Nathaniel's skin was warm against mine, sending little spurts of electricity up my arm and goose bumps springing up all across my skin. He made me feel ten years younger and a thousand worries lighter. Why, I don't know. I didn't believe in love at first sight, but the first moment I'd laid eyes on Nathaniel, I had sensed that there was something about him, and it was getting harder and harder to ignore.
We checked in at the counter inside, grabbed a few pairs of earmuffs, some ammunition, and headed out the opposite door into the sunshine.
The shooting range was directly off one of the major highways and from the outside, it appeared to be just like any other industrial shop this side of town. Tall, brick walls and a massive cement parking lot. To say the least, it wasn't very aesthetically pleasing. But the back was different. There was a massive expanse of green lawn bordered on two sides by hulking stone walls decorated from end to end in wildlife murals. Across from us, at the end of the range, was a wooded thicket, probably the last bastion of nature in this entire area. It was impossible to tell from the highway how beautiful it was back here.
“Damn,” I said as Nathaniel guided me to a shady, covered area with a series of small tables. “This is a little island of paradise. How did you find it?” Nathaniel set the gun case down and handed me a pair of pink earmuffs. I looked down at them and then at the pair in his other hand. “Nuh-uh,” I said as I reached out and grabbed the hunter green pair. “I don't do baby pink.” Nathaniel paused for a moment and then laughed. He just tossed his head back and let it out, raucous and loud, real. There was someone beyond that perfect suit and manicured hair. Nathaniel Sutherland was a man I could relate to. I bet he even did the whole beer and burgers thing. When we were done here, I was going to ask him out to lunch. He'd taken me to breakfast, so it was the least I could do.
“Alright,” he told me as he took the pink muffs and hooked them around his neck. “I'll take the baby pink. It compliments my skin anyway.” We grinned at each other while he opened the gun case and pulled the pistol out of the foam insert. “Cedric and I took our first gun courses here,” he said as he pressed a button on the side of the gun and … something … popped out of the bottom. “I actually saw a billboard ad on the way home from Gillian's funeral, and I just wanted to blow off some steam. It changed my life.” Nathaniel paused and looked around as if he was seeing the place for the first time. “I never really noticed before, but you're right. It is beautiful.” He looked me right in the eyes when he said it, and I had to glance away to regain my composure. The man was a compulsive flirt.
“So, Nathaniel Sutherland,” I said as I he set the gun down on the table. “Are you going to change my life today?”
“I sure hope so, Theresa McMaster,” he said and we watched each other for a moment before turning our attentions almost unanimously to the weapon. It was easier to focus on that then it was to look into one another's eyes and know that there was something there. My heart was already pumping and I couldn't stop thinking about his interest in me and my interest in him and, oh God, it was all so messed up that I didn't even know if I could put into words what I was feeling. A gorgeous man was interested in my damaged goods, a man that knew about Glen and Gary. Maybe he didn't know about the other stuff, the miscarriage and the botched surgery, but he knew the rest and he wasn't running for the hills.
“So what's this?” I asked as I pointed at the black rectangle on the table. “My gun knowledge is limited to made-for-TV movies and paperback thrillers.” Nathaniel lifted it up and turned it over so I could examine it.
“This is a magazine,” he said with a little grin. “Don't ever call it a clip.”
“Why?” I asked as he opened the box of ammunition and removed several rounds.
“Because the gun police will show up and take away your right to bear arms,” he said with a wink. I smiled and watched as he took a single round and inserted it into the magazine. “Since you don't have a concealed handgun license, you can't carry the gun loaded, not even in the case to and from the gun range, so you're going to have to know where your gun is, where your ammo is and how to load it quick, just in case.” I sighed, feeling just a bit of the magic in the moment slip away. This was fun and all and probably a useful skill to have, but the whole reason I was there was to learn how to shoot and wound/kill a man I had once thought I loved because he couldn't get me out of his mind. It was a bit hard to keep the romance in the air when I thought of it like that.
Or it was until Nathaniel took my hand and wrapped it around the magazine. And he didn't let go. He got close to me, so close that the toes of my heels bumped against the soles of his black loafers. His skin was unbelievably warm, and it wasn't from the sun, because despite the golden glow of the morning, it was actually pretty chilly outside. It was just him, just his skin, his own, personal heat. I tried not to sigh in bliss and swallowed as I kept my gaze trained on the bullet in his fingers.
