Chapter 36
Not only was the loft still a crime scene, but both Varen and Nala agreed that it was much too dangerous to stay in.
Varen found them a hotel downtown and checked them in under assumed names.
Nala worried about toiletries, but Varen returned from the lobby with enough shit from the gift shop to get them through a week’s stay.
Suffice to say, Nala had never owned so much “Portland” and “Oregon” merchandise.
“I’m going to need two outfits delivered to my office by tomorrow afternoon,” she said into a phone while they ate their dinner of takeout.
“I know it’s short notice, Andrew. I don’t give a shit. I can’t go home and I need clean clothes. Do you want to be the one responsible for running the dry cleaning? Didn’t think so.”
Nala said nothing through the course of the evening.
When Varen was in the bathroom, Nala took off her sweatshirt, making sure the manila envelope was secured within and everything folded neatly in a chair so Varen wouldn’t touch it.
Since they were settling in for the night, she pulled her bra out from beneath her T-shirt and took off her jeans.
The heater was on, meaning she could sit like this on the end of the bed without a care.
Well, she had many cares, but that was beside the point.
The shower turned on. Varen probably wanted her privacy to sort out her thoughts, so Nala tried to busy herself with the TV.
No good. She turned it off, her eyes continuing to linger on her sweatshirt and the manila envelope she knew was in there.
Should she look at it now? What was in there? Did she actually want to know?
Varen’s shower was short. Or maybe Nala spent that whole time staring at the floor, thinking about Maggie, Robin, and all the people Xan Ravenwood had ever hurt. Was Hawk the only hired help? Or did he have a crew of assassins around the world?
When Varen emerged from the bathroom, clad in nothing but a white terrycloth towel, all Nala could think was that she was glad not to be alone.
How would have things gone down if she still lived in Patrick’s house?
Shit, what had happened to Patrick? Anything?
He was an annoying stoner, but didn’t deserve that shit!
“Nala.”
Although low, Varen’s voice was hardly soothing. Nala looked up from her folded legs and the breasts poking through her thin white T-shirt. Don’t tell me I’m inappropriate, girlfriend. She didn’t see lust in Varen’s eyes.
Perhaps it wasn’t lust, but her next move was fueled by something as powerful.
“Ven…” Nala’s mouth was covered, Varen’s intentions clear when she snatched the back of Nala’s neck and let her towel fall to the floor.
Whoa! Nala flung her arms behind her, bracing herself against the bed as her girlfriend inhaled her throat and sucked her nipples through her cotton shirt.
Nala moaned, involuntarily, her mind trying to catch up with her body as it quickly turned to thoughts of sex.
Varen said little, preferring to rub her body against Nala, kiss her skin wherever she could find it, and gently tug on her ponytail. When she did speak, it was with embittered desperation. “Please, Nala,” she said. “I need you.”
She needed her too.
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
This time, it was Nala who started kissing first.
She didn’t expect Varen to be gentle, but she also didn’t expect the frenzy that erupted once she gave her consent.
As it turned out, it was what Nala wanted too.
While she was sure Varen acted on her desires and nothing more, it was almost as if she read Nala’s energy and decided to throw them both into a sexual hysteria that would either knock them out or make them forget what happened that day.
Or both, if the world suddenly turned into a perfect place.
I don’t care what she does to me. Make me forget.
Surely, Varen was on that same wavelength.
She sucked Nala’s skin hard, leaving behind red bruises that would take more than a day to go away.
Hands squeezed her, from her breasts to her ass, taking stock of her body and making sure it was still there, still warm, and still breathing.
I’m here, Ven. They didn’t get me. Likewise, Nala pawed Varen’s body and ran her fingers along those fine hairs to imprint everything about her into memory.
Nothing was as sweet as when Varen ripped Nala’s lingerie off her hips, her own heavy thrusts coming for her girlfriend’s thighs.
She cried out in awe as Varen humped her without mercy, completely overpowering her. Yes, yes, make me forget. Take me over and let me know I have nothing to worry about but what we do together. She was ready, she was willing. Nala wanted her even if it meant her thighs regretted it in the morning.
“More,” she whimpered, Varen cursing in frustration as she tried to do too much too quickly. “Don’t worry about hurting me! Oh!”
Once she was enthralled, nothing mattered anymore.
Sometimes Varen embraced Nala tightly, bringing their bodies harmoniously together. And sometimes she sat up, slamming hands on either side of Nala as she silently said “Look me in the eyes.” Every time Nala did she felt like she disappeared to another planet, another galaxy.
