by Jillian Neal
Grady tore his gaze from Nadya just long enough to glare hatefully at his little brother. Nadya looked absolutely terrified, but something moved Grady’s feet towards her. He called himself an idiot and commanded his body to stop, but he gained another step. His jaw clenched as she blinked back tears. Fear of rejection took precedence in her eyes. He couldn’t walk away, not if that would hurt her. He could never hurt her.
Suddenly, her body bowed forward. Nate gently pushed her towards Grady’s arms. Her right foot shot forward to keep herself from falling in the sand, and Grady instinctively caught her. He would never and could never let her fall.
She was shivering violently and looked torn between rushing into his chest and sprinting into the next town. The lightning that had been trapped inside his body since the first time he’d touched her hand sent its electric spark through his fingers as they wrapped around her slender waist. He closed his eyes and tried to think. “Do you want to dance, Nadya?” His voice sounded like he’d been half-drowned and pulled out of a deluge. He had no idea how he’d managed the words.
“Okay.” Her whisper was a half-haunted memory laced with fear.
Nodding, he guided her into his substantial embrace. He saw Nate move to the speaker system set up on a card table nearby, playing off of someone’s iPhone. A second later, Nadya’s entire body trembled in his arms. He’d kill both of his brothers slowly and painfully for this. The opening chords of I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing by Aerosmith swelled from the sound system. Their song.
As if the last fourteen years hadn’t existed at all, she buried her face against his chest, hiding from the world around them, and he cradled her tightly in his embrace drinking her body in. He wasn’t certain he’d ever be able to let her go as they began to sway.
Wolf whistles and applause rang from the crowd. The delighted energy was palpable. Molly Montgomery looked far too pleased, and Mac looked far too concerned. Sienna was all but jumping up and down. Ryan McNamara was beaming. Nate and Beau were both sporting pompous smirks, proud of their work.
Grady tried to not to hear the lyrics. He tried to dam back the emotion that cinched his throat and tightened his grip on her. His entire body longed to kiss her, to wipe away the tears that were flowing steadily from her eyes. The audience they had kept him from doing anything but swaying her to the beat of the music they’d danced to more times than he could count.
He felt the ragged threads that had barely managed to hold his soul together for the last decade begin to mend. His heart thundered in his chest. His lungs filled with the intoxicating scent of her. A seductive infusion of wildflowers and dark vanilla musk thrust him back in time with ease.
Parts of him that he’d been certain were dead and gone healed at her touch. His mind settled. The demons he tried futilely to keep locked in the crypt of his heart silenced their incessant chanting ridicule. Some sense of euphoria surged through his body. The sharp, suffocating pain that had been his constant companion disappeared as if it had never existed at all.
As the chorus played for the last time, she lifted her head and drew shuddered breath. “Grady, I’m really sorry … for everything,” she managed before her body gave another convulsive shiver.
“Me too,” he choked.
Nate was back at the sound system. Before his brother could produce any more Aerosmith, Grady clenched his jaw. It was no use. The words were going to spill forth. “You wanna get out of here?” He gestured his head back towards his houseboat.
Eight
“Really?” She sounded like she couldn’t quite believe he’d offered.
“Yeah.”
She nodded. “I’d really like that.”
Ignoring the faces offering him thrilled smiles, he took her hand and guided her towards the other end of the beach. He had no idea what was coming next, but every fiber of his being needed her. His next breaths depended on having her in his arms.
Certain talk of a possible rekindling had taken over all discussion of the break-ins, Grady tried to figure out what to do next as he opened the door to his houseboat. She ducked her head and stepped inside.
A relieved smile played on her beautiful lips. “It still looks the same.” She tried to swallow down the tension now coursing between them.
Grady switched on the generator and then lit the lamps mounted to the side tables in the diminutive seating area. “Yeah, well, I’m not much of a decorator, I guess.”
“No, I like it. I’m glad you didn’t change anything.” Her gaze tracked past the galley and landed on the bed. She turned her entire body away. Far too many things had happened in that bed. His family had always owned the old houseboat, but no one lived in it for years. Grady and Nadya used it for the purposes of hanging out and hooking up for most of their adolescence.
When she turned, the light of the full moon streaming through the windows caught the silvery purple markings on her cheek. Bile flooded his mouth. Tired of debating his every thought, he decided to simply go on his instincts. They hadn’t failed him yet.
He popped open the cabinet above the tiny counter top in the galley and extracted a bottle of arnica solution and a few cotton-balls.
Taking the seat beside her, the only two on the entire boat, he held up the Gypsy remedy for bruises. “Close your eyes.”
Without any hesitation, her long eyelashes covered her onyx eyes. He tipped the medicine over a cotton ball and gently touched it to the bruises on her face. The solution would fade them rapidly and ease the pain, but there was no tincture that could heal the ache those markings left on his heart.
“Aren’t you going to ask me what happened?” she choked. He watched her chin tremble again as her head fell in shame.
“I was thinking I wouldn’t. I’ve kind of got a lot of shit going on right now. I need to at least wait until the police aren’t so interested in the beach before I add murder to my rap sheet and sink his body in the Atlantic.”