“What you need to do is grab a round and use your fingers to push it down and back. Like this.” Nathaniel pressed a round into my hand and folded his fingers gently around me, positioning my hand in a way that was anything but professional. “You need to guide it with your fingers,” he whispered, leaning forward, letting his breath brush against my ear and send shivers down my spine. “Press it inside and – ” I stepped back suddenly, taking the magazine with me.
“Okay, okay,” I said, embarrassed that my voice sounded breathy and far away. “I think I've got it.” Nathaniel smiled, but he didn't apologize, not this time. Maybe our interaction at the club had loosed a few screws in his professional demeanor? I had no idea, but I did notice that my hands were shaking as I stepped forward and loaded a few more rounds into the magazine. The air was tense but not uncomfortable. It was … electric. I noticed jeans-girl watching us from across the range and tried not to cringe when she fired her gun, filling the air with the harsh staccato sound of gunfire. She looked pissed.
I guess I would, too, I thought as I glanced up at Nathaniel's face. If I knew I didn't have a chance with this guy. Look at him. He can't stop staring at you.
“Now what?” I asked and my voice sounded quiet in the brief space between jeans-girl's shots.
“You insert it into the bottom.”
“Whoa there,” I said as I nearly dropped the magazine. “Moving a little fast there, don't you think?”
“You didn't let me finish,” Nathaniel said as he reached out and touched his fingers under my chin. I raised my gaze to his and suddenly there were tears there. I don't know why, they just sprung up unwanted and uncalled for. “I was going to say into the bottom of the gun.”
“Sure you were,” I said as Nathaniel tilted his head to the side and smiled at me. It wasn't a dirty, nasty smile this time (though I did like those quite a bit more than I'd admitted to myself), it was a gentle, understanding smile. He didn't ask why I was crying which I appreciated, just reached out, took the gun, and came around behind me.
“Just follow my motions,” Nathaniel said as he helped me push the magazine into the grip of the pistol. Then he used his hands to guide mine, wrapping them around the gun and positioning my fingers before stepping back and grabbing the earmuffs. He slipped them over my head, running his fingers through my hair and down the back of my neck. I kept my watery gaze on the target and my arms straight out in front of me. “Now,” he continued as he took up a position on my right side. “Just focus on everything that's bothering you, everything that's been eating away at you, holding you back. Picture it there and pull the trigger.” I gave him a nervous laugh and ignored the tears that were rolling down my cheeks. It wasn't that I was sad, that wasn't it. It was just that something about Nathaniel pulled my feelings out of me. I wanted to tell him everything. I wanted to tell him how I woke up four days after my twenty-first birthday, young and afraid, drenched in blood with my unborn child dying inside of me. How they rushed me into the hospital, cut me open, took out my baby and my ovaries and left me barren and alone. I wanted
to tell him how happy I was when I met Rhea for the first time, when I found out that she could be mine forever. How Glen broke my heart in two when he left me for Winnie, left me alone and hurting, took our house and my car and didn't care what happened to me. I wanted to scream about Gary, say how excited I was to meet him, how certain I was that I'd never be alone again, talk about how he threatened to kill me. Twice.
Instead, I pulled the trigger, felt the recoil and the power in my arms and laughed. And then I fired again. And again. And again. Until the magazine was empty and I was gasping for breath, hunching over the table with the gun resting before me and Nathaniel standing beside me smiling. I looked up at him, through the fall of my hair and my pink earmuffs.
“You were right,” I said as I stood up straight, stepped forward and wrapped my arms around his neck. “That was pretty fucking life changing.”
And then I kissed him, long and hard and fierce.
I kissed Nathaniel Sutherland, and I didn't care who was watching.
Maybe if I'd known that Gary was, I'd have thought a bit differently?
CHAPTER 16
Nathaniel and I barely made it in the front door before we had our hands all over each other, kissing, tasting, exploring. In the back of my mind, I knew that I should slow down, take a step back and try to look at the situation more clearly. I was too wrapped up in my feelings and the constant beating of my heart, thumping so loudly that I could barely hear Nathaniel's moans as I pushed my hands under his shirt and lifted it over his head.
