Chapter 14
Vincent
“You sure do know how to throw a dinner party, Vincent St. James.”
I looked up to see Nathan standing above me, two glasses of whiskey in hand.
He handed one to me where I was sitting on the steps leading down the porch and into the backyard.
Dusk was just starting to fall, so Mickey was chasing fireflies all around the grass while Minnie had taken up residence on a lounger by the patio door.
We’d said our good nights to Everett twenty minutes earlier, but when I’d started helping Nathan clean up the kitchen, he’d waved me off with a comment about the cook not being on dish duty.
I’d retreated to the patio to nurse the rest of my beer as I’d considered my behavior earlier in the evening.
And the fact that Nathan had been privy to all of it.
I knew my reaction had been over the top when Agent Nash had blatantly refused to follow my rule about not bringing any weapons into my house.
I’d gotten used to Grady and Everett’s other long-time agents following the rule without question.
But I begrudgingly had to admit, Agent Nash had had a good point.
If the roles had been reversed and I’d been charged with protecting Everett, nothing and no one would have gotten between me and that duty.
I hadn’t actually told the man that, but I’d allowed him more than the allotted five minutes when he’d asked in-depth questions about the security measures I’d taken to protect my property.
Luckily, he hadn’t asked me why I’d gone to such lengths.
Once we’d returned to the front of the house, I’d helped him change his tire, though I hadn’t invited him to join us for dinner.
I still wasn’t sure enough about the guy to risk having him in my house.
And he’d seemed just as content to remain outside.
Everett had been quieter than usual after the encounter.
If we’d been alone, I would have tried to figure out why.
I’d thought maybe he was just thrown by how bluntly Agent Nash had spoken to him, but he’d seemed more and more distracted as the night wore on…
restless, too. Yeah, he’d interacted with Nathan and they’d rambled on about all sorts of political happenings, but I’d tuned out that conversation and had just focused on my friend.
There’d been no explanation for the sadness I’d seen lingering in his eyes.
Yes, it was something he always carried with him, but he was usually better at hiding it, especially after all these years.
“Yeah,” I murmured.
“Take a walk with me.” His words caught me off guard and I looked up at him. “Come on, I need to walk off dinner. I don’t remember the last time I’ve eaten this well.”
“It’s not safe to leave the grounds after dark,” I automatically said.
“We won’t,” Nathan responded. “You’ve got this gorgeous backyard, Vincent. Come show me around it.”
I nodded and climbed to my feet. I’d left myself a couple of acres on the inside of the fence and had had it professionally landscaped to include a small creek that fed into a larger pond in one corner of the yard.
So it didn’t surprise me when Nathan headed in that direction.
I fell into step next to him and tried to ignore how damn good he smelled.
“Vincent, I need you to stay calm,” Nathan said in a hushed voice.
“What? Why?” I asked. I immediately began scanning the property for some kind of threat and automatically reached for the gun in my ankle holster.
I was shocked when he put his hand on my arm. “Stay calm. The assailant is about twelve inches tall with buck teeth, but he’s got a pretty sizeable set of ears on him so he can probably hear us.”
I followed Nathan’s gaze to the far side of the pond and then shoved at him hard. “Fucker,” I said as the small rabbit spotted us and took off.
Nathan laughed and said, “Sorry, I had to. Didn’t want you to go all commando on Thumper’s ass.”
“Asshole,” I said, even as I smiled. Never in a million years would I have guessed the man had a sense of humor. We fell silent as we made our way closer to the pond. But it didn’t last.
“So are you going to tell me?” he asked.
“Tell you what?”
“Oh, I don’t know…how it is that you know the president of the fucking United States.”
“Little starstruck, were you?” I asked.
“Yes, and don’t deflect.”
“I met him about a couple years before his term ended. But I can’t tell you the how and the why.” When Nathan opened his mouth to object, I added, “It’s not my story to tell.”
“Fine…then tell me why you need to live in Fort Knox,” he said.
“Fort Knox might as well be made of toothpicks compared to this place,” I said.
Nathan’s voice softened as he said, “And you don’t see anything wrong with that?
” I glanced at him and couldn’t help but think how beautiful he looked.