A genuine smile formed on her features. She nodded her understanding.
“Do you have any others?”
Still refusing to look him in the eye, she lifted the right side of the shirt she was wearing. His breath hung on an inhale as he stared hungrily at the curve of her waist. Shaking himself slightly, he tipped the bottle again and blotted the blue markings between two of her ribs.
“You know what, fuck it. I’ll keep him in the hull ‘til I can dump his sorry ass without getting caught.”
She laughed. The melody of that sweet sound soothed his fury.
“I’ll help you.” She stared up at him. The statement rang with desperation and a thousand unspoken questions.
He offered her a half-haunted smile. “Yeah, well, I’ll hold him for you and let you have the first few blows with the metal baseball bat.”
Grady studied the golden flecks in her dark eyes. He used to be able to read her like a book, but what he thought he saw there simply couldn’t be.
“That the first time he did this?” He barely managed the question as he set the tincture down and stupidly rubbed his hand over her thigh. The flames in her eyes lit explosively at his touch. She shivered, and he tensed every muscle in his body to keep from guiding her down on that half sofa and making her forget all about her ex.
“The second. It kept getting worse. Just took me a little while to get out of there.”
“I’m sorry, Nadya.”
“Me, too. I’m sorry about everything. I never should have left. I was just so scared and …”
“Hey, I know.” He gently pushed a strand of her waist-length, jet-black hair behind her ear. “And for what it’s worth, I’ll never forgive myself for how I reacted when you told me, Nad. I was an asshole. I just didn’t know what to do.”
Another round of tears threatened her eyes. “You weren’t an asshole. You tried to take care of me. I think we were just kind of a disaster at that point.”
He nodded his agreement to that. “Still, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life. I’m glad you’re back. I miss
ed you.”
“Grady … what happens now?” Her voice shook violently.
“I don’t know,” he admitted readily.
“What do you want to happen?”
“I don’t know that either, Nad. I’m kind of flying by the seat of my pants right now.”
She managed another quick nod and scooted closer to him. “Thank you for being so nice. You should have left me standing in the sand back there. I didn’t mean to make you see me.”
“You didn’t make me do anything.”
Suddenly, something sparked in her soul. Some tiny fragment of the girl she’d been emboldened her. He watched the slight glimmer of the old fire return to her eyes. “If you could do anything you wanted to right now, what would you do?”
Unable to stop himself, he cradled her delicate face in his hand. “This.”
Their lips met and the fire ignited between them. The past fell away as he primed her lips with his own. The reverberations of her hungry moan shook through him. He kept his lips soft, but held her body in the power of his embrace. The world around them disappeared as his mind centered on hearing her make that sound again all for him.
He thrust his tongue between her lips. The addictive flavor of her mouth drew a low, possessive growl from his lungs. He feasted on her like she was his last meal. Every single thing wrong in his world righted in that moment. Their tongues entangled in a lust-spiked cocktail of heat. Tenderly, he drew her closer. His hands massaged her body, coaxing the passion between them. He didn’t give a damn what had happened in the last fourteen years. Suddenly, it didn’t even matter. When she was in his arms, he couldn’t even access the pain.
Without any ability to stop himself, his right hand caressed her beautiful breasts. She wasn’t wearing a bra, and her nipples obediently rose and pebbled in his palm. He throbbed against the zipper of his jeans. A desperate ache so fierce he longed for her to tend his cock.
She gasped for breath as he finally released her lips and moved his kisses to her neck. It took several long moments for reality to intrude again.
“Sorry.” He forced himself to release her by sheer strength of will.
“I wanted to do that as soon as I saw you,” she admitted as crimson-flamed heat blazed in her cheeks.
“We can’t just pretend that the last fourteen years didn’t happen, Nadya. I can’t just go back to the kid I was. I don’t know what to do.” He rubbed his temples and tried desperately to sort through everything that had happened in this endless day.
“Do you want me to go?” Another shiver worked through her weary body.
“No.” The truth avulsed from his soul. “Do you want to stay?” Deciding to work moment to moment, he prayed she’d stay with him. “I, uh … I’d really like you to stay if you want, but we don’t have to do anything.” He stated the words, though his cock argued contentiously with his offer.
“I want to stay,” she managed before she dissolved into sobbing tears. “Please let me stay. I’m so tired, Grady. I can’t sleep. I’m so scared all the time. And cold. I can’t get warm. I don’t know what to do. I just know that I don’t want to leave. I don’t think I’ll survive if I leave here again. When you kissed me, that was the first time in fourteen years that I felt like I might actually be okay.”
With that, he stood and scooped her up in his arms. He guided her head to his shoulder and carried her to the queen-sized bed in the back of the boat. They could figure out everything else in the morning.
He never made his bed, so he simply settled her under the rumpled sheets and blankets, stripped out of his t-shirt and jeans, and quickly removed the chain around his neck. They weren’t ready to go into all that hung there. He turned off the lamps and climbed into the bed beside her.
“Come here to me, Nad. I’ve got you, okay? We’ll figure out what the hell we’re doing later. Just let me keep you warm tonight. Just get some sleep.” He’d always believed that taking care of her was why he was put on this miserable earth. When she’d left, he’d spent half his life wandering aimlessly with no purpose. Now, all he wanted, all he had ever needed was to somehow become the man she needed, no matter what he had to do to achieve that.
