I looked away from her.
“Are you?” Her voice was lower now, almost timid.
I didn’t answer.
“Are you, Damon?”
I looked at her and closed my eyes.
“You’re fucking Ivy?! But we agreed!”
I sighed and brought my hand to my face, gnawing on my thumbnail, a nervous habit of mine. One of many I had as a kid.
“Damon!”
“I’m sorry! I thought you were doing it with Greg!”
“Why would you think that?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know…”
She leaned against the back of her seat and closed her eyes, letting her tears escape. “I don’t believe this. I do not believe this.”
I reached for her, pulling her to me, relieved when she didn’t resist. “I’m sorry, Nick. It didn’t mean anything. I’ll break up with her if you want. I don’t even really like her. I just…are you sure you’re pregnant?”
She nodded against my chest. “I haven’t had a period since February. It’s May. And I took a test this morning.”
I blew out a breath. “Okay. What do we do? I mean, what do you want to do?”
“I don’t know,” she wailed. “I made an appointment at the free clinic. I guess we can figure it out after that.” She looked up at me. “It’s next week. Will you come with me?”
“Of course I will. And I’ll break up with Ivy. Whatever you want.”
“You don’t have to do that, at least not until we figure out what we’re gonna do.”
“Okay.”
I didn’t talk to Nicky again after that day. I avoided her, made sure I didn’t bump into her in the halls of our school. We didn’t have any classes together, so it was easy to duck her. I ignored her phone calls. Locked the deadbolt so she couldn’t let herself into my house with the spare key.
And I missed the appointment at the free clinic.
On purpose.
I abandoned her, completely turned my back on the woman carrying my child, the one person who had always been there for me without fail. I let her down, because…I panicked. I didn’t know what to do or how to handle something like this. I knew she was telling the truth and that the baby was mine. I felt that in my heart, and I wanted to be there for her, but I was scared, petrified. What was I going to do? How would I be able to take care of Nicky and the baby? Sure, I had plans to go into the military when I graduated, but how would I support them emotionally with my fucked-up upbringing? I didn’t know how to be a father, because I didn’t have even a halfway decent example. I didn’t want to screw my kid up like my parents did me. And what if she decided not to keep it? I didn’t think I could live with that either.
I didn’t know what to do! So I hid from it, all of it, and a week after her appointment when the house phone rang—I didn’t have a cell back then, but Nicky did—I had the bad luck of my mother being home. I had been able to avoid her phone calls up until then, but my mom answered and brought the phone to me, informing me it was Nicky.
“Hello?” I damn near whispered.
“What happened to you last week? You missed my appointment.”
I held the phone.
“I lost the baby.”
My mouth dropped open, but nothing came out.
“Damon, did you hear me?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat, and said, “Yeah, I heard you. W-what-what happened?”
“I don’t know. I started bleeding this morning, skipped school and went back to the clinic instead. Found out I lost the baby.”
“Oh…”
“I’m sure you’re happy now,” she said, sounding hurt and angry. Very, very angry.
“No…Nick, I’m sorry.”
“For what? Deserting me? Avoiding me? Ignoring me? Treating me like I did it by myself? Not even having the decency to show up at the appointment? I made them wait, because I thought no matter how you’d been acting, you wouldn’t let me down like that. But you did, after everything we’ve been through together. You are my best friend, my only friend, and you didn’t show up when I needed you to.” Now she was crying into the phone.
“Nick, please don’t cry. I’m so sorry. I just…I’m sorry.” I couldn’t tell her I was scared, terrified. I was lame enough as it was to everyone else. Nicky was the only person that treated me like a human besides Ivy. I couldn’t show anymore weakness around her than I already had over the years.
“Where were you during my appointment, Damon?”
“With Ivy,” fell out of my mouth before I could stop it, and it was a lie. I’d already broken up with her.
She gasped into the phone. “She’s more important to you than our child?!”
