Chapter 32
KATE
Nate’s grip on me was crushing, but I still wanted him to hold me tighter. Closer. I felt like I’d lost my tether to the world in that park and like, right then, he was the only thing keeping me anchored to the entire fucking planet.
At the same time, I was furious at him. For absolutely no reason.
Nate was CB.
Nathaniel Westwood was my precious Colonel Brandon, the man I’d spent the last half-decade falling in love with.
It made no sense at all but also perfect sense in the same breath. I didn’t know how to explain it, but I was halfway out of my mind at this point and I wasn’t even too proud or too shy to admit it.
These last few weeks, Nate had been slowly peeling back my defenses just like CB had done, but I had never—not even for one single second—considered they might be the same person. Knowing now that all this time, Nate was who I’d been bearing my soul to, should’ve been embarrassing as fuck.
The things I told him…
I kissed him harder to banish the thoughts, the doubts, and even the disbelief, choosing to bury myself in this moment instead. For so long, I’d wondered what it would feel like when he finally held me just like he was doing now.
Alone in my bed late at night, I had wondered about his face and his lips. Now he was kissing me, Nate—CB—and it was impossible to believe they were the same person, but I wrapped my arms around him, and with my eyes closed, for just a second, I could almost feel it.
How did I miss it before? I’d spent five years believing that CB was it for me. The love of my life. The only person alive who could ever truly make me happy and for whom I could do the same thing. How could I not know that I’ve been kissing him for the last couple weeks?
My brain kept tripping over that fact. Deep down, I felt like I should’ve known, but I kept coming back to the here and now. I was finally kissing him, the man I’d loved for so long, and it was intoxicating.
Before I could even fully form the intention to do it, my fingers were on the buttons of his shirt, sliding each one free. He groaned softly, reaching for the light jacket I’d thrown on and pushing it off my shoulders before reaching for the hem of my shirt.
We parted briefly for him to pull it off over my head. Then I finally managed to undo the last of his buttons and pushed the shirt off his shoulders in turn. I wasn’t sure who started moving, but we were suddenly stumbling backward toward the bedroom he’d taken last night.
Nate’s kisses were growing hard and frantic, his grip tight and possessive. I was here for it. For all of it. But when his fingers delved into the waistband of my jeans and his knuckles brushed against my skin, I shivered and lost track of everything else.
He flicked open my button, then abruptly released me and gave me a gentle shove that landed me flat on my back on the bed.
For the briefest moment, he stood beside the bed, watching me through heavy-lidded eyes and breathing hard, but then he groaned and climbed onto the mattress after me as if he just couldn’t resist any longer.
Eyes latched on mine, he reached for my waistband without a word and tugged off my pants, taking my panties with them. Another shiver ran through me as I watched him, his movements so feral and the need in his eyes so raw.
As soon as my pants hit the floor, I reached for his belt and pulled it free with jerky motions, not even caring that I probably looked utterly unhinged right then. The fact was that I felt that way too much to give a shit what I looked like.
When the belt came free, I undid his button and tugged down his zipper with precisely zero grace, lifting all the fabric over his erection before shoving it down. It occurred to me as his dick sprang free that I’d never actually seen it before.
I’d felt the long, thick length of it in my hand, but that was it, and for a moment, all I could do was stare. Naturally, even his cock would be confident and proud, curving gloriously at the tip like it had been made to hit that secret spot inside in all the right ways.
I sucked in a quiet breath at the sight. Nate. CB.
It was all still rattling around my head and I swallowed hard. Then I leaned forward and took his tip into my mouth. He stiffened instantly, a surprised, needy grunt falling out of him before his hands wound into my hair.
I swirled my tongue around him, still half-crazed at the thought that this was it.
This was him.
“Fuck, Kate,” he muttered harshly, his grip tightening.
I felt his hips start to move, and when I glanced up, those clear blue eyes were shut, his head thrown back and that broad chest heaving. A flush covered the skin on his chest and his cheeks, and his brow furrowed in concentration.
The sight made everything in me clench, my own wetness coating the insides of my thighs and my clit pulsing like a cosmic freaking beacon. Nate released a shuddering breath. Then his hands were on my shoulders and he pushed me off him, the same wildness I felt reflecting back at me from his eyes.
Looking like it was costing him to do it, he suddenly got off the bed and bent over, sliding his wallet out of the pocket of his jeans. A condom came out next and those blue eyes shot back to mine, holding my gaze as he slowly lifted the package to his mouth.
It took me a second to realize he was giving me time to stop him, but instead, I spread my legs wider.
