“What, Travis didn’t weigh in?” Nicholas joked, leaning his cheek against Jena’s hair.
“My side, baby. He’s got my back. He’d let me hide out forever.” She looked up at Nick and smiled.
Nick smiled back, but his expression soon became serious. “I guess your parents hate me, huh? If shipping you off to Hawaii is any indication.” His jaw tightened, and Jena squeezed his hand, sitting upright so she could better see his face.
“I don’t think my dad is your biggest fan right now,” she admitted, “but his heart was in the right place. At first they were worried about me, and then it was more about shaking me up and making me think about what I would be leaving behind.” She raised his hand and kissed the back before resting their linked hands on her knee.
“Are you sure you made the right choice?” Nick asked in a low voice. “I feel like I owe a lot of people a lot of apologies.” He looked at her then, sadness in his eyes. “I have things straightened with my parents, but with you, Jena…? I wish I could make this whole thing un-happen, you know? Start fresh. Be who I want to be for you, not…this guy.”
“Don’t,” Jena said again. “I love this guy. Maybe for the first time, because I finally know him, the good and the bad, and I choose him. You. Us.” Frustrated at her inarticulateness, Jena shook her head, grateful when Nick nodded his agreement with a smile.
Jena leaned her head against the wall. “I’m glad you’ve worked things out with your parents, Nick. That’s so important.” She felt tears sting behind her eyes. “I’ll bet you wish you’d never come to California last New Year’s. If we hadn’t met again in San Francisco, this whole stupid thing with your parents wouldn’t have happened, and you wouldn’t have missed anything.”
“Hey. No.” Nicholas wrapped his arms around Jena and leaned his head against hers. “I would have missed everything then. My dad still would have had this stroke, but I wouldn’t have been here anyway. I’d have been alone, really alone. Well, except for Conor.” They laughed, and Jena brushed at her eyes. “I might have pushed him away by now, too, actually. I’m so fucking sorry I made it sound like I blamed you for anything, Jena.” Nicholas kissed her on the forehead and let his mouth rest there for a minute before he spoke again. “The thing is, without knowing you, I wouldn’t have known my dad, either. He still would have died, but he would have almost been a stranger to me. An acquaintance.” He moved back and looked into her eyes. “I don’t regret anything with you, Jena. Anything. You gave me love. And I don’t want to be my dad. I don’t want to wait until the last minute to give it back.”
“I don’t want to do this again, Nicholas. I want you, so don’t let me clam up again.” She raised her hand and stroked his stubbly cheek. “I missed you so much. Every day. Every night. I couldn’t even sleep at home. I need you there with me.”
“I don’t want to be anywhere else,” Nicholas murmured, pushing her hair back from the side of her face before leaning in the couple of inches that separated them and capturing her mouth in a soft kiss that deepened as they made all the silent apologies and promises for which their hearts yearned.
Jena heard a loud groan and realized that at some point she’d gravitated to Nick’s lap. She looked up, trying to clear her spinning head, and saw Conor standing over them with his arms crossed and one eyebrow raised. “I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. You people will get your freak on anywhere. It’s not safe to take you in public.” Although his words were stern, his eyes were twinkling as he extended a hand to each of them and pulled. “Now get your butts in that room. Our mothers are starting to talk future nuptials, and it’s freaking my shit right out.” Nicholas wrapped his arm around Jena’s shoulders and chuckled. Conor looked at him steadily. “You good?” Nicholas and Jena looked at each other and nodded. “Well, thank God and baby Jebus. It’s about fucking time.” Conor opened the door and sighed as his mom started remonstrating him for his language.
The rest of the day passed in conversation and easy silences. Nicholas and his mother took turns sitting with his father, both staying in his room in the brief moments when he was awake, spending every moment together as a family for as long as they could. Nick had taken the time while they were waiting to explain the whole situation in September, and a little bit about his parents’ past, and Jena’s heart hurt for the time they had lost over misunderstandings and fear. She was apprehensive when William asked to see her, entering the room hesitantly to stand beside him. His eyes went back and forth between Nicholas and Jena, lingering on their clasped hands before he nodded once and his eyes slipped closed again. After that, his moments of lucidity became sparse, and when the end came, it was quiet, without the catastrophic stroke Jena knew Nicholas was dreading. William’s breath merely hitched twice in his sleep, and then his chest settled gently.
