Deep (The Pagano Family Book 4) (29 page)

He heard the water in the shower running.

And then he heard something else. Moaning.

There were her tears.

Knowing full well that she’d closed herself in the bathroom for privacy, Nick went to the door. He tried the knob—it wasn’t locked. So he opened the door and went in.

In lieu of a bathtub, Beverly’s bathroom had a large, walk-in shower, tiled in iridescent glass tiles. All of her towels and bathroom accouterments were in pinks and purples. Surprisingly, Nick had grown used to living in such a feminine environment. In the past two months, he’d spent easily ten times as much of his down time in her apartment as his own. Even the magenta wall didn’t bother him as it once had.

She was sitting on the floor of her shower, her arms wrapped around her folded legs, sobbing. He was glad to see it. Despite his regret for the cause of her tears, the show of emotion gave him hope. Real hope.

What he did next, he did on instinct, operating on a level beyond rational control. He pushed his track pants off his hips and stepped into the shower with her.

“No! Get out!”

He bent down, ignoring the spray of the shower, and grasped her arms. “I’m not here for that,
bella
. I’m here for you. Come up. I’ve got you.” He pulled her up. She fought halfheartedly, sobbing harder, but stood, and he closed her in his arms. She put her forehead on his chest and wept. “I’ve got you,” he murmured into her hair.

Again, his world had crashed into hers and left her suffering.

Since she’d been attacked, he had not had her nude body so close to his own, and his body reacted immediately and strenuously to the contact. It was fucking torture, and his mind twisted into a roiling snarl of need and regret and love.

But it truly had not been his motivation in entering the shower with her. His instinct had been to protect, to console, and, above all else, to keep her close. But as badly and incessantly as he wanted her, he wouldn’t push her. This no, he did take for an answer. Of course he did.

His erection was pressing into her belly, though, and she felt him. Of course she did. Still crying, she leaned back, pushing on his chest, trying to make room.

“Easy. That’s not why I’m here. I’m here for you. I can’t control that reaction, but it doesn’t matter.”

She shocked him then by hitting him, slapping both palms hard on his chest. “Why not?! Who the fuck are you?”

“Please? Beverly, calm down.” He tried to pull her close again, but she stepped back.

“No!” The intensity of her tears had warped her face and made shrill each word that she wrenched from her constricting throat. “Who are you?!”

“I don’t understand.” With a sudden concern that her mind had really broken, he added, “I’m Nick.”

Her tears stopped as if she’d turned off a spigot, and her eyes sharpened with anger. Nick was expert at reading people and anticipating their reactions, but from the moment Beverly had listened to that voice mail, she’d had him baffled. “No, you’re not. You’re not Nick.”

“I am.” His worry deepened. “
Bella
, let me help you.”

As suddenly as her tears had stopped, her anger deflated, making her body sag. He caught her with one arm around her waist, and she leaned into him. “I want my Nick back. I want all of you.”

“Please?” But as the word was out of his mouth, Nick understood. “Are you sure?”

“I feel like half of myself is missing. I don’t want to be half of me, and I don’t want half of you. I want all of you to love me.”

He was actually afraid of what she wanted. “All of me does love you.”

She shook her head. “I don’t feel it. Make me feel it.” In her blue eyes, he saw deep loss—but keen determination.

He turned them away from the shower spray and pushed her hard against the tile wall, making her gasp.

This couldn’t be what she wanted. “
Bella
…”

“Fuck you.” She slapped him—he’d never been hit by a woman before. As a child, he’d been beaten by his father, and as a boy and then a man, he’d fought more than his share with boys and men, until he’d risen to a level beyond that, but his total control over his emotions had kept him out of altercations with women. There had been the occasional tearful scene, but never fury.

He grabbed the wrist of the hand that had connected with his cheek, and he slammed it to the wall at the side of her head. She had been so badly hurt; it didn’t make sense to him that she would want this. But the flare in her eyes said that she did.

“You want Bad Nick?” With his free hand, he pulled her leg up to his hip, and she reached between them and took hold of his cock. He hissed at her touch. She guided him to her, and as soon as he felt the wet scald of her, he let go of her wrist and grabbed her ass, lifting her off the floor of the shower until she wrapped both legs around his hips. And then he shoved into her.

She was slick with want, and he slid in smoothly, welcomed into her body after all this time. He groaned, feeling mastered by her need as much as his own.

“Fuck,
bella
. You’re so wet. You want this. You want me deep?”

“Quit asking and fuck me.
Please
.”

He didn’t understand, but it no longer mattered. The diner didn’t matter. Chris Mills didn’t matter. His secret didn’t matter. Her grief and loss and pain didn’t matter.

He let his instincts take over. Sex was the only time he ever loosened his hold on himself, and now, after weeks, months, without her, without any sexual touch, his hold was more tenuous than he’d realized.

