by CP Smith
When she realized he wouldn’t budge, all the pent-up energy and fear she’d been holding onto rushed out in a garbled breath of defeat. “It won’t work no matter how much I trust you—I’m too broken.”
He closed his eyes. Finally, he was getting to the truth. “Then we’ll fix what’s broken,” he answered softly, pulling her closer.
She bit her lip and shook her head. “It’s not fixable. Nothin’ I do makes me feel whole.”
“Bullshit.” He sensed she was ready to bolt and braced. He held on tighter, so she’d be forced to listen to him. “The woman who stepped in front of a bullet to save her friend isn’t afraid of anything, so why are you afraid to find out or try?”
Her head shook rapidly in denial. He tipped her head back to stop her and lowered his mouth. The only time she seemed to relax around him was when she was pressed close to his body, so he’d use whatever advantage he had to get her to listen. “We’ll fix this,” he mumbled against her lips, coaxing her to relax with his mouth. “Give me the chance to help you fix whatever is broken,” he breathed against her lips, running a hand down her side until he teased the underside of her breast with his thumb.
As if she’d been shocked by an electrical current, Poppy ripped her mouth from his, her eyes frantic, and tried to run from Nate again. He pulled her back, and she fought him like a wild animal. He tugged her forward until she fell against his chest and held on tight. He tried to calm her by running his hands up and down her spine, whispering promises he intended to keep, but in a fit of panic she shared her past, and it brought him to his knees.
“We can’t be together ’cause there’s nothin’ left for me to give you. Don’t you see? I’m a ghost. I’m already dead inside.” Her voice stuttered, the ache in her words dripping with sorrow. He wanted to stop her, so she didn’t have to relive the pain, but it was too late to halt the flood of memories from spilling between them. “I was violated by a stranger. A monster who slipped inside my room as a child. He threatened to kill my mother if I told, so I buried the secret deep. Let it die right along with me. I’m broken, Nate. You can’t fix me.”
Nate took a step back in shock at her admission. Then rage flooded his system. He knew he needed to calm down. Needed to breathe through the anger until the image of Poppy being violated bled from his head. But Poppy’s face paled from his reaction, jerking as if she’d been struck. Tears began to stream down her cheeks in a waterfall of anguish, and he realized his mistake instantly. He stepped forward to pull her back into his arms, but she moved out of his reach and began to shake.
“Baby.” Nate heard his own grief in that single word and took another step toward her, refusing to let her put distance between them.
“It’s my fault we can’t have a future,” she whispered as if in shame, as if she were to blame, and it gutted Nate. “But you need to know why, because it’s only fair . . . I freeze when a man touches me intimately. It makes me panic. We can’t be together in a way a man and woman should.”
It took Nate a moment to absorb what she’d said, then the rage came back twofold. He needed an outlet before he scared her, so he turned and threw his fist into the wall, exploding with the weight of his anguish. For Poppy. For what she’d been through and how she saw herself.
She jumped when he roared, “FUCK!” and tried to run past him, but he turned and caught her at the waist, and curled his large frame around her, holding on while she sobbed.
Nate knew he had his work cut out for him after her father’s appearance, but this revelation solidified his resolve. He wouldn’t walk away, no matter how much she begged him. She belonged to him now. He would do whatever it took to heal her. Maybe even heal himself in the process like Devin had said, but he would never let go.
“We’ll fix this,” he vowed again, his voice guttural as he held onto his anger. He wanted to find the man who’d done this to her and bring him as low as he’d brought Poppy. Feel his bones snap beneath his hands while he made him pay for her torment.
“I can’t be fixed,” she sobbed. “I’m too broken.”
“No, you’re not. Not by a long shot.” The scum who touched her may have bent her, but he hadn’t broken her, no matter what she said. Poppy was one of the strongest women he’d ever met. She just needed to believe in herself and trust Nate.
Devin pounded on the bedroom door, calling out, “Is there a problem?”
