26. Reid
I’ve fucked up.
I can see by the look in Nova’s eyes, the stuttering of her breath that we’ve taken this too far and now we’re both thinking shit we shouldn’t.
I don’t get attached. I like being alone. I like going wherever I want—doing whatever I want.
So why can’t I get the image of doing this every night for the rest of my life out of my head?
I’m an even bigger idiot than Dad thought I was if I thought I could keep Nova at arm’s length. This obsession runs too deep and I’m hanging on by a thread.
She’s worked her way into me, body and soul, and now . . . I don’t know if I can come back from it.
As soon as I feel like I can walk, I force myself off her and go to the bathroom. I cut the water on in the tub and pour in whatever her bubbly shit is on the ledge to let it suds up. When I get back to the bedroom, she’s watching me with a closed expression on her face.
Fuck, I wish I could peer inside that pretty little head and see what she’s thinking.
That was intense. For both of us, but especially her.
Without a word, I scoop her up and hold her to my chest. Her hair’s a tangled mess, her lips are swollen, and her skin is flushed, but she looks so damned beautiful, I forget what I want to say to her.
“Where are you taking me?”
She looks up at me with those big ocean eyes and I can’t fucking think straight. I wasn’t lying when I told her she holds all the power here. The last four days have been fucking hell, denying us both because I needed her to see she’s more than just sex. If not for me, then for the next asshole, though, I have to say, the thought of anyone else touching her lights a fire in my blood.
Fuck, I hope I wasn’t too rough with her.
Gently, I set her to her feet and grab a washcloth, wetting it in the water of the tub’s faucet. She watches me when I kneel down in front of her and clean her, wincing when the cloth touches her skin.
Leaning forward, I press a kiss to the red marks on her hips where my hands were.
“Talk to me, little bird,” I murmur against her skin. Carefully, I spin her around and kiss the swell of her ass where it’s bright red from my hand. “Tell me how you’re feeling.”
She sucks in a breath and I stand, looking at her over the top of her head in the mirror. She looks scared, almost, but not of me.
“I . . .” she starts, stammering. “I think I liked that.”
I clench my jaw shut, spinning her around to face me. Gently, I place a finger under her chin and lift her face to look at me.
“Tell me what’s going through that pretty little head.”
Her brow furrows and absentmindedly, she traces the line of my abdomen with her finger.
“I liked it. A lot. More than I thought I would,” she admits.
“And?” I probe, desperate to know what the fuck she’s feeling.
Finally, she graces me with a soft smile.
“I’m okay. Maybe I liked that too much. What does that say about me? Am I fucked up?”
I breathe a sigh of relief and take her face in my hands.
“Little bird, if you’re fucked up, I may as well be a damn lunatic.”
She blushes, her cheeks warming under my palm, and holds back a grin.
“Maybe we can do it again?”
I chuckle, taking her hand and pulling her toward the tub.
“Might have to be gentle tomorrow.” I step into the old clawfoot tub and hold her hand to help her in. “You’ll be pretty sore.”
I sink down into the water, cutting the tap off, and pull her down between my legs. She comes willingly, though she winces when her skin hits the heat of the water. I try not to read into how much I like seeing my marks on her skin. How much I like that she’s branded with my presence as much as she is on mine, but it’s inevitable. We did that because she liked it. Not because I was angry. Not because I felt like she really needed to be punished.
I get the feeling any pain Nova has felt before my hand has been given without her consent. The thought makes my blood boil, even if I’m powerless to change it.
I wash her hair, taking care to massage her scalp and detangle it with a large comb after. The whole time I’m working on her, she moans and sighs lazily, both sounds going straight to my aching cock and reminding me of how fucking good she felt when I was buried inside her.
After her hair, I move on to her body, washing her as softly as I can and even going as far as to massage her shoulders to loosen out the kinks.
“Little bird,” I chuckle, my cock hardening against her back as if I didn’t just put it through the endurance test of its life. “You’ve got to stop moaning.”
She smiles softly and pulls out of my grasp, spinning around in the tub to face me.
“Let me wash you, too.”
After Nova determines I’m clean enough—taking extra care with my dick because she knows my sanity is on the verge of collapse—it ends with her head on my chest and my arms wrapped around her, cradling her in the midst of the vanilla-scented bubbles.
She’s quiet, looking at the scars on my hand that she holds in front of her while I struggle not to fall asleep.
Getting up at four in the morning tomorrow will be hell, but it’s worth it.
“What’s your favorite place you’ve traveled?” she asks out of the blue when she traces the line of a scar on the back of my hand.
“Ireland,” I say, without hesitation.
She looks back at me over her shoulder, like she’s surprised.
“Where did you expect me to say?”
She shrugs, letting my hand fall to her stomach. “I don’t know. Somewhere tropical, I guess. More fish.”
“Nah. Too many damned bugs.”
Nova laughs, her voice echoing slightly in the bathroom.
“Thought a big, tough guy like yourself wouldn’t be afraid of bugs.”
“I fucking hate cockroaches,” I murmur, wrapping our fingers together. “A couple of my foster houses had them and they would get in everything. Crawl on you when you slept.”
Nova’s quiet, her fingers tightening around mine and I realize . . . she’s probably never had to deal with that.
“I’m sorry,” she says softly, her thumb rubbing over the scar on the top of my hand. I got it a couple years ago, when a sharp piece of metal cut my hand. Sometimes I hate looking at it because the memory of that night is haunting. Other times . . . it’s like a damned trophy, reminding me where I’ve been.
“Don’t be,” I grit. “Just shit that happens.”
