21. Nash #2
Her eyes come back to me, bright and brutal. “I stayed at the cabin. I let you go get Delia. I did what you asked when every part of me wanted to run. And now Cal is worse, and you’re telling me to sit here and eat room service.”
“I am telling you that walking into a compromised hospital at night, hours after Isabel found the cabin, gives her exactly what she wants.”
“She always wants something.”
“Yes. Tonight she wants you emotional enough to confuse love with exposure.”
That lands badly.
I see it before she moves.
Reva steps toward me, then stops, her breath breaking. For one terrible second, she looks at the floor. Then she lowers.
Not fully. Not theatrically. Just a desperate bend of her knees, as if begging is the last tool left in a body that has been stripped of every useful one.
“Please,” she says.
The word hits the room like a gunshot. I catch her before both knees touch the floor.
“Don’t you dare do that.”
My voice comes out low and harsh enough to make her flinch, and I hate myself for it. I pull her up with both hands under her arms and keep her against me when she tries to twist free.
“Do not kneel to me for him,” I say, softer now, but no less firm. “Do you understand me? Not for this. Not ever.”
Her eyes fill. “Then take me.”
“I can’t.”
“No, you won’t.”
“I won’t,” I agree. “Because I love you more than I fear you hating me for it.”
She shoves at my chest. I let her have the first one. Not the second.
When she hits me again, I catch both wrists and hold them between us. The air changes. Her body knows before her temper admits it.
“Bedroom,” I say.
Her chin jerks up. “Excuse me?”
“Now.”
“You think you can order me out of this conversation?”
“I think if we continue it in front of everyone, you will say things to make me hurt because you are hurting, and I will still not take you to the hospital.”
Her throat works.
“This does not end with you going,” I say. “It can end with me holding you while you break or with you tearing yourself open for an audience. Choose.”
Her eyes search mine. She looks away first.
I keep her wrists in one hand and lead her down the hall. No one speaks behind us.
The master suite is excessive in the way hotels mistake space for peace. A bed wide enough for three. Low lamps. A view of the city through glass that makes me want curtains, steel, and twenty more men. I close the door and lock it, then release Reva’s wrists.
She spins on me immediately. “You don’t get to make me feel ridiculous for wanting to see my father.”
“I am not doing that.”
“You made me stop.”
“Yes.”
“I hate you a little right now.”
“I can live with that.”
That seems to make her angrier, and that’s okay. Anger is easier to work with than despair.
She stalks toward the window, and I catch her before she reaches the glass, turning her back against the wall beside it instead.
Not hard. Enough to remind her there are edges around her body, that she is here, alive, not running through hospital corridors chasing a fear Isabel would happily weaponize.
“Look at me.”
“No.”
I put two fingers under her chin and lift. Her eyes are wet. Furious. Exhausted.
“Breathe.”
“If you tell me to breathe one more time, I will bite you.”
“Bite me after.”
The smallest tremor goes through her, and I lower my mouth to hers. She resists for half a breath, and then she breaks into me.
The kiss is not gentle. She takes my mouth like she is angry at needing it, and I let her for a moment because she needs somewhere to put her teeth.
Then I take control. One hand in her hair, the other at her throat, thumb along her jaw, steady pressure without pain.
She makes a sound into my mouth and grabs my shirt.
“Hands on the wall,” I say.
Her breath catches. “Nash.”
“Hands. Wall.”
The first tear slips down her cheek. She turns and presses both palms to the wall.
That obedience, given while fury still shakes through her, does something savage and tender inside me. I step in behind her, fitting my body to hers, one hand sliding around her waist while the other traces down her arm to cover her wrist.
“You are allowed to be scared,” I say against her ear. “Allowed to be angry. Allowed to want this. You are not allowed to hand Isabel your body because grief told you to run.”
She bows her head. I kiss the back of her neck, then bite lightly where her pulse hammers. Her knees soften.
“Say yes,” I tell her.
“Yes.”
I pull her leggings down slowly. Not because I am patient, though I can be, but because she needs to feel each second belong to us and not to panic.
She helps with shaking hands, then puts them back where I told her.
I slide my palm between her thighs and find her already wet, already trembling, body reaching for the quiet her mind refuses.
She exhales my name like surrender offends her.
“Good girl.”
She shudders.
I work her with two fingers until her hips chase my hand, then stop before she comes. She makes a broken sound and looks back over her shoulder.
“Nash, I need—”
“I know what you need.”
I turn her, lift her, and carry her to the bed.