by Selena Scott
“Y’all two dated?” he asked, hopefully casually, stretching his legs out even further on the coffee table. But for some reason, he felt dumb asking, like he was going to end up making a fool of himself and there was no way to prevent it.
“In a manner of speaking,” she said after a minute. “He used to… keep me company.”
Something hot flopped over in Bauer’s gut. He wasn’t sure if it was hot with anger or jealousy or hot with something else entirely. All he knew was that his gut was hot and churning. “When was that?”
“When the boys were young. He was a teacher at their elementary school.” She was still looking at his photo. “The boys never knew. He never came around when they were here. I made sure of that.”
She sighed, looking at his photo.
“I haven’t seen him in years. He’s aged well.”
Bauer couldn’t lie to himself and say that he hadn’t wondered if Elizabeth had had anyone to ‘keep her company’ over the years. He knew that she’d been technically single since before she’d become Jackson’s mother at age nineteen. No relationships. But he knew better than most that that didn’t necessarily mean no relations.
It shouldn’t surprise him so much. She was an attractive woman. And she’d always been attractive. He knew that just from the few photos of her scattered around the house. Of course there would have been callers for her. But callers were all it ever could have been, he knew. Because more than anything, her first priority had always been the safety of her boys. And for them, safety meant secrecy. She must have known from the first moment she found out that Jackson was a shifter that she’d never have a man in her life. Not a real relationship. Because she’d never risk her boys’ safety like that.
He wanted to ask her how it had started. How long it had gone on for. But a different question left his mouth. “How did it end?”
She paused for a long minute. “He… wanted more. And I understood that. How long can you really ask someone to be a secret? It’s not fair. We parted amicably enough, mostly just with sadness on either side. A year or so later he was married. With a baby not long after that. Apparently the marriage is over.”
She clicked out of the app and powered down her phone.
“I think that’s enough for one night,” she said briskly.
Bauer was hit with understanding. He suddenly wished that he hadn’t made so much fun of each of the men who’d reached out to her. Because the pursuit of companionship wasn't something to be scoffed at. She was lonely. In fact, her life had been, in many ways, defined by loneliness. Just like his. He wouldn’t wish that on his worst enemy. And certainly not on Elizabeth, who was pretty much the opposite of his worst enemy.
She wasn’t on that app searching for a husband, he realized, because nothing about her sons’ circumstances had changed, not really. They were still shifters hidden in plain sight. Anyone she met on that app would have to simply ‘keep her company’ from time to time. She still could never have a true partner of any kind.
What a shame. He thought of falling asleep in front of the fire while she read in her armchair. He thought of the taste of the meals she made for him. The scent of the fresh sheets she laid out for him. He thought of her laugh, her support, her understanding. The way she was with her boys. How she’d shone on the day of Seth’s wedding in her silvery dress and high heels.
That hot thing in Bauer’s stomach hadn’t really gone away, it was simmering there.
What a shame, he thought again. What a shame.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
It was late Sunday afternoon when Raph heard from Natalie. His phone buzzed in his pocket as he was finishing up at the gym. He lowered the dumbbells he’d been using and read the text.
Can I come over tonight?
He frowned.
Since when did Natalie text and ask before she came over? Never. She just walked right into his house without even a knock, most times.
“Oh.”
It hit him what this text was really asking. She wasn’t asking if she could visit him. She wanted to come over. He was torn between a smile and a frown.
She was horny.
Did he like horny Natalie? Very much yes. Yes times one billion. Yes sandwich. Just go ahead and drown him in yes.
Did horny Natalie hitting him up for sex make him feel a little weird? Also yes. He wanted her to come to him if she was horny, obviously, but he was already so freaking confused about his feelings for her, that her booty calling him was just making things worse.
“You done?”
Raphael nodded at the dude who wanted to use the weights he’d just been using and stepped off the mat. At this point, he’d usually call it quits and head home, but there was a rampant energy coursing through him that Raphael knew he needed to burn off. He bypassed the treadmill and went straight for the rowing machine, which he only ever really used when he wanted to punish himself.
Looked like it was that kind of day.
Because he couldn’t just ignore her text, and because he couldn’t say no to a request like that, Raphael texted her back in the affirmative, jammed his phone in his pocket, and then damn near murdered himself on the rowing machine.
Every muscle in his body was jelly by the time he wobbled to the showers.
He might have overdone it a little, he reflected. He showered off, called in a burger order to his favorite pub, and picked it up on his way home. Raphael devoured the entire meal in the car, drank a liter of water standing at his kitchen sink, and then faceplanted into his bed for an afternoon nap that was as rare as it was necessary.
He almost never slept during the day. Which was why he was extremely disoriented to wake up to his doorbell ringing as the daylight dwindled in his bedroom.
He hated the feeling of waking up from a nap with the sun already set. It was like coming out of a movie theater and realizing the day was almost over. He scrubbed a hand over his face and hauled his ass out of bed.
He grabbed an apple from the kitchen and was just chomping into it when he swung open his front door. His brows lowered in confusion when he saw it was Natalie standing there.
“Did you lose your key?”
