Red (31 page)
Nate’s hand came up to cup my cheek. As his thumb smoothed lazily across my skin, he pulled me a little closer, lifting me up onto my toes and pressing me more tightly against him.
My head began to spin and I leaned into him for support, my fist tightening around his lapel. Staring up into those dark, bottomless eyes, I felt like I was drowning, drifting away on a wave of heat that saturated my body with blissful, healing warmth. And suddenly I had to touch him, had to press my fingertips against the planes of his face and bring more of that warmth close to me.
I let my fingertips drift down the line of his jaw toward soft, full lips, then under his chin, gently urging him closer. At the same moment, Nate’s hand slid around to the nape of my neck, tilting my head back just a little.
My eyes fluttered closed as Nate’s lips found mine in a slow, unhurried kiss, his mouth pressing against mine so tenderly it stole my breath. I gasped a little as his lips brushed mine again, a tentative feint, followed by a more certain advance.
I kissed him back, my body flooding with heat in great crashing waves with each pass of his lips, my heart hammering in my chest. At some point, my arms went around his neck, and his arms wrapped around my waist, holding me so tightly I could barely breathe. But I didn’t care. Nothing in the world mattered at that moment but the taste of him, the warmth of his breath against my skin as his mouth left mine to press a line of kisses down the curve of my throat.
When his path led him to the sensitive juncture where neck and shoulder met, I gasped, twining my fingers through his hair to keep him where he was. And for a moment he obliged. But then with a groan, he abruptly released me, stumbling back a few steps to put distance between us. He stared at me for a horrible, confusing moment, his chest heaving.
“God damn it,” he muttered under his breath, his voice strained and thin.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, bemused by his sudden withdrawal. I shuddered, chilling without his body to warm me.
He raked his hands through his hair a couple of times, then took a hurried step to his right, then back to his left like he wanted to bolt but wasn’t sure which direction offered the best route for escape.
“Nate?” I took a step toward him, extending my hand to stay his agitated pacing. “What’s going on? I thought—”
He halted and gave me a pained look, cutting off my words. “I want you,” he ground out, his voice shot with desire. “I want you so badly, I could press you up against the garden wall and take you right here, right now.”
I blinked at him a few times, startled—and undeniably aroused—by his frank confession. My own voice was little more than a breath when I asked, “So, what’s stopping you?”
Nate’s shoulders sagged and his expression went from pained to agonized. “The rest of the truth.”
Chapter 37
My heart sank at his words. I could only hope that what he wanted to tell me wasn’t as ominous as his tone suggested. I straightened to my full height and smoothed the wrinkles we’d created in the front of my dress.
“Well,” I said, lifting my chin, “I guess now’s as good a time as any. Spill it.”
“Why don’t we head home,” Nate replied, his steps purposeful as he strode toward the doors to the ballroom. “We can talk there.”
“Afraid I’ll make a scene?” I called to his back.
Nate’s steps halted, and his head hung down between his shoulders.
“Damn,” I mumbled. “I was only joking. This must be a real pisser.”
“I’m in love with you,” Nate blurted.
I swear I didn’t breathe for a good thirty seconds. When I finally exhaled, it burst from me as, “Oh.”
Nate turned back around and took a couple of steps toward me, but stopped short of arm’s length. “I have been in love with you since the moment I saw you,” he confessed. “I just wasn’t sure what to call it back then.”
I frowned, remembering the day I’d met him all those years ago. “You fell in love with me in the FMA cafeteria?”
Nate chuckled. “I remember that day. I bought you a piece of cake.”
I nodded. “Chocolate with raspberry jam between the layers.”
Nate’s head tilted to one side, a smile curving his lips. “You remember.”
“It was damned good cake.”
His laugh erupted from him, making me feel a little more at ease, but then his brows drew together in a frown. “I wanted so badly to talk to you, to be near you,” he confessed. “I had waited so long.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked warily. “You’d just come over.”
Nate sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. “I wish that were the case. But that day wasn’t the first time we’d met.”
I blinked at him, trying to figure out if he was joking. “I think I would have remembered meeting you before, Nate.” I laughed a little. “I mean, a girl doesn’t forget someone as
dashing
as you, right?”
dashing
as you, right?”
Nate lowered his head, averting his gaze for a moment. “Tess—”
“You know I’ve always been drawn to you,” I interrupted. “I would’ve remembered that kind of . . .
pull
between us if I’d felt it before.” I placed my hand lightly on his arm. “You—you feel it, too. Don’t you?”
pull
between us if I’d felt it before.” I placed my hand lightly on his arm. “You—you feel it, too. Don’t you?”
