Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
H ow could she not fall completely head over heels for Nate? He was everything she’d never known she wanted or needed in life.
His lips were firm but hesitant against hers at first. But then he seemed to heat and melt against her. Surround her. Consume her.
It was as if she’d turned on a switch. Suddenly, neither of them could get enough of one another.
He buried his hands in her hair, holding her close as his mouth took, and she arched her body against his. When that wasn’t enough, she slid over him, straddling his hips so there was as little space between them as possible.
He smelled like sandalwood and sex. Tasted like cherries and cream. Felt like silk over steel.
She needed more.
Her fingers snaked under the T-shirt that he was wearing. She raked her nails softly against his bare skin, enjoying feeling his heartbeat under her fingertips. He vibrated with a moan, the sound nothing more than a soft hum, which drove her crazy.
Arching her hips, she felt him harden against her core and instantly grew wet thinking of him sliding inside her.
“Nate.” She sighed and pulled back. “I don’t think I can wait for our official date.” Her eyes were glued to his lips. “I need you. Now.” She started pulling his shirt over his head and was thankful that he didn’t stop her.
Finally, she was able to run her hands over those toned, tanned muscles that she’d admired a few days before.
“I don’t want to push you,” he said, lifting her chin until her eyes were on his. “Are you sure you’re up to this?”
Her smile was quick. “I just had a four-hour nap.”
He chuckled softly and she vowed to remember the sexy sound for the rest of her life, no matter what.
“Please,” she said, running her fingertips over his chest.
In one move, he stood up, holding her hips in place. She wrapped her legs around him and held onto him while he walked them quickly down the hallway and into the guest room.
“I was going to be chivalrous and stay in here,” he said, walking into the room, still holding her.
“I don’t care where you stay, just as long as we’re in the same bed.” She sighed as she ran her mouth down his jawline. He stilled and took her lips again in a kiss that seared her soul.
Then he was pressing her back against the wall, holding her, cupping her. Her shirt and pants hit the floor along with his jeans.
When she was in nothing but her black panties and bra, he hoisted her up again and walked until they fell gently onto the bed together.
She laughed slightly as he held himself above her, looking down into her eyes.
“You are…” He shook his head. “I’m not a poet, so I will just say, you’re an amazingly strong, beautiful, and sexy woman.”
She smiled. “I like the sound of that.” She reached for him, pulling his face down to hers.
His skin was warm against hers. The black boxer briefs he wore hugged him tightly, and she ran her hands over them, trying to pull them off his hips.
He kept moving aside so she couldn’t get him naked. He chuckled.
“Too fast,” he said against her breast. When he nudged her bra aside and took her nipple into his mouth, she cried out and stilled. Her fingers were digging into his hair while his free hand cupped her through her underwear.
“Come for me first,” he said. He slid the material across her until his finger could slowly slip inside her.
The world around her exploded. Sight. Sounds.
Her body was no longer hers.
She floated in a sea of tiny explosions.
Melted, then was built up again.
Everything was silent. Still.
Then he shifted above her, and she focused on his sexy blue eyes as he slid deeply into her in one quick motion, rocking her world and recentering it until he was the core of her universe.
Everything that had ever happened to her, everything she’d ever dreamed of, was right here.
She reached up, wrapped her arms around him, and held onto him as he sealed her fate.
This was who she was now. His.
This is who she wanted to be forever. His.
“Nate,” she sighed as her body once more lost the battle and exploded into a million pieces.
His.
She felt him saying something but didn’t shift so that her ear and her implant were free enough to hear his words.
Her body wasn’t responding. She was still floating in the afterglow of the best sex she—or anyone else, she guessed—had ever had.
“I don’t want to move,” she mumbled. “Give me a minute, or twenty years.” She felt him chuckle.
When she finally did turn her head slightly, she heard him say.
“Are you okay?” His finger was slowly making shapes on her shoulder, relaxing her further.
“Better than okay.” She sighed. “You?”
“Oh, I could fly to the moon if I had to.” He shifted slightly until he could glance down at her. A small crease appeared between his eyes. “You’re in pain.”
She was. She was trying hard to ignore it and shrugged. “I’ll live.”
He shifted again until they were both sitting up. She watched his eyes run over every inch of her before returning to her face.
“Do you need anything?”
She shook her head slightly. “Just you.” She rested her head against his chest. “I’ll be okay.”
“How bad is it? Really?” he asked as his arms wrapped around her again.
She thought about it for a moment. “I have about ten percent of my hearing still,” she admitted. “If this is permanent,” she added glancing up at him, “I’ll lose this simple hold on who I am and that scares me.”
He turned to face her fully, brushing a kiss to her temple. “It’s not the end. Not even close. You’re still you. With or without hearing.”
She looked up at him, her eyes searching his face, and then nodded once. “I’ll admit, I don’t want to stop hearing your sexy voice.”
His smile was quick. “Then I suppose I’ll have to keep you up all night talking to you until you change your mind.”
She laughed. “Thank you. For today. For this.” Her fingers brushed lightly over his chest. “For being there.”
“Anytime,” he whispered, leaning down to kiss her softly. “Now get comfy.” He flipped on the television in their room and changed it to the movie they’d been watching in the other room. “I think this movie has the worst fake accent I’ve ever heard, and I need someone to laugh at it with me.”
She smiled against his shoulder and pulled the blanket up over them both.
When she woke, Nate’s arm was pinning her down to the mattress. It felt wonderful.
Except, she had to use the bathroom.
When she moved to slip out of bed, he reached for her.
“Bathroom break,” she said, and rolled away from him quickly.
