Chapter 9
9
H ours later and I’m face down on the bed as Nathan draws circles on the base of my spine.
“Clara?”
“Hmm-mmm?”
He kisses the back of my shoulder. “That was something.”
I twist around to meet his gaze. It’s a little brighter than it was before. Whoever decorated and furnished this room cheaped out when it came to blinds as either moonlight or dawn bleeds into the room.
Nathan is lying on his side, smiling at me. “How about we stay another night?”
“In a motel room with funky-smelling sheets?”
He kisses my forehead. “They don’t smell that bad.”
“They do.”
Of cheap detergent, stale perfume, and some musty unidentifiable scent I’m trying hard not to identify.
And yet here I am, sharing a pillow with Nathan, a man I have repeatedly told myself I wanted nothing to do with.
“I never know what you’re thinking,” he says.
“Nothing exciting.”
Just me, possibly maybe definitely making impulsive and reckless decisions I should be old enough not to keep making.
Like always.
“Why don’t I believe that?”
I shrug. “You’re paranoid?” My tone is light, but I’m already pulling away from him. Not because I regret what I did. The problem is, I don’t regret it.
He strokes a hand down my spine. “You know, you can talk to me about stuff.”
“What kind of stuff?” I edge back as I remind myself that I need to stop being impulsive and giving into the moment instead of using my head like I should.
Think instead of act. That’s what I need to do more of.
Nathan’s hand settles low on my spine, stopping my less than subtle retreat. “Stuff like the reason you were looking at me as closely as you were in Rosenwood.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I lie.
I don’t talk about being an omega. Ever . I didn’t talk about it in Dawley and I don’t intend to start now. I don’t know if Adrian knows what I am, or he just guessed, but it doesn’t really matter. It’s become clear over the years that the fewer people who know what I am, the better.
I don’t want to be a thing to own, and I being an omega reduces me to a thing rather than… well, me being me.
“Regan never liked to talk about being an omega either,” Nathan says, watching me closely.
I get up.
He tries to stop me. “ Hey !”
I shove the sheets off me and snatch up my T-shirt from the floor, stuffing it over my head on the way to my bed. “I don’t want to talk about it, Nathan.”
“Because you think?—”
“Because I’d appreciate you not sticking your nose where it isn’t welcome. We scratched an itch together. That doesn’t mean you get to pry into my life. Back off .”
His face turns blank.
I need to remember to have a good, long shower tomorrow morning before we hit the road. The last thing I need is to roll up in Hardin and meet Nathan’s packmates smelling like we just had sex. They’ll figure it out with or without a shower, but I’d prefer not to telegraph it.
“Scratched an itch, huh?” His voice is as inscrutable as the look on his face, and I turn away, pulling the sheets up to my neck.
“Exactly.” I should try to sleep, if only to avoid thinking about the strange note in Nathan’s voice that almost sounds like hurt. It’s making me feel like maybe I could have found a nicer way to tell Nathan what we did was a onetime, never going to happen ever again thing.
Instead, I feel like I just kicked a puppy. Which is to say, pretty fucking terrible.
I turn to look at Nathan when sheets rustle.
He’s on his back, so I can’t read his expression. “Nathan?”
“So, it’s a what happened in the motel room stays in the motel room situation, huh?”
“That’s all it can be.” I know myself. Settling anywhere for longer than a few weeks isn’t in my future. I get bored, itchy feet, restless, whatever you want to call it. It all amounts to the same thing: commitment is not in my future.
I’ll go to Hardin, meet his packmates, maybe enjoy being somewhere new for a little while, then an itch will start up and grow stronger and stronger until it drives me crazy. So I’ll move on. Like I usually do.
He nods. “I get it.”
I wanted to know what it would be like to kiss Nathan Blackshaw. Now I do. I know what it feels like to do a hell of a lot more than that, and it felt good. Like, really good. I want to do those same things again, but that is a complication I don’t need in my life.
So it was an itch. One we both scratched, and that’s that.