She’s here. I’m here. We’re okay. That’s what’s most important.
Whether she tired of the intimacy or wasn’t comfortable enough, Varen eventually released Nala and rolled her onto her stomach, hands grabbing her hips and pulling her ass up as high as it could go without Nala’s knees leaving the bed.
Fingers entered her. A heavy, taunting tongue slammed against her entrance.
Nala barely had time to bask in the relief of being pleasured before Varen’s anger, fear, and a thousand tons of frustration channeled into Nala’s body as she grabbed the comforter beneath her fingers and moaned loudly into the pillow.
She didn’t need Varen’s dirty talk tonight. Every stroke of the tongue or thrust of the fingers told her that Varen needed her. I’m helping her and she’s helping me. This wasn’t lovemaking, per se. This was searching for evidence that someone else was alive.
“Fuck me,” she groaned into the pillow, feeling Varen’s thrusts increase in speed. She probably couldn’t hear her under these conditions. It didn’t matter. “Fuck me!”
She knew Varen was determined when she grabbed Nala by the collar of her shirt and yanked hard, the cotton tearing against Nala’s skin while Varen pounded her with half a fist.
There was a layer of primal desire to her actions. Particularly when she shoved Nala down into the pillow and rubbed her clit with her wet, shaking fingers. I’m hers. I’m protected. No one will come near me if they know she’s here.
Varen squeezed her hips so hard that it hurt, but Nala did not protest. She needed to feel everything buried within her, Varen doing what she did best at the end of a rough round of sex – make Nala feel like this moment was the only thing in the world that mattered.
“Shit.” Varen collapsed next to her, hands on her face.
Nala’s hips dropped to the bed, breath exhausted, her knees still shaking from orgasm while her brain told her to put her face between Varen’s legs and keep helping her forget everything.
Varen did not stop it. As Nala began with tepid laps of her tongue, Varen’s legs eased farther open, her whispers still hitting her palms. “Shit, shit, shit.”
Nala didn’t know what that meant. Either Varen was finally relieved, or she was more pent up than ever.
When she came a few minutes later, both hands still on her face, Nala wondered if Varen would ever share with her what was going through her mind.
She didn’t hang around to find out.
“Where are you going?” Varen asked, as if she had initiated snuggling and Nala rejected it. “Did I do something?”
“No.” Nala stood beside the bed, losing the torn T-shirt and pulling her neatly folded sweatshirt into her arms.
She was naked, so exposed and so vulnerable that she almost considered the remnants of Varen’s kisses on her skin to be an extra layer of protection, like the hair on her head. “I really need to go to the bathroom.”
“Hurry back.”
Nala stepped away. “You sit there and think about me. Round 2 is coming up in twenty minutes. I want that same thing again.” And again. And again. “You’re young. You can do it.” That was the last thing she said before disappearing into the bathroom and latching the door.
Nala sat on the toilet and tossed her sweatshirt onto the side of the tub, pulling out the manila envelope and finally opening the damn thing.
It was a large, glossy photo. That much Nala could tell without pulling it out very far. She was in no hurry, either, because written on the back, near the top where her fingers smudged the material, was a handwritten note in Xan Ravenwood’s careful hand: Xan and Crow.
The missing photo from his office. Nala held it in her hands.
It could not be anything good. It could not be anything good.
That was her mantra as she slowly slid the photo from the envelope, knowing full well what she would see, yet denying it at the same time.
Her body shook. If Varen thought she was angry earlier? Nala was so disgusted, so livid that every fiber of her being vibrated, threatening to give her an honest-to-God heart attack at the age of twenty-one. Or at least a seizure.
“You fucking pig bastard,” she snarled, nails clawing at the face of Xan Ravenwood, haughty and amused as he wrapped his arm around a woman slightly shorter than him.
Crow. A woman with a svelte body, long black hair, and the kind of smile that inspired confidence and warmth, even when that smile looked tentative and… scared.
Nala threw the photo on the bathroom floor, her shout of exasperation alerting Varen on the other side of the wall.
“I’m going to get you,” Nala muttered, hands covering her mouth as she leaned on her knees. “I’m going to get you, and when I’m done with you, they won’t know who you are anymore because I fucking destroyed you!”
Her eyes kept going to the picture of Tasha. Her heart and mind were full of darkness.
Entry 16
Agirl, whose name I shall omit, was tortured and dropped off in my home tonight. It’s the work of Ravenwood if I have ever seen it.
To say that Nala and I are in danger is an understatement. I must protect her at all costs. If I lose her, I have lost everything.