“No…” she said in a low voice. Her eyelids were half lowered as she swung the tie of her coat around in a circle. It wasn't a coat that Raphael recognized. It was cinched at the waist by the tie and showed a V of skin on her chest. Her legs were bare, despite the cold weather and ended in a pair of high red heels that he’d never seen before.
He glanced back at her face and it suddenly hit Raphael exactly what was happening here. He’d told her, just a few weeks ago, to do this to Stapler Paul.
Raphael quickly shoved any thoughts of Paul the office supply from his head and instead concentrated on the gorgeous woman in front of him in high heels and a trench coat, and God-only-knew-what underneath.
“Can I come in?” she asked, still swinging the tie of her coat and sucking her bottom lip.
Wordlessly, Raphael stepped aside. She sauntered inside, seemingly all confidence and swagger, but Raphael caught just a hint of nerves and fun and thrill in her eyes.
As he watched her sway down the hall of his house and he closed the door behind her, something became very, very clear.
She was going to destroy him.
He was almost one hundred percent sure that there was going to be no coming back from Natalie Chalk. He was already dangerously gone for her, and it had happened so quickly, so irrevocably. Up in the attic, in the matter of half an hour, he’d been inundated with feelings he’d never expected to feel for anyone, much less his best friend. He didn’t blame her for not returning those feelings, because it was still a mystery to Raphael how they’d appeared in his own life.
If he were Jackson, Raphael knew his self-preservation instincts would kick in. He’d probably even ask this woman to leave. He’d go to sleep alone tonight, his heart still partially intact. But he wasn’t Jackson. He was Raphael. And if there was one thing that Raphael knew about
Raphael, it was that Raphael wasn’t kicking Nat out of his house tonight.
He turned the lock on the door seeing two options ahead of him. He could either torture himself with the knowledge that he’d crossed a line with her that he could never uncross. He’d gone and caught romantic feelings for her that would most likely go unrequited for the rest of his life. He’d never find another woman who could do it for him the way she was doing it for him.
Or, he could swan dive into an evening with a woman he wanted above all else. Who’d come here in a trench coat to blow his mind. He could let the feelings hit him as they came. Full throttle. No brakes. He could sprint toward Natalie, toward her heart, toward a future that neither of them could predict.
And deal with the consequences later.
He watched her, still undecided, when standing in his bedroom door, she turned back, looking over her shoulder. Natalie untied the sash of her coat, pulled the coat down, over one shoulder and then the other, and let the coat fall.
She wore a high-waisted thong that disappeared into that perfect ass of hers and some sort of see-through thing on the top.
Raphael’s body made the decision for him. He didn’t care how complicated this all got. He wasn’t designed to deprive himself of what he wanted. He was designed to cannonball into life.
He was going to give her everything and gladly take anything she offered. There would be no guarding his heart. There would be no regrets.
Well, he thought, after he strode down the hallway and hefted her up into his arms. No regrets except for how much he regretted killing his muscles at the gym.
Barely able to hold on to her, the two of them toppled downward onto his bed.
Nat laughed and pushed herself up. “You all right?”
“My muscles are dead from the gym.”
She laughed again, but her eyes heated as she looked over his arms that were exposed in his undershirt. “Is that why you look like the Rock right now?”
“Yeah, you look super jacked right after the gym.” Lying on his back, he tucked his palms under his head, knowing that it gave her a damn good view. Her eyes heated even further.
“Sounds like you might need to just lie still, then,” she said, cocking her head to one side. “I wouldn’t want you to strain yourself.”
He might be a little sore, but he definitely had enough energy and strength to have sex. However, considering the fact that he was pretty sure she was offering to fuck him silly while he lay still, he wisely didn’t refute her words. “How considerate.”
Kneeling next to him, she put her hands on her hips. “You didn’t say anything about my outfit.”
It was such an un-Natalie thing to say that he couldn’t help laughing. He supposed he was partly to blame for this character she was playing right now. He was the one who had told her to show up at a guy’s house in lingerie and a trench coat, it wasn’t her fault that she’d had to manifest this pouty little kitten in order to get up the gumption.
“That’s because I can barely see it from here. I think you have to come closer.”
A little smile flirted at her lips as she came four inches closer.
“Closer.”
She inched forward.
“Closer.”
A little more. Now she was level with his shoulder.
“Nope, I still can’t really see it. Here.” He leaned over, still on his back, and swung one of her knees over top of him so now she was straddling his neck. The suddenness of the movement took her breath away and the view took his breath away.
Her underwear was black and see-through in places. He could see how wet she already was, the outline of her pussy. He leaned up and pressed a quick kiss to her mound. His brow furrowed as he kissed her there again. Something was different.
He looked up at her and saw that her eyes were huge and her hands were gripping his headboard.
“You shaved.”
She cleared her throat. “Actually, I got waxed.”
His eyebrows rose. “You do that?”
“Once in a very blue moon.”
She sort of relaxed backward and rested her ass on his chest for a minute. She cocked her head to one side and his friend was back. This was chatty Nat, not sexy Nat. And he loved, loved, loved watching her switch between the two while she wore a thong and straddled his face. It was charming and mystifying and very human.
