29. Nova
“What are we doing?”
The hands covering my eyes make it impossible to see. All I know is Reid asked me to meet him at the Whitaker house when he stopped in to see the kids after fishing and flashed that damned smirk before he left.
So, here I am, eyes covered as I stumble through the house being steered by him.
“You’ll see,” he murmurs quietly from behind me.
Finally, he stops and when he drops his hands, my stomach goes with them.
Our little hideout has been completely transformed. The bed and pillows are set up better than I ever could. He’s cleaned an old table and two chairs that sat in the kitchen and moved it into the living room space we’ve claimed as our own. He’s even went as far as to light every candle I brought up from the cottage, casting everything in a warm, soft glow as the sun sets outside.
“You did this?”
I’m still in shock.
My heart beats a little faster when he steps around me and takes my hand, a glint in his eyes that’s not normally there.
Is this the part where he confesses his love for me and tells me he’s never leaving?
I actually don’t know what I would do if he did. I think I would eventually resent him for it because I would know he would always be thinking about what he missed out on to stay here with me.
Still . . . there’s that soft beating in the back of my heart that allows me to picture that exact moment where he’d tell me he’s staying.
But only for a second.
“Are you hungry?”
“I am.”
I’m actually ravenous, but I don’t tell him that. Kids will really take it out of you. Especially a dozen under ten.
He leads me into the living room to the table where he’s got two plates set up with steak, lobster, and small potatoes.
“It smells great in here.” I step up to the table and he hands me a glass of wine. “Wine and food. What did you do?”
He shrugs. “Thought you liked wine.”
I do, but I haven’t told him that.
“Surf and turf.”
“Real surf and turf,” he corrects, pulling the towel off his shoulder and wiping his hands off. “I hope you’re hungry.” He wraps his arms around my waist, pulling me into him and pressing a kiss to my lips that leaves me breathless. Abruptly, he lifts me, depositing me on the table and stepping between my legs. His hands slide up my thighs, over the material of my skirt, and higher to grip my hips and he presses his lips back against mine.
My body reacts to him almost like he flipped a switch, my stomach clenching and my breath hitching in my throat.
I wrap my arms around his neck, kissing him back eagerly until I feel lightheaded from the lack of oxygen. I don’t know what’s gotten into me lately. I’ve always considered myself to be sexually moderate when it comes to my needs. Don’t get me wrong, I love sex, but I’ve gone four years with nothing but a vibrator and I’ve been just fine.
Until he came along.
Since I got his hands on me, it seems like all I’ve been able to think about is how to get him to do it again.
“You look gorgeous,” he murmurs against my lips and I let out a small laugh, my toes curling at the deepening of his accent. “I look the same as I did earlier.”
“And I couldn’t do this at the school.” He nips the line of my jaw, then sucks on the flesh just below until I let out a shaky breath.
“Ready to eat?”
“You really went all out. Lobster, steak. And a candlelit dinner? Some might say that’s romantic.”
“Don’t forget the flower.” He holds out his hand to me to help me jump down.
“Yes, can’t forget that.”
“You know, this is almost romantic.”
“Careful, sweetheart,” he warns, a dark glint in his eyes. “I’ll be showing you a different kind of romance.”
“What kind?” I’m almost afraid to ask.
“The kind that ends with me eating you instead of the food on our plates.”
Holy shit.
As if I can’t get any hotter, he winks at me and I swear part of me melts into a puddle on the floor.
“You put Red Lobster to shame,” I say, taking my seat and shaking my head.
“Trust me, sweetheart,” he says, pouring me a glass of dark red wine. “You won’t ever go back again, once you’ve had homemade lobster.”
“I’ve actually never had it all. I can’t handle their poor little faces.”
He chuckles, taking his seat across from me.
“Why is that funny?” I ask, popping a potato in my mouth. It practically dissolves on my tongue and my mouth waters for more.
“Because I specifically removed the head and legs because I knew you’d freak out.”
He’s right. There’s only a tail on my plate.
“I just hate that they have to be boiled,” I murmur and he shakes his head.
“You’ll get sick if you don’t.”
“I know,” I murmur. “But doesn’t it bother you?”
He shrugs. “It’s my job. Everything has to eat, including us. It’s a part of the food chain.”
I look down at the lobster tail and poke the hard shell with my fork. I’ve watched everyone around me do this hundreds of times. I’ve just never been brave enough to do it on my own.
“How the hell do I eat it?”
He chuckles, reaching across the table and cracking it open from a split down the middle.
“Just got to break it’s shell.”
“Seems a little mean,” I mumble, as he repeats the movement to his own tail.
He fixes me with a look.
“It’s dead.”
“Fine,” I grumble, cutting some off with my knife and taking a bite. Reid watches me for my reaction.
It’s the most delicious thing I’ve ever eaten.
“This is really good,” I tell him and he smirks, slicing into his steak. “I mean, really good.”
“Knew you’d like it.” He winks and I swear, I almost pass away. “You would think after deciding to settle down on a fishing island, you would have had it.”
We eat and he asks me about my day. It’s not until we’re almost done that I realize he hasn’t told me a single thing about himself.
