Burdened (A Burdened Novel) (26 page)

He looks at me through squinted eyes. I sing Glen’s ringtone in my head. “What are you up to, Tracey?”

“Nothing.” I can’t hold back my smile.

He pulls the clothes from my hands, throwing them aside. Raising both of my hands in his, he kisses my palms, first my left, then the right. I shiver. He takes them back in his, lacing our fingers. My body tingles from his touch. It stops after a few seconds and I want it back. It felt satisfying.

“You want me, right?” he asks seductively.

I nod.

“You’re going to stay with me through whatever?”

“Forever.”

“You’ll love me?”

“Do
you
love me?”

“Yes.”

“Yes,” I ratify.

“You may hurt.”

“You’ll take it away.”

“I will. But I could lose control.”

“I’ll take it away.”

“You will?”

“I
will
.” This seems like more than a conversation for reassurance. I look him in his eyes and they are green-brown, staring back at me.

“Are you tired?” he asks.

I shake my head, not knowing what to expect. He is still holding my hands.

My hands are like a child’s in his, but they fit perfectly. I become anxious and butterflies erupt in my stomach. They are all flying at one-hundred miles per hour. Anticipation boils in me, and all I can do is stare back at him. I work on controlling my breathing to calm myself. It’s steady, but every other breath is hesitant.

“You nervous?” His voice is serious and calm.

I don’t know how to respond. I am.

He moves in slowly, kissing me, and the butterflies fly faster, making their way to my chest and through my back. They continue through my arms to my hands, sitting in my palms that are placed into his. He lets go of my hands, and picks me up with ease. I wrap around him, maintaining the kiss. It is intimate, slowly awakening. My heart pounds in passion.

He lays me on the bed and lets me run my hands through his addictively-soft hair. He pulls his shirt off of me and kisses my chest, breasts, stomach, and navel. Asking for permission first, he removes my shorts. He pushes me up on the bed so my feet aren’t hanging off.

He kisses my chin. “Don’t move.” Getting up from the bed, he walks over to his closet. I hear a rustle. He comes back with a couple of my favorite gold wrappers in his hand. He stops by the wall with the light-switch and turns off the big light. The small lamps on the nightstands remain on, like spotlights.

He returns, hovering, looking me over. I lick my lips, and his eyebrows rise.

“Can I touch you?” I’m craving his warmth and the feeling he provides.

“You can do more than that,” he says, eyes swirling, with his voice low and seductive. My toes tingle and I reach around his back, pulling him down against me. His body, against mine, is warm and soft.
Nothing like the day when we first met.

I kiss him, and his kisses are sweet—not fully satisfying my need for him. He kisses my neck. I breathe, trying to control my nerves and these damn butterflies that make my bottom lip tremble
and my legs slightly shake. All I can think about is wanting his hands on my waist and then him in me.

He kisses the other side with a little more force, hitting all of my vulnerable spots—with his lips following his tongue. The pressure and the pleasure
causes me to grab onto him. His hands are on my thighs and his lips are making their way towards my sweetest spot. Hot.

You are really pushing it, Tracey. If you don’t calm down, I won’t be able to control myself
. He doesn’t stop what he’s doing, and I am aware of every kiss as I listen to him in my head, still with a seductive voice. He kisses my panty line. Assuming he’s ready for them to come off, I lift. And they come off happily, not giving any struggle.

His hands on my thighs are warm and my breath catches. Kissing my navel, I can no longer feel his hands. I let out a harsh breath and he’s back above me. I am quietly panting as he stares at me with those ocean-blue eyes that had hypnotized me before with the circling of the sand behind them.

He kisses my lips. “You tell me if I go too far.” I look down and he already has his shorts off and the protection on.

I missed that. Not to mention, the feeling of him on me, the other day in the truck, did no justice.

I look back at him. “Okay,” I say softly and kiss his lips. He returns my kiss—slow and intimate. His arm applies pressure to the bed beside my head. He stops kissing my mouth, moving to my neck.

I feel the pressure from the push, and his hand grabs my waist, tenderly. It is more than what I was used to, but he takes it slow. My body shakes in satisfaction for a brief second.

It’s what I have been waiting for, but more than what I had expected. I moan out at times and he tells me to keep it down. Once I get used to it, we change positions, and at some points I take control and he gives the sexiest, manly moan I’ve ever heard.

Then he allows me the opportunity to feel his lips on my back, where I’ve never felt them, as his hands grip my hips in a less-familiar way. He speaks to my unknown in unfamiliar words, and it entices my excitement. He tells me he loves me, countless times. I’m forced to tell him in my mind, since my mouth won’t make words.

It was…beyond words.

I awake
n to the sun shining through the curtains, an arm still wrapped around me, and a body still pressed against my naked body. I turn over and look into green and brown eyes that are looking back at me.

“Good morning
, beautiful.” He kisses my forehead. “Good sleep?”

“Yes.” I snuggle closer to him. He wraps me tighter. “You stayed.”

“Yeah.” It doesn’t sound remorseful. He sounds comfortable.

It makes me happy
, him being here when I wake up. I kiss his chest wherever my lips place. I move up to his neck, then back down to his chest.

“What are you trying to do to me
, Tracey, and at eight in the morning?”

“
Shh…” I turn him over and climb on top of him, kissing his lips softly. I move to his neck, to his stomach, then to his navel. Hard rises against my stomach.

I look at him and he pulls me back up to him. He kisses my lips once and says
, “Wait.”

Gone and back in seconds
, he lays, moving me back on him and him in me.