She doesn’t respond for a moment, taking it in. I wonder what she was like as a kid. I can see her shit-eating grin, blonde curls flying wildly like they do now, and her trying to bring home every cat, dog, rodent, or bird she found on the street.
“Reid,” she starts, her voice careful. “How many foster homes were you in as a kid?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. I moved around a lot, so I lost count.”
“That’s sad.”
“That’s life without good parents.”
“What were your parents like?”
I steel myself, my entire body tensing.
“You don’t have to talk about it,” Nova says quickly, dismissing the idea. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think.”
“Mom died young from cancer. Dad was never really the same after that. Mom was a good person, though.”
“And your father?”
“A drunk,” I shrug, laying back against the edge of the tub and pulling her with me. “He was an angry bastard. Used to beat the shit out of me because I was a shit kid. Taught me to fish, though. Asshole died when I was twelve. Went to foster care after that because what family we had left was either shit or dead.”
“Were they good people? The foster families?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes, not. I was a bad kid. I got in a lot of fights in school and failed a lot of my classes. I argued at home.” I don’t know why I’m telling her all this. I’ve never talked about it with anyone, but now that I’ve started, I realize with some disdain, I don’t want to stop. I want her to know. I wish I could tell her the full story. What really lies in the recesses of my mind, but I know, the moment I do, she’ll run, and I wouldn’t blame her. “I left when I hit eighteen. Never went back.”
“Where did you go?”
“I got a job on a trawler—a big fishing boat that drags a net along the bottom of the ocean. Didn’t like it, so I picked up, made my way around the world, then out west, then I came back east because I like it better out here.”
“What did you do here?”
“Worked a shrimping boat down in Florida. Made my way through another trawler. Quit that shit, fast. Then I beat some old guy at a game of poker in Connecticut and won Hope’s Grace.”
She leans further back, looking at me upside down.
“You wonHope’s Grace?”
“Well, he was a bit of a gambler. Shit poker player, though,” I chuckle and she laughs.
“And then, you ended up here?”
“No,” I shake my head. “Then, I did some traveling. Went to Ireland. The UK. Hated it, by the way. It’s overcrowded. Came home and worked on another lobstering boat while I repaired Hope’s Grace. She wasn’t always the finest vessel like she is now, you know.”
She rolls her eyes, but she can’t fight the smile on her face.
“Seems like a lot of moving in such a short time.”
“Ten years,” I muse, toying with the end of one of her wet curls where it rests on my chest. “You can do a lot in ten years.”
The silence between us feels like a boulder sitting on my chest. Maybe I said too much. Maybe she’s upset about the prospect of me leaving. Maybe she doesn’t really give a shit.
“I’m sorry you lived the life you did as a child.”
“It happens,” I murmur, lead slipping into my muscles. I don’t want anyone’s pity. Not after the things I’ve done that have led me here. I don’t deserve this. This comfort I’ve grown used to with Nova.
“It shouldn’t,” she starts, turning over and kneeling between my legs to face me.
“Nova,” I warn. I don’t like talking about this, but it seems she’s not going to give me a choice.
“Just let me say it.” She reaches up, pushing the dark strands of my hair from my forehead, her eyes soft and gentle. I don’t like it. It’s . . . vulnerable. Intimate in a way that makes me feel like she’s stripping my demons bare and laying them out for me to face, one by one. “You lost your parents. Any kid would be upset. Act out. The people that cared for you didn’t need to be foster parents if they couldn’t understand why you would be so angry. And your father . . .” she grits, tears shining in her eyes. “Losing someone isn’t an excuse. I know that. He should have too.”
I suck in a breath through my teeth, tension coiling through me.
“Just like someone dying doesn’t make them a martyr.”
She freezes, eyes narrowing on me.
I know I shouldn’t have said it. Definitely not that fucking harsh, but once it’s out, I’m glad I did because she needs to hear it.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she mutters coldly. I reach for her, but she’s already out of the tub and tugging on a robe.
“Nova,” I grit, following her.
“Go home, Reid,” she throws over her shoulder, like I mean nothing, but I follow her anyway. Cock out and all because, dammit, I’m pissed too.
“He hit you?” I grit, the anger flaring in my gut at the thought of anyone laying their hands on her. “I know he cheated with Sophie. What I don’t know is why you defend him so much.”
Nova stops at the foot of her bed, tears in her eyes, and for a split second, panic wells in my chest. I shove it back down before I have time to focus on it and what the hell it means and continue.
“Him dying doesn’t erase that any more than my dad’s death erased that he was an abusive alcoholic prick.”
“Get out.”
“Nova—”
“Get. Out.”
We stare at each other, her pissed off and crying and me pissed off and ready to bring Jack back from the dead, just so I can send him back myself.
I don’t wait for her to tell me a third time. I just shove my jeans back on, wet skin and all, because I’d rather just get the fuck out of here than stand here and watch her cry.
Burn the bridge, my mind begs, but I can’t. I can’t because it’s gutting me just seeing her cry.
And . . . I don’t think I’m ready to. Yet.
Nova stands back from me the entire time, eyes turned away, and I resist the urge to go to her. Pull her to me, fucking . . . apologize? Who the fuck am I?
Is it jealousy burning a hole in my chest? Am I feeling territorial over a woman who doesn’t want more than sex with me because of a man that’s dead?
“I’ll see you . . .” I start, but what the fuck do I want to say? Around? Tomorrow?
I just leave, because I can’t bring myself to put an end to this and I can’t watch her cry. Not when I can’t go to her.
But when I’m closing the front door and catch the unmistakable sound of crying from upstairs, fuck if I want to.