Page 56 of All Twisted Up
Chapter Fifteen
JOSHUA
Nash disposed of the condom as I panted, practically gasping for breath as I came down from the most intense orgasm I’d ever felt. Ripples of the sheer ecstasy I’d experienced when my climax hit were still thrumming through my body as I watched him scoot to the edge of the bed, and head for the bathroom. My gaze remained on his ass until something made me drag it up higher to his wide shoulders. I’d seen the mark once before at the gym. It was small and circular but there was more to it than that.
I stared at it as he ducked out of sight, blinking as I replayed the design of the mark in my head. I heard the water turn on in the bathroom and I frowned, trying to figure out what I’d seen.
…and then it hit me like a ton of bricks. “Shit.”
When he returned with a washcloth, I tried to hide my expression behind a neutral mask but the minute our eyes met, I knew the effort was futile. He sighed, sitting down on the bed as he broke eye contact and began wiping up the warm puddles all over my chest. He kept his head bent to his task until I reached out and took hold of his wrist. This time when our eyes met, it wasn’t difficult to read the resignation in his. He pulled his arm free, finished wiping up the mess, and tossed the cloth onto the floor.
“You saw it, right?” he asked, breaking eye contact again as he glanced quickly away.
I nodded. “I think it’s a brand.” Nash looked back and I tried to read his expression, unsure if it was embarrassment or if Iwas seeing something else in his cloudy hazel eyes. “Someone branded you like that?” The very idea of it was awful.
He frowned as he remained silently sitting beside me, looking about as uncomfortable as anyone I’d ever seen. I could practically hear the gears turning in his head as he considered my question. I sat up and reached out, running a hand over his hairy thigh. When he suddenly twisted around so that I could get a better look at it, I sucked in a breath. Inside the crude circle was a triangle which, in my mind anyway, could have only one meaning.
“Who did that to you?” I asked quietly. “I can only imagine it was done without your permission.”
This time when he looked at me, his eyes were filled with anger. “Of course it was!” He brushed my hand off his thigh and stood up, pacing away from the bed as he ran fingers through his hair.
“Nash…come and sit down. If you want to talk about it—”
He rounded on me, coming back to the bed. His face was a mask of rage and something else—a deep sorrow that I’d rarely seen—but was easy to recognize. It was the same look Meggie had given me in court when the CPS worker had taken her off to foster care. She’d thought I was abandoning her, letting them take her away because I didn’t want her anymore.
“You want to talk about it,huh?”
The thick vein on the side of his neck pulsed with anger, but I couldn’t understand why he’d direct it toward me. Then again, if someone had branded me against my will, I’d probably be filled with rage too. I held out my hand, beckoning him. “If you don’t want to talk about it, then we won’t.” I patted the bed. “Please, come back to bed, Nash.”
I pulled the covers aside and slid my hand over the empty space beside me. He stared at my hand uncertainly, and then his shoulders slumped as he crawled into bed beside me. I pulled him into my arms, kissing the side of his head and he settled in next to me. He rested his head on the pillow beside mine as he threw a muscular leg and one arm over me, dwarfing my body. I wrapped my arms around him, and ran fingers slowly through his hair, as I waited for him to say something—anything—which would explain what had been done to him without his consent, already knowing I was going to hate it.
“My father did it to me.”
I was stunned as it sunk in. “What?”
He tried to pull out of my arms, but I tightened them. As I could have predicted, though, Nash had superior strength to mine; he pulled free and sat up. He sighed deeply as he turned to face me. “If I tell you this, you can’t spread it around, Joshua. Only my captain and Mickey know about it.” He watched me, looking uncertain until I nodded.
“I-I guess I should start from the beginning then.”
I reached out and took hold of his hand, squeezing it until he let out a little sigh and nodded.
“I was raised in a middle-class family. We lived in a nice enough house in Alameda, California…that’s East Bay, next to Oakland. My dad started out at the Naval Air Station. My mother was a stay-at-home mom thanks to my father’s job at an engineering firm when he got out of the Navy.
“I had a lot of friends, got good grades, and participated in tons of after school sports. Then, shortly after I turned fifteen, my father launched an Internet start-up in nearby Silicon Valley. I didn’t learn until much later that they were producing chips that had something to do with long-range missile technology. Alot of the information remains classified about just what they were building, but I do know this. Once the DOD decided to offer the company a lucrative government contract and they went public, my father and several other investors became multi-millionaires almost overnight.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah, we went from living on the outskirts of Alameda to moving into a mansion in Sausalito with horses, a swimming pool, ocean view, you name it. My mother began shopping in designer clothing stores, going out to lunch with girlfriends where she drank so much, our chauffeur could barely get her out of the car to keep her from falling. There were staff everywhere. Almost overnight, our entire lives changed.
“At first, I was thrilled by all the new things I had…a huge bedroom, a gaming computer with all the bells and whistles, a new phone every time an updated version came out…anything a teenager could possibly want. My parents bought me a brand-new car when I turned sixteen.” Nash lowered his head before shrugging as he looked up again. “Then things changed.”
I swallowed, sensing where his story was going, but remained silent, needing to hear every word as Nash laid himself bare.
“My father began staying away for weeklong stretches as he spent more and more time in Washington D.C. when the company headquarters relocated. I started having problems in high school shortly after we moved. I’d had a wide circle of friends in Alameda, but suddenly I found myself enrolled in a new high school where I knew no one. When I realized it was a prep school, the pieces began falling into place. My father came right out and told me he was readying me for admission to Harvard. It didn’t take long for me to figure out that I was beinggroomed to join him at the company, maybe even take over some day.” He let out a small laugh, but there was no mirth in it.
“When my grades began to slip, my father assured me it didn’t matter…that he had friends in high places who’d make sure I’d get admitted to Harvard regardless of my grades. I was told that he had big plans for my future, and I was expected to live up to them.”
“Prep school? Harvard?” I asked, no longer able to keep silent…stunned by what he was telling me.