A soft, sustained tone sounded, and Laura looked over at Nicholas fearfully. “Nicholas?” she asked.
He nodded and walked to her side, crouching next to the chair at his father’s bedside in which she sat and taking her free hand. He leaned his forehead against her knees, and she rested her cheek on the back of his head.
The door opened and a nurse looked in. Taking in the scene immediately, she crossed quietly to the monitor and turned it off, noting the time, and exited just as silently. Jena had caught the door as it started to close, thinking she would give them privacy, when Nick’s voice stopped her.
“Jena, don’t go. Please.” He reached behind him blindly with his free hand, and Jena saw his shoulders heave once before she was kneeling beside him with her arms wrapped around him tightly.
When Jena opened the Coopers’ front door as the sun was beginning to peek over the horizon, she wasn’t surprised to see the box back where Carmen indicated it belonged.
Nicholas looked at it dully, then at Jena. “I wanted it ready to go home,” he said softly, shrugging with one shoulder.
“We’ll have it picked up tomorrow,” Jena answered, gently rubbing her hand over his waist as she hugged him close. The house was silent, with Carmen long gone and Laura staying with her brother, unable to face going home that night. Jena led Nicholas toward the stairs. “Come on. Let’s get you in a shower and a real bed. We can deal with everything else tomorrow.”
She turned the shower on in the bathroom, kissing Nicholas and telling him she was going to get them something to sleep in. Digging quickly through the box, Jena found a pair of soft flannel pants and a T-shirt for Nicholas, and pulled something similar from her bag. Opening the door of the bathroom, she saw Nicholas still sitting on the lid of the toilet and staring into space.
“What happened to the shower, sweetheart?” she asked gently, brushing back his hair.
He just looked at her. She started pulling his shirt up, and he cooperated, letting her undress him before he stepped in the shower. As she started to close the door, he stopped it with his hand.
“Will you come in, too?” The vulnerability in his eyes twisted Jena’s heart, and she shed her clothes quickly, stepping inside the shower stall, where Nick held her close to him in the warm, steamy air. “I love you,” he murmured, “so much. I don’t ever want you to doubt that.”
“I don’t.” Jena kissed his chest. “Now let’s get you clean.”
Nicholas closed his eyes, standing still and allowing Jena to wash him, sighing as the tension in his muscles drained away under her practiced hands. When it came time to wash his hair, he took over, muttering about getting a stool for all his shower stalls, and Jena laughed. When he had rinsed, he squeezed shampoo in Jena’s hair and returned the favor before moving his soapy hands over her. Though Jena was very aware of his touch, it was his presence, the comfort of just being together again, that was the most important thing right then.
After towel drying her hair, Jena dressed quickly and went looking for Nicholas, finding him stretched out on a bed in a room that had clearly been his since childhood. “How are you doing?” she asked, lying next to him and running her fing
ers through his still-damp hair.
He breathed out in a rush. “Sad,” he answered, looking toward the window as his eyes filled.
“I know,” Jena murmured, feeling tears threaten. “Do you want me to leave you alone?”
Nick grasped her hand tightly. “Never. I never want you to go again.” He leaned forward hesitantly and pressed his mouth to Jena’s gently as he slid his fingers into her hair to cradle her head in his warm palm. Breaking away, he brushed his lips over her cheek and jaw before returning to her mouth. Each kiss lengthened and intensified, searching and giving, and Jena’s fingers that had been gently stroking the back of his neck pressed in, pulling him closer. She needed to lose herself in his smell, and his taste, and the feeling of his skin and the roughness of his beard, and most importantly, to lose herself in his heart without guarding her own.
