse.”
“And she doesn’t?” I scoff. “What is she supposed to do? Spend the rest of her life alone because I’m gone?”
“She stopped looking, Nick! She didn’t even try—”
“How would you know? Were you here with her every day for the past year?” My hand reaches out to my wife behind me. At first, she ignores the gesture, but then she interlocks her fingers with mine. I give her hand a gentle squeeze. “No, you weren’t.”
“You weren’t even that far away. She should’ve been able to find you! She didn’t look hard enough.”
“There is more to this situation than you realize, Alex. You need to take a step back, take a deep breath, and get a fucking grip. Nina and Beau are the only reasons I’m home. Neither of them stopped looking for answers. She never stopped trying to find out what happened. Did you know she was almost attacked by the same people who attacked me?”
Alex’s wide eyes meet hers. “Nina?” he asks, but she looks away from him. “Is that what Beau meant outside of Magnolia’s?”
“Alex, it’s time to let this go,” Lara says from behind him. “Nina has been nothing but gracious to all of us, including you, and you’ve been nothing but an asshole to her lately.”
My brother looks between his fiancée and Nina, and I don’t think Lara knew what happened either. I’m not surprised, Alex knows Lara wouldn’t stand for him acting this way.
“I didn’t mean to call her a bitch,” Alex says and the fire that had started to dampen reignites. “It just came out!”
He called her a bitch?
“Alex.” Nina sighs from behind me.
I take a step forward. “Did you just say you called my wife a bitch ?”
“Oh, you tell him everything else, but not that?” Alex asks her around me, but I step back into his view, blocking her.
“You dare speak to my wife that way? To the woman who has given you everything on a silver fucking platter for the last decade. No matter the cost, she always made sure you got whatever you needed…whatever you wanted. And you would dare walk into my house and not only accuse her of being happy that I’m gone but call her a bitch?”
Alex might be slightly taller than me, but I tower over him right now. There is no way I’ll allow him to disrespect Nina when she has been nothing but good to him. To all of us.
“Nick,” Nina says, taking hold of my arm and trying to pull me back. “Nick, it’s okay. It’s not a big deal, let it go.”
“He doesn’t get to talk to you like that, Davina.”
“But she can tell me it’s my fault you went missing?” Alex scoffs. “Glad to know she gets away with everything, per usual.”
“Alex,” I warn with a dry chuckle.
“Alex,” Lara says with a warning glare. “That’s enough.”
My brother looks between the three of us in disbelief before finally landing on me. “This is unbelievable. Nick, I—”
“Unless your next words are an apology to my wife, get the fuck out of my house, Alex.”
He looks at Nina, then back at me. He won’t apologize. My little brother is just as hardheaded as me and as stubborn as Pop. He doesn’t want to be wrong, and he doesn’t want to admit defeat. Alex knows he’s wrong—he’s known, and that’s why he’s been sulking around the house and avoiding her—but he doesn’t want to admit it.
And Nina being Nina…She knows he feels bad. That’s why she hasn’t said anything to me. Despite the hurt from his words, she accepted his nonexistent apology before I ever walked through the door. But it’s not good enough for me. If he wants to be around us, around me, he will apologize to her.
“And you know what? You don’t have to worry about me not being at your wedding because I’m missing. I just won’t be there.”
Nina gasps. “Nick, you don’t mean that!”
“Until he decides to get off his fucking high horse and say the words ‘I’m sorry’ for the way he’s treated you, I refuse to be around him,” I say, walking away from them without looking back.