“Honestly, college was boring. Two years in and I already knew what I was going to do with my life, and it had nothing to do with what was happening in class. I was never going to graduate and get a job writing code for Microsoft or running an IT department for some corporation. The crazy thing is, I was already working from my desktop in my dorm room. People were already paying me to do stuff. Interesting stuff. College seemed like a waste of my time.”
She wanted to tell him that education was never a waste of time, but she suspected this was yet another way in which she and Nick would forever differ. “So hacking the Department of Defense.”
He let out a soft chuckle. “Okay, I admit it. It was a stupid thing to do. But I was young and dumb, despite my brains, if you know what I mean.”
Of course she did. Nick was a genius when it came to figuring out a computer program, but sometimes he couldn’t figure out the right thing to do when it was staring him in the face. Livie was brilliant at making connections inside reams of complex data, but sometimes it felt like she couldn’t connect to a human being she wasn’t related to if her life depended on it.
“Why’d you do it?”
“I had a lot of friends online. Other specialized computer experts.”
“Hackers.”
“Yeah, I was running with a pack of hackers. The elite, if there was such a thing. Anyway, we talked a lot about the ultimate hack, what would be the hardest system to crack. It was all theoretical, really. A game we played. This one guy said the Department of Defense would be impossible. He was being kind of a dick about it, actually, so I decided to prove him wrong.”
“You’re right, that was really dumb, Nick.”
“I told you.”
“You hacked the Department of Defense on a dare.”
“Okay, I get it. Believe me, I heard more than enough about it from my parents, back when it all went down.”
He was quiet for a bit, lost in his memories. She left him alone with his own thoughts as they wandered down Court Street, waiting until they’d reached the relative solitude of her block before she tried again.
“You were living back at home?”
“Right. And working. See, I got into trouble for what I did, but in certain circles, it made me kind of famous.”
“Famous?”
“Infamous. Legendary. I was picking up a lot of freelance work from people looking to utilize my specific brand of genius.”
“You were hacking.”
He shook his head. “Nope. No way. I told you I didn’t get indicted, but that doesn’t mean the government let me walk away scot free. I cleaned up their system for them so they didn’t prosecute, but they kept me on a pretty tight leash. I skirted the line of legality sometimes, but I could not afford to cross it, or our deal would be off.”
He paused again, dropping his eyes to the pavement. “I had offers, of course. People who wanted me to do what I did to the DoD, but to other government agencies...to other governments. There are a lot of seriously shady characters out there looking for guys like me to do their dirty work.”
“But you said no.”
“Right. There was no amount of money these guys could offer me that would make me risk going to prison for the rest of my life. I might have been dumb back then, but I wasn’t an idiot.”
“Prison for life?” Cold dread filled her stomach. What he’d done was that serious?
He shot her another small smile, a faint echo of his usual cocky grin. “Don’t worry. My government friends and I are on good terms these days. I don’t cross the big red lines and they leave me alone to do my thing. I wouldn’t work for any of the really bad guys, but guys like that, they don’t like to take no for an answer.”
Livie’s skin prickled with apprehension. “What do you mean?”
“These guys, they were, I guess you’d classify them as terrorists? It depends on which government you ask. Anyway, they approached me to do some work, some highly illegal work, which I refused. But they thought they could convince me it was in my own best interest to do their job.”
“How were they going to do that?”
“By kidnapping me.”
Livie stopped moving, her feet frozen as she stared at Nick. He paused and turned back to face her.
Her heart was pounding with horror. “What did they do to you?” She was terrified that whatever he told her next would be indelibly seared on her brain for life. She needed to know and she never wanted to know.
“Not me,” he answered. His eyes were dead and his voice had gone flat. “Christopher. We look a lot alike, and we were both living at home. He went out for a run one morning and he didn’t come back. For two days, we didn’t know what had happened to him. These guys figured out pretty quick that they had the wrong DeSantis brother, so they changed the rules. A couple of days later, they contacted me with their demands. I did the job or they’d kill him. Slowly.”
Livie covered her mouth with her hand. Her eyes stung and her throat ached. “What happened? Did they hurt him?”
Nick scoffed as he turned to the front and started walking again. Livie had no choice but to walk with him, although her body was still frozen with dread.
“These fucking idiots. They tried to extort me because I’m one of the few people on the planet who could do what they wanted. I’m good enough to bring down a fucking government but it never occurred to them I was also good enough to track them down?”
“You found them?”
“I found them in an hour.” He rolled his eyes, disgusted with their incompetence. “My government friends took care of the rest. They got Chris back for me and arrested a tidy little bundle of Interpol’s most wanted as a bonus.”
Livie exhaled for the first time in many minutes. “Chris was okay.”
“Chris was okay,” he echoed, but there was a bitterness to those words that hadn’t been there before, and Livie could begin to guess at what had gone wrong between Nick and his family.
“Your parents must have been terrified,” she said cautiously.