“Yeah,” Nate answered as he lifted Poppy’s chin and began wiping the tears from her face with his thumbs. “But I’ve got it, and I’m gonna fix it,” he vowed again, placing his forehead against hers until his eyes were all she could see. “I promise, Kitten.”
_______________
Sighing into the warmth surrounding me, contentment flooded my system like a shot of whiskey. I buried my face into the heat and sleep began to tug me under until two muscled arms pulled me deeper against a hard body. I tensed when I realized I wasn’t tangled in sheets, but I’d tangled my legs and arms with Nate’s. And he was wearing nothing but a pair of boxer briefs. The tattered memories of our earlier confrontation, and Nate’s solemn vow to fix what was broken, sent my heart racing.
Fear began to course through me. I’d confessed about my past in a moment of weakness, expecting it to send Nate running, not make him more determined to pursue me. And that determination was like a drug to my ravaged soul. To the little girl who still cried in the dark. I was in danger of becoming addicted to that promise. The one that said he would heal the fissure in my heart and I could come out on the other side whole, with Nate standing at my side. All it took was one hit. One vow that he’d stop at nothing to banish the dragon, and I was jonesing for more. But it wasn’t real. It couldn’t be. It was just a momentary cease and desist order to my fractured soul. If I were smart, I’d grab the metaphorical knife, ever-present in my gut, and twist it until nothing remained of me. Become the ghost I was meant to be when I died a little that night so many years ago.
But hope springs eternal—held fast to those sentenced to death. Hope that maybe a miracle, in the form of a brooding male with eyes the color of dark, hickory coffee, might be my saving grace.
That hope had me tightening my hold on his waist, while my heart rate kicked up at the feel of his warm skin against my cheek. I was in awe that I was laying with him on a bed and not freaking out.
Lazy fingers brushed innocently down my leg, and I flinched because it tickled. I felt Nate tense beneath me, and I knew he’d mistaken my reaction. Thought I was freezing at his touch like I said I would. I wanted to slide beneath the sheets and hide; embarrassed I spilled my greatest secret. My biggest failure. But there was no going back. That ship had sailed, and I had to deal with the consequences of my stupidity. And deal I would, by pretending that all was right in my world until I could escape inside my head for a good long while. The land of denial and I were old friends. We had a secret handshake and everything.
“That tickled,” I whispered against his chest, hoping to ease his discomfort.
He hesitated a moment, then his fingers brushed against my leg again. I bit my lip to keep from laughing out loud but couldn’t hide the tremors that wracked my body.
“Are you laughin’?” There was a question in his voice, one that sounded a lot like wariness that I was lying about my reaction. Lifting my head so he could see my face, I let go of the laughter. Nate’s expression had been cautious when I looked up, but when I laughed, his mouth broke into a wicked smile. Before I could catch my next breath, he rolled me onto my back and began to tickle me just above my hip bone. I shrieked with more laughter as spasms wracked my gut, and he tickled me harder. I could barely breathe through my panting pleas to stop the torture. Then I couldn’t breathe for an entirely different reason when his mouth closed over mine.
I relished the feel of his lips on mine and opened wider, allowing his tongue greater access. When I moaned with lust deep in my throat, it caught me off guard and I ripped my mouth away in surprise.
“You oka
y?”
No, I wasn’t okay. I’d never felt such a deep need in my gut or pounding in my core. Blake was my only willing sexual experience, and it didn’t last long. I’d been too freaked out to relax. I’d spent so many years avoiding intimacy, when it finally happened, I was rigid, afraid it would trigger memories of rough hands that had made me feel things a child didn’t understand. I’d never had an orgasm that wasn’t electronically induced. Never had a throbbing this deep in my body that it cried out for release, so my reaction to Nate was confusing.
And hope began to rise. Maybe I’m not as fractured as I thought.
“I think so,” I finally answered.
His hand ran down the side of my leg again, but this time it didn’t make me flinch, it made the throbbing expand until I wanted to shake for a different reason.