“The door,” he said, still a bodyguard first and foremost. “I have to lock the door.” I followed close behind him and waited for him to flip the lock. When he turned around, I was throwing myself against him, rubbing my breasts along his chest, throwing my head back in a gasp as his fingers slid under the neckline of my dress and pulled it down, exposed the white lace bra I'd chosen.
“Tell me this isn't a mistake,” I said as Nathaniel cupped my breasts, slid his warm hands under the fabric and caressed them with a firm but gentle touch. I almost collapsed to my knees, certain that I was going to explode into a million pieces and die from the pleasure of his touch. Nathaniel didn't grope like some men nor did he touch my boobs like they were made of glass. He cupped them and massaged them in gentle circles as I stepped into him and pressed our bare chests together. “Tell me,” I begged, afraid of myself, my feelings, Nathaniel. Here was a man who not dated a single person since his wife's death and now he was halfway home with me after a few days? There were only two explanations for that. One was that he didn't date, but that he slept around. Not good. The second was that he was an emotionally fragile human being who I had the very real potential of hurting. Not good either.
I stepped back, pushed his hands away and wrapped my arms around myself.
“Nathaniel, I … ”
“Theresa,” he said in that strong, authoritative voice. He was so friggin' sure of himself that it was hard for me to entertain option two for very long. He's just looking for sex, Theresa, I tried to tell myself and then immediately followed that up with, but is that a bad thing? Maybe you could use a little unattached sex right now? I looked up into Nathaniel's heated face, his warm eyes, so unlike Gary's that they'd be listed as antonyms in a dictionary, and I knew that there was no such thing as unattached with this man. Once he had a hold on me, he wasn't going to let go. “I know that you don't know me and that this is a long shot, but I think there's something here that could work.”
“I … ” I tried to protest, but then he was just there, wrapping his strong arms around me, pressing his mouth to mine, trailing his heated kisses down my neck. “I don't know if I can do this. I'm still … Gary is … oh God.”
“I'm not asking you to marry me,” Nathaniel said as he paused and pressed his forehead against mine. “Or make promises you can't keep. I just want to get to know you. Is that so bad?”
“Nathaniel, … ” I whispered, but it was the only word I could think to say. Nathaniel didn't pause for long, grabbing me gently by the upper arms and spinning me around so that he could tug down the zipper on my dress. It had been awhile since I'd had any in that particular department, so long that I'd even considered sleeping with Stuart. And let's face it, Stuart was no Nathaniel Sutherland. Strong and dark and sexy and organized and put together. I soon found myself unable to resist, drowning in lust and need and loneliness. When my dress fell to the floor in a pool of blue and white and Nathaniel stepped up behind me, pressed the hard, warm lines of his body against mine, I closed my eyes and gave in to temptation.
Nathaniel ran his hands down my sides, grabbed my hips, nibbled at the base of my neck and made me shiver. Without words we communicated with our bodies, brushing, touching, teasing, feeling, and I followed Nathaniel's firm but gentle cues, turning around and sliding onto the desk. He stepped between my knees and somehow, as if he'd known that I'd been dreaming about him, he did the one thing I was wishing with all of my perverted little heart that he might do. Nathaniel pulled my panties off and tossed them aside, knelt down and put his mouth to the burning, pulsing ache between my legs.
I gripped the sides of the desk and tried to figure out why there were stars dancing on the ceiling, blurring my vision and making my eyes water. My hips rose off the wood for a split second before Nathaniel gripped them tightly with his hands and pulled me back down to his mouth, hovering the heat of his breath over my clit, brushing his lips along the bare skin of my thighs, pressing soft kisses to my lower belly.
“Stop it,” I said, but my words didn't hold the slightest bit of oomph. I couldn't have stopped him even if I'd wanted to, and trust me, I didn't want to. Nathaniel was a master with his tongue, an artist, a magician, a … When he slid his finger inside of me, I nearly threw myself off of that desk. The sensations were intense, giving me white flashes of brightness in my vision, making me believe in angels and all that jazz. “Nathaniel,” I gasped as one finger became two, curled, found my G-spot. Really, before that moment I had never even believed it was there. Even as my back arched and pleasure poured through me, twirled up from my belly and found my limbs, curled my fingers, pulled my head back, I didn't believe. Not until that magic moment, a moment that I had thought would never come. “Nathaniel!” I called out and that was that, I was a helpless, gasping, sobbing mess, being torn apart and put back together again.
