Making Sense (21 page)

She turned in her seat to face him. “What’s happened?”

He inspected the steering wheel, concentrating on removing an invisible mark. “Nothing.”

“Nate.”

He glanced up at her. Then at the steering wheel. “I saw my brother.”

He waited for a moment and then looked back at her. She studied him carefully. “You mean from a distance? Or did you go to see him?”

“I met him in town, at Te Papa. We had a coffee.”

She nodded. “How did it go?”

He scratched at the mark again. “Not good.”

“Did you argue?”

“Yes.”

“What did he say about your father?”

He gave a wry laugh then, shooting her another glance. “You know me too well.”

“Tell me,” she said gently.

So he told her. About how his father was sick, and how Aidan wanted Nate to forgive him. He told her their whole conversation and waited for her to exclaim, to ask him why he hadn’t gone straight to his father to make him better. To look at him with confusion, maybe even disgust.

But she didn’t. She listened, frowning occasionally, emotion flickering behind her eyes, although he couldn’t tell what she was feeling. When he finished, she sat quietly for a moment.

Then she said, “What are you going to do?”

He couldn’t answer her. His reply lodged in his throat, kept there by shame and humiliation, disappointment in himself, anger and bitterness toward his father.

She put a hand on his arm. “Come on, start the car. Let’s go back to your place. I fancy a whisky.”

He stared at her. “You want to come home with me?” he asked hoarsely, unable to believe what he was hearing.

“Yes.” She didn’t smile.

“I’m a wreck, Freya. Why do you want to be with me? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Just drive,” she said.

He swallowed and then turned and started the engine, putting the car in drive.

He drove to his place silently, his mind whirling. He hated himself. Why didn’t she hate him? Had she understood what he’d tried to tell her—that he couldn’t bring himself to forgive his father?

He pulled up outside his flat and turned to talk to her, but she’d already opened the door, so he followed her hurriedly, circling the car to the pavement. She held out her hand. He took it, his heart in his mouth, and followed her up the steps, letting them into the building, then up to the first floor and into his flat.

Freya kicked off her shoes and walked into the living room, going straight into the kitchen. He trailed after her, watching her get two glasses out, find the whisky and pour an inch into both tumblers. She ferreted around for some ice cubes and dropped them in. He tried to find some resentment at watching her moving around as if she owned the place, but he couldn’t dredge any up. He just felt a kind of tired relief that she was there, combined with a glow of comfort.

She came up to him and handed him one glass. Held hers up so they could clunk them in a toast.
 

“To freedom,” she said.

“To freedom,” he replied, although the words had a hollow ring to them now.

Taking a mouthful, he felt it sear to his stomach, warming him, thawing the chill he’d not been able to throw off since talking to Aidan.

They stood there, in the centre of the living room, inches apart, studying each other. Freya sipped her drink, glancing around the room, and he followed her gaze. It was around ten o’clock, and the sun had set hours ago. The only light filtered in through the window from the street lamp outside.
 

He looked back at Freya, speechless as he studied her face, the sharp angle of her jaw, the hollows beneath her high cheekbones that were filled with shadow. Her beauty made him catch his breath. She sipped her drink again, turning her gaze back up to him, her mismatched eyes different shades of grey in the dull light, but the emotion lying within them evident.

Desire.

Chapter Seventeen

He watched as she tipped back the tumbler, taking a piece of ice between her teeth. She circled it in her mouth, keeping her eyes on him while she did so, a slight smile beginning to curve her lips, and he found his own curved in response as she stepped nearer to him.

Reaching up on her toes, she pressed cold lips to his. He let her kiss him then felt her pass the ice into his mouth, accompanied by a brush of her tongue. Smiling, his blood starting to surge around his body, he sucked it, circled it and passed it back to her. They did this several times, each brush of her lips and tongue making him grow harder, and by the time the ice melted, he was ready for her, desperate to take her and love her until she came apart in his arms.

