by Marie Force
“I suppose I could do that. It’s so weird that people know who I am and are interested in me. That’s going to take some getting used to.”
“You’ve got the rest of your life to get used to it. Take all the time you need.” I kiss her forehead and then her cheek. “Is it okay to say that I’m thrilled and relieved that we won’t be spending any time on opposite coasts?”
“It’s okay to say that,” she says with a smile. “I’m relieved, too.”
“So you’re going to tell the school you’re declining their offer to return?”
Nodding, she says, “I’ll write to each of my students and explain why I’m not coming back and give them our address so they can write to me. That would be okay, wouldn’t it?”
“We can’t give out our actual address, but I have a PO box you can use.”
“That’ll work.” She eyes me with excitement and anticipation. “So does this mean I’m officially moving to LA?”
“Eventually. In case you haven’t noticed, we’re somewhat snowed in for the time being.” I nod to the windows, where the driving snow is highlighted by the orange glow of security lights from an adjacent building. “We’re not going anywhere for the next day or two.”
She runs her finger up the inside of my thigh, sparking an immediate reaction. “Whatever will we do with all that time?”
“Well, I’ve got that drawer full of movies and the tub you love so much.”
Turning so she can see me, she takes a good long look to gauge whether I’m serious. “I’ll admit to being confused.”
“I’ll admit to being incredibly aroused by the fact that you’re so eager to proceed with our plans. I can’t fucking wait to play with you. But before we do that, we need to talk to someone about whether it’s a good idea in light of what you’ve been through in the past.”
“I’m fine, Flynn. I talked to Doctor Bancroft last week.”
This is news to me. “You didn’t know the full picture last week.”
“But still, we talked about sex… and everything.”
I would give everything I have to know how that conversation went down. “You talked about dominance and submission and everything that goes with those things?”
“Well, no, but—”
“No buts, sweetheart. We have to be certain it won’t set you back before we try it. I have to be certain of that. We need to see your Doctor Bancroft or someone else who specializes in PTSD and sexual assault counseling.”
“He does both those things, which is why the court sent me to him.”
“You’re already familiar with him, so I’d be fine with talking to him.”
She glances up at me, seeming to gauge my sincerity. “You’re very… private… about this part of your life, so private you didn’t even tell me. You’re really willing to talk to a stranger about it?”
“If it means being confident that you can truly handle what we’re considering, then yes, I’ll do it in a heartbeat. We’ve got to figure that we’ve met our quota of disreputable professionals for this lifetime with Rogers.”
“True. I know Curt very well. We can trust him. He saved my life, Flynn. There’s no way I’d be sitting here talking to you, capable of this relationship, without him.”
“Then I owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude. Will you reach out to him and set up a time when we can talk to him?”
“Yes, I will, and thank you for being so concerned about me.”
“I’m very concerned about you.”
“I’ll text Curt now and see if he can talk to us tomorrow.”
I love that she wants to get on with our plans, that she’s curious and interested rather than turned off and appalled. That makes her as different from my first wife as it’s possible to get, but I already knew Natalie is made of much stronger stuff than Valerie could dream of being. Valerie… I need to do something about the trouble she caused between Natalie and me. I’ll take care of that when I get back to LA. In the meantime, I take advantage of Natalie going to get her phone to look at mine for the first time in a while.
A message from Liza catches my attention. Pictures of Natalie arriving at LaGuardia cropping up online. You won’t like them. Will send pics in next message if you want to see.
“Son of a bitch,” I whisper as I scroll through the pictures of her looking cornered, frightened and very small next to the hulking men on either side of her. I begin to wonder how I’ll ever let her out of my sight again. The thought of my precious love being afraid or surrounded makes me twitchy.
“What’s wrong?” she asks when she rejoins me on the sofa, pulling the blanket back up over us.
Because I’ve learned there’s no point in trying to hide anything from her, I hand her my phone and watch her closely as she studies the three photos Liza sent. “What’re you thinking?”
“I look like I did during Oren’s trial.”
“I hate that you look so afraid.”
“I wasn’t really. Josh and Seth were right by my side, and they moved fast to get me out of there. I was never in any danger. I think I was surprised more than anything. It happened so quickly.”
“This is why I always want someone with you going forward. If I can’t be there, then someone else needs to be to make sure you’re never hurt or overwhelmed. I’d lose my mind if anything ever happened to you because you had the poor sense to marry me.”
She puts down the phone and climbs into my lap, straddling me.
Pleasantly surprised by her assertiveness, I cup her ass and pull her in tight against my instant erection.
“Marrying you was the best thing I’ve ever done. I don’t expect to ever regret it.”
“Did you regret it yesterday?”
Shaking her head, she runs her fingers through my hair, arranging it to her liking. “Not for one second. The time we’ve spent together has felt like a fairy tale. No matter what else happens, it will always feel like that to me.”
“It’s been like a fairy tale for me, too. After you left yesterday, I was out of my mind. I threw a vase through a window, and then the doorbell rang. I thought it was you, but it was that FBI agent. I wanted to kill him for not being you.”