The orgasm, my first orgasm, was spectacular, like a fireworks show just for me, blooming inside my eyelids and opening me up to feelings I'd never had before. My body tensed, muscles contracting, toes twitching, and then all of a sudden there was this release. I was up, up, up and then I came crashing down, but in a good way. I was more relaxed in that moment than I had ever been in the whole of my life.
“Theresa?” Nathaniel asked as he stood up, leaned over me and pressed his hard body and his harder cock against me, pressed his lips to mine and tasted me with the sweetness of my own body. “I'm guessing you enjoyed that?” he continued as he pulled back just enough to look at me, a wicked smile on his lips and a fiery heat in his eyes. I nodded, but I couldn't move. My limbs were hanging over the edges of the desk like a doll's, and I was shaking from head to toe. I nodded my head and watched as Nathaniel brushed the hair from my sweaty forehead. I tried to reach down, find the zipper on his pants and welcome him into me, but he stopped me with a hand on my wrist.
“Not … ” I swallowed. “Not gonna let me return the favor?” I asked as Nathaniel kissed me ever so softly on the cheek.
“Not yet,” he said as I struggled to my elbows and found his lips again, pressed the back of my hand to his cheek and rested there feeling like nothing in the world could ruin this moment. Nothing but a frantic knocking at the door accompanied by a shouting voice, nothing but one of my ex-husbands. And it wasn't the obvious choice.
Outside my front door was Glen.
“Theresa! Open up. I know that you're in there!” I looked at Nathaniel looking at me and hoped like hell that that man (and I use the
word very loosely) hadn't heard me. If he had he probably wouldn't have recognized the noises I'd made. Glen hadn't given me half the joy in our entire three year relationship that Nathaniel had in those few, short minutes. “I need to talk to you.”
“Let's ignore him,” I whispered as Nathaniel smiled big at me and finally let me put my hand over the bump in his pants. “Let's fuck while he sits outside in the cold and screams.” I leaned forward and bit Nathaniel's earlobe, slid his zipper down, reached into his underwear …
“It's about Gary, Theresa. I know what's been going on. If you don't want to lose your daughter, you'll answer this goddamn door.” I paused mid motion, my fingers less than an inch away from Nathaniel's cock, and I knew that I had to stop.
“I … ” Nathaniel removed my hand very gently and kissed me on the lips.
“It's okay,” he said. “Let's take care of this, shall we?” And then he moved away leaving me feeling cold and bare. I realized that my scar was showing bright and shiny in the thin bars of sunlight that were streaming in from the back door and covered it with my hand. He hadn't asked about, hadn't stared, hadn't grimaced. I'd seen men do all three. I stood up quickly and picked up my dress. Nathaniel helped me slip it over my head and zip it up before going for his own shirt. His erection was nowhere to be seen, probably crushed by Glen's nasally voice and obnoxious demands. The man had no fucking respect for me, never had, never would. Nathaniel knew it, too, and it was pissing him off.
He stepped over to the door, checked through the peephole and wrenched it open.
“You need to calm down and stop shouting,” Nathaniel commanded as I glanced around for my underwear. They were nowhere to be seen. “If you want to talk to Theresa, you can ring the doorbell like everyone else and wait your fucking turn.”
“How dare you,” Glen said, pushing his glasses up his nose and stepping back, giving Nathaniel a disgusted once over. When he saw me standing behind him with my lips swollen and my cheeks pink, he just exploded into this angry frenzy that I'd only ever seen once before at the hospital. I'd thought then, in my drugged state, that he was arguing for me, because he loved me, but it wasn't me at all. It was even about his child. It was about this idealized image he had of a family. He didn't care who it was with or how they felt, just that they were there and he was normal and perfect. That's all Glen ever wanted. “You!” he pointed at me, stepping forward into the house. Nathaniel let him, at first, closing the door quickly behind him before he grabbed the back of Glen's shirt and pulled him back, slamming him into the bookcase that lined the wall.
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