His cheek twitched as he ground his teeth together, his jaw going tight with anger. “Terrified until we knew he was safe. Then they were enraged. It was all my fault, of course.” The words came faster now that he’d finally let them out, tumbling out of him in an angry rush. “My mother couldn’t say enough. I was so reckless, so irresponsible, so selfish. I couldn’t leave well enough alone. I had to push and push, and look what happened as a result. I got myself kicked out of college, I got myself arrested. I nearly got my brother killed.”
“I’m sure she was upset—”
“She said she was sorry they’d failed, that they hadn’t gotten me like they’d planned.”
The words hit her heart like a fist. “Oh, Nick, I’m sure she didn’t mean it—”
“Oh, she meant it—” But he stopped, the anger suddenly draining out of him. “I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t. But at the time, it really felt like she did. So I left.”
“You what?”
“As soon as we got word that the cops had Chris, I packed up my computer and I left. I walked out, threw away my phone, and I disappeared. That was the last time I saw or spoke to any of them. Until tonight.”
“Your mother must have been a wreck.” She remembered Laura DeSantis’s face when she’d mentioned Nick’s name. It was like he’d just come back from the dead. Because for Laura DeSantis, he had.
“Yeah, I get that now.” He shook his head. “She was a mess tonight. Eight years.” He sighed. “She’s been killing herself over this for eight years. I don’t think I was wrong to be pissed, but maybe I shouldn’t have disappeared like that. I should have at least let them know where I was. But honestly, I didn’t think they’d want to know. I didn’t think they’d care.”
“You know they do.”
He looked down at his feet. “Yeah
, they do. Chris got married and had a kid. Can you believe that? All this shit happened while I’ve been out there hiding from them.”
“I’m sure they don’t blame you.” They’d reached her house by now, but she paused on the front stoop. Nick didn’t seem in any hurry to go inside and end this conversation. She wondered if he’d ever told anyone what had happened. The way it rushed out of him once he started, she was guessing not.
“No, they don’t blame me for disappearing, they blame themselves. How the hell does that feel even worse? My mother is so fucking grateful that I didn’t spit on her. I mean, what the hell is that? I shouldn’t have been such a dick about it.”
Earlier, she’d told him it wasn’t her place to insert herself into his family, but it seemed like he might be looking for someone to, for someone to tell him it was okay to forgive them. “It’s not too late to fix it, Nick.”
“No, it’s not. I’m...” He paused, drew a deep breath, continued. “I’m going to their place for Thanksgiving tomorrow.”
“You’re going home for Thanksgiving?” That was a better outcome than she could have hoped for.
“To my parents’ place. That’s not really home for me anymore.”
“Nick, it’s your home. It’ll always be your home. That’s the point, right?”
“Yeah, I guess.” He didn’t sound happy about it, but he did sound determined to go through with it. His family was going to welcome him back in with open arms, she knew it. He might not see that now, but tomorrow, he would. He’d be glad he did this.
“You’re not mad at me?”
“For telling my mother you knew me? Liv, I might have been a self-absorbed dick when I was eighteen, but I’d like to think I’ve evolved a little by now.” He reached out and snagged her hand, his thumb running across her knuckles. “No, I’m not mad at you.”
Her breath left her in an unsteady huff. She’d been half-convinced tonight was it—that he’d come back just long enough to tell her it was all over. Instead, everything had changed. He was patching things up with his family. He was going home tomorrow. He was staying.
For the first time since she’d met him, she had hope. It was nothing more than a tiny little flicker, but it was there. Maybe he’d figure out how to quit running away. Maybe he’d stay. Maybe there was a chance they’d exist beyond the next five minutes.
She reached for his hand. “Come upstairs?”
He let her lead him inside.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Upstairs, in his room, things felt different. Usually when they had sex, Nick was excited and playful, pulling her clothes off her in an eager tumble toward the bed, alternating between kisses and filthy whispers that made her blush.
Tonight, he was quiet. In fact, he made no move to touch her right away, looking around the room as if he wasn’t really seeing it, as if he was lost somewhere else.
Livie went to him instead.
“Hey,” she murmured, taking his face in her hands. His hands found her hips, and he looked back at her. “It’ll be okay.”
He nodded, closing his eyes. She kissed him—a brief press of the lips at first, but then again, slower and longer. Eventually, he began to kiss her back, his hands curling into her hips. Still, he made no move to take things further. Summoning her courage, Livie took the initiative, something she’d never done before.
Slowly, she unbuttoned his shirt, leaving off kissing his mouth to drop kisses down his neck, and still farther down to his chest. Nick drew in a ragged breath, lifting a hand to cradle the back of her head. When he made no move to undress her, she straightened up, looked him in the eye, and began to unbutton her shirt. He watched as each button slipped free of the fabric. When it was hanging loose, she shrugged it off, letting it fall to the floor.
He didn’t reach for her tonight the way he usually did. He just looked, his eyes roaming over her bare shoulders, the swells of her breasts above the scooped edge of her tank top.
So she didn’t stop. She stripped off the tank, too, shaking her hair free as he watched with hungry eyes. After only a moment of hesitation, she reached around and unhooked her bra, tossing it away. His eyes locked on her breasts but still, he didn’t touch her.