“Wait, why was he there, and why haven’t you told me?”
I sweep away her concerns with my hand. “He was following up on Rogers’s wife telling him Rogers had felt threatened by me. I assured Vickers the only way I threatened Rogers was legally. Why in the world would I kill him when I could’ve had the pleasure of watching him twist in the wind for years because of what he did to you?”
“Did you say that to Vickers?”
“Yep. I told him I was disappointed that Rogers had been murdered, because I’d been looking forward to making his life a living hell.”
“So where did you leave it with him?”
“That I need to remain available for follow-up questions, which I said was fine. Neither of us has anything to hide where Rogers is concerned.”
“I have nothing at all to hide, thanks to him,” she says bitterly.
“I hate him for what he did to you, Nat, but in a way, I’m grateful that we have no more secrets between us.”
She lays her head on my shoulder. “So am I.”
“I hated keeping things from you. It felt wrong to me from the very beginning. You’ll never know how badly I wanted to either tell you the truth or leave you to spare you from having to deal with something I didn’t know if you could ever understand. We all know how successful my attempts to leave you were.”
“You can’t leave me after all this. I was able to move on from everything that happened to me before, but something tells me I’d never get over losing you.”
I tighten my arms around her. “That’s one thing you’ll never have to worry about.”
She rolls her hips suggestively over my cock. “Can we go to bed? Please?”
As if I’ll ever say no to that question coming from her. “Anything you want, sweetheart.”
Chapter 6
We arrange to have Fluff taken outside, but she refuses to pee in the snowstorm. I hope we don’t awake to a mess, but Flynn tells me not to worry about it. He says he wouldn’t pee outside in this shit either.
In the bedroom, Flynn unties the robe I’ve lounged around in all day and pushes it off my shoulders, leaving me bare as his heated gaze travels from my face to my toes and back up again. He drops his shorts and raises the covers for me to get into bed ahead of him.
I’m freezing until he wraps his warm body around mine, pulling me in tight against him.
“You know what the worst part of yesterday was?” I ask him.
“What’s that?”
“Sleeping without you last night. I hated that.”
“I never went to bed at all, because I couldn’t bear to sleep without you.”
“You must be so tired.”
“I am.” His hand moves from my belly to land between my breasts. The hard column of his erection is pressed between my buttocks.
Despite his obvious arousal, despite my never-ending desire for him, neither of us is compelled to move. This is all about comfort and security. The feel of his skin against mine is all I need to release the deep breath I’ve been holding since I left LA yesterday, not knowing when or if I’d see him again.
In the last couple of weeks, my whole world has been turned on end by this relationship. Now, settled in his arms, with no secrets between us, and decisions made about our future, I feel ready for this next step we’re planning to take. I’m excited. Of course, I’m also nervous, but I’m more excited than nervous.
I trust Flynn to make whatever we do together amazing for me, because that’s what he’s done from the beginning. I want to make it amazing for him, too. I want to give him everything he’s ever wanted in a lover. I want to be perfect for him in every way.
Thinking about all the things I agreed to try, I drift off to sleep wondering how long he’ll make me wait before our contract becomes a reality. I dream of things I’d much rather forget—the horrific weekend with Oren Stone that claimed my innocence and changed my life forever. I watch the scene unfold as an observer in my dream. I get a front-row view of my own assault, every lurid detail played out before my horrified eyes.
It was such a long time ago that many of the memories have faded somewhat. The overall horror has remained, though. As a witness, I’m forced to relive it once again. He is on top of me, inside me, hurting me, making me bleed, making me scream from the pain until I lose consciousness, floating, hurling through darkness so deep I may never find my way out.
I wake to Fluff’s frantic barking and the low rumble of Flynn’s voice.
“Nat, honey, what’s wrong?”
Though my heart is racing, I’m sweating and undone, I know right away that I can’t tell him I dreamed about the attack for the first time in years. He’ll see the timing as a sign that I’m not capable of what we agreed to earlier. “N-nothing. Just a weird dream. I’m sorry if I woke you.”
“You were screaming.” Propped up on an elbow, he reaches over to stroke my face. “And you’re crying.” He kisses my shoulder. “Sweetheart…”
“I’m okay.” I reach for his hand and hold on tightly.
“Are you sure?”
“Mmm. Uh-huh.” Fluff curls up against my legs and lets out a huff of indignation at having been so rudely awakened.
“You’re trembling, baby.”
“I’m cold.”
“That I can fix.” He brings me in tight against him, wrapping his arms around me and intertwining his legs with mine. “Better?”
“So much better.”
I was young and alone when Stone attacked me. I’m not alone anymore. Flynn’s love and devotion only make me stronger than I was on my own. But the dream and the timing of it have me wondering if I’ll be able to uphold my end of our agreement.
Once again a ringing phone wakes us early in the morning. Flynn groans as he reaches for his phone on the bedside table.