“Am I crushin’ you?” His breath was warm against my lips. I shivered in response. The feel of his body pressed to mine didn’t send sharp knives of panic, as they had in the past. I stared at Nate in awe. After a lifetime of depriving myself of touch, freezing in panic once I tried to move forward from my past, I was lying with a man pressed intimately to my front and I wasn’t panicking.
And hope soared higher.
“No, you’re not crushin’ me.” The words came out tad bit husky.
His eyes crinkled at the corners, but they warmed when a single tear slipped down the side of my cheek without warning. “That’s enough for today,” he said brushing my lips, his voice soft and reassuring. “We need to get to the station anyway.”
Regret and relief mixed in equal measure that we had to leave this cocoon. And that was different too. Relief had always been my go-to emotion when Blake had given up trying to seduce me. Relieved it was over, leaving me as frigid and cold as the name he’d given me when I’d caught him in bed with his ex. Ice Princess. He’d said he’d cheated because I was cool as ice in the bedroom. But with Nate, it was different. The fact I felt disappointed we had to leave a private room, where anything could have happened, was cause for celebration.
I watched Nate as he sat up and put his feet on the ground. The lines of his back were cut deep with muscles any male model would be envious of. His hair had dried since his swim in the ocean, leaving it wild and sexy, and a bit wavy. I always thought his dark, soulful eyes were his best feature, but he had hair most women longed to have, and to touch. I reached up and ran my fingers through the veil of dark chocolate silk fanning the side of his face. He froze at my touch, then reached up and drew my hand to his mouth. His eyes darted to mine and held them as his tongue darted out and tasted my palm. His eyes bled to black as my own hooded. The throbbing between my legs grew more intense with the single promise I read in eyes.
This was what passion felt like, I realized. The thousands of books I read, describing the burning need between a man and a woman, hadn’t come close. Real passion was indescribable.
“We need to get movin’,” Nate said, then nipped my palm before releasing it.
I nodded, ready to bolt so I could digest all the emotions circling my headspace, and rolled off the bed, heading for the door. I grabbed the handle in preparation to leave, but Nate caught me at the waist and leaned into me until I was pinned. I could feel every inch of him pressed against me. Including the erection nestled against my back. “No more runnin’. When we walk out this door it’s you and me, Kitten. Understand?”
I hesitated a moment, lost in the old fear that he’d see inside my soul and find me lacking. But I’d opened that door already and he hadn’t run yet. The throb between my legs, and the spark of hope that feeling stirred, were enough for me to nod my head in agreement.
“No more runnin’. . . for now.”
He brushed my hair away from the side of my face, and I held my breath. He nipped the lobe of my ear while a deep chuckle rose up from his chest. “You’re cute when you’re bein’ naïve, Kitten.”
I sucked in a breath at the tiny trails of heat running down my spine. “I’m not naïve,” I kind of breathed out.
“You are if you think you have a lick of choice in bein’ mine.” He punctuated that caveman rational by fisting my hair and tugging until he could capture my lips in a deep, wet kiss.
I exited the bedroom with my head spinning, wondering what had happened to my plan from a few short hours ago. I was going to avoid relationships. Be the cool aunt to Sienna and Cali’s kids. Now I had bar owner-slash-arrogant Neanderthal declaring I was his, and I didn’t have a choice in the matter. I’d have run faster than a Kentucky Derby winner if the thought of being Nate’s woman didn’t make my insides shudder just a little.
That quiver caused hope to soar out of the atmosphere while a sledgehammer landed a perfect strike to my reinforced wall. I was floating on a wing and a prayer, a soft cushy cloud of promise, when reality punched me in the gut. I rounded the corner with a smile on my face, only to find my father talking to Sienna in the living room. Bo watching warily with his arms crossed.
Knox looked up and saw me, just before I pivoted on my heel and dashed into the bathroom. I couldn’t do this right now. Everything was still raw. I sank to the floor with my back to the door and prayed he would leave. But my prayers had never been answered as a child, and they wouldn’t be today, because moments later, Nate ground out angrily, “What the fuck is he doin’ here?”