“It was kind of a disaster,” she told him.
“What was?” Because he couldn’t not touch her, he untucked his hands from behind his head and traced the curve of her waist as he waited for her answer.
“The waxing was a disaster. I had a reaction to the stuff they used and I had to wait, like, five days before things got back to normal down there.”
He did the quick math in his head. “Hold on. Have you been avoiding sleeping with me because your hoo-ha wasn’t in fighting shape?”
Nat threw her head back and laughed. “God, there are so many things wrong with that sentence. But in short, yes. I didn’t want to scare the shit out of you with my freaky pussy.”
He chuckled, but internally he burned with intensity. Would she have wanted to sleep with him again right away if that hadn’t happened? Had she been purposefully keeping a chaperone around so that he wouldn’t have any opportunity to personally witness her recovery from the waxing debacle?
“Nat, first of all, you definitely don’t have to get waxed for me. I like it au natural.” He casually pulled her panties to the side to take a peek. “And, holy shit, fuck, dammit, apparently I like it like that, too. So. Yeah. Either way.” He cleared his throat and tried to get his mind back on track. “But also, if something like that happens again, you can just tell me.”
“You’d want to know something like that?”
“Hell yeah. Nat, you can’t scare me off.” He searched for the words to explain his thoughts. “The things you do that relate to sex, they don’t have to be behind the curtain, you know? I’m not trying to sleep with a fantasy. I’m trying to sleep with you. Natalie Chalk, human being. You know? If you’re on your period or something, just tell me. You have a bad waxing experience, clue me in. I’d rather know than…”
He trailed off, suddenly wondering if he was saying too much.
“Rather know than what?”
“Than wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
He shifted a little, uncomfortable for the first time in the conversation. “If you were avoiding being alone with me. If you were having second thoughts.”
“Oh, Raph. No!” She gave him even more of her weight on his chest and he sort of grunted. “Oh, sorry.”
She lifted back up and reached down to smooth some hair off his forehead. He found the affection incredibly endearing.
“It wasn’t like that at all. I’m just… still getting used to this?” She pushed his hair one way and then the other. “But the last thing I want to do is make you wonder.” A fierce expression crossed her face. “The next time you’re wondering something, you ask me, all right?”
“And the next time there’s pussy news, of any kind, you tell me.”
She laughed. “Deal.”
“Deal.”
They eyed one another for a second and the longer their eye contact went on for, the more charged the air became around them. Raph’s hands slid from her waist, up to her breasts. He could see her birthmark through the sheer bra and he grunted as he traced its outline with his thumb.
“You’re, like, obsessed with that.”
“I love it,” he said, with complete and utter honesty. It was a deep, soul-freeing relief to be able to say that word out loud, with her in his arms.
She might have had more questions, but words seemed to get lost in her throat when he reached up and drew a slow circle around her nipple. She groaned and tipped her head to one side.
He wanted to take her nipple into his mouth, but he was happily trapped between her legs, so, his eyes on her breasts, he lifted his lips to her mound and pressed a kiss t
here, over the sheer underwear.
“Oh, boy,” she said mindlessly, grabbing the headboard again.
He smiled, because she was cute, and kissed her again.
“Yeah. Wow.”
Still smiling, he pulled her panties away and really tasted her. He was surprised at her flavor. It was different from her scent. Her scent was soft and sweet. Her flavor was tart and leafy. He’d never tasted anything like it and he lifted his head off the bed to taste her again. To taste more.
Sound rose in his ears and he was dimly aware that they were tipping to the side, but he was lost in her, lost in the flavor of her. He felt like he’d known her so well for so long, but there were all these little secrets that sleeping with her were revealing, one by one. First, her birthmark and then the flavor of her core. It was making him crazy.
When she tightened, called his name, her legs trembling against his ears, they were lying on their sides, the sheets twisted around them.
Raphael relaxed backward, breathing hard, part of him still marveling that he’d just gone down on his friend.
But he didn’t have long to marvel because she was suddenly rearing up and ripping his sweatpants down his legs. He was commando underneath so he sprang instantly into her hand. Nat was up on her knees and for a moment she looked undecided on whether she wanted to sit down on him or take him in her mouth. It seemed her curiosity won out. Because she leaned over him and took him straight to the back of her throat. He sat straight up, one of his hands going instantly into her hair.
Apparently she thought nuance was for the birds. She also apparently had no gag reflex. Raphael heard his own voice in his ears but he had no idea what he was saying as he gripped her hair and tried not to let his hips buck too hard into her mouth. He was so close, almost there, almost…
She eased off of him just a bit, not letting him tip over the edge, and with a mischievous look on her face, held his cock with just two fingers and took a soft little lick around the crown.
He groaned. “Nat.”
He couldn’t help but rise up on his knees, so that he was kind of crouching over her. Not a position he would take with any other woman, because he never wanted anyone to feel intimidated when going down on him. But he knew Nat well enough to know that she was never intimidated by him. Besides, that challenging look in her eye told him everything he needed to know about who had the power here.