“What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Never thought about getting a house somewhere? I mean, you’ve been all over the world.”
He shakes his head. “I like to keep on the move.”
“You don’t get tired of living on a crab boat? Doesn’t it get cold in the winter?”
“I have a wood stove and I like the ocean.” He shrugs. “It’s comfortable. It can take me anywhere.”
“What happens if your house gets swept away by a big wave?”
“Then I guess I will be too.”
A shudder runs up my spine at the thought.
“Dying is inevitable. Whether a wave takes me out or old age, we all know how it’s going to end.”
A pang hits me in the stomach because I know he’s right. I can be ripped apart by Jack’s death all I want. It doesn’t change it.
Before thoughts of Jack can come crashing back in, I push back from the table and walk to the window. I just . . . need to get out from under his gaze.
I’m an idiot. Tears burn in my eyes and I have no one to blame but myself. Reid isn’t staying. He’s said that countless times, yet I can’t fight the little glimmer of hope that maybe, this little life we’ve created between us can continue indefinitely.
“Nova.” Reid’s voice is dark, swimming with something like a mix between disdain and disappointment.
“I . . .” my words trail off. I won’t ask him to stay. That’s off the table. If he stays, he won’t be choosing me. He’ll be staying because I asked him. I want to be chosen. I want to be his first priority. I want to be his dream. Not Alaska.
Is it possible to be jealous of a place?
It dawns on me as I stare out over the field of overgrown grass and the forest beyond that I’ve fallen in love with a man and I know almost nothing about his past, while he knows everything about mine.
With a hollowness, I realize I don’t really know Reid at all, save for the assumptions I’ve made up in my head and the rare glimmer that he’s shared with me.
“Who are you, Reid?”
The room fills this a silence so thick, it’s hard to breathe. When I finally turn over my shoulder to look at him, he’s staring at the wall, not at me. It’s like he can read my mind.
He doesn’t like it.
“Who are you?” I repeat, fully turning to face him, my back against the window. “What made you want to be alone? What made you think you’re a monster, undeserving of love?”
“Nova,” he warns, cutting me off, but I keep going because I need to know the truth.
“Why don’t you speak about your family? There are so many questions I have, constantly, but I’m scared to hurt you by asking them. You’re such a good man, but yet you hide behind the guise of the grump who doesn’t want to be bothered.”
“Stop.”
“No,” I argue, fighting back the angry tears that slip down my cheeks. Reid’s jaw feathers, his teeth clenched so hard I worry he might break one. “I’m not asking you to stay. I know you won’t. I’m just asking for the truth, Reid.”
I suck in a shallow breath, willing myself to calm down. This is not the conversation I planned on having tonight, if ever, but now that I’ve thought about it, I can’t move past it.
“Why won’t you let me in?”
“I . . .” he starts, but he cuts himself off, tapping his finger on the table.
He won’t tell me.
I should have never opened myself up to him. Now I’m the needy girl on the island he can’t wait to leave, practically begging him to give me something he’s already said he won’t. He can make me come, he can make me romantic candlelit dinners. He can even do the dirtiest things to me and make me feel like the only other person in the world.
He won’t open himself up to me, though.
Quietly, I make my way to the door, shame rushing through me like a black cloud, fighting to suck all the oxygen from my body.
“I murdered my father.”
I freeze, feet unable to move from my spot in the doorway.
Murder?
Surely, I didn’t hear him correctly.
“Yeah,” he murmurs, voice darker than I’ve ever heard it. “I murdered my own father. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Slowly, I suck in a deep breath, forcing myself to turn around and face him. He’s still at the table, but the hard set of his face is cold. Like he expects me to run screaming right this very instant and tell anyone who will listen.
My voice cracks when I try to speak, but I force the words out past the lump forming in my throat. “I thought you said he died by falling off the boat?”
“He did,” Reid shrugs, as if it’s just a simple misunderstanding. “I just didn’t tell you I pushed him.”
Tears pool in my eyes, threatening to spill over. This isn’t real. There are dark things in this world. I knew that . . . but from the man I’m falling in love with?
“You asked me about my first time with a woman?” His voice is higher, pissed off like he knows this will be the end of us. Like whatever he says will make me leave and he’s already resigned himself to that fate. “My dad’s girlfriend. I was twelve.”
My stomach bucks at the anguish in his voice. The little boy—that scared little boy I imagined . . . I have a habit of imagining the worst. Especially since the accident. I never thought it would actually be reality.
Reid stands from the chair, taking the bottle of wine and popping the cork, downing a gulp before he sets it back down so hard, I worry it will break. I stay by the doorway, crossing my arms over myself because my mind is spinning with everything he’s confessing to me.
He paces across the room, his mouth set in a line of grim uncertainty. As if he can’t believe he’s confessing this. Like he already regrets it.
“I told you my dad was an abusive drunk. That much was true. I just didn’t tell you his girlfriend snuck into my bed one night when he beat her. She held me. Seemed innocent enough. I was twelve. Next thing I knew, it was done and Dad found out. Beat me so bad I had a couple broken ribs. Black eye. It was the summer, so school didn’t matter. The girlfriend left. I was forced to stay.”