After she brushed her teeth and washed her face, she found him standing by the window with a cup of coffee in his hands, looking out the window.
She had pulled on her bra and underwear and now reached for what appeared to be his shirt, which was lying on the floor where it had been discarded last night.
“I like you like this,” he said, turning toward her.
“In need of a shower?” she joked as she took his coffee mug from him and took a sip.
“No.” He wrapped his arm around her. “Soft, sexy, warm.” He kissed her forehead. “Waking up in my arms.”
“Starving,” she added as she felt her stomach growl.
“I can fix that.” He leaned back, kissing her softly. “Finish that coffee and shower, and I’ll fix us up some breakfast.”
“I’m going to get spoiled. But I’ll take the win. I’m heading up to my bathroom to shower though.”
He nodded and then disappeared down the hallway toward the kitchen while she climbed the stairs to her room.
She had just climbed out of the shower when she heard a sound coming from the other room. Thinking it was Nate, she wrapped a towel around her and stepped out into the bedroom.
“What did you make us for breakfast?” she asked, looking around. But the room was empty.
Thinking Nate had slipped back out into the hallway and downstairs, she walked into her closet to get clothes and stopped when she noticed the hidden door was wide open.
“Hello?” she said, sticking her head in the opening. Her voice echoed in the empty space.
She hung her towel on the hook on the back of her closet door, pulled on a pair of shorts and a tank top, and slipped on a pair of sneakers. “Hello?” she called again as she stepped inside. “Nate?” She waited but with her hearing now so muffled, she couldn’t tell if he was responding.
It had to be him down there, right? Maybe he’d remembered her talking about the passage and had wanted to check it out for himself?
“Nate?” she called as she descended the stairs slowly. She continued down to the bottom level and through the passage until she stepped into the room at the end.
She blinked a few times until her eyes could adjust, only then realizing that she hadn’t brought the flashlight. She hadn’t needed it. There had been light flooding the space the entire time.
Last time she’d explored the passage, it had been cloudy out. Today, there was full sunlight outside.
Now, standing in the room, she could see the sunlight streaming in through cracks in the walls. No, not walls, rocks.
Massive boulders that were wedged so close together that they made up the walls. How had she not noticed it before? Sure, it had been darker, but she was pretty sure that she’d run her hands over the walls and they had felt solid.
Walking over, she ran a fingertip down the seams and was amazed that they felt seamless. Almost as if the thin line between each rock was made of glass.
Seeing movement out of the corner of her eye, she jerked around. Her heart raced, her breath caught.
A shadow. There, over in the corner. She moved closer and it disappeared. Where?
She continued and stepped behind the rock wall.
She ran her hand over the space that she believed it to be solid, and it passed through the dark shadow completely.
She realized there was an opening that had been hidden from her view before.
It was basked in shadow, which made it almost impossible to see, even when she’d had her flashlight.
“Nate?” she called out again as she squeezed behind the rocks. She slowly made her way through the passage, her hands scraping against the stone.
Great, she’d need another shower, she thought as she continued. The heat of the day hit her when she stepped out—or rather, practically fell out—onto a sandy beach.
“What?” She blinked a few times, letting the sunlight hit her face as she looked up, way up, the sheer rock face.
She could only see the top of the lighthouse from here. This was a part of the beach she hadn’t been to before. She realized that it was cut off on both sides from the rest of the beaches by massive sheer rock walls.
There was also no way up to the house from here. No way to escape, except back into the hidden passages.
Where had Nate gone? She spun in circles. She was alone on the beach. There wasn’t even another set of footprints in the sand.
Who had caused that shadow?
Feeling a shiver race across her body, she wrapped her arms around herself and quickly rushed back into the shelter of the passageway.
Was someone else in there? Maybe it had just been her eyes playing tricks? A bird or a cloud that had caused the shadow?
She double-checked that she was really alone as she made her way back up to her room, following the route that she had taken.
When she stepped back into her closet, she could clearly hear Nate downstairs, still cooking.
Stripping her now dirty clothes off, she grabbed her towel and stepped back into the shower to rinse off the dust and sand.
When she finally went downstairs, she was wearing another clean tank top and shorts. She’d braided her long wet hair so she didn’t have use the blow dryer, which was too loud for her implant still.
“Hey.” Nate was just setting a large plate of eggs down at the kitchen table. His eyes scanned over her and then he frowned. “You’re bleeding.” He rushed over and touched her shoulder lightly, then grabbed a napkin and held it to the spot. “Did you do this yesterday when you passed out?”
“No.” She took the napkin from him and held it to her shoulder. When she looked at it, it was nothing more than a small scratch. “I must have scratched it on the walls.”
“The walls?” He frowned and started opening cupboards. “I saw a first aid kit…” He found it and then walked over to her with a Band-Aid. “Here.” He nudged her until she was sitting down, then carefully applied the thing to her shoulder.
“The hidden passage. I thought…” she started but stopped. “I found another passage leading down to the beach. To a private beach area.”
He stilled and frowned at her. “You decided to just go exploring a cave? Now? Alone?”
She shrugged. “I thought I heard something. Honestly, the passageway door was open, and I thought that you had taken the time to check it out while I was showering.”
His eyebrows shot up and he was quiet for a moment. “You can show me after breakfast. For now”—he motioned to the food—“how about we eat?”
They sat at the kitchen table while Nate watched her like she might keel over again at any second, which—honestly—made her feel comforted and slightly annoyed that she was so fragile. He cared. Deeply. And she hated to admit it, but that was something she was going to have to get used to.