Chapter 23
Chapter
Twenty-Three
The slight squeaking sound threw her right back in time.
All of a sudden, Emma was sitting on the hard concrete of her cell, the metal bars showing her glimpses of her future through the women who had been in this hellhole longer than she had.
Her bottom ached from the paddle that had repeatedly hit it.
She was cold because she wasn't wearing any clothes, nor did she have anything to wrap around herself, and she found her breath caught in her throat as her head whipped to the side, waiting for a glimpse of Nathan as he brought them their meals.
“Blondie?”
She waited to see him approach, but he shouldn’t be using that soft tone with her.
If he did, the other guards would realize that something was between them.
If that happened, not only would she lose the only meager bit of protection she had in this place, but Nathan would be tortured and killed as a traitor.
The last thing she wanted was for him to suffer and die because of her.
“I'm here, sweetheart.”
Arms wrapped around her, and suddenly, the hard concrete wasn't so hard anymore. It wasn’t cold anymore either.
Now it was warmth and strength. But it was wrong.
Nathan hadn't made her kneel before him, allowing her the pretense of defiance and rebellion by not averting her gaze and keeping it on the floor, as he unlocked her cell and left her a meal that wasn't enough to eradicate the gnawing hunger pains that were her constant companion.
“Come back to me, blondie.”
A soft touch on her face had her blinking in confusion, and just like that, the concrete, the metal bars, the cold, the nakedness, and the fear were all gone.
She wasn't in that basement anymore, she was inside an apartment at Prey Security’s main office building in New York City, safe and sound, with Nathan a constant, steady presence at her side.
When she blanked out, he must have pulled her onto his lap, because she could feel his muscled thighs beneath her, his hands on her face and fingers almost compulsively stroking her temples.
He hadn't left her once since she’d killed the man who had bought her.
After they finished debriefing and Falcon had offered to let her stay in the building until Azure was dismantled, Nathan immediately offered to stay too.
Either in the same or a neighboring apartment, whatever she was more comfortable with.
Him.
He was what she was comfortable with.
“You okay, sweetheart?” he asked, his worried eyes searching hers.
Emma nodded because Nathan was there, and that somehow made everything okay, but then she shook it because she knew she was never really going to be okay again, not after the horrors she’d lived through. “Am I ever going to stop thinking about it?” she whispered.
“Much as I want to tell you that you will, I can't lie to you, blondie. What happened to you isn’t something you're going to forget or ever get over. But things will get easier. Eventually, a whole day will go by where you don’t think about it. Then maybe a week, a month. It’s part of you now, but it won't always feel this fresh, overwhelming, or all-consuming.”
“Promise?” She might hate that her voice wobbled on that one word because, right now, it didn't seem like her feelings could ever fade, ever not be overwhelming and all-consuming.
But she also knew she didn't have to put on a brave face with Nathan, she could just be her, and right now, she was battered and broken.
“Yeah, sweetheart, I promise,” he replied, leaning forward to rest his forehead against hers, and she got the feeling she wasn't the only one feeling overwhelmed and consumed by fear and horror and anger. Working undercover might have been Nathan’s job for the last decade, but he’d never had to see someone he cared about go through hell.
And he cared about her.
It was crazy and way too quick, definitely weird, but it was what it was, and she wasn't fighting against her feelings, that would be stupid. Instead, she was already putting her fight toward just making it through each second, each minute, each hour.
“Nathan?”
“Yes, blondie?” he asked, amusement in his voice because he already knew what she was going to say before she said it.
“Remember the storage closet? Where you gave me what I needed?”
“Never going to forget that, blondie.”
“Need you to make me feel like my body is my own again. I want to be in control of it, I want to decide who gets to touch it.” She’d told him everything that had happened to her when she was with Stephen Joseph, so she knew that he knew what she was asking, what she needed.
One of his hands left her cheek and brushed between her legs. “Can I worship you here, blondie?”
They’d made love out in the Kenyan wilderness, again on the plane as they flew home, then last night when she asked Nathan if he minded sleeping on the bed with her because she was afraid to be alone.
