Now I know why he likes me. It’s because I’m damaged, too. He sensed it during all those quiet hours at the shelter, but maybe it won’t add up to love, maybe it’s just a two person support group with benefits.
“We have money,” Nora goes on, stating the obvious, “but Nathan has refused any financial support from us. We’ve offered to help him start a business, buy a house, anything he needs. He’s never taken a penny from us since he moved out. Now he says he’ll accept a loan to start a life with you. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me feel, that he accepts we are here for him and we love him.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Henley. I mean, Nora. Thank you for telling me all this. It helps put some things into perspective. Would he care that you told me?”
“You had the right to know,” she says with finality.
I nod and get up to go, not sure if I will join the party or go hide somewhere to think. A thought suddenly occurs to me. “What about his biological parents?”
“Gone. A car crash when Nathan was three.”
The weight I feel on my chest is so heavy, I think I might be having a heart attack. I close my eyes to take a few deep breaths and calm down the pounding. All of a sudden, it becomes perfectly clear. All my questions are answered. Strangely, I wish I could have remained in the dark.
“Are you staying?” Nora says taking my hand.
“Of course,” I say without enthusiasm. “You’ve gone to so much trouble.”
My cold reaction confuses her, but she leaves so I can process the avalanche of information she dumped on me.
I’ve made up my mind. I’m so over being anyone’s doormat, including Mr. Google Boy himself. I know why he’s chosen me. He feels sorry for me because I am him. My pain is his pain. It feels like all our intimacy was just him being intimate with himself and not me. Helping me to help himself. I want to spit the dryness out of my throat.
Wanting someone solely for their pain is so fucking unromantic. I don’t care about anything anymore. I don’t give a damn about his stupid friends or the judgmental silver-haired ladies or the debutantes with their perfect tans.
I walk straight up to him and grab his arm.
“Hey, you’re here,” he says with a sexy grin I want to punch.
I cut him off. “Where can we talk? In private.”
He excuses himself and takes me into the house. We walk through a huge rustic living room and up on an endless, winding staircase to a wide hallway with numerous doors in a line. He opens one of the doors and ushers me in.
The room turns out to be a guest bedroom decorated in a sparse Asian style with green wooden blinds and a colorful Japanese screen in the back. The bed cover depicts scenes from a farm and the books on the shelves are all history tomes.
I wait for him to open a window before he faces me.
“You’ve known all along, haven’t you?” I tell him.
My angry tone doesn’t escape him. “What am I being accused of?” he says.
“You knew my parents were killed in an accident. Like yours.”
He studies my eyes rocking back and forth on his right leg. I notice a twitch across his cheek. “Yes,” he says.
“At least you won’t deny it now that you’re found out,” I say bitterly.
“I never lied to you.”
“All you’ve ever done is lie to me. How long have you known?” I say, shoving him.
“It’s not like that, Grace.”
I shove him again. “Don’t you dare hold out on me. I’m done with that. Full disclosure or I’ll walk, I swear.”
“I’ve known for a while,” he says.
“Let me guess. Right about the time you decided you wanted more than a friendship?”
“I’ve always wanted more than a friendship with you.”
“It wasn’t about me, was it? It was all about a strange coincidence you got hung up on. And I ate it up like a fool.”
His whole body starts shaking. “I didn’t try to find that information, Grace. It just fell in my lap when Denise found out about my own parents. She casually brought up that it was strange two of her volunteers had lost both parents as children and then raised by a relative.”
“How convenient for you.”
“What was I supposed to do?”
“You were supposed to come to me. You were supposed to tell me, Hey, Grace, we have something terrible in common. Un-fucking-believable. And crazy. Maybe we should hang out. That’s what you were supposed to do. You weren’t supposed to come to my door asking if you could please – pretty please – sympathy fuck me!”
“You know how I am. You know my choices are screwed up.”
“No, I don’t know that because you never talk about yourself ever. Unless it is to lie, of course.”
“You said you’d understand if I told you the truth.”
“I said I’d try.”
“It took me a long time to gather up the strength to tell you anything at all,” he says in a low voice.
“And, boy, did you come up with the wrong thing.”
“I love you!” he yells. “Does it matter how we got here? What else do you want from me?”
I don’t know if it’s the words or his tears that get to me first. I just know beyond the shadow of a doubt that something has just broken in me.
“It’s true,” he goes on. “Learning you had gone through the same sadness intrigued me but only because you were already important to me. Maybe it helped me feel less alone, but it didn’t make me love you. I’m trying to put it all behind us and be the man you deserve.”
He takes a step backward to sit on the bed.
I feel his anguish of all those years, the loneliness and the uncertainty. I’ve been alone with those things as well since I lost my parents at nine. I touch his sad face. I see the little boy in him, the one left alone and the one who was hurt in his loneliness. I kiss his eyes and I kiss his lips.
“I’m sorry,” I say, keeping my face against his.
“Don’t be.”
“I overreacted.”
“I don’t care. It had to happen.”
Heat races from my chest through my veins, filling my throat and freeing ancient tears. I want to heal him and be healed.