It’s a little rougher
, and less mouth to mouth kissing. A few loud moans escape and he covers my mouth with his hand—I bite it. Again, we explore multiple positions, each one feeling different than the way they felt last night. He gives it to me in a way that makes my body explode into shakes and shivers.

I feel nothing but the beat of my heart trying to pound out of my chest.
Sexual satisfaction is an understatement. I’m hooked.

Nathan gives me
a few minutes to stop shaking and catch my breath. He walks to the bathroom and turns on the shower water. I turn over to lie on my side, expecting him to get in the shower.

“
Uh huh, no.” He picks me up from the bed, carrying me—naked—to the shower. He places me in the shower, stepping in with me.

I know this is not going to end well
, watching the water run from his head down to his chest, stomach, navel, and…there. It’s staring at me, already wrapped up.

Nathan grabs my neck with his thumb under my chin
. There is no force applied as he pulls me into his kiss. He has the double showerheads on—one that is over us and the one on the wall for the regular shower. The water feels good—hot—flowing through my hair, along with his touches and kisses. Then he offers me the cherry on top of my sundae.

Lifting me up and placing me on top of him, I wrap my legs around him. It feels like my life is complete. I feel…amazing.

It is slower than moments ago, and a lot more intimate. He pushes my back against the wall, giving me all of him as I consume it all. He kisses my mouth sweetly, sweeping in, requesting my tongue to join his. It does.

My arms are wrapped around his neck and
my fingers run through his wet hair, while I moan against his mouth. He buries his head in my neck as he increases with more force, in and out of me.

Head
back, and his now next to mine, I moan out—my lips brush against his ear—and he lets me, or he doesn’t care. He presses against me, looking up at me. There is a faint night-blue that lies behind his ocean-blue. My eyes widen. He realizes it and closes them quickly.

He places
me down on the shower floor. “Go ahead and start washing up. I’ll be back in sixty seconds.” He steps out and returns in that time frame.

He washes
me, and then I wash his back as he does his front. I take in all the skin I can, staring at him. It should be illegal for a person to look this perfect. We rinse off and he grabs us some towels, wrapping me first, then himself. He lifts me, carrying me to the bed. I almost pass out in his arms. Laying an extra towel over the pillow to soak up the water in my hair, he lays me down and kisses my forehead. He goes back in the bathroom, then, moving quickly, he goes to the closet and comes back to me, fully-clothed.

“I’ll be back
. Go to sleep, and when you wake up, call me. I’ll take you to your car so you can get home to see your mom.”

“Where are you going?” I say through a yawn.

“I need to make a few phone calls. Something happened with the business and I need to check on it.”

“What business?”

“My father’s and mine.”

“Y’all own your own business?”

“Yes, it’s a high-profit manufacturing company. We can’t afford for things to go wrong. And I need to handle some family issues.” He looks over to the door. “Go ahead and get some rest. I know I wore you out,” he says with a cocky smile, then kisses my lips. “Watch some TV, if you want. I’ll be back shortly.”

He pulls the covers over me and I watch him walk to the door. There’s someone on the other side waiting for him
, but I can’t see who it is. My eyes refuse to focus on anything but black as my lids slowly close shut. I pull the covers over my head, giving into sleep.

What have I done to deserve someone so perfect? I take a moment, staring into the darkness—a deep abyss that is placed in front of me on my journey home. The darkness stares back, tempting me to jump into it, not knowing what is below or if there is anything there. It seems as if I would fall forever—a never-ending fall. I hear it’s not when you hit the ground, but the fall, that kills you.

He pulls me into a kiss
—my own person created specifically for me. Backing away, he looks at me with night-blue eyes. They aren’t evil or managed—it is what they stand for that makes them frightening. I try to speak, but my words get caught in my throat, choking me. The darkness starts to rise from the abyss, creeping towards us, slowly.

Night
-eyes Nathan reaches out to take my hand and nods toward the darkness. I shake my head, knowing nothing good can lie in what you can’t see.

He smiles at me
—a wicked smile—and touches my hand. It feels like fire, burning, and a knot grows in my throat, making it harder to breathe. I drop to my knees from the pain. He watches me as I crawl backwards, shaking my head.

Slowly he walks to me, his eyes showing confusion
, but he doesn’t say anything. I beg him with my eyes—unable to speak—not to go, not to make us go. He kneels in front of me. He is beautiful, but it is the wrong kind of beautiful. He is beautiful to me, because he is supposed to be, not because of the way he looks. The front of his hair is slicked back, ending in points—sharp points—all over the back of his head.

He stares at me in a way that seems as if he’s trying to figure me out
—head tilting slowly from left to right. He smells the air around me and backs up, slowly standing. His face loses all expression, the darkness creeps up behind, and he welcomes it with open arms.

Staring at me the entire time, he soaks it up
, like it is his desire to be consumed. His mouth turns into a smile as I struggle to get up, to make it to him. I try to shout “No!” but nothing escapes, except for tears.

He sees them and is satisfied. He leaps, flipping backwards into the darkness and I see nothing else.

The choke is gone—I am able to breathe. I call his name, but he doesn’t return. There is a knocking sound. I look around, trying to place the sound, but nothing shows. It gets louder. I cover my ears against it, screaming out.

“Tracey
, it’s okay! Wake up. It’s okay!”

Opening my eyes to Taylor sitting on the bed beside me, she is just as pretty as yesterday
, with her hair pulled to the side, fishtailed over her shoulder.

“Are you okay?”

Taking a moment, I nod my head, realizing I was dreaming. How vivid and real that dream was. Then I realize I am still in only a towel. I pull the covers up to my neck. “Yes, I just had a crazy dream.”