“No! I just. Nick—”
“I hate you! I never want to see your face or hear your voice again! Do you hear me?! I. HATE. YOU!”
And then she hung up, and that was the last time I spoke to Nicky until my visit to Romey three years ago. I wrote her letters apologizing the summer after we graduated. Tons of them, begging for her forgiveness over and over again. Some she kept, but the last few she returned unopened, and she never wrote back. Eventually, I gave up, went on with my life, but a piece of my heart was always with her, would always be with her. But as I sat on my sofa in the early morning hours of her wedding day, I knew it was time to move on again. It was time to let her go.
For good.
*****
“You sure you wanna do this?” I asked, trying to hide my nervousness.
Nicky nodded, bit her bottom lip, and glanced at my bedroom door for the hundredth time. “You sure your mom won’t come in here?”
“She’s not here. I told you that. She’s at my dad’s, I think.”
Her eyes raced around the room. “Oh, yeah…”
I smiled. “You’re nervous.”
Her eyes widened, and then she gave me a smirk. “No, I’m not.”
I was down to nothing but my boxers. Nicky had on panties and a t-shirt that matched. I guess she noticed me staring at her underwear, so she quickly stood and stripped, then laid back on my bed. “See,” she said, in an unsteady voice. “I’m not scared. Your turn.” Her eyes fell below my waist.
I glanced down at my boxers, where she could easily see the effect her nakedness had on me. I bit my thumbnail for a second, took a deep breath, and dropped my underwear.
Nicky’s eyes stretched wide and her mouth dropped open. “Is it—should it be that big?”
I glanced down at myself and shrugged. “I guess. I mean, yeah? I mean, it’s the only one I got so…yeah.”
She blinked a couple of times and closed her mouth. “Okay, come on.”
I crawled into bed, kissed her, and with a mixture of terror and excitement filling me, gave my virginity to Nicky and took hers from her. Later that night, while she was fast asleep, I told her I loved her for the first time, although I’d felt that way about her for years…
I jumped up from the couch at the sound of someone banging on my door. I had fallen asleep with images of that first time with Nicky playing in my mind the entire time, and since this was the first time I’d been able to sleep in days and had been rewarded with such a sweet dream, I was pissed at whoever was trying to break the damn door down at that time of morning, whatever time that was. I checked my phone on the way to the door—6:00 A.M. Checked the peephole and just stood there for a second, rubbed my eyes, and looked again. Then I shook my head and opened the door.
“I’m not fucking you on your wedding day, Nicole.”
She frowned, twisted her lips, and said, “I’m not here for that.” She was dressed in all white—pants and a blouse—for her wedding day, I guess. She looked…beautiful.
I leaned against the doorjamb. “Why are you here, then?”
“I want—I need to talk to you.”
“I’m not coming to the wedding. I’m not watching you marry that dude.”
“I understand that. I should’ve never gone along with that in the beginning. If th
e tables were turned…Can I come in?”
“Shouldn’t you be on your way to the church. Don’t you get married in a few hours?”
“Damon, please, I just need to talk to you. Won’t take long, I promise.”
I hesitated and then let her in, standing in front of her with my arms folded at my chest. “What’s up?”
“I-I wanna apologize to you.”
“Trying to clear your conscience before you marry Lennie Briscoe’s ass?”
“Damon, please. This is hard enough for me. Can you just let me do this?”
I sighed and fell onto the couch, motioned to the loveseat. She sat on it and stared at the floor for a minute or so before raising her eyes to meet mine.
“I’m sorry, Damon, for…everything. But mostly for not forgiving you. I know I said I had, but that’s not really true. What you said last night hit me and it hit me hard. All this time, I’ve only thought about what I went through. I was scared…and alone without you at a time when I needed you the most. And you were always there for me. We were always there for each other, so the last thing I expected was for you to turn your back on me, and it really hurt, because you were all I had. I mean, it wasn’t like I was gonna tell my mom or my sisters about the baby until I had to.”