“I’ll never doubt you again,” I say.
Something insane takes over me. My fingers reach inside his Bermuda shorts taking him by complete surprise. He gasps as I take his limp cock out and drop to my knees. I take him in my mouth while he is still soft and love that my kisses inflate and harden him so fast I fear my jaw will break.
I feel his exhilaration run through my own veins as he begins to moan quietly. He pulls my hair gently, throwing his head back. “God dammit, Grace, you’re the one fucking me now.”
I suck and lick and own his cock. He loves it and I have no option but to use my hands on his throbbing wonder.
As I tighten my grip, he pulls my hair harder. “Come here,” he says, pulling me off him. “Oh, fuck,” he says as we both watch his massive erection throb unattended.
“Why? I’m not finished.”
He does the same breathing exercise his mother does presumably to calm himself. “I want you to see something first.”
It always amazes me that he can be in such control of his body and pleasure while I turn into a mushy puddle every time he touches me.
“I wanted to do this for you,” I protest.
“Trust me, this will be for me,” he says with a naughty grin.
He goes to the old Japanese screen in the back of the room and pulls it to the side to reveal a full body mirror with an elaborate wooden frame on a metal stand.
“I believe it’s Venetian,” he says as he moves it next to the bed. “This house is full of all kinds of forgotten treasures.”
I examine the beautifully detailed mirror and turn to study his face. “You’d like to watch?” I say when I figure him out.
Instead of an answer, he pulls his shorts and underwear down. He sits on the edge of the bed facing t
he mirror. He takes my wrist and pulls me closer, sitting me on his lap so that we both look into the mirror.
He pulls my dress up to reveal my yellow panties. “So lovely,” he says, putting his hands on my hips. “Little sunshine panties?”
“Take them off me,” I beg him, resting my neck against his shoulder and reaching behind me to place my hand on the back of his head. It feels so good to hear the happiness in his voice.
“Such a silly girl,” he says ignoring my request. He kisses my neck while his fingers find their way under my panties, gently pushing the fabric to the side. He caresses my lusting flower sending tremors through my abdomen and up my tingling spine.
“Don’t close your eyes,” he says. “I want you to see.”
The mirror, right. That’s what it’s for. I lower my eyes to look at myself in the mirror but as soon as I do, he removes his fingers from my panties, leaving me all alone down there.
“Hey, no fair,” I protest.
He hushes me and then pulls my dress over my head. My breasts spill out softly, all white and glistening with traces of sweat, nipples hard like pearls and aching to be teased. His hands cup them, squeezing them together.
“Take off your own panties,” he says. “I want you to touch yourself.”
I feel a bright blush taking over my face but I do as he commands. I pull down my underwear and drop them. My fingers circle my belly button and then down between my legs.
“Find your clit,” he says.
“It’s not mine, it’s yours,” I say, finding and rubbing it as he wishes.
“I think it’s very beautiful,” he says.
I’m completely drenched with my own juices. His eyes are on my hand through the mirror, smoldering and full of lust, driving me mad with excitement.
He pinches my nipples so hard, I let a cry out, but the sting only intensifies the feelings of pleasure mounting between my legs.
“Put a finger inside,” he whispers in my ear.
“The things you make me do,” I protest without conviction.
“It’s always your choice,” he says seriously. “I ask only what you allow me to ask, Grace.”
I slide my finger inside just for him.
“Now another one,” he says.
I oblige and stare at his gorgeous face in the mirror. “Satisfied?”
“Never,” he says as he grabs my hand and starts moving it back and forth fucking me with my own fingers. I’m embarrassed and exhilarated at the same time, trying strange things I’ve never done with anyone but him. I take quick breaths as my heart beats manically and the arousal builds in a new way I’ve never felt before.
As I near a trembling tidal wave, he pulls my fingers out, and now uses the tip of his cock to massage my clit. “Do you see that?” he says as he presses his shocking girth against my opening, sliding the tip in.
The sensation is maddening. I’m so close to bursting I don’t want to wait a single second. I imagine they will hear me down by the pool and the coyotes will even raise their heads in the surrounding canyons. I don’t care. I press my hips hard against him lusting to get his full length inside but he’s faster and stronger than me.
He holds my hips with his hands in total stillness.
“What are you doing?” I say.
“I’m prolonging ecstasy. I want to savor every second with you.”
He can do whatever he likes with me and he can do it to me slow or fast or somewhere in between. Because I have been lying to him too. I have not told him I have loved him madly since the night he kissed me in the library.
He bites my ear gently and begins to lower me onto his erection, carefully, ever so carefully, so we can both watch how I stretch as I take him in inch by inch. After we enjoy the breathtaking view our eyes meet.
“If you don’t fuck me right now I’ll die,” I say, hardly able to believe the words that come out of my mouth.
“Good thing I plan to fuck your brains out,” he says as he quickly turns me around to face him, pumping himself into me, squeezing my ass to help me ride him.
“You fuck like a god,” I gasp out as everything becomes a blur: the music from the distant pool below, the banging of doors downstairs, the footsteps across in the hall, my own incessant doubts.