“Yeah, Emmett. You’re up early.”
Since he curls back up to me immediately, I can hear Emmett’s side of the conversation, too.
“I just got a call from Vickers.”
I feel Flynn go tense behind me. “What’d he want?”
“He’d like to see you and Natalie as soon as possible.”
“What the hell for?”
“All he’d say is ‘follow-up questions.’”
“This is bordering on harassment. Should we make some calls to Washington?”
“I wouldn’t, Flynn. Calling in favors looks like you have something to hide when you don’t.”
“I don’t like that he wants to see Natalie, too.”
“They’re ruling out both of you. My advice is to meet with him and get it over with. How soon can you get back here?”
“I don’t know if you heard, but we had somewhat of a blizzard here last night.”
“Yes, I heard,” Emmett says with a laugh. “It’s all over the news.”
“I’d say it’ll be tomorrow at the earliest before we can get back there.”
“I’ll make an appointment for Monday morning, then. Is that okay with you?”
“I guess it’ll have to be. Let him know that if my name or Natalie’s gets linked to this guy’s murder in the press, I’ll be after his job.”
“I’ve already let him know that.”
“You’re good, Em.”
“Just doing my job. See you soon.”
I turn to face Flynn, looking for some assurances that we have nothing to worry about. He’s got his glasses on, and he’s typing frantically on his phone.
“What’re you doing?”
“Asking Addie to get us back to LA tomorrow, so we can deal with this once and for all.”
“Are you scared?”
“No, sweetheart. I’m not scared. We have nothing to worry about because we didn’t do anything.” He sends the text and puts the phone on the table. “Come here.”
I curl up to him, my head on his chest, his arms around me. I trace my finger over the light scar on his ribs from where he was attacked by a deranged fan last year.
“It’s all going to be fine. They’re on a witch hunt. That’s all this is. I handed them an easy lead with what I said on Carolyn’s show, so they’re taking the easiest and most obvious path straight to me. If they think we had something to do with this, then let them prove it.” He strokes my hair. “We know people in DC, right up to and including the president. He and my dad are friends. If this gets any more out of hand, we’ll call in some favors.”
“So you’ve actually met the president?”
“Many times. You might get to meet him, too, as I’ve requested a meeting with him to discuss the foundation. I want him to throw his support behind it.”
“Holy smokes. You don’t fool around.”
“You didn’t already know that from the way I married you not even two weeks after I met you?”
“I suppose there were signs of this trait of yours.”
His fingers trail down my ribs, digging in just enough to tickle me.
“Stop!”
Nuzzling my neck, he says, “What if I don’t want to?”
“Fluff.”
His hand drops to the mattress. He raises his head to look down at me. “See how easy that was?”
“I don’t like to be tickled.”
“How about I kiss it better?”
“Kissing is good. Tickling is bad.”
“Mmm, I like to think I can be trained.” He kisses his way down the front of me, between my breasts to my ribs, where he retraces the path his fingers had taken.
“And here I thought you were going to train me.”
“We’ll train each other. My goal is always your ultimate pleasure.”
Moving back up, he tends to my breasts, moving slowly, lazily, as if we have all the time in the world, which apparently we do since we’re snowed in. His tongue circles my left nipple while his fingers pinch
the right one, just tight enough to draw a gasp from me.
“I love the way you respond to me, Nat,” he says, his voice a hoarse whisper, his breath hot against my damp nipple, “every time I touch you. I love how you arch into me, trying to get closer. And the moan that comes from the back of your throat... It makes me crazy every time I hear it, knowing I made it happen. And that I’m the only one who will ever get to touch you this way makes me so fucking grateful that you chose me.”
“Like you gave me a choice,” I say with a teasing smile.
“The choice was always yours, my love.” His teeth clamp down on my nipple as his fingers delve between my legs, where I’m hot and ready for him. Always ready for him.
“Fuck, Nat… God, you’re so wet for me.” He replaces his fingers with his cock and presses into me, stopping immediately when I wince. “Does it hurt?”
“I’m a little sore from yesterday.”
He pulls out.
“No, Flynn. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t. Just go slow at first.” I run my hands down his back to cup his tight, muscular ass. I love the dimples at the bottom of his spine and feel for them with my thumbs.
He gasps. “Natalie…”
“You like that?”
“I fucking love the feel of your hands on me—anywhere, but when you drag your nails over my ass like that…” A shudder rocks him.
Knowing I can do that to him fills me with delight and pleasure.
He moves into me slowly, in small increments, pressing in and then retreating, giving me time to adjust. He’s big and I’m sore, which should make for a bad combination, but his slow, steady entry has me forgetting all about the soreness as I crave the fullness, the connection, the magic.
Propped on his elbows above me, his forehead resting on mine, he watches me in that intense way of his, making sure that nothing hurts me. I wrap my arms and legs around him, raising my hips to take him deeper.
His low groan makes me smile as I tighten my internal muscles around him, knowing that drives him crazy.