Chapter 22
Robbie was in the industrial kitchen chopping onions to make jambalaya for the pack.
His eyes teared up, and he was reminded of a line cook he’d worked with years before whose mother had bought him a pair of the goggles that were supposed to keep your eyes from watering.
He wore them to work as a joke one day until they fell off his face and into the deep fryer and they had to toss all the grease because people love garlic truffle fries with a dusting of flaky sea salt, not microplastics.
Robbie knew his eyes were red and wet, and that if anyone saw him out of context, they would think something horrible had just happened.
But no. His eyes always did this. Red onions?
Tears. Yellow onions? Tears. Sweet “vah-dail-yuh” onions, as his mama called them?
Tears. There had even been one shallot that had taken him down.
Bowl of water on the cutting board, wet paper towel on the cutting board, sunglasses, regular glasses, Vaseline on his undereyes—nothing worked.
And so, he chopped them as fast as he could to be done with it, no doubt looking like he’d just put his dog down, when Rose walked in.
“Where was your mate headed?”
It took him a beat to register the question, long enough that Rose arched an eyebrow at him.
“Nowhere that I know of. You sure it was Nadja?”
“Pale, frail little thing? Dragged your sorry carcass in last week?”
Shit.
“Was she walking?”
Maybe she was feeling better. The thought was so exciting that his heart began to race a little.
He had come all over his hand long before he’d planned to because what had happened behind the door, against the door.
And then after, when he’d sucked on her fingers, had been the single most mind-obliteratingly sexy thing to ever happen to him.
Her little whimpers, the slick sounds from behind the door, and then the taste of her.
Fucking hell, the taste of her. Sharp and somehow sweet and utterly her.
He’d had to take a cold shower just to get his erection—which had sprung immediately back to life—to calm down enough that he could walk to the mess hall without sporting a tent in his shorts.
“No, she was driving. Your car, I think. Off the property.”
Robbie carefully set the big chef’s knife down and wiped his eyes with the hem of his T-shirt. But even the cotton wasn’t enough of a barrier, and they began to sting even more.
“Fuck!”
He crossed to the utility sink and, with his eyes squeezed tightly shut against the sting, fumbled for the soap dispenser and turned on the tap.
He managed to find the paper towel dispenser as well and ran one under the cold water before pressing it to his eyes.
Water was running down his forearms, but he didn’t care.
“You gonna make it, bud?” Rose asked, and he blinked his eyes open with a groan.
“Nope.”
He tossed the wet paper towel in the trash and grabbed a dry one, dabbing his eyes and drying his hands before skirting wide around the prep table. Now that his eyes weren’t burning like hellfire, he remembered Rose’s question.
“She drove away?”
“Yep. About ten minutes ago. She didn’t look too good, though, and I wondered if she was trying to get to a doctor or something. The closest one is an hour away, and she wasn’t in any shape to drive that far.”
“Jesus Christ, Nadja,” he muttered under his breath, getting to the exit in two long strides before remembering the onions. “I—”
“I’ll finish them. They might have killed you anyway,” Rose said. “Only one way off the property. Take a right at the main road. I doubt she got far.”
JJ had explained to Robbie that all the vehicles at the commune were for pack use, and so the keys always stayed in the cupholder.
Robbie was never so grateful for a community guideline as he was just then, sliding into the driver’s seat of a thirty-year-old sedan that smelled like fast food hamburgers and cigarettes. He wrinkled his nose.
He didn’t have time to be picky, though. Nadja was out there on the road, and Rose had said she didn’t look well, which could only mean one thing: she was running.
He wasn’t offended by the thought of her running away from him and ruining his newfound status with the pack as much as he was absolutely sick with worry about her passing out behind the wheel and driving into a tree.
He cursed the remoteness of the pack, the nearly three miles of gravel road that separated the commune from the main road, the way the car creaked and rattled as it trundled along.
He wanted to put the pedal flat on the floorboard but frankly feared the engine falling right out and him having to Flintstone his way to Nadja.
Finally, he reached the main road. Robbie turned right, as Rose had said, and accelerated as much as the little four-cylinder car could, muttering prayers under his breath all the while.
To whom, he wasn’t sure. When he found her, when he found her safe, he was going to give her a piece of his mind.
A thick, seven-layer frosted slice of his mind.
He couldn’t remember the last time he was this furious. He would have driven her. And besides, hadn’t she been insisting for days that a doctor wouldn’t help her? Why now? Why alone? Why without him?
