Chapter 26 #2
The words send heat pooling between my thighs. His hips shift against mine, and I feel him—hard and thick and ready. "I've been turned on all afternoon watching you. Watching the way you move. The way you smile. Remembering what you sound like when I make you come."
My breath has gone shallow. The music keeps playing. People keep dancing on the beach around us. And all I can think about is his mouth on my ear and his cock pressed against my belly and the growing ache between my legs.
"We could leave now."
His mouth curves, sinful and dark. "Soon. But not yet." His thumb traces circles at the base of my spine, slow and maddening. "I'm not done dancing with you."
Nick’s idea of dancing should be illegal.
He moves against me in a slow grind, a vertical foreplay.
His body presses into mine while the steel drum plays and the fire crackles and the rest of the world falls away.
His hand drifts lower, cupping my ass through my dress, pulling me tighter against his erection.
I let my head fall to his shoulder and breathe him in, the intoxicating blend of sea salt and woodsmoke and the clean scent underneath that's just Nick.
The song ends. Another begins, softer, and the heat between us eases into something just as intimate but less urgent. His hand stills on my hip. My breathing slows. We keep swaying, both of us sinking into the experience of simply being here, together, in this uncomplicated moment.
No one watching us, no obligations pulling us in opposite directions.
As I relax into his arms, the thought that surfaced earlier returns, clearer now. I've been waiting for the right moment, but maybe there's no perfect moment. This one feels close enough. Nick relaxed, open, the concerns waiting for us back home in the city nowhere to be found.
I pull back just enough to see his face. Firelight catches one side, shadow claiming the other. "Can we talk about something?"
His brow furrows slightly, but he doesn't tense. “Anything.”
"When we go back to New York... I want to talk about the security situation."
A furrow knots his brows. "What about it?"
I take a breath, then let it out slowly. "I don't want a team following me everywhere. Kelsey and Vaughn, they're good people. I know they're just doing their jobs, but I don't want that to be our life."
He's quiet for a moment. Still moving with me, but his rhythm has stiffened. When he speaks, his voice is measured. Controlled. "The press situation—"
"Will pass eventually,” I finish for him. I pull back enough to look at his face. “You’ve called off your legal attack. They’ve already pulled the story. It’s over.”
His scowl deepens. “It wasn’t only the tabloid article. What about the vultures who came at you in our own damn building garage? I was fifteen minutes away, Avery. Fifteen minutes where anything could have happened and I wouldn't have been there."
"But you were there. You came. You and Gabe have made sure it won’t happen again." I pull back enough to meet his eyes. "And it hasn’t. The press will eventually move on. We're not interesting anymore."
"You'll always be interesting to someone who wants to hurt me."
“It was one bad week, Nick. It doesn't have to define how we live."
He scoffs. "One bad week that ended with you in the hospital."
I hear what's underneath his words. The fear he carries, the weight of responsibility he's placed on his own shoulders. I hear the dread, the barely held violence toward anyone who might try to harm me or take me from him.
I hear the emotional weight of it in his voice too. All that vigilance, all that waiting for another shoe to drop. I reach up to touch his tense jaw, feeling the muscle jump beneath my fingertips.
"The ER visit wasn't because of the press or tabloid gossip. It was because I forgot to eat and drink enough water while wearing a tight bodice in a warm room. I’m okay now.” I caress his cheek. “I'm not fragile. Neither is our baby."
A quiet acknowledgment flickers in his eyes at that. Our baby. The words still hit him every time, crack through whatever wall he's trying to hold up.
"I know you're not fragile." His voice is rough. "But there are threats you don't see. Threats you shouldn't have to think about. That's my job—to think about them so you don't have to."
"And I love you for that. I do." My thumb traces the line of his cheekbone. "Look around us, Nick. Look at these people, this place. No one's watching them. No one's shadowing their movements. They just... live. That's what I want for us. For our family."
"You're not them." His reply is sharp, torn from somewhere deep. "You're mine. And that comes with—"
"With what? A permanent security detail? Armed guards at our child's birthday parties?" I shake my head. "I don’t want that. I know you don’t either. Do we really want our child growing up thinking bodyguards are normal?”
He exhales. A long, slow breath that I feel move through his whole body. "I don't know how to stop being afraid for you. The thought of anything happening to you, or to the baby—"
"I know. I'm not asking you to be careless. I'm asking you to trust that I can take care of myself when you're not there."
He holds my gaze for a long time, emotions warring in the shadows of his eyes.
When he finally lets out his breath, it sounds haggard and raw.
"Okay. We can scale back. Gabe will insist on some baseline presence.
I won't be able to talk him out of that entirely, nor do I want to. But for day-to-day... All right. We’ll try it your way. "
Relief washes through me, sweeter than I expected. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me." His hands tighten on my hips, pulling me against him. "I'm always going to be overprotective. I'm going to worry. I'll probably drive you crazy checking in when we're apart."
"I can live with that."
"Okay." His expression is still tight with reservation. "We’ll scale back. But I'm not—" He stops, shakes his head. "I can't turn it off completely, Avery. The need to protect you. It's not a switch I can flip."
I rise on my toes, press my lips to his. Soft. Grateful. "I'm not asking you to stop being who you are. I'm just asking for room to breathe. For both of us."
His arms tighten around me, pulling me close until there's no space left between us. His cheek rests against my hair.
"You're the only person in the world I can’t live without," he murmurs. "You know that, right?"
I smile against his chest. "I know."
We stay like that, swaying to music neither of us is really hearing anymore. The fire crackles, sending soft sparks into the night. The waves whisper against the shore.
After a while, Nick takes my hand in his and leads me back to our secluded little cottage at the far end of the beach.
The rest of the night belongs to us alone.