He lifted his eyes, his expression one of longing. “Hell yes, I feel it! I’ve felt it from the minute I found you lying in the woods clinging to life.”
I shook my head a little, involuntarily taking a step back from him. “What are you talking about?”
Nate advanced, not letting me put any additional distance between us. “I wasn’t supposed to even be there that day,” he said. “It was a scheduling mistake.”
“Knock it off,” I ordered, not liking where he was going with this. “This isn’t funny.”
“When I knelt to collect you, I put my hand on your heart,” he continued, ignoring my protests, “and suddenly I was privy to all you’d suffered, all you’d endured. And you felt my presence. You
saw
me, Tess. No one had ever
seen
me before—not like you did. They usually just sense my presence, feel me drawing near. But not you. You looked up at me, your eyes so clear and resolute, so fearless. And you saw into my soul just as I had seen into your heart.”
saw
me, Tess. No one had ever
seen
me before—not like you did. They usually just sense my presence, feel me drawing near. But not you. You looked up at me, your eyes so clear and resolute, so fearless. And you saw into my soul just as I had seen into your heart.”
“Shut up, Nate!” I barked, my voice cracking. “I’m serious!”
He took another step toward me. I took two in the opposite direction. “I expected you to plead with me to spare your life like anyone else would have,” he went on, “but instead, you took my hand and said only, ‘I understand.’ I couldn’t collect you after that. How could I end the life of the one person who’d ever seen me for what I really was?”
I pressed my lips together, growing more furious with each word he uttered. “Oh, I’m seeing you all right,” I spat. “You’re a lying son of a bitch—I just can’t figure out
why
you’re lying to me about something like this!”
why
you’re lying to me about something like this!”
Nate sighed. “It’s the truth. I swear it.”
“Prove it.”
“Ask Nicky,” Nate replied. “He’ll confirm the story.”
I frowned in confusion. “How the hell would
he
know anything about it?”
he
know anything about it?”
“Because the bullet in his chest that night in the alley was meant for you,” Nate confessed. “After that day in the woods, I couldn’t just walk away and never look back. I checked in on you whenever I could, watching over you from the shadows when I wasn’t collecting Ordinaries.”
My eyes widened. “You were
stalking
me?”
stalking
me?”
“No, no,” Nate said hurriedly. “It wasn’t like that. I was just . . . curious. I’d never come across anyone like you before. I wanted to try to figure you out.”
“And you just happened to be there that night in the alley?” I asked, not bothering to hide my skepticism.
“Actually, yes,” he retorted. “I happened to pop in that night just in time to deflect the bullet away from you. It hit Nicky instead. But when I saw the pain and fear in your eyes as he slipped away, I couldn’t take him. For your sake, I broke with protocol once again and gave Nicky a second chance—but only on the condition he’d help me look after you and never reveal what I’d done.”
I couldn’t believe what Nate was saying. It was too fantastic to believe—even for a Tale. Still . . . something about his story brought back glimpses of shadowy images, half-remembered memories that chilled me and comforted me at the same time.
“When my boss decided to assign a full-time Reaper to the Tales a few years later,” he continued, “I requested the assignment, but because of your unique life force signatures it meant giving up my immortality and taking on corporeal form again. In order to stay grounded in the Here and Now as one of you, I had to claim connection to a specific Tale.” His gaze locked with mine. “I chose you.”
The news hit me in the gut as sure as if he’d punched me. “What?”
“My life, my very existence is tied to yours,” he explained. “When you finally die, it will be my last collection. We’ll cross over together.”
I walked backward another couple of steps until I bumped into the garden wall and nearly tumbled over the top of it. I sat down on the cool stone, my knees too weak to support me. “I don’t believe this,” I whispered.
Suddenly, the fact that he was a Reaper, a dealer of death, was all too real to me. He was to have been my executioner that day in the woods and would have torn my soul from my body without a second thought had my reaction not made him hesitate. But what he took to be fearlessness was actually hopeless resignation to my fate. In truth, I’d never been more terrified than at the moment when I’d stared Death in the face. To know that that horrible glimpse of darkness was the man before me struck me so violently I wanted to hurl.
Nate sat down beside me. “Something happened to us that day in the woods,” he told me. “You said yourself you’ve always been drawn to me. You belong to me in a way you could never belong to anyone else. Why do you think you could never commit to anyone?”
I scowled at the ground, my mind racing. I had commitment issues, sure, but tons of people had the same problem. Considering what I’d been through with Seth . . . I shook my head, pushing away the thought before I’d even completed it.
Seth was an excuse. A cop out. In fact, there for a while—
“There was Nicky,” I blurted. “I loved him. I could have been happy with him.” But as soon as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true. I closed my eyes and said softly, “Something changed after that night in the alley.”