At some point after Everett had arrived, Nathan had snuck up to his room to swap out his T-shirt for a white button-down shirt.
He’d rolled up the sleeves to expose muscled forearms with just a smattering of blond hair on them.
“I’m not some paranoid Y2K fanatic, Nathan. I live like this out of necessity, not because I want to.”
“Is that what you’re doing, Vincent? Living?”
We’d reached the pond, but Nathan was looking at me instead of the water. His eyes were far too perceptive and I found myself looking away so he wouldn’t see things he shouldn’t.
“Just drop it,” I murmured.
“Look, Vincent, I don’t pretend to understand, but-”
“You’re right, you don’t understand,” I bit out. “And frankly, it’s none of your business.”
“Vincent-”
“Just shut the fuck up, Nathan!” I snapped.
The pain in my belly had grown to epic proportions, and I quickly downed the rest of my drink in the hopes it would stem the sensation.
But it did nothing to quell the rage and agony that began to consume me.
I’d had years to deal with it, but the wounds were as fresh today as they’d been that night.
I was dimly aware of pain in my right hand, but it wasn’t until I heard Nathan say, “Fuck, Vincent,” that I realized I’d gripped the glass in my hand so hard that it had broken. “Are you hurt?” Nathan immediately asked as he put his own glass down in the grass and reached for my fisted hand.
“It’s fine,” I said. There was a small cut on my palm, but it could barely be called a scratch.
“No, it’s not. It’s bleeding,” he said, and then he was lifting the bottom of his shirt and pressing the hem against my hand, turning the bright white fabric dark red. “We should go back to the house.”
My eyes fell on his hand which he’d bandaged again at some point. “We match,” I said absently. It was a stupid thing to say, but I was finding that between the beers I’d had during dinner and the whiskey, my tongue was a little looser than normal.
“Yeah, I guess we do,” he said as he grabbed my wrist and tried to pull me forward. With the amount he’d touched me in the last twenty-four hours, I had to wonder if he was just a touch-feely kind of guy or if there was something more going on.
I wanted it to be the latter.
Badly.
But I knew I shouldn’t want that.
It was like wishing that night twelve years ago had never happened or that I hadn’t lost David.
I couldn’t undo either of those things, and I couldn’t have this man even just for a night.
Nathan continued to try and tug me forward, presumably to get me to the house, but I resisted, and when he finally realized I wasn’t moving anytime soon, he looked up at me with questioning eyes. I wished it were lighter out so I could see the unique mix of gold and brown in them.
“Vincent,” he whispered. “Talk to me.”
It figured he’d see it in my eyes…the need to give him something of myself. A part that no one else had.
“They killed my brother,” I finally said.
“Pierce?”
When I nodded, Nathan asked, “Who?”
“Guys who came looking for me. Pierce was staying at my house because he’d just finished his last tour and was leaving the army. I wasn’t home. They tortured him and then they slit his throat. Because he refused to give them what they wanted.”
“What…what did they want?”
I dropped my eyes because Nathan had started rubbing little circles into my wrist with his thumb.
“They wanted him to tell me to come home. They used his phone to call me and tried to force him to tell me there was an emergency at the house. He warned me instead. Shouted at me not to come home. The call cut off right after that and by the time I got home, he was dead. Tied to a chair, covered in blood and bruises. They broke his fingers one by one, cut him, burned him.” As Nathan’s expression grew more and more horrified, I stopped talking and pulled my hand free of his.
“You want to know why I live like this?” I said as I motioned to the house.
“Because I don’t have a fucking choice. Because even though I got vengeance for my brother, there are a dozen more guys waiting in the wings to get their shot at me. ”
“I’m sorry-”
“Don’t be sorry,” I snapped. “I don’t need your pity. I don’t want it.”
“What do you want, Vincent?”
“That’s the thirty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?” I bit out. I took a few more steps back because I needed some fucking space. I’d admitted more to him than I’d intended and it had left me feeling shaky and off balance.
But instead of leaving me be, Nathan stepped forward until he was practically pressed up against my chest. He didn’t touch me, though. “What. Do. You. Want. Vincent?” he asked, punctuating each word with the tiniest of pauses.