But they hadn't done anything more than sex, no real foreplay other than him touching her a little before he slid inside her, making sure she was ready to take him.
Emma had been safe in the knowledge that Nathan wouldn't push her for more than she was ready for until she asked him to.
It was only because she knew he wouldn't if she said no, that she nodded. Reclaiming her power was her plan going forward. Although she knew she would have to seek professional help at some point, she just wasn't ready to talk about her ordeal with a stranger yet.
When she nodded, he scooped her up, stood, and then deposited her in the reclining armchair beside the sofa they’d been sitting on watching a movie, although she couldn’t remember which one.
Once she was in it, he hit the button to make her recline, and then he knelt before her, his hands running up and down her thighs.
“I’ll never do anything you're not comfortable with, sweetheart, I promise you that. You want me to stop, you just say the word.”
“I know that, Nathan,” she assured him, because even though she was the one who had gone through hell, she wasn't selfish enough to think that meant she was the only one who had suffered.
Her family had suffered not knowing what had happened to her, Nathan had suffered feeling like he failed her, and there were so many more women out there who were still suffering, still in danger.
“I’ll always put you first,” he told her as he lifted her backside off the chair so he could slide her cut-off denim shorts and panties down her legs, tossing them aside once he had.
“I know that, too.” He’d proved it to her when he left his job to save her life.
“You're free now, sweetheart.” The tip of his tongue trailed up the inside of one thigh. “Choosing this. You're the one in control here.” His tongue bypassed her center, which was already growing wet and needy, to swipe down her other thigh.
“Nathan,” she moaned.
“Hmm?”
“Hurry up already and worship.”
As he chuckled, he moved his mouth so that his lips hovered just on her bud, and the vibrations made her lift her hips, seeking more, needing more.
That first flick of his tongue against her bundle of nerves felt nothing like what those men had done to her when she was chained up and powerless.
This was powerful because Nathan was only doing it because she’d asked.
She didn't have to guess if he was enjoying it, though, because when she lifted her torso up off the chair so she could reach down between his legs, she felt the bulge in his sweatpants.
“Uh-uh, blondie, this is about you.”
When he tried to push her back down to lie flat, Emma shook her head. “This is about both of us.”
“My sweet girl can't stop thinking of others.” Lifting her legs so her knees were hooked over the arms of the chair, he pressed the button again to make her upright and then buried his face between her legs while she continued to stroke him.
Her movements mirrored his as he sucked and licked her bud. Pausing every so often to tease her entrance, she shoved her hand inside his waistband so she could get her hands on him. He felt so good, thick and hard, and the way he jerked in her hold made her feel powerful.
Nathan did this amazing thing with his tongue, he pressed against her bundle of nerves with the flat of his tongue, then the tip circled her bud and flicked at it. Each one produced a slightly different sensation, and it was so easy to get lost in them.
All thoughts of her ordeal fled her mind because all she could do was feel.
Feel as pleasure coiled tightly inside her.
As Nathan picked up his pace, she did the same.
Stroking him harder and faster as he pushed her closer and closer to combusting.
When it happened, she cried out her pleasure as it spiraled through her in a seemingly never-ending stream.
Nathan came, too, all over her hand, and she loved knowing she’d made him fall apart.
Just as he was leaning in to brush his lips against hers, his phone rang. He hesitated but shot her an apologetic smile, quickly kissed her, then reached over to grab it.
Emma got it, it might be something important about Azure, and she wanted to know if there was an update, too. It was hard to figure out from Nathan’s expression if it was good or bad news.
When he hung up, he met her gaze, face still serious. “That was Falcon. He just told me who one of the other Prey operatives undercover in Azure was.”
“Who?” she asked as she reached for his hands, entwining their fingers.
“Mateo. And apparently something bad is about to go down, something big enough to worry Falcon. He apologized because he already agreed to my request for time off, but he said he might need me to help if things get messy, which he seems to think they will.”
In the wake of Nathan’s disappearance from Azure nothing could have prepared Mateo Adler for his test of loyalty in the second book in the action packed and emotionally charged Prey Security: Undercover Team series!
Defending Mateo (Prey Security: Undercover Team #2)