He spread and locked his legs and pounded into her, slamming her against the wall over and over. She dug her fingers into his short hair and held his head to hers as he plunged his tongue into her mouth, feeling her lips crushed against her teeth. Her ragged breaths caressed his cheek. And then she began to make the guttural, visceral noises that he’d come to know as signs of her intense pleasure. He tore his mouth from hers and watched her, saw pleasure roll across her features, saw her concentration on the way he made her feel, and knew that she would get her light back. She would.

He took hold of her right breast, tweaking at her nipple, but she shook her head hard. “No—I can’t feel it.”

“I’ll make you feel it.” He bent his head and drew the nipple into his mouth, sucking forcefully. And then he bit down—and he wasn’t gentle. He bit and sucked, and she arched back with a gasp.

“Yes! Yes!” Her pussy clamped hard around him, and the undulating spasms of her climax milked him steadily toward his own. As her orgasm waned and his waxed, he shifted the hand that was supporting her and slid two fingers into her ass. Again, she arched off the wall, and she came a second time, almost immediately. He went with her, groaning into her neck, feeling every muscle from his jaw to his knees cording up with the effort of release.

“Thank you,” she breathed after a moment of stillness. “I love you.” She was shaking.

“
Ti amo, bella
.” He moved to pull out and let her down, but she clenched around him, inside and out.

“No. I want you deep in me. I feel full of you. I feel full.”

With a lingering kiss to her forehead, he reached back to turn off the shower. Then he leaned into her, holding them both against the wall, linked together. His blood churned with love and relief. He would put regret aside. Uncle Ben was right. Some lies were kindnesses. She needed him, and he would not hurt her again.

He needed her, too.

~ 20 ~

When Bev woke, she knew right away that her world was different again, but she wasn’t sure why. She felt disoriented and nearly paralyzed, like her body had become lead as she’d slept. Before she opened her eyes, she tried to sort her thoughts and enter the moment.

She was naked in bed, only a sheet over her. She hadn’t slept naked since the diner. She opened her eyes.

The light was wrong. Even the air, the sounds it carried, was wrong. It wasn’t morning. It was afternoon. Nick had fucked her in the shower, and then he’d dried her off and carried her to bed and fucked her again. For the first time since the diner, he’d been inside her. He’d been rough. She’d been terrified of their sex for weeks, but he’d been rough, and his fierce need had been a balm. She could still feel the ache left by his touch—a sweet twinge, so different from what she’d suffered. A pain that recollected love, not fear. The memory eased her, made her smile.

And then they’d slept.

At least, she’d thought they’d slept. But now she was alone in bed. He’d told her that he wouldn’t leave her alone.

He’d told her that because…

Because…

Because Chris was dead.

Fully oriented again, she turned her face into her pillow and wept.

She felt the dip of weight on the mattress, and then Nick’s hand was on her shoulder. He didn’t speak.

With his big hand on her shoulder, and with the solid heat of his body at her side, Bev cried herself back to sleep.

~oOo~

When she woke again, she was alone again, and the room was dim with dusk. She’d slept through most of the day. This time, she was oriented before she was fully awake, and the lead she’d felt in her muscles earlier had lifted somewhat. Or maybe it had simply moved to her heart.

Her feelings about Chris were deeply confused, and she was too sad and stunned yet to make sense of them. He’d been a constant, steady, loving presence in her life for more than a decade.

Loving. He’d loved her, been in love with her. She’d been so betrayed and hurt to find that out. It had changed all of her memories of their friendship, made her reconsider every kindness as a play. Learning the depth and direction of his feelings for her made her feel exposed and used. He hadn’t been the friend she’d thought. He hadn’t been a friend at all—he’d been auditioning. She still felt betrayed and angry. At a time when she was reeling from a brutal violation of her person, she’d learned that her best friend had been violating her soul.

But now, suddenly, she felt guilty. He’d been waiting for her, and he’d died alone. In all the time of their friendship, he’d had two girlfriends. He wasn’t a bad-looking guy, in a sort of rumpled, bookish way, and he was funny and nice—there was usually at least one woman lurking around the bookshop trying to get noticed. But no one was ever good enough. Every woman who’d expressed an interest, every contact during his occasional bouts with online dating, they’d all had some deficiency. Bev had teased him endlessly about how picky he was. And he’d laughed and said that between his pickiness and her bad taste, they’d end up spending the rest of their lives alone together.

Which, it turned out, would have been his preference, failing what he’d really wanted with her.

And now she couldn’t sort out all of that loss from the fresh, new loss. He was gone. He was just
gone
. They hadn’t spoken in weeks, and now they never would again. They’d never be friends again. They’d never sit down and talk and find a new way to be, or even know for sure that there never could have been a new way to be.

He was dead, and they would never have closure.

It was all too much to think.

She wanted Nick. So she got out of bed, put her robe on, and went out into the main space of her apartