From The Shadows (From The Shadows #1) (11 page)

“Yea I did” I heard the smile in his voice before it changed into something much raspier “Now put those rosy lips up here so I can claim my woman!”

Oh.. That voice of his, and the demand in it, made a tingle run all the way down my body to my toes. How could I not respond to his request?

So I leaned my head back and offered my lips to him. The kiss he gave me only underlined his words, because it held so much need. His soft, warm lips on mine were demanding and I was soon on fire, forgetting everything around me. I didn’t care that we were standing in the break room at my work, or that anyone could walk in on us any time. I was completely lost to the passion of my man, until a knock on the door made me jump.

Nathan started laughing at me because of the freaked out face I was sporting, and when I tried to send him a stern look he only drew me back into his arms.

“I think we should move out of Mr. Leban’s way and get home?” He said it like a question so I just nodded and smiled back at him, feeling the heat in my cheeks showing off my embarrassment.

“Sorry Mr. Leban, we are leaving now” I said looking over at him.

“Don’t worry about it Nikki, it is nice seeing you smile again!” He answered with laughing eyes and a warm smile.

We said our goodbyes and went out to the car.

Chapter 14

I jumped out of the truck as Nathan walked around the trunk of it, probably with the intent of opening my door, but though I loved his caring, gentlemanly ways, I did not always need for him to open doors for me. Today I just wanted to get inside and fall over, hopefully with my head on Nathan’s chest.

“You’re in a hurry today” he noted as he reached my side, and I noticed that he looked deep in thought, so instead of commenting on his note I asked him what was wrong.

“Nothing, I’m just tired. It has been a long day at the office and those clients I told you about is really getting on my last nerve!”

Well if someone was bugging Nathan then they really must be a pain.

“Okay if you’re sure..”

“Yea. What was up with Sasha today, though? Why did she look worried when she talked to you this evening?”

Oh shit, he had seen that. I didn´t want to talk about Mike anymore, I just wanted to move on, and I knew talking to Nathan about him would hit a sore spot.

“Nikki spit it out! Something went down at work today didn’t it? Did Mike show up again?” He asked it with a touch of anger simmering in his eyes. What had I really thought? That I could hide this from him? Yea, like I had ever been able to hide anything from him. I was after all an open book to him.

“Yea… he showed up”. I said, like it meant nothing. And really it had not been that bad, Mike had been unusually calm. Which actually in itself was a bit alarming, but I had just wanted to not make a big deal of it today. I didn´t want him to scare me into submission anymore.

I could see on Nathan’s facial expression and the cleansing of his hands that he was more than just
not happy
about that. “And you didn’t call me? Or the police?! Nik, we got that God damn restraining order for a reason!” He almost yelled at me in what sounded like frustration.

I sucked in a breath and swallowed. Oh shit he was on edge today, and somewhere in my brain I knew I was not the one who had put him there, but the fact was that he did apparently have a short fuse, at the moment, and it made me nervous.

I bit down on my lip trying to figure out what to say and do. I was not used to this side of him, and the few who knew me knew I did not like conflicts, because I didn´t think well on my feet. I was really good at expressing myself on paper, but oral communication tended to get me in trouble especially in situations like this. It was like I somehow forgot how to translate what I thought into speech.

So, in a very careful voice, I said. “He wasn’t drunk today, or mean. I figured I could handle him”

Nathan ran both his hands through his loose hair as he glared at me.

“Nathan.. I didn’t want to bother you over nothing” I told him looking down at the ground.

“NOTHING?!” He growled. “I worry every goddamn day if you are safe and I trust that you tell me when Mike shows up. I just want to be sure nothing happens to you Nikki!” Oh shit, Nathan never used my whole name, and on top of him doing so I could now hear some hurt slipping into his voice and mix with the aggravation there.

I then saw his feet take a step towards me, and in reflex I took a step back from him. I didn´t mean to, but my body was reacting to the anger that was pulsating from him. It didn´t matter to my body that I, in my brain, trusted Nathan not to hurt me because it had learned long ago to recoil from any kind of danger.

As I did step back though, I heard him take in a deep, shocked breath, which made me look up again where I saw his eyes change. The anger was seeping out of them and a glint of sorrow took over.

“Sorry baby.. I didn’t mean to frighten you or get mad at you.. It´s just.. That it angers me so much that he won’t leave you alone, and I don’t want you to get hurt”. He took a deep breath. “You are
my everything
!”

He held out his hand to me, palm up, eyes pleading with me to take his hand like I was a frightened child. In a way, I guess, I had come off like that. But could you really blame me? In my experience, anger meant violence and anger meant pain, for me. It didn´t matter if people were too drunk to walk a straight line; a mean person always knew how to hit with just the right amount of force and at the right angle. And Nathan was not even drunk.

After registering that there truly only was sorrow and love left on his face, that the anger had vanished completely, I took a deep breath letting the depth of his green gaze calm my nerves, and then I reached out and put my hand in his.

I had expected him to pull me into a smothering hug but he didn´t. He simply led me by the hand to the door and took us the rest of the way home.

We didn´t talk much the rest of the evening, just acting on auto pilot until we were in the bedroom, undressing for bed.

I was faster to undress, and it was clear to me that the reason for that was the frown that had been constant on Nathan’s forehead the entire evening, and it was getting too hard not to ask what he was molding over in his head.