I put my hands on his shoulders and try to help him move me up and down. He needs no help. He bounces me on him easily as his speed increases. He pounds himself into my hot and wet and tender lips.
When my neck muscles surrender and my head falls back, I feel his throbbing shaft explode out into me. I cry out with pleasure and cover my mouth.
He tightens his grip on my hips and slams deeper inside me and I keep riding him while he groans and explodes and gets every warm drop inside me.
“I fucking love you, Grace,” he says through his last spasms of pleasure and the tears start flowing from my eyes.
“No,” he says breathlessly taking my face into his hands. “Don’t cry. Enough of that. No more tears, baby.”
A knock on the door startles us both. I quickly wipe the tears off my face as if they would be the biggest offense should anyone walk into the room.
“Everything all right in there?” It’s Nora’s voice, his mother.
He remains silent so I pinch his nipple.
“Ouch,” he protests quietly.
“Give her an answer,” I whisper, “before she barges in here.”
“Couldn’t be better,” he tells her, grinning.
“Okay, honey. People are asking for you,” she says. “They can wait until you’re ready.”
I stare at him in my most disapproving manner.
“What?” he says, amused.
“Where’s your parents’ room?”
“Next door.”
“Of all the rooms in this fucking mansion you chose to bring me to the one next to your parents’ room?”
“Hey, you said you wanted to talk. Next thing I know you were going down on me.”
He has a point. “Get dressed,” I say, “we’re leaving.”
“We’re leaving the party? It just started.”
“We’re taking the party home,” I say gathering up my dress and panties.
“Nora will be disappointed,” he says.
“We’ll meet her and your father this weekend or next. There’s no way I’m staying here with all your slutty debutantes.”
“You’re so bossy,” he says as he puts his shorts and shoes on.
“I’m not bossy, I’m just boss,” I say. “Now let’s bolt from out your parents’ crib.”
“Okay, Justin Bieber,” he says.
We’re both still smiling as we cross the hallway downstairs unnoticed and make for the garage to take one of his father’s expensive sports cars.
Chapter 17
Life has never felt better or more complete. Coming back home from work every day this week to find Nate waiting for me with a hot meal cooking on the stove and a little surprise, different every time, like a flower, a book, or a treat, is already turning into a habit I never want to change. The surprise that waits for me today is quite unexpected. I discover a man I have never seen before sitting in the living room with Nate.
“Hey, babe,” Nate says when he sees me. “Come meet Tomas, an old friend of mine.”
“You must be Grace,” Tomas says, standing up to take my hand.
“Hi, yes. Nice to meet you.”
His grip is strong and firm and fits well with his appearance. A tall, handsome man with blond hair and steely eyes in his late twenties. He’s dressed in a light colored jacket and pants that make his tanned skin stand out even more. He exudes leisure and sensuality.
“I hope you don’t mind my presence,” Tomas says. “I can come back another time if you’re tired.”
“No,” I say, “don’t worry about it. It’s great to meet one of Nate’s friends.” The first one, I might add.
“Tomas just flew in from Berlin,” Nate says.
“Was it business or fun?” I ask.<
br />
“Berlin? That’s where I’ve called home for the past three years,” Tomas says. “I’m considering a permanent return to LA.”
“Back to lizards, dry summers and rattlesnakes?”
Tomas smiles. “Nothing beats my ocean and the always blue sky.”
“I agree. So, how do you two know each other?” I ask, putting my bag down on the floor.
“We used to hang out back in the day,” Tomas says. “Getting into a spot of trouble and then learning how to avoid the consequences.”
“That’s a handy skill,” I say looking at Nate with eyebrows raised.
“Tomas exaggerates,” Nate says. “We were just young.”
“Trust me, Grace. You don’t want to hear the stories I have to tell.” Tomas grins in a way that sends a small chill through me.
“Oh, yeah, try me,” I dare him.
He doesn’t bite. “How did you get mixed up with Henley?” he says changing subjects.
“He didn’t tell you?” I say.
“He did but I want to hear your version. I find it fascinating how these stories alter when told from a female perspective.”
“They don’t alter,” I say. “They’re more detailed, maybe, but they’re the same stories.”
His arrogance starts to ride my nerves. Compared to this man, Nate’s the humblest person on Earth.
“You’re a smart girl,” Tomas says.
“Woman,” I correct him. “And one’s mental capacity is not so easily measured as by a few lines upon meeting.”
“All right,” Nate says, a little baffled. “If this is what happens when you two ask each other how you met me, I don’t want to think what will happen when I leave you by yourselves.”
“By ourselves?” I say.
“I have to go out. I’ll be back in an hour. I’ll bring dinner.”
“Where are you going?” I say, not exactly thrilled at the idea of spending an hour with this Tomas guy whom I’ve only just met. I am already becoming exhausted by his self-confidence.
“I just have an errand,” Nate says planting a quick kiss on my cheek.
“Regarding?” I insist.
“The shelter,” he says grabbing his jacket and hurrying out the door.
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