My chest grows cold as the horror of the situation sets in. “Reid . . .”
He ignores me, shaking his head in disgust, as if the memories are something he blames himself for. My eyes burn, a few tears escaping and slipping down my cheeks, but I don’t stop them.
“Dad took me out on the boat the next weekend because he wanted to drink his feelings away. He was still pissed at me. I was still black and blue. He got drunk, as always, and started screaming at me about his woman.” Reid shakes his head, chuckling darkly. “As if I fucking knew what I was doing.”
I don’t want to hear anymore, but I need to. He’s telling me his story—something he’s never told anyone. He deserves to be heard as much as I do.
As much as anyone.
“He started to hit me. I say hit, but he punched me like a grown man. I was so sick of it. Tired of being asked what I did to myself when I’d show up to school. Tired of hurting. So . . .” he murmurs, stopping in front of the old, dusty mirror above the fireplace. I can see his eyes glinting, watching me across the room as if telling me head-on makes this too real. “When he stumbled near the edge, I just pushed him. He fell in, couldn’t get back to the surface because the fucker was too drunk to help himself. And I just watched his drown.”
He sucks in a deep breath, running a hand through his hair before continuing.
“After that, went to a shit ton of foster care houses. Slept around. It felt good and I had no fucking idea what I was doing. I was on my own.”
Both of us are silent, watching the other. I don’t know if he expects me to judge him or be afraid of him, but . . . strangely, I feel neither.
Finally, he turns around, facing me, his eyes guarded. When another tear slips down my cheek, he watches its descent, his jaw clenching.
“Sorry, I couldn’t give you the perfect story you were after,” he says, voice laced with a poison I’m not used to hearing from him. Not since that first night we came here.
Reid turns back away from me, staring out the window this time, instead of at our reflections in the mirror.
“You think I’m judging you for your past.”
It’s not a question. He knows it. I know it.
Still, he doesn’t say anything.
Carefully, I slide to my feet, crossing the room as if I’m approaching a wild bear that could strike at any moment. It certainly feels like it, with the way he towers over me, but I know Reid would never hurt me.
He’s shown me his scars. Laid them bare for me to see and now I’m choosing to accept them anyway. Just as he has mine.
Carefully, I slip my arms around his front and press my cheek against his back, hugging him from behind. He stiffens at my touch, but I do it anyway.
“I could never judge you for what happened to you. If you think I could, then you really don’t know me at all.”
“It’s disgusting,” he murmurs, teeth clenched together.
Pulling myself away from him, I force my arm into the crook of his and tug him back until he sits down in the chair. He comes begrudgingly, but he does come and when he sits down, I move into his lap.
We’ve never been like this before. At least not outside some sexual escapade. We’ve never sat face to face. Something about this feels more intimate, even though we’re both fully clothed.
Gently, I reach up and cup his cheek. He closes his eyes, leaning into my palm in the most vulnerable act I’ve ever seen from Reid Morrison, this man made of steel and impossible to crack.
“Those people are disgusting. That woman and your father. The people who whipped you. I hate them all and I wish I could go back and protect the boy who went through those things.” His eyes open, burning black in the candlelight. It’s almost terrifying. Almost. “But I can’t, just like you can’t erase what they did by keeping it locked away. You’re a good man, Reid. You deserve a happy life. Whatever that is for you.”
That last sentence tastes like battery acid on my tongue, but I say it anyway because it’s true. Whether it’s me or Alaska, he deserves to do all the things he’s ever dreamed of and more.
He’s quiet for a moment, studying me with an intensity I’m not used to. As if he’s trying to memorize all the lines of my face. God knows I already have his mapped out like the back of my hand.
“Nova,” he starts, voice thick with something like regret and something deeper. Something I can’t dwell on. “What happens when I leave?”
Part of me knows he’s going to go. The other part is begging for him to stay, but that’s not in the cards.
So, I push down those feelings of anguish for a time when he won’t exist in my life anymore, burying them, just as I told him not to and force a soft smile to my lips.
“I’ll be okay. You’ve taught me to be okay.”
He doesn’t say anything, but I can see the tick in his jaw. As if he’s been waiting to hear that. That makes me sad.
“Little bird,” he murmurs suddenly, voice husky with a dangerous heat. Like he’s flipped a switch, something in my core perks to life and a warmth settles there. “You’re sitting on my cock.”
“I’m not, but I could, if you want me to.”
He chuckles darkly, the air between us thrumming with electricity.
Suddenly, he lifts me so fast, I think I’m falling, even though I know he’s got me, and he deposits me on top of the rickety old table.
“Are you afraid of death?” he asks suddenly, his legs parting mine as he stands between them. My heartbeat picks up when his eyes travel the length of my body, leaving a trail of fire in their wake.
I think about it for a moment, but the more I do, the more I realize I already know the answer.
“No,” I breathe when he leans over me. “The only thing that scares me is that my life won’t have any meaning.”
He must not like that answer because a crease forms between his brows.
“Me too, little bird. Me too.”