Because having him near made her brave enough to trust herself and take a risk.
Because he was worth it.
And it was all good.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
NICHOLAS LEANED ON HIS ELBOW, studying Jena’s face. Though the curtains were open to the morning, the thickly falling snow dimmed the light coming through the glass appreciably. Jena lay on her side, facing him. Reaching out a single finger, he smoothed a wild curl away from her cheek, not ready for any irritant to wake her up quite yet. After the stress of the last week, the most restful thing he could imagine was this capsule of silence and calm. He laid his head on his folded arm, closing his eyes again and matching his breathing to hers, feeling his heart beating, slow and steady, and wondering if that mirrored hers as well.
As if she read his mind, Jena groped for Nick’s hand in her sleep, smiling a little as she rolled onto her back, and rested his hand against her chest, covering it with her own.
The beats matched.
Nicholas opened his eyes when Jena murmured his name, not sure whether to hope she was awakening or to wish she would sleep a little more. Smiling, he leaned his head back slightly to avoid her elbow when Jena swept her hair from beneath her neck to pool in a shining mass on the pillow above her head. Her hand looked even paler as she rested it atop the dark waves, and she settled into a deep sleep again.
Sighing, Nicholas curled a little more against Jena’s body and closed his eyes again. He didn’t think he could have gone through the last few days without knowing this peace waited for him, whenever he needed it. Emma had gently shepherded Laura and Nicholas through the rituals of death the morning after Will died, aided by the folder Nick had found in Will’s desk, in which every funeral arrangement that could be made in advance was detailed in his father’s careful script, with phone numbers of the appropriate businesses and agencies noted at the bottom of the page. Jena, though, had been fiercely protective of Nick, making sure he had eaten even when food had no taste, slept when it had seemed impossible, and laughed as much as he could, always with her hand in his or her arm twined around him. Even in sleep, she seemed to know that Nick needed the reassurance that he wasn’t alone, and some part of their bodies was nearly always touching.
Shifting restlessly, Nicholas pushed back the hard memories in favor of focusing on Jena’s breathing again. He realized that he could hear soft music coming from downstairs and smiled as he recognized Carmen’s beloved Elvis singing “Santa Claus is Back in Town.” He was finally starting to notice things around him again, and was shocked to realize as he lay there, counting days, that it was two days before Christmas. He’d arranged for Jena’s main present the day after Heather died, but he planned to go out and get something to give her on the actual day, as well as something for Laura and Conor, at least.
Unable to resist waking Jena any longer, Nick leaned forward to brush his lips on the soft skin of her inner arm, savoring her warm, morning smell. She smiled sleepily, opening heavy-lidded eyes and rolling to face him before meeting his mouth in a lingering kiss. She sighed as she tucked her head under his chin and curled against his chest, her arm flung across his waist.
“G’morning,” she whispered huskily. “Have you been awake long?”
“A while.”
“What have you been doing?”
“Watching you sleep.”
Jena leaned her head back and opened one eye to look at him. “Isn’t that a leeetle bit creepy-stalker?”
Nick raised an eyebrow. “Some women might find that flattering.”
She opened the other eye and looked up at him. “I’m not some women.”
“No, you are not,” he whispered, tracing the line of her jaw with one finger.
Jena leaned in to nibble at the skin under the shelf of his jaw, and then slowly kissed down the column of his throat. He leaned his head back to allow her easier access, feeling his nipples tighten as she nipped at his Adam’s apple while slowly trailing her hand over his chest.
“Mmm-hmm,” Nicholas rumbled. “That’s nice.” Pulling her closer with one arm, he used the opposite hand to stroke her back from shoulder to waist, tracing the line of her shoulder blade and the muscles to either side of her spine before trailing it upward again, burying his hand in her hair and cradling the back of her head.
Jena pulled back slightly after a minute and looked at him with serious eyes. Her irregular breathing made her voice tremble as she asked quietly, “Is this okay? Us together, now?”