“Nick, I’m sorry. I really am,” I said, as I watched her eyes pool with tears.
“I know you are. I know, and I realize now that you were just as scared and confused as I was.”
I didn’t respond, but was relieved she understood what I was feeling back then.
“I would’ve had the baby. Had I not lost it, I was gonna have it, because I loved you so much.” She wiped a tear. “I wish I’d told you, made you understand how I felt about you. I was just young and stupid and wrapped up in the fun of our secret, of being someone else’s girlfriend but your lover. I don’t know. I guess it made me feel edgy.” She blew out a breath and smiled faintly. “But I loved you. I did. So much, and I think that’s why it hurt to know you’d been with Ivy, because at the time, I never even considered giving myself to anyone but you.”
“It was only once, and it was nothing like being with you. Nothing has ever compared to that,” I said softly. “Nothing ever will.”
She nodded. “I know the feeling.” She was quiet for a moment, and I knew her well enough to know she was deliberating over something, making an internal decision in my presence. Finally, she said, “I don’t know if you’ve heard about my reputation, but I’ve been really, really…promiscuous over the years. My mind went in a tailspin after I lost our baby. I went from trying to deal with the possibility of having a baby at eighteen, to finding out the baby was dead with no idea how to cope with any of it, and then there was you, me pushing you away and us being apart for the first time in forever, and I was just…lost. You were a part of me, a real part of me for so long that I didn’t know how to properly function without you. I slept with so many men. So many…” She shook her head. “I can’t tell you how many men I was with over the years. I didn’t slow down until Travis, and even then, I couldn’t be with just him, as you know.”
I nodded, my eyes glued to her.
“I eventually convinced myself I was looking for a husband, trying to screw my way to the altar.” She laughed lightly. “Now I fully realize I was trying to purge you from my system, to replace you and make the pain of being without you go away, but I couldn’t. And then you moved back, and things were like they were before sexually. It was only a part of you, but it was enough to keep me going, to make me feel better, to take some of the sadness away.”
I could feel tears filling my eyes now, but I fought them back like a soldier.
“I love you, Damon. I love you from the depths of my soul. I have always loved you, and I will always love you. I’m sorry I mistreated you, asked you to accept me being with Travis while I slept with you, because you deserve more than that. You deserve all of me, or maybe something better than me, because I’m all kinds of fucked up.”
“Nick—”
“You definitely deserve something, someone better than me, but you have the misfortune of being in love with me. And you were right, I have been trying to punish you, to hurt you. It was wrong, and it stops now. I love you too much to keep hurting you. But more than anything, I’m afraid of you, Damon.”
“Afraid of me?” I asked, my brow creased.
She nodded. “I’m afraid of being hurt again, by you. You see, you’re the only man who can hurt me, because you’re the only man I have ever loved. You’re the only man I will ever love. You own my heart, all my love, and with that kind of possession comes a lot of power. You can easily break me. You’ve done it before, and I don’t ever, ever want to feel that pain again. I’m terrified of your power and your hold on my heart.”
“Nick, baby—”
She shook her head and stood from the loveseat, wrapping her arms around herself. “Nevertheless, I’m helpless to the fact that I love you, and I’m tired of running from it. I-I’m supposed to get married today, but what I really want, what I need, is to be with you, if you’ll let me…if you still want me.”
I stared at her, trying to get a handle on what she was saying. “You wanna be with me just for today? You rescheduled your wedding or something? I told you, I’m not—”
“I canceled the wedding.”
I stood and rubbed the back of my head with my hand. “You did what?”
“I canceled the wedding. I’m not marrying Travis, even if you decide you don’t want me anymore. But I hope and pray you do, because I’m tired of not being with you. I love you.”
I stared at her for probably five whole minutes, my heart racing in my chest.
“Damon?” she said, uncertainty in her voice. “Are you going to say something?”
“I…I don’t know what to say.”