“Thank you.” He felt her whispered breath caress his chiseled pecs as he kept her body pressed to his skin.
“I’m right here.” If someone had told him that morning that he’d have Nadya Montgomery in his bed that night but that he wouldn’t be having sex with her, he’d have laughed in their face. But in that moment, there was nowhere else he would rather have been, and nothing else he wanted to do but hold her tightly until her body relaxed enough to allow her sleep.
Heat spilled from his pores. He’d always been extremely hot-blooded, and his body radiated with fever from having her beautiful form curled up against his. If she needed his heat and his protection, he would provide that without end. Whatever she needed he would give, just as he’d wished he was doing every night for the last half of his life. If she wanted to bleed him dry, that was fine, too, just so long as she never left him again. Giving in, he brushed kisses in her hair and ran his hands up and down her body, being careful of her side. He had no idea where this would ultimately leave him, and he didn’t care.
Nadya was certain that she had no business clinging to Grady in his bed, but her body stilled in his arms. His warmth flooded her soul. She recognized herself again. But what if she was using him? She couldn’t do that. She’d hurt him too badly. She’d ruined his life. She didn’t deserve the heaven he offered her with no expectations.
“Go to sleep, angel. I’ve got you,” he soothed. Her entire body responded to the name he’d been calling her since she was twelve years old. Her pulse steadied. Her muscles eased and her stomach stopped its incessant churning. His lucky angel. She traced her fingers over his chest, but could barely make out his vast tattoo work, even with the light of the full moon.
“It’s still there,” he answered her unspoken curiosity. “Right where it belongs.”
When he was sixteen, he’d had the words Lucky Angel scrolled in heavy black ink over his heart. Her initials were inlaid inside the intricate tattoo.
That was all she ever wanted to be again … his angel. But it seemed impossible that it could be this easy. After all they’d been through, could she possibly have Grady again? Could she be his lucky angel? All the Gypsy magic, she’d stopped believing in, magic that was supposed to have existed on that beach, couldn’t possibly have been so good to her. She didn’t deserve to be in his arms again.
Her body drank in his heat and his strength. It was intoxicating. How had she gone on for so long without this? She wasn’t certain, but then and there she decided to see if maybe, carefully, they could rectify all that she’d torn apart when she’d so stupidly left him when she was sixteen years old. Maybe someday he would forgive her. Maybe someday she could forgive herself. For the first time in fourteen years, some kind of certainty permeated her brain. Maybe there was a way to make this work.
Nine
The blare of his cell phone shook Grady from the best night’s sleep he’d had in well over a decade. He didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to do anything to make this night end. How could he keep her with him in the light of the day? They had to try, didn’t they? They needed to try to make this work. Clearly, they were both miserable apart, but what if that wasn’t what she wanted?
Grunting at the insistent ringing, he extended his body and managed to reach the phone on the end table without letting go of Nadya. She rubbed her hands over her face and yawned deeply. He’d wanted to hold her until her body awoke her from slumber on its own. She was broken, and he needed to help her heal. He desperately needed to help her find her way back to him. He’d done a piss poor job of that after her body had lost their child. Maybe if he could prove himself to her now, she’d stay.
“What the hell, Beau?” He huffed into the phone while he cradled her in his arms again.
“Grady, I need you to come pick me up.”
“I got arrested after my first class, Grady. I’m really sorry. Somebody put some stuff in my truck. I swear I didn’t know it was in there. I don’t know where it came from.”
“Okay,” Grady tried to think. “Uh, just give me a few minutes. I’ll be right there. Are you at Pender County?”
“Yeah.”
“Are you okay, Beau? Has anybody done anything to you?”
“Nah, I’m okay. Just hurry, please.”
“I’m on my way.” Grady tossed the phone down. “Fucking hell.”
“What’s wrong?” Nadya gently touched his upper arm, soothing the tense muscles she felt there.
“Beau’s been arrested.”
“What?!”
“Nad, we really need to talk. I don’t want you to go, and I don’t know what the hell is about to happen with any of this. I used all of our profits for the last two weeks to buy groceries and diapers for Ms. Cinderson’s kids. I don’t know how I’m gonna get him out. I barely have enough to put gas in Gemini and in Orion before our next trip. I’ll have to talk to a bail bondsmen or something. Just let me figure this out, and I’ll come right back.”
Her hair hung around her face in a wild mane, and she had adorable sheet marks on her right cheek. The bruises had faded dramatically due to the tincture he’d lovingly applied. Her skin had taken on more color than she’d had the night before, and her eyes had cleared.
He couldn’t stand to leave her there. He wanted so badly to draw her back into his arms and to show her that he could take care of her in every way she might need. He had so much to make up for.
“Come on,” she commanded as she crawled out of the bed.
“Where are you going?”
“We’re going to get Beau out of jail,” she scoffed. “Just take me by the Inn so I can get my shoes. I’ll pay his bail. I insist.” She placed her index finger over his lips when he started to protest. “Let’s go!”