He was fucking with me. He had to be. There was no way he wanted…not after last night. Not after everything I’d told him today about invading his privacy.
“Nathan-”
“Nate,” he murmured. “I like when you call me-”
That was as far as he got before I slammed my mouth down on his.
But unlike the night before, I didn’t even try to ease Nathan into the kiss.
I took what I wanted without question. Maybe I needed to give him a chance to back out, but I couldn’t do it.
I wrapped my arms around him and dragged him forward against me as I plunged my tongue into his waiting and very willing mouth.
He kissed me back without any kind of hesitation whatsoever, and that proved to be my undoing.
I took him to the ground in one seamless move and then I was covering his body with mine.
I expected some kind of resistance or fear, but there was nothing.
We ate at each other’s mouths and I felt his hands everywhere.
My back, my sides, my ass. I wedged my knee between his legs and wrapped an arm around his back so I could pull him up against me while I kissed him.
His tongue fought mine for control of the kiss, and I gladly handed him his victory and welcomed him into my mouth.
“God, you feel so good, Nate,” I said as I tore my mouth from his and pressed kisses against his neck.
He let out a whimper, and I wondered if it was because I’d sucked his skin between my lips so I could leave my mark on him, or because I’d used the shortened version of his name.
I didn’t really care. All I cared about was him bucking beneath me in an attempt to get closer.
I gave him what he wanted and ground my groin against his, and he let out a startled cry.
“Fuck,” he whispered and then, to my surprise, he was rolling me onto my back.
Though I was caught off guard by the change in position, once his mouth crashed back down on mine, I didn’t give it much thought.
Nor did I object when his hands closed over my wrists, pinning them to the cool ground.
It wasn’t often that I gave up control to my partners, but it was the last thing I’d expected from Nathan, and I was more than happy to indulge him.
Except for David, all my other partners had been guys who’d carefully orchestrated their responses in ways they’d seemed to think I’d wanted.
But what I wanted was exactly what Nathan was giving me.
Wild, uncontrollable need.
Blind lust.
Even if he’d wanted to control his body’s reactions, from his blown pupils and writhing body, I doubted he even could at this point.
And it had been mere minutes since I’d kissed him.
When Nathan’s lips skimmed down my throat, I closed my eyes and reveled in how good his skin felt where it was touching mine.
I loved the heavy weight of his body, and I couldn’t get enough of the little moans and whimpers that began slipping unchecked from his throat.
I felt his fingers pushing my shirt up and then his mouth was closing over one of my nipples.
I let out a hoarse shout that startled him at first, but then a spark of energy lit up his gaze as his eyes searched out mine.
After that, he was a man possessed. His mouth explored every bit of skin he could reach without moving off me, and his fingers sifted through my chest hair.
It wasn’t until his hand drifted over my abdomen that he showed the first signs of hesitation.
He was still lying on top of me, but he’d shifted enough so he could watch what he was doing.
His gaze slid down to my groin and the bulge that was urgently pressing against the fabric of my jeans.
It seemed to take him forever to finally take that last step and slide his hand down.
I couldn’t stop myself from bucking up against it when he began rubbing my cock through my pants.
His eyes held mine as he continued to caress me with different levels of pressure.
Testing.
Learning.
The air around us grew heavy with something more intense than mere passion. And I was afraid to try to figure out what it was as I stared at Nathan and he stared at me.
I reached up to grab him by the back of the neck and dragged him down for a kiss. Then I was rolling him beneath me. I kissed him long and hard before I eased off and just sipped at his lips.
“Tell me what you want.”
His dark eyes held mine. “Everything,” was all he said.
My heart leapt into my throat. I knew this was a supremely bad idea, but I also knew I wasn’t going to be the one to stop it. He’d have to do that.
I couldn’t.
I wouldn’t.
I needed this too badly…him. I needed him too badly.
“Let’s go to my room,” I said as I licked over his lower lip before sucking it between my own lips.
Nathan’s hands were on the backs of my arms, so when I went to shift off him, he tightened his grip.
“No, here,” he said. “I want it to be here.”
“Nate-”
“Here, Vincent. Just like this. Please.”
He’d had me at Vincent, but I didn’t tell him that. Instead, I nodded and then I leaned down to seal my mouth over his.