“Get some sleep, Clara.” The sheets rustle a little more as Nathan turns to face the wall. “We’ll be leaving first thing.”
“Okay.”
I close my eyes, but I don’t sleep.
There’s a tightness in my belly and a lump in my throat. This is an itch I can’t scratch, and it fucking hurts.
Nathan hasn’t moved for a little while. He’s not snoring and his breathing is even, but I think he’s awake, just like I am, lying in the dark, with no desire to sleep.
We’re on the road early.
I’m back in my jeans, a fresh T-shirt I borrowed from Nathan, and no panties given Nathan ripped mine off me the night before.
I’m trying not to think about it because it wasn’t a big deal when we were both… well, into it.
In the light of a brand new day, after I tossed said ripped panties in the trash, I’m painfully aware that the man sitting in the driver’s seat was responsible for my lack of underwear. I’m also trying not to look at the hands he wraps around the steering wheel because they’re a reminder of what we were doing to each other last night before things turned serious.
Nathan pulls off the highway and into a small-town mall an hour away from the motel we checked out of. There are a couple of boutiques, a grocery store, an arts and crafts store, and a couple of restaurants. He parks up in front of a boutique, confusing me.
“Uh… Nathan?”
“Wait in the car,” he says, cutting the engine. “I’ll be a few minutes.”
“Sure,” I agree, not meeting his eye because things are still awkward between us.
As he gets out, I stay alert. I haven’t forgotten that an alpha is hunting me. Neither has Nathan for him to pause before he slams the door shut. “If there’s trouble, come in the store or blow the horn and I’ll come, okay?”
I meet his eyes now. Yes, it’s still awkward as hell, but he’s trying to protect me when, really, he should be kicking me out of his car after what I said to him. Eye contact is the least he deserves. “Okay, thanks.”
He walks into a boutique just as it opens and approximately twenty minutes later, emerges with a large white paper bag he places in the backseat.
I eye the bag curiously as he gets into the car and starts the engine. “Looks like you did some damage in there.”
“Just needed a few things.” He pulls away from the mall. “We don’t have a lot of options for shopping in Hardin, so this is the last stop with a decent mall.”
“What do you want for breakfast?” he asks.
“Anything.”
“We can hit a Denny’s and grab something to eat on the road.”
So we do.
I have a breakfast burrito with chorizo, eggs, potatoes and bacon. Nathan has two. It’s delicious. Surprisingly, so is the coffee. I have had exactly one Denny’s coffee before with Martha and you couldn’t have paid me to drink the stuff again. I guess it’s store dependent whether you get a nice smooth coffee or the watery stuff I had before.
Things are still awkward, at least for me, but the closer we get to Hardin, the more Nathan opens up.
We have the radio on low; the sun is rising in the distance and it’s making me think today is going to be a beautiful day. Nathan is chatting about his packmates, cracking jokes every now and again, and almost always with a smile on his face, but he’s hurting.
Correction. I hurt him .
I look at him and I don’t see the smile on the surface; I see the anguish beneath.
“You’re quiet,” he says as we leave big cities and towns behind us on our approach to the mountain ranges that he told me meant we were nearing Hardin.
“Just thinking.”
Should I ask him about Regan being an omega, or about the anguish I feel in him? Because it would be the height of hypocrisy to be the one asking him any question at all when I nearly bit his head off back in the motel.
“About anything in particular?” He darts a rapid glance my way.
The highway is busy and has been steadily getting busier. We were on the road early, but now it’s late morning, the sleeping inhabitants of Colorado have had time to wake up, get in their vehicles, and hit the road.
Eighteen-wheelers, small trucks, and cars hurtle past in both directions as we make the long drive to the northern ranges of Colorado.
“Clara? What is it?” He gives me another rapid glance.
“You didn’t call me peach.”
His fingers tighten around the steering wheel. “I got the sense I overstepped last night.”
So he’s backing off. Just like I told him.
Is it weird that I kind of wish he wouldn’t?
