Page 96 of Fierce Love
“The only person I’m truly angry with is my mother,” he says. “She could have helped you, made it all go away like she did, without asking you to sacrifice me. She didn’t have to force you into that choice. And then she watched me want to cut out my own heart for years. I just…” He trails off, clearly lost for words.
“My aunt knew too,” I say with a sniff. “You saw the NDA?”
“Yeah,” Nate says with a curt nod. “After Mickie found out, my mom sealed that crack.”
Although my aunt loved Nate once she got to know him, she’d never stopped being wary of what involvement with a Tucker might bring from Mickie and my dad but also from Celia. Even without the NDA, she might have believed that keeping what really happened a secret was protecting me. She didn’t always make the right choices, but she tried.
Foolishly, I’d worked very hard to make it seem like leaving Nate behind hadn’t been like being stabbed over and over again in the heart. She knew I’d given him up for her, and I didn’t want her saddled with guilt that I was mostly sure belonged to my mother. Though, it seems I got that wrong too.
“I don’t look at you and see betrayal, Hols. I did for a long time. Too long. But now that all the truths have come to light, it all just makes me unbelievably sad. I trusted my mother, and sodid you, and she let us down, tried to run our lives for us. The audacity is… something else.”
“I thought you were going to tell me to leave tonight,” I say, my voice hitching.
“I’ve never wanted you to leave. Not for a second. This house, my life, my entire world is better when you’re a part of it, and if I’d had a say, you’d never have vanished. I’d have kept you close forever.” He hesitates for a beat. “Ihavekept you close, in here.” He takes my hand and places it over his heart. “You’ve been in here the whole time.”
I rise on my toes, and I kiss him. Part of me can’t even believe that I get to kiss him again. That all the secrets have come out, the deals made in haste behind closed doors have all been brought into the light.
“I loved you then,” Nate murmurs against my lips. “And I love you now, and I know with everything inside me that I’m going to love you forever.”
And then we’re kissing, and the sweet taste of bourbon is on my lips and tongue. He’s walking me backward toward the bedroom we’ve been sharing on the main floor, and we’re stripping each other. I’m frantic for the skin-to-skin connection, to know he’s mine, to realize that everything I’ve believed about myself and him and us wasn’t accurate. We might not be exactly the same people, but the love between us never died—I’m not even sure it truly faded.
“Fuck, I love the feel of your curves under my hands,” he says as he guides my shirt over my head and then tosses it to the floor on our way to the bed.
It’s not the first time he’s said something similar. Since we’ve been together in this house, the compliments are constant and consistent, as though some part of him might have understood that underneath my confidence was a woman who didn’t feel lovable. My weight gain has never held me back. The reluctanceto sink into our connection has been based on my guilt—not that Imadethe choice but that my decisions hurt him—that hasn’t allowed me to give myself to him completely, to move beyond our past to create something new.
With all the secrets and lies revealed, I have to learn to forgive myself. Nate’s right—Celia could have taken a less hurtful path. I never expected her to go easy on me when I arrived at her doorstep, but she could have put Nate’s feelings first. It wasn’t her back against the wall or the lives ofherloved ones hanging in the balance, but her cutthroat tactics hurt more than just me.
“Hols,” Nate says as he kisses a line up my leg and inner thigh after urging me, naked, onto the bed. “Be here with me.”
“I am,” I say. “I’m right here with you.”
He runs a finger along my core, letting out a groan of appreciation. “I love everything about you—have I told you that? But this pussy is exquisite.”
My body tenses with eagerness, and at the first swipe of his tongue, I clutch the sheets, already anticipating how good he’ll make me feel. There’s nothing Nate won’t do to make sure I’m completely satisfied, and it’s been thrilling to be in a relationship with so much care and trust and love between us. I haven’t felt this sexually free since we were together the first time.
In no time, he’s got me panting and pleading, desperate for release and equally desperate to hold out for more pleasure, more time this close to him.
“Tell me what you want,” he murmurs against my thigh as he dips a single finger in.
My breath catches, and I wiggle against him. “More,” I say.
“Tell me.”
“I want you inside me. Please. Please, Nate. I love the feel of you inside me.”
Within seconds, I’m getting exactly what I want, his body pressed tight against me, filling me up in the most delicious way.
“Yes,” I breathe out. “God yes.”
His teeth graze my ear, and his heavy breathing with the faintest hints of bourbon is an aphrodisiac that I’ll never get tired of experiencing. He cradles my head with one hand, and his other is on my hip, hitching my leg up to go deeper.
I curl against him, and the pleasure coming from the brush of our bodies is so intense that I might cry when my release finally arrives.
“Do you feel how connected we are? How perfectly we fit?” His breath is hot in my ear. “You’re mine, Hollyn. You were always meant to be mine. And this time, you’re mine forever. No one else will ever have you like this. Just me. Guiding you to the brink. Just me watching you come.”
“Yes,” I say, moving against him, in complete agreement with how possessive he is because it’s how I feel about him too. Nothing and no one will come between us again. “Yes,” I say again as he drives us over the edge together.
“I had a lot of time to think today while I was packing,” I say, trailing figure eights on his arm. He’s the big spoon to my little spoon.