I crawled to the middle of the bed, where I sat cross legged, carefully watching his every move. The man was so sexy and his tattoos never stopped intriguing me. They only added to his perfectly sculpted body, which never failed to make my body vibrate with need. And that was how he almost managed to shake my resolve of getting to the truth of why he was on edge and acting strange. At least his gorgeous eyes were not turned to me at the moment, because I knew that when they were I would be in trouble. I would forget the last train of thought and I would not mind the least.

When Nathan finally stood butt naked and lickable, he turned to me, walking towards the bed. “What are you looking at?” He asked with a bit of a twinkle in his eyes.

“Nothing” I answered, moving my eyes down to my own fiddling hands, in my lap, while I was unable to stop the goofy grin from forming on my lips. Looking away was the only thing I could do in order to not let his eyes hypnotize me.

“Mmhmm.. So, I don’t the least bit make you want to jump me?” He said teasing me.

“You know I want to… But Nate, I want to talk”

“Okay, what do you want to talk about?”

“Why you are acting so on edge today, I know you want to protect me from Mike, but I don’t think that is all there is on your mind..”

“Nikki, just drop it. It’s nothing you need to worry yourself about okay?” He said in yet another try to push it aside, but I was not buying it.

“But I want to know!”

He let out an exasperated breath and then he crawled onto the bed. “Okay, but can we crawl under the covers first? And can you snuggle that beautiful body into me? I have wanted to feel you all day.”

I gave my okay and was soon snuggled into his side. And after a while he finally told me what was bothering him.

His mother had called just as he had sat down at the office, in the morning,, and she had been sad and worried. It had taken him a while before he finally got her to tell him what had her upset. Apparently Liam, the oldest of Nathan’s younger brothers, had been caught by the police while breaking an entry at the local supply store in the town where he and their mother lived. She had no chance of paying bail for Liam and was out of wits end of what to do. Her last chance was to call Nathan, hating but having to ask him for some money.

Nathan’s mom was not like mine, who would demand money for her addiction, but she was a proud woman who had been dealt a shitty hand; struggling her entire adult life to make ends meet.

Without a second thought Nathan had agreed to help his mother pay bail, but he was irritated that Liam had gone back to his old ways.

“He promised me last time I saw him that he was done with breaking the law. He´s been taking responsibility for himself the last year and a half, and it bothers me to think he fell off the wagon... I need to understand why!” He said as he tried to drill what he was feeling into my head. I completely understood why he needed answers, and I didn´t judge him for what he had done to help his brother. I knew his family wasn’t bad people, but I guess he himself had regained some doubt in his brother and that was what really bothered him. 

.. “On top of that the rest of the day just got worse and worse! My conference call with Mr. Martin was right after and he had once again some changes he wanted to make. I swear that man cannot make a decision.” He said grumpily. “And finally when that call was over, my boss told me that he needed me to fly out for a few days to meet with a new important client”

I sucked in a breath. I knew Nathan sometimes had to go to different places to meet with clients, but it wasn´t until now that it would have an effect on me. I mean; I didn´t want to be selfish because this was his job, however the thought of being on my own for a few nights made the nerves build in my stomach.

“Whe.. when?”

“Breathe Nik, I am trying to figure out a way around it. I want to be with you as much as you do me!” he assured me and then he kissed my temple. “But now you know what have gone down today. And why I didn´t want to bother you with it, until I was sure if I could get out of it. Babe, I am so sorry for getting mad at you when we got home”.

“It´s okay..”. I mumbled just before he found my mouth and kissed me with so much tenderness and care. Or well that was how that kiss started, because before I knew any better I was under his spell, and he rolled us over until he was resting between my thighs.

He broke the kiss needing air and as he did he asked “Can we just not think about all that for the rest of night? Because I really need to be inside of you…”

“Okay” I answered breathlessly, needing to feel him in every way possible.

As he started kissing down my jaw and neck I ran my hands lightly over his broad muscular back, enjoying the soft feel of his skin. Nathans’s skin was always so soft that I couldn’t hold my fingers away from it. It was like the softest velvet wrapped over the most beautiful male creature on earth. And he was mine!

I closed my eyes enjoying his teasing of all my senses and when he ran his teeth over my pulse point, at my neck, Goosebumps broke out all over my skin and made me whimper. I was already at the point where I began getting impatient. It didn´t help that I could feel his rock hard cock against my entrance, but was unable to wiggle my hips enough so he would slide into me and quench my need.

Feeling my eagerness Nathan caught my eye, giving me a wicked smirk and then he ran his hand down my hip, to my left thigh, where he took hold and lifted my leg up on the side of his hip. He then rolled his hips, running his hardness over my little bundle of nerves, making me moan. Still holding my gaze he took pity on me and  guided his cock to where I needed him most, and when he slid deep he told me ”I love you” on a moan, which told me just how much he had needed that contact.

“I love you more” I told him back and as he slowly started moving inside me he let me know that that was not possible, because I was his everything.

That night we made sweet slow love which healed the memory of our not so perfect day, and took me a step closer to the knowledge that I could trust Nathan’s love for me to be real.

Next day went on as most days did. We got up together, cooked breakfast together and then we both went to work around 10am and had a normal day.

We were back home, at around 6 pm, and I was just putting the phone down after ordering food from the China grill, when the phone, still in my hand, began ringing. I might as well tell you that I had borrowed Nathan’s phone, because the restaurant number had already been encoded into his phone. I made a jump in shock and almost fell over the couch.

I looked down at the screen to see who was calling and the caller ID said
Josephine M
.?

“Babe..” I called. “Someone named Josephine is calling” I said, wondering who that was. I was a sucker at remembering names but the name did trigger some remembrance, just not enough to place the person.