Taking his hand, she led him along the corridor to his bedroom, closing the door behind them. They placed their drinks on the bedside table and she stood in front of him, slid one hand up to the back of his neck, and kissed him. He let the kiss build slowly, enjoying the feel of her fingers in his hair as she pressed her lips to his gently, repeatedly. He ran his fingers lightly up her arms, sighing at her shiver, wrapping her in his embrace as their mouths opened and the kiss deepened. He tasted her, brushing into her mouth with his tongue, grazing his teeth on her full bottom lip, content to take it slowly and let the passion kindle between them, feeling the heat of it rise in his body.

She slid her hands to the buttons of his shirt and began to undo them, unhurried, slipping her fingers beneath the cotton to brush his skin, making him tingle all over. He loved this, the languid, lazy exploration of each other, the “it doesn’t matter if we take forever to get there, because we’ve got all night, and the experience of the journey’s as important as the destination”. She reached the bottom of his shirt and pulled back as she pushed the two sides open, moving them off his shoulders gradually until the shirt slipped from them to the floor. He watched her, glowing at the obvious admiration in her eyes as she placed her hands on his chest and brushed them up over his shoulders, feeling his muscles, studying his tattoo. He liked the way she looked at him, as if he were a model or a sports star, as if she’d never tire of looking at his body, and as if she wanted to cover him in melted chocolate and lick it all off, very, very slowly.

Her touch on his skin gave him goose bumps, and he wanted her to be as affected, so he grasped the bottom of her vest and fixed her with his gaze, and she raised her arms. He drew the silky top up and over her head, dropping it to the floor, loving the way her hair rose with the garment and tumbled around her shoulders as he released it. Naked from the waist up, she stood still under the weight of his gaze, her eyes lowered as he admired her. He studied the dip of her waist, the swell of her breasts, her nipples tightening under his gaze, which made him smile. Sliding a hand under her chin, he lifted it, forcing her to look into his eyes. He adored the remnants of shyness that lingered in her even after all they’d done, and wished he had a camera to capture her as she was now, beautiful and bashful at the same time.

He kissed her, sliding his arms around her and pulling her tight against him, enjoying the softness of her breasts against his chest, his hands roaming down. Slowly, he pulled the soft skirt up with his fingers, eventually sliding his hand beneath to cup her butt. She wasn’t going commando, but there wasn’t an awful lot of material to her panties. Moving back, wanting to see them, he tugged at her skirt, and she slid it down her legs. “Mm,” he murmured, the first sound he’d made since they came into the house. A lacy white triangle barely covered the strip of hair between her legs, and thin white straps trailed over her hips.
 

She tucked her thumbs into the straps, intending to pull them down, but he moved them away, wanting her to keep them on. So instead, she began to unbutton his jeans, and he helped her out, divesting himself of the pants and boxers.

He went to move her to the bed, but to his surprise, she stopped him. Reaching up on tiptoes, she kissed him. Then she left his mouth and began to trail kisses along his jaw. Reaching his ear, she ran her tongue up it, nibbling the lobe, blowing gently and smiling as he sighed. She kissed his throat, scraping her lips on his stubble, then continued down his neck and chest, lingering over his nipples, brushing them with her tongue. Lower she went, placing warm lips to the line of hair running down from his stomach.

Then she sank to her knees before him.
 

“Oh,” he said, realising what she was about to do. “Sweetheart, you don’t have to…”

“I want to,” she said, giving him a look that raised his thermostat by several degrees, and then she took him in her hand and closed her mouth around him.

Nate’s breath left his lungs in a rush, and he watched her take his erection deep inside, the rough pad of her tongue brushing over the tip. She moved her mouth slowly up and down, and he buried a hand in her hair, so turned on by the sight of her worshipping him with her lips and tongue that he nearly came on the spot. He kept it together, though, for a while at least, wanting to make it last, to draw out the pleasure and record it in his mind to play back when times weren’t so good. He gave himself up to the physical sensations and emotions raging through him, placing one hand on her shoulder, one tenderly cupping her head, so full of love and lust for her at that moment that he wished the moment would last forever.