This felt different. She was jumpy with nerves. Usually, by the time she was naked, they were already in bed, he was naked, too, and they were seconds away from coming together. It was easy to get lost in the rush of physical sensation. She’d forget about her own body entirely, completely focused on what was happening between them. Now, there was just him, standing there fully clothed, watching her, half-naked. Her nipples hardened into tight buds under his relentless gaze.
“Take off the rest?” he murmured. “Please?”
It never crossed her mind to refuse him. As Nick stood still and watched her, she kicked off her shoes, then slid her jeans down her legs. His heavy-lidded dark eyes never left her. There was nothing left but her underwear. Her eyes flicked up to his. He stared back in question. Before she could lose her nerve, she hooked her thumbs into the sides and slid them down her legs, too.
His eyes raked over her slowly, from head to toe. She stood still, still trembling, and let him look. Finally—it felt like a year—he reached out and laid a hand over her breast. Her eyes slid closed and she let out a trembling sigh.
“I’m being selfish,” he said. “Just taking.”
“Not if I want to give it. Maybe you need it.” He seemed rattled tonight, more uncertain of himself than she’d ever seen him. This time, maybe she could take the lead, and make it all about him.
“I don’t deserve you, Liv.”
She covered his hand where he was touching her. “You’ve got me anyway. Tonight, you can have all of me, any way you want me.”
Slowly, when she’d worked up her courage, she stepped forward, lifted her hands, and began undressing him, too. He let her, watching her intently as she unbuttoned his shirt and stripped it off, then unzipped his jeans and nudged them down. He moved only enough to toe off his shoes. She did the rest, sliding his jeans down his legs and urging him to step out of them.
While she was down there, on her knees, she glanced up and there he was, right in front of her face, hard and ready. She’d never done this before. The very idea had struck fear into her heart. There seemed to be a lot of ways to screw it up, and it was definitely not an organ you wanted to make a mistake on. But now, when he seemed so lost, when all she wanted was to make him feel good again, it felt right to take him in her hand, to lean forward, then to take him into her mouth.
Nick let out a moan that made her shudder, then he muttered a stream of expletives. “Jesus, Liv. Jesus. Goddamn.”
Jesus and God were the last thing on her mind at the moment. She focused all her considerable mental abilities on what she was doing, trying hard to keep her teeth out of it, to use her hands for the significant part of him that wouldn’t fit in her mouth.
She still had no idea what she was doing, but Nick didn’t seem to care. His hand had moved to the back of her head, caressing her, tangling in her hair. The surprising thing about the whole experience was how hot she found it. It was patently all about him, right? He was the only one receiving any stimulation. Then why were her nipples tight? Why was she wet and achy between her legs? She didn’t want to stop. She wanted to keep going until she’d made him fall apart. It was a heady rush, knowing she had this kind of power over his pleasure.
“Oh, shit,” he hissed. His hands closed around her upper arms, and she found herself hauled roughly to her feet. “You are fucking magnificent,” he muttered, right before he took her mouth in a hungry kiss.
Now he was everywhere, his hands on her breasts, skimming down her body, dipping in between her legs to tease her until she was gasping and trembling. Still kissing her, he backed her toward the bed. When her calves hit it, he paused and drew back, taking her face in his hands and looking at
her.
“Liv, you are just...” When she looked in his eyes, that hole in him, the one that she thought might have started to heal tonight, seemed more vast than ever. It was a dark emptiness that sent a cold shaft of fear into her heart.
She reached out to touch his face. “Nick, what is it?”
But he didn’t answer. He shook his head and kissed her again. Whatever else she might have said was lost in that kiss, lost in his body coming down over hers.
Chapter Thirty-Five
His parents had moved, which had surprised Nick last night. His family had been in the Carroll Gardens house since his grandparents’ days. But his mother said that after the “incident”—which is how she referred to Chris’s kidnapping and his disappearing act—there were too many bad memories in the house. Plus, with Chris married and moved out, and Nick gone, it was too big for the two of them. They’d sold up and bought a smaller place in Sheepshead Bay.
Their new place was on a quiet block lined with identical brick houses, one pressed up against the other. The tiny landscaped front yard looked tidy and well cared for. Even this late in November, it was the nicest yard on the block. His dad had always had a green thumb.
Neither of the cars parked in the tiny driveway was familiar. Of course, why would his parents have the same car he remembered? That old Honda they’d driven probably met its maker years ago. The other car had a car seat in back. There was also a tricycle parked on the front porch. More signs of all the changes he’d missed.
Taking a deep breath, he forced his feet up the three steps to the porch. From inside, he could hear the faint sounds of a TV. His dad and Chris were probably already watching football. Did they still do that on Thanksgiving? Or would it be all Barney and cartoons now?
He stared at the door, willing himself to lift his hand and knock. While part of him wanted to—wanted to put an end to eight years of bitterness and anger—another part of him wanted to run away. It was safe back there in his isolation. Once he did this, rejoined his family, they’d be back in his life again, and change, even good change, was a little scary.
Love and the Laws of Motion Page 22