She moved closer to me and rested her hand on my chest. “Say you want to be with me. Please say you want to be with me.”
I gazed down at her, inhaled her scent, and closed my eyes. “I do, I just…”
“What is it?”
“I never thought this would happen. I wanted it to, but I just…Is this real? I mean, is this a dream or something? Am I gonna wake up to find out you’re married and my brain played a trick on me?”
She reached up and brushed my lips with hers. “Does this feel real?”
18
He was standing there staring at me again, and my mind raced, trying to find something to say or do to convince him that this was real, that I wanted to be with him. But, after all the years that had passed and all the games I’d played with his heart, I couldn’t blame him for his apprehension. So I decided to stand there and give him the time he needed to let it sink in.
He closed his eyes and covered them with a hand he eventually dragged down his face. Then he pinned his eyes to my face, slowly taking it in, bringing his hand to my cheek to touch me. His eyes roamed my face for the better part of six or seven minutes, examining each inch, seemingly each skin cell. And then he smiled his beautiful smile, and quietly uttered, “This isn’t a dream. It’s real.”
I blinked back tears as I nodded. “It is, and I love you, and I’m yours if you’ll still have me. All yours. Forever.”
He rested his forehead against mine and chuckled softly. “You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to hear you say that, how many nights I prayed for it. And now…I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you’ll have me,” I whispered. “Say you love me.”
He squatted a little until his face was even with mine. “I do love you, Nicole Strickland. I love you so much.” He kissed me gently and backed away a bit. “Everything that happened, me turning my back on you when you needed me? I’ma spend the rest of my life making that up to you.” He slapped a hand to his chest. “I’m a man now, and I know how to treat a woman, my woman. I know how to love you now, and I will never hurt you like that again. I promise.”
“I know you won’t. I
know you won’t…and I won’t hurt you, either, ever again.”
He captured my mouth again as his hands gripped my hips, slid to my back, down to my ass, up to the sides of my face, returned to my back, and back to my face as if he wasn’t sure where to touch me. Then he backed me onto the love seat, straddling me while cradling my face in his hands, devouring my mouth so aggressively it felt like his tongue was at war with mine. He kissed me so fiercely and for so long, I found myself struggling to breathe, but I didn’t care. Feeling the passion emanating from him, from my Damon, felt so good, if I died from suffocation, I’d die a happy woman.
When his mouth finally left mine, it traveled to my neck where he planted soft kisses and murmured, “I’ma make you so fucking happy, Nick. I swear I am.”
“You already do, Dame. I love you so much.”
He lifted his face, allowing me to see the tears spilling from his eyes. “I love you, too, baby. Forever.”
I reached up and wiped his face. “Damon…”
His mouth covered mine, devouring me again, his hands feverishly rubbing my breasts through my blouse, the weight of his big body hovering over mine on the small loveseat. I closed my eyes and moaned, my body vibrating from sensations only derived from being in close proximity to Damon Davis. I was wet and aching for him, ready for whatever he wanted to do with and to me.
He reached down and rubbed my yoni through my pants, eliciting a low groan from me as I thrusted toward his hand.
“You’re so damn hot! I can feel it through your clothes,” he murmured against my mouth.
“See what you do to me?” I whined. “Only you.”
That’s when he lost it, started yanking on the button closure to my pants. “Take this shit off,” he growled.
My hands scrambled to my pants, unbuttoning them. Damon stood from the loveseat and helped me to my feet so that I could kick out of my pants, then he snatched my blouse open and yanked it off me. He reached around me and unhooked my bra, tugging it down my arms. I went to pull the matching panties off, but he swatted my hand away, reached down, and ripped the flimsy material apart at the waist band before cupping my treasure in his big hand and sliding a finger over my clit. I flinched and moaned in response. Reaching for him, I tried to get ahold of his t-shirt to pull it off him, but he backed me onto the loveseat at the same time, giving me no other option but to sit back down.
Be with Me (Strickland Sisters Book 3) Page 11