In the distance, he saw his black SUV on the shoulder, stopped. He whipped the sedan onto the shoulder behind it and threw open his door, getting choked in his seatbelt before releasing the latch and practically falling out in his hurry to get to her.
She was slumped over the steering wheel. She hadn’t wrecked, so he felt safe enough gently lifting her up and back, reclining the front seat a bit. Her face was pale and drawn.
“Nadja,” he said quietly, stroking a trembling finger down her cheek.
She didn’t stir.
“Nadja,” he said louder, resting a hand on her shoulder and squeezing.
Nothing.
“Damnit, Nadja,” he shouted around a sob. “Wake up, baby. Wake up for me.”
Her eyelids fluttered before she slowly blinked them open halfway.
“Robbie?”
“Oh, thank god, baby. I’m here. You’re gonna be okay.”
“I’m not. I’m—”
“Shh. I know. Why didn’t you feed yesterday?
That was the whole point, Nadja. Why didn’t you feed?
” His voice cracked. She looked as if she might disappear right in front of him.
And he knew his eyes were playing tricks on himself.
He knew she wasn’t going hazy around her edges. That would be impossible.
She sucked in a long, slow, shaky breath before whispering, “I didn’t have your permission.”
“I started it!”
“To… help… me,” she said, her eyes rolling back. “You… only… wanted… to help.”
Robbie scrubbed a frustrated hand down his face before leaning into the car, putting his forehead against hers, their noses touching. Her eyes opened a fraction, and she gasped.
“This is my permission. You’re hungry? You come to me. You feed from me. You take what you need from me. As much as you need. Bleed me dry.”
“No,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “No, no, no. I don’t… want it—I can’t—unless you… actually… want it… Want me.”
“Is that what this is all about? You don’t think I want you?”
She squeezed her eyes shut, and he wondered if she was bracing herself for him to refuse her.
“Sweetheart, I’ve wanted you from the moment I came to on that mess hall couch and heard you standing up for me. And I’ve never wanted anyone in my life more than I wanted you yesterday.”
“But you left.”
He had. Because he hadn’t wanted to push. He’d been told all his life how very “too much” he was sometimes. In everything. Too much noise. Too much personality. Too much chaos. The last thing he’d wanted was to be too much for her.
“Because I didn’t know if you wanted me.”
“I do,” she whined. “I do.”
He took her face between his palms. “Do I have your permission to feed you?” he asked. “Nadja, can I feed you?”
She nodded.
“No, baby. I need the words.”
She didn’t say anything right away. But he felt her cold fingertips graze the back of his hand as she reached for his wrist, holding on.
“Yes, Robbie. You can feed me.”
Robbie hadn’t kissed anyone in a while. But he’d always romanticized the first kiss. You could never get it back, and there was always something so unique about them. Some first kisses had been frenzied, thunderclaps of passion as two bodies collided. Others were sweet and hesitant.
But he’d never had a first kiss like this one.
He’d never set out to save someone’s life with a kiss.
He licked his lips and pressed them gently against hers.
She gasped, almost pulling the air from his lungs into her.
His lips moved against hers in a slow, gentle press.
Her other hand came to grab his wrist, and he used his hold to angle her head slightly.
She kissed him back. Timid and unsure, as if she’d never done it before. Maybe she hadn’t. She was so guarded, so careful. She held herself to such an impossible standard. Maybe a kiss had always been too much for her.
“Take what you need,” he murmured against her mouth and he felt her hands squeeze his wrists. “Do it,” he said, kissing her with more force, opening his mouth and letting his tongue dance against her lips.
“Do it, Nadja,” he said. “Goddamnit, please.”
That was all it took.
In the next moment, her arms were around his neck and his tongue was tangling with hers and she groaned low and long like she’d never tasted anything so good in her life as his kiss.
He unbuckled her seatbelt and pulled her toward him and she wrapped her legs around his waist. He could feel her growing stronger second by second, could feel the warmth rising in her body as she clung to him.
He pressed her against the back door of the car, his hands holding her secure under her thighs, her hands rubbing over his hair, pulling him closer to her.
As if she had to, as if he wasn’t desperate to dive into her, without oxygen, without tether, without any hope or desire of ever returning.
He pulled away, panting heavily and looked at her. Her eyes were bright, almost glowing in the dim, misty air. She was breathing just as heavily, her swollen lips parted.
“Get in the car, Robbie,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am.”