My face paled when I realized what I’d done. I confessed my deepest, darkest secret without thinking about the consequences. Nate would blame my father. He would blame my aunt. I couldn’t let that happen. I didn’t want anyone looking at me with pity. Didn’t want them to know my shame.
Bolting from the floor in panic, I ripped open the door and rushed into the living room, coming to a screeching halt in front of a seething Nate. “Please,” I whispered, my eyes conveying what my mouth couldn’t. Please don’t say anything.
My father had pulled Sienna behind him as if Nate were a threat. I could tell from Nate and Bo’s reaction the move angered them both. I don’t know why my father insisted Nate was dangerous, but it didn’t matter to me. I knew down to my marrow he would never hurt me. Physically that is. Emotionally was a whole different beast. If I continued on the path I was headed, and he walked away, I’d be devastated.
“Baby girl, we need to talk,” Knox said evenly, reaching out a hand as if to pull me away from Nate. I ignored him and focused on the huge man in front of me, pleading with my eyes for him to listen.
Nate broke his death glare with my father and studied my face. He hesitated for only a moment when tears, that seemed to crop up at the worst possible moments, dripped from my lashes. He pulled me behind him out of my father’s reach, then turned and walked us back to the hallway so we were in our own little bubble. Away from prying eyes and ears. He cupped my cheeks once we were alone, leaning his forehead against mine, brushing those annoying tears away.
“Please don’t,” I rasped out before he could argue, fear and panic riding me hard.
“Kitten,” was all he said, but the word held pain and anger. For me. For his desire to punish my father for not being there to protect me as a child.
Reaching up, I fisted my hands in his damp shirt, not above begging at this point. “Please, don’t. Only you. Promise me.”
Eyes that had been wild and angry a moment before, closed and his nostrils flared. He looked in pain, so I wrapped my arms around his waist and lay my head on his chest, running my hand up and down his back until I felt the tension slowly leave his body.
“I don’t want anyone else to know. I wouldn’t be able to handle the pity in their eyes.” Or the shame that rode me daily. It wasn’t my fault it happened. I knew that. But still.
“Someone needs to pay,” Nate bit out softly, his arms tightening until I couldn’t breathe.
“I have no idea where he is. I haven’t seen him since I was a kid.”
“What’s his name?” he asked into my neck. Cold. Deadly. Calm. The words sounded innocent enough, but it scared the bejesus out of
me to answer truthfully.
“I don’t know his name,” I lied. Well, not exactly lied. I realized now that he must have had a biker name like my father. At the time I had no clue where my aunt had met the men who came to our house. They never stayed for long and then we’d have months of peace. Then one night some guy on a bike would show up and there would be drinking and sometimes black eyes. But I never knew their legal names, just their biker names, which made sense considering my aunt and my mother were some sort of biker babe princesses from California.
Dear Lord, did that make me one too?
The tense arms that held me close, released me. I looked up into tumultuous eyes that seemed to question if I was being truthful. “One day you’ll trust me with the whole truth. But not today. You need a break.”
“I want to leave the past buried. Can’t you understand that?”
Brown eyes blazed at me, but he nodded once in understanding. Then he whispered scarily, “I’ll let it go for now, but you’re givin’ me his name. I know what’s goin’ on inside that head of yours, Kitten, and I’m tellin’ you right now, it’s bullshit.”
I had no idea what he was talking about. I started to ask him to explain but I was interrupted by Bo. “We need to head out,” he called out loudly.
I’d yet to change out of my sleep shirt, so I pushed past Nate and ran into my bedroom. When I was done throwing on my T-shirt and shorts, I found Nate leaning against the wall outside my room. He was a damp mess, wearing the same T-shirt and faded jeans from the night before. And he never looked better to me.
Reaching out his hand, he grabbed mine and we entered the living room. Knox was in the kitchen talking with Bernice, a cup of coffee balanced in his hand. I spied Eunice and Odis Lee standing on the porch, as well.