Page 73 of The Wrong Side Of Us

I tried to look away to escape the intensity of his gaze, but he didn’t let me.

“Evie, I love you so much, it’s damn near terrifying.” His voice was hoarse, raw with pure emotion. I blinked past the tears, but he managed to wipe one away, smiling sadly. “I should have listened to you.”

This was the Nate I knew, the Nate who was honest and sincere and aware of what he did and said. The man I had been sleeping with for the past days was a stranger…a stranger I loved regardless.

I couldn’t lie to myself; he’d hurt me. I knew he had good reason to be mad, but it didn’t make his words less painful. Yes, showing up with Derek had been the stupidest idea I’d gotten, but with my excitement, I hadn’t thought things through.

Nathan getting angry was the last thing on my mind. My dream was for him to feel the movement of the baby before anyone else. Now it was only that, a dream.

“I’m so sorry, baby. I never meant to hurt you.”

I didn’t allow my sadness to take over. “I know.”

Everyone else long forgotten, Nate leaned down, kissing me yet again. It seemed like there were no words enough to describe what we felt. His tongue slipped past my lips, and I allowed him to kiss me like he wanted.

He wanted to prove a point, wanted to prove that he loved me as close to insanity as he claimed.

And I took what he gave because I needed the reassurance.

“God, I’ve missed you.” He pressed several kisses on my lips, never completely breaking it off.

“Don’t ever leave me,” I murmured against his lips. “I need you, Nathan.”

His gaze, both warm and dark with hunger, softened as he listened to my one request. Gray eyes swirling with an endless amount of emotions met my own as he replied, “I’ll never leave you.”

I closed my eyes again, resting my head on his chest as he swam around with me sticking to him like glue. I didn’t want to let him go. We had spent far too much time arguing, far too long without each other.

“Mom is going to ask a bunch of questions,” he said with a chuckle.

I groaned. The last thing I wanted was for his family to think I was bad for him. I cared for them very much; they were the family that I never had…I wanted them to like me. “Are they looking at us?”

“Mom is. Carter, I doubt it. The last thing he wants to see is me kissing the girl he considers his daughter.”

“I love your kisses,” I whispered.

“And I love kissing you.”

This was how we were supposed to be. Not arguing, not distant.

“I was so afraid of losing you.” The admission brought on an onslaught of different emotions, both relief and dread. Relief because he’d just told me he loved me, but dread because for the past few weeks I was sure we weren’t going to make it.

There was one thing that I absolutely adored about Nathan: his eyes. They always spoke louder than his words, always revealed what he felt. He was good with his words, but it was his eyes that gave away everything about him. They were black and dim when he was angry. When he was sad they were so pale it seemed as if something sucked the life out of them. Yet moments like this, when he looked down on me so lovingly, they were so difficult to describe.

They sparkled, even had a tinge of blue at the edge, too beautiful to do justice to them.

“This is forever, baby.”

***

Nathan covered me with a towel as we sat at the table to eat. He sat next to me then without a shirt on, making it very difficult for me to focus on the food. An arm surrounded my shoulders as he kissed my head, and my eyes fluttered closed.

After so much heartache, I felt at peace.

So much at peace, actually, that despite being hungry, I also started to get sleepy. He didn’t seem to mind, however, and held me closer while I nuzzled his neck. We’d spent a long time in the water simply talking, but with the lack of sleep from the past few days, I was extremely tired.

“Do you want to go to bed?” Deborah asked.

“Mmm…no,” I replied. “The food smells good. I’m just resting my eyes a bit.”

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