But she was too beautiful, and eventually the sensations she created overwhelmed him. He tightened his hand in her hair, trying to stop the automatic thrust of his hips, not wanting to hurt her. “Freya,” he gasped, wanting to warn her that he was close to coming. But in response she just took him deeper, and the sight of him disappearing into her mouth was too much. Heat surged through him, and as he let out a heartfelt groan, he felt her throat muscles contract as she swallowed everything he had to give.

Afterward, Freya watched as Nate flopped back onto the bed, giving her a hopeless look as she started laughing.

“What’s the matter?” she teased, climbing on the bed and leaning over him. “Cat got your tongue?”

“I love you,” he said, surprising her. Surprising himself too, judging by the look on his face.

“Oh.” She studied him for a moment. In the semi-darkness, his eyes were wide, open and honest. He had such a big heart, she thought. Which was why his father had hurt him so badly. What a mess they were in with their parents. They’d tried to push each other away while they settled their problems, but they kept gravitating back to each other, circling like binary suns.

“I love you too,” she whispered, lowering her lips to his.

He slid a hand in between their mouths, halting the kiss. “Not that much,” he said wryly. “You’ll have to clean your teeth first.”

She rolled her eyes. “You’re kidding me?”
 

“Absolutely not.”

She studied him, exasperated, but stood and went across the hall to the bathroom. “I didn’t make you do this last time I was here,” she called out, reaching for the mouthwash.
 

“That’s because you smell nice and I don’t.”
 

Laughing, she rinsed, then went back in and flopped down beside him again, breathing on him. “Better?”
 

“Yes.” He propped his head on a hand to study her. “Why don’t you hate me?”

She frowned, stroking his cheek. “Why should I?”

“Because I’m mean and cruel. My father’s on his death bed and I’m refusing to go heal him.”

She tipped her head. “It’s not like you don’t have a reason.”

“Even so.”

“Nate…” She slid her fingers into his hair. “Your life is your own. I’m not here to tell you what you should or must or ought to do. You’ll figure it out in time. If you want to talk, I’ll listen. If you don’t, well, I’ll find something more interesting to do with my mouth.” She winked at him.

His dark eyes considered her as he began to trace his fingers up and down her body, bringing them up between her breasts, circling her nipples. “I think you’ve already done enough,” he said, amused. “My turn.”

He lowered his mouth to a nipple, and she caught her breath as he stroked the sensitive skin with his tongue, grazing his teeth on the hardening tip. She closed her eyes and gave herself up to his ministrations, sighing as he swapped to her other breast, then back again, alternatively licking and sucking the stiff peaks. She felt such a surge of tenderness as she slipped her fingers into his hair, watching him kissing her gently, wishing she could wave a wand and take away all his anguish and pain. But then maybe she was helping him more than she realised, she thought, seeing from the absence of a frown and the fact that he was obviously growing aroused again that he wasn’t thinking about anything except her. They’d got together initially for consolation, and even though he’d told her he loved her, his need for comfort was clearly still great. And that she
could
help with.

She scraped her nails gently through his hair and down the nape of his neck, noticing that he paused and shuddered. He lifted his head to kiss her again, his growing passion evident in the heat of his mouth, the way he swept his tongue against hers, and she arched toward him, wanting to fire him up, to drive him wild.

He moved his hand between her legs and began arousing her through the thin panties, and she squirmed, thrusting her hips against his fingers, enjoying the slight friction of the material against the hot, wet heart of her. He lifted his head again to watch her, his eyes dark with passion, rubbing the cotton gently against her swollen sex until she could feel it soaked and sticking to her skin. His fingers slipped and slid against her, and he pulled the cotton tight so it bit hard into her already aroused flesh.