Nicholas ran his hand down her back again, pausing at her bum to gently squeeze before continuing down her thigh. “Better than okay. It’s fucking necessary,” he said urgently. “I need you.”
Jena answered simply. “I’m yours.” She smiled, and Nick’s heart tried to thump its way out of his chest. She lay back, grasping the hem of her shirt and starting to pull it up.
“No.” Nicholas placed his hand over hers. “Let me. Please.”
Jena nodded, whispering, “Okay.”
As if he was opening the best present in the world, Nicholas slowly pushed the fabric up her torso, rediscovering Jena’s body. Starting at the lacy elastic of her underwear, he trailed kisses from hip to hip, the velvety dip on the inside of her hipbone soft and warm against his tongue. He trailed his nose upward, filling his head with a scent he had been gradually losing. His hand smoothed over her hip and into the dip of her waist just as his mouth brushed the smooth curve of the underside of her breast, and she gasped. Nicholas rested his forehead against her chest, laughing breathlessly, tracing the curve of her waist again.
“What?” Jena asked softly, running her fingers along his scalp and tugging gently so he would look at her.
“When I could remember almost nothing from last New Year’s, I remembered this.” He rubbed just his palm lightly along her skin, and she shivered. “I dreamed about touching this curve. Kissing you here.” Nick dipped his head and drew his tongue from the swell of her hip to the side of her breast.
Jena smiled. “You slept there. When I woke up, your head was on my stomach and your arm was around me—”
“Like this?” He laid his head on her abdomen and draped his arm over her hips.
“Yes.” She stroked his hair, and he looked up at her with a smile. “I wish I’d done this then,” she said quietly, touching his hair again as her eyebrows drew down. “Instead, I freaked out and ran away. Stupid.”
“Don’t. So what happened next?”
Her brow smoothed and a glint of humor came back. “You rolled on your back and nestled your head right here.” She indicated the curve where his head rested, and Nicholas moved to recreate that. “I remember thinking that your hair was so soft, and I wanted to touch your face, but I didn’t want to wake you up…”
“I wish you had.”
“Me, too.” Jena sighed. “But maybe we wouldn’t have been ready then.” Nicholas nodded and she giggled. “That tickles. Your hair was shorter then.”
“Yep. And I didn’t shave all week, so I had more scruff.” He scooted down slightly and rubbed his cheek on her inner thigh, feeling her body go rigid. “I love your thighs. Does this work for
you?”
“Oh, God, yes,” she mumbled. “That’s one thing I dreamed about.” Her eyes drifted closed. “And your hands on me, Nicholas. Feeling your mouth everywhere.” She moved restlessly, her hips curving up a tiny bit, and Nick shifted to rest his lower body between her parted thighs. Her hands traced paths on his skin as she stroked every inch that was within her reach. Wrapping one leg around Nick’s waist, she wiggled until he was pressed firmly against her.
Suddenly her hands were pushing at the waistband of Nick’s pajamas. “I need these off,” she said, her voice rough. “I’ve never wanted you so much.” She laughed unevenly. “And that covers a lot of territory, believe me.”
Nicholas felt the hard knot of desire in his own belly tighten, and fuck he wanted this, too. Quickly shedding his bottoms with a smile, he knelt between her legs and slowly pulled her panties off, nuzzling the satiny skin of her thighs as he dropped the underwear over the side of the bed. Jena’s entire body jerked when he kissed the soft curls between her legs, and she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder before whispering, “Next time. I want to feel your body on me, Nicholas. It’s been so long…” She trailed her fingers over his chest and shoulder, watching her hand and sighing.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said softly, settling between her legs again, supporting his weight with one arm while he helped her pull her shirt over her head with the other. He slowly slid into her, pausing for a minute to listen to her moan before shifting slightly to sink deeper as her leg hooked over his hip. A soft sigh whispered from between Jena’s parted lips, and God, she was beautiful, tension balanced with pleasure on her face as she slid her hands over his back, holding him to her. He dipped his head to kiss her and touch her face and realized he was still holding her shirt.
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