I look away from his stubbled jaw. He didn’t shave. Hasn’t for a few days now, and I’m tempted to run my finger along it to see how it feels.
“What’s your pack like?” I ask, looking out of the window.
“Just your standard pack,” he says simply.
“Except it has an alpha with a reputation for slaughtering half his pack that nearly made my sister stuff me in the trunk of her car to stop me from going near him.”
“Martha would have done that?” Amusement warms his voice.
But that anguish I sense in him is still there. If I wasn’t what I was, I wouldn’t know anything about it. Nathan Blackshaw is very good at hiding his hurt.
“She would. When she wasn’t nagging me to death to pick up my crap off the floor, she was— is —just about the most protective person you’ll ever meet.”
“Ah, Dayne and Talis are like that about all of us.”
Curious, I forget about the gorgeous views outside my window to focus wholly on Nathan. “Talis?”
“Luna. Also wrangler of twin toddlers who love nothing more than to try to stick their fingers into plug sockets and find other interesting ways to kill themselves. Patrick is a few minutes older, but quiet. Angel… well, let’s just say, you’d have to walk for a while to get away from the sound of her scream.”
His dry tone draws a smile to my lips. “Your pack sounds interesting.”
Pack Vincent, a tiny pack in the middle of nowhere Ohio, was very ordinary.
We had a typical alpha and luna. Pack runs every few days. Loud meals in the dining room, weekly meetings where sometimes arguments overtook the meeting itself.
It was full of love and caring, friendship, and family.
I would give anything to have them back.
He snorts. “I guess so. Patrick and Angel own all our hearts, and we’d do anything to keep them safe.”
He loves them. The sudden pang for everything I lost squeezes my throat and my chest, makes it hard to take a breath.
When my pack died, Martha and I lost not only a home, we lost family and a connection to the past. We lost everything. With all those relationships stolen from us, we only had each other. Now she has Ty and I’m so happy that she has him, but I wish I had more.
I swallow the lump in my throat. “And the rest of your pack?”
My voice doesn’t change. I’m good at faking it like the best of them, but Nathan slows the car a touch and gives me a long look. Like he knows something is wrong. “Busy bringing little Blackshaws into the world.”
“What?”
“Jenna and Marshall have a little one due soon. I wouldn’t be surprised if Luka and Eden were sharing their happy news next. They’re always sneaking off together and coming back all disheveled. Hallee’s mate is a carpenter called Kier. When they’re not at the house, he’s at his own home and she’s helping with his business. Gavin and Blair were staying in Savannah’s cabin in the woods, but they’ve moved back into the house, so it’s yours for however long you want it. There’s Dean and Madi. Gavin and Blair. Oh, and Savannah and Jeremy are holding back on telling us that she’s pregnant. Not sure why. Guess they want to surprise us.”
Throughout this list of an overwhelming amount of names, Nathan sounds happy. He’s smiling and waggling his eyebrows suggestively, but that anguish inside him isn’t still there. It’s growing.
“And you?” I prompt.
He changes lanes and pulls off the highway. “What about me?”
“No Blackshaw babies in your future?”
“Nah.” He flashes me a grin as he comes to a stop beside a gas station pump. “We need more gas for our last push. Want any snacks? I’d kill for some candies.”
“I’m good.” He’s climbing out of the car and this feels like the perfect time to apologize for something I didn’t mean. “About the motel room…”
“Nothing to talk about. I came on too strong. I won’t do it again.”
He slams the door shut before I can speak again, and I subtly watch him fill up the tank.
Nathan has a pack, a home, and he seems happy. Sure his packmates are settling down and having kids, but that happens in every pack. That doesn’t explain the anguish I feel in him.
He must feel me watching as he pulls his credit card from the gas station machine after filling his tank.
“You sure you don’t want any snacks?”
I shake my head.
He walks toward the shop attached to the gas station as I watch him.
Why are you hurting Nathan Blackshaw? And why does it bother me so much that you are?