37. Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-seven
Nate
Samantha laughed, pushing me away, but not hard enough to be effective. “You’re in my personal space.”
I tugged her closer, one arm hooked around the back of her chair as I nuzzled her neck. “You have no personal space.”
“That’s right.” She rubbed her cheek against mine. “Who needs personal space when I can have Nate Wells?”
I tipped her face toward mine, our lips grazing. “I love you.”
I felt her smile. “I love you too.”
I had to bite my tongue from saying it again. And again. I’d given myself a daily limit, and I was swiftly approaching it. If I said it too much, she’d know. I was doing well, keeping it normal, and she hadn’t noticed.
I bumped the table with my elbow, nearly tipping my empty beer bottle into Samantha’s graveyard of cocktail glasses, nothing left but melted ice and forgotten garnishes. The clatter was swallowed by the crowd as the lead singer launched into the next song.
She put her lips beside my ear to be heard. “We should go home.”
I pulled back, my eyes darting between hers. They were smoky, gray and black, smudged at the corners. Her cheeks were more flushed than they’d been when I’d picked her up earlier, and her lipstick had long since been kissed away.
“You’re beautiful.”
She laughed. “Thank you, but that wasn’t the topic at hand.”
“Right, right. Something about going home?” I reached over to spin the empty cocktail straw between my fingers before nodding toward the small stage. “You don’t want to listen to the rest of the set?”
She’d snuck out of work early to come with me to a local band’s concert. They were fine. Maybe even good, judging by the crowd’s reaction.
I hadn’t heard much of the show. Being present was a battle. Act normal. Do more than stare at Samantha.
“I’m ready.” She slipped her hand into mine. “You’ve kept me so busy lately, I’ve barely had time to think.”
Me either. But that was the point.
“Come on, Natey,” she cajoled. “I’m tired.”
I rubbed my lips along her knuckles. “Then let’s get you home and in bed.”
She was pulling my hair hard. Her feet kicked, frantic, pounding into the mattress. “Come on, Nate.”
I slammed my eyes closed and continued licking her, holding her thighs open wide. She whined, arched into me, her flesh slippery against my lips.
“Nate,” she cried. “I can’t…I can’t…”
She always said that. But she could. She could do anything. And if I stopped, if I fucked her, then she’d want to sleep and I’d be alone. Another night of pacing. It was becoming torture.
So I kept at her. How long had we been doing this?
Too long?
Fuck, had we been going for too long? Would she know?
The currents were wild, pounding into the ridges of my skull so sharply it was all I could do to bury my face between her thighs to muffle it. And it helped. She always helped.
But lately, it was taking more of her to get me through, and I wasn’t sure what was normal anymore. If she could tell. If she’d noticed.
She yanked at my hair again with so much force, I had to listen. Only when I rose over her, I noticed I wasn’t really hard.
How was that possible? She was sweaty, eyes glazed, lips pink and puffy, looking at me like I was the answer to everything. She reached for me, pulling me down on her.
I knew when she felt it. She stiffened momentarily, her heels pausing on their trail down the backs of my legs.
“I’m sorry,” I huffed into her throat.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered. “Is it…?”
“I think I’m more tired than I realized.” I tried to laugh it off, but it came out drier than a husk. “Too many beers tonight probably didn’t help.”
She went quiet, petting my hair and holding me tight against her. My heart thudded in my ears, and I was drowning in her scent, my guilt, the sureness that this was it. I’d messed up. She’d know. She was probably already wishing she’d never agreed to this.
Then, in a wobbly voice, she asked, “Is it me?”
For once in what felt like forever, everything cleared and my head stopped pounding long enough to pull back and meet her eyes. The insecurity I found there nearly split me in two.
“Never, sweet girl.” I smoothed her hair from her face and took her cheek in my hand. “I’m so attracted to you, I can’t think straight. My broken dick has nothing to do with you. I’m sorry—”
“Please don’t apologize.” She wrapped her legs around my back and pulled me into her. I wasn’t any harder, but it was nice to sink down and share her heat. “I love you. As long as we’re okay…?”
“We’re always okay.” I touched my lips to hers. “I love you, Sammie.”
“Then we’re fine.” She yawned, big and wide, then laughed at herself. “I think we’re both tired. You wrung me out.”
“Let’s go to sleep.”
I held on to her for dear life long after she drifted off.
I’d never felt so disconnected from my body, from her, from life.
But soon, the loneliness of the night got to me.
Dread curdled my gut to the point I was sure I was going to be sick.
I unwrapped myself from Samantha without disturbing her and bolted to the bathroom.
I fell to my knees, clutching the toilet, and wretched. It went on forever, my body racked with shivers, my muscles quivering with fatigue. If it had been possible to vomit the poison in my head, it would have been expelled from me then, along with my intestines and the lining of my stomach.
But even when I was empty, it was still there.
I pressed the heels of my palms against my temples until stars burst behind my eyelids, willing something, anything to loosen.
Nothing moved, and panic crawled over me like spiders with their sticky, creepy feet.
How long was this going to last?
I hadn’t even thought of Louise in days. Weeks, maybe? Then again, I’d used every ounce of my energy to concentrate on work and Samantha. Everything and everyone else had fallen by the wayside. There was nothing left.
I was sapped.
My stomach twisted again, but I was hollowed out.
It was starting to be like before. That old familiar feeling, where everything was getting to be too hard to have the motivation to keep trying. Had the world doubled its gravity without giving me any notice? That was what it felt like.
I had to wonder if this was what my life would always be like. Cycles of decent, maybe even good, sometimes so great I wasn’t sure it was real, followed by this.
How many more cycles could I take? How many times could a person survive becoming themselves all over again?
Wouldn’t it be easier—
No.
No, no, no.
My pulse kicked.
Don’t.
Not that road.
I shoved those thoughts away so hard it made me dizzy.
If I had those thoughts, that meant this wasn’t just a bad night, or a series of bad nights. It meant I had to tell Roman, and that would lead to everyone tiptoeing around me, watching me, holding their breath. I couldn’t do that to them again.
They’d wish they never met me, just like Rosalie.
I couldn’t let that happen. I had to get up from the floor. It was simple. It shouldn’t have felt like negotiating with a mountain.
I stared at the door, knowing Samantha was lying peacefully just on the other side. Getting back to her, pulling her into my arms, holding her even if I couldn’t sleep, should have been motivation enough.
It was. I wanted that more than anything.
I just had to convince my body it was worth trying.