Wide enough that he couldn’t miss it. And definitely wide enough to make me look like a porn star, but hey, I’d had many, many fantasies over the years of getting to be with CB for real and it was finally happening.
Looking like a porn star was the least of my concerns right then.
The fact that he wasn’t inside me yet? Well, that was a much more urgent problem. “Nate.”
My voice came out low and pleading, and he groaned in response, rolled the condom on with lightning speed, and climbed back on the bed, not stopping until he was right on top of me.
The weight of him pushing me into the mattress was so delicious.
I held his gaze as he reached between us and guided himself to my entrance.
I stroked my fingers into his hair, pulling him back down to kiss me as he thrust inside.
It wasn’t gentle or slow, but I was so wet that it was also perfect. He shuddered above me, breaking the kiss to drag in a steadying breath. “Shit, Kate. You feel… It’s been…”
He trailed off, swallowing roughly before I shook my head at him. “Same. Just move, Nate. I won’t judge you, I swear. As long as you move. Right now.”
On another low groan, he kissed me again, withdrawing slowly before he slammed back in. I cried out, my nails digging divots into his skin when he dragged against every glorious part inside me.
We fell into an easy, blissful rhythm when I started moving with him. My toes curled almost instantly. Clinging to him like a lost koala, I writhed and moaned, practically screaming his name whenever his pelvis brushed against my clit or those sparks exploded from deep within.
Holy fuck, he’s good at this. It felt like his body had been made for it, and I thoroughly appreciated that right now. Whoever thought that on top of everything else, CB—Nate—and I would be so perfectly matched physically as well?
This guy was blowing my mind. As if that thought had triggered us both, I was skyrocketing into my orgasm and I felt him tense above me not even a full second later. Pleasure crashed through me like a hurricane, dragging me under and breaking me apart in all the best possible ways.
Eventually, I was only half-aware of him pressing a kiss to my collarbone before he disappeared, crawling back into bed with me before I could even protest his absence. My brain finally started coming back online in fragments, like lights flickering on in a building after a blackout.
Sensation first, the cool air against my overheated skin and the sound of my breathing as it began to slow. The solid warmth of Nate stretched out beside me. The soft rustle of fabric when I shifted.
I pushed myself up on one elbow, then sat up fully. My hair was a disaster, falling into my face in wild pieces, and I pushed it back out of habit more than a conscious realization that I had to do it. My hands were still trembling, but I tucked them in my lap and stared over at Nate.
He didn’t move much, still lying on his back with one arm flung over his eyes like the world was too bright for him. Like maybe he was hiding from it.
Or maybe he’s just hiding from me.
Emotion twisted in my chest as I looked down at him, the natural, ash-blond hair and tanned, trim frame. Five years ago, CB and I had started talking online. It had been three years since I’d first met Nate. All of it crashed together into one impossible, ridiculous truth.
“You agreed to run away with me,” I murmured, my voice too breathy and too rough to speak properly.
The words sounded insane out loud, but that didn’t make them any less true. Nate, a Westwood—hell, the fucking CFO of Westwood and Sons East Coast—had agreed to run away with me.
Okay, well, not with me. With Emma, but Emma was the real me. The version of me who wasn’t afraid and who had eventually managed to let her guard down.
Nate let out a slow breath through his nose, his arm still draped over his face when the sound of his voice pulled me out of my latest spiral. “You canceled on me. Remember?”
I stared at him. “You literally just didn’t show up at the station.”
“Neither did you. You said you couldn’t do it.”
“I couldn’t do it because you’d just kissed me.”
He dropped his arm and looked at me then, his blue eyes still a little dazed, like he hadn’t fully returned to earth yet either. “We were both going to cancel. I saw you in that doorway, Kate. You weren’t going to go through with it.”
I blinked at him. Hard. Then I blinked again as the full, absurd weight of it hit me.
“Oh my God,” I whispered. “We were cheating on each other. With each other.”
“Yeah. It looks like it.” He looked just as wrecked as I felt, his hair a mess, his lips swollen, and his expression slack with disbelief. Dazed.
It was almost like we’d both just walked out of the same dream. I drew my knees up slightly, wrapping my arms around them and trying to gather my thoughts, but finding absolutely none waiting for me to gather.
“What do we do now?” I asked when I realized that my mind was just completely blank.
But Nate Westwood, the man who had a plan for everything, who could untangle billion-dollar deals and corporate disasters without breaking a sweat, and who always, always knew what came next, just shook his head.
“I don’t know,” he finally said.
I looked at him when he turned toward me, but it terrified me more than anything else had today that he seemed honest when he added, “I actually have no idea.”