“After I visited him, you couldn’t be with him anymore, could you?” Nate guessed. “It felt wrong, didn’t it?”
I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter. “This is crazy.”
“I wanted to tell you,” Nate said. “I kept waiting, hoping you’d get to know me first. I guess I hoped someday you’d fall in love with me, too.”
My eyes snapped open, all the better to glare at him. “You’ve been playing me this whole time.”
“It wasn’t like that.” He brought his hand up to caress my cheek, but I reflexively smacked it away.
“Don’t touch me!” I hissed. “You’re a lie. Everything about you has been a lie! You attached your life to mine without my knowledge or permission, Nate! How can I trust anything you say after knowing that? And I actually thought—” I bit off my words, fighting back furious tears. I cleared my throat, forcing the tears away. “I actually thought that I was falling in love with you. Now I know it’s nothing more than the connection you
forced
on me.”
forced
on me.”
“Tess—”
“Shut up!” I snapped, launching to my feet, feeling defiled in a way I never imagined possible. “I can’t listen to any more of this.” Once more, I strode toward the French doors, but Nate swooshed into my path, blocking my escape. When I tried to dart around him, he took me by the shoulders, keeping me where I was.
“You have to understand—”
“I don’t have to understand a goddamn thing!” I shot back. “I’m done, Nate. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
Nate’s hands dropped to his sides. “What?”
The part of me that only recently had come back to life felt like it was dying all over again as I said, “Don’t come near me. I don’t want to see you again until you come to make that final call.”
The look of heartbreak on Nate’s face was almost enough to make me cave. “Red, let’s talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” I hissed. “We’re done here.”
I turned my back on him and rushed toward the ballroom, but as a thought occurred to me, I paused and turned to look over my shoulder at him. “You know, Nate, you should have just let me die there in the woods. Because Seth’s betrayal? It’s nothing compared to yours.”
I didn’t bother to wipe away the tears of disappointment that made their way to my cheeks as I jerked open the doors to the ballroom and pushed my way through the crowd. I vaguely heard a litany of protests as I bumped into intoxicated partygoers, but, in keeping with tradition, I was determined to run away as far and as fast as possible before full-blown emotion set in.
I was nearly clear of the crowds when I heard someone calling my name, but I didn’t even bother looking to see who it was. Instead, I kicked off my shoes and scooped them up before racing for the door. The last thing I wanted was to stop and chat with some two-faced asshole pretending to give a shit about me just to get the latest gossip and blab it to the rest of Tale society.
I’d almost made it to the front door when the sound of hurried footsteps behind me on the marble alerted me someone was tailing me. I swung around, ready for a fight, but Nicky grabbed my fist before I could take a swing at him.
“What’s doing?” he demanded. “Where’s Grimm?”
I jerked my hand from his grasp. “Rotting in hell, for all I care,” I spat. “Feel free to join him, you bastard!”
Nicky gaped at me in startled confusion.
“You should have told me,” I hissed.
Nicky’s expression went slack as realization dawned. “So you could tell me to go piss up a rope?” he replied. “If you’d known about my deal with Nate, you wouldn’t have let me hold up my end of the bargain.”
“You’re damn straight! But I didn’t have a choice, did I?”
“I didn’t have a choice, either!” he shot back. “I loved you, Red! You think I wouldn’t have agreed to Nate’s deal? I
wanted
to take care of you. How many times did I ask you to marry me?”
wanted
to take care of you. How many times did I ask you to marry me?”
I huffed angrily. “Six.”
“A guy doesn’t keep trying if he doesn’t give a damn,” he pointed out. “The only reason I gave up is because you hooked up with someone else. Kind of got the point across.”
I crossed my arms and pointedly looked away from him, knowing that my anger was misplaced. It wasn’t Nicky’s fault that I was in this mess. “I’m so sorry, Nicky,” I finally said, my throat tight. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I didn’t understand—” I shook my head, not knowing what else to say.
There was a long moment of silence before Nicky said, “Did Nate tell you everything?”
I shrugged. “How the hell would I know?”
“He’s in love with you, you know.”
I turned my gaze back to Nicky. “So he said.”
“Red—”
“Spare me the lecture, Nicky,” I interrupted.
He sighed, then ran his hand gently down my arm. “Want me to take you home?”
I shook my head. “No, I don’t want to go home. Nate might come by to talk to me, and Gran doesn’t need to get sucked into the drama. I just want to go hole up in a hotel or something.”
“Like hell,” Nicky said, taking out his phone. After a quick conversation with someone on the other end of the line, he opened the front door for me. “Come on. I’ll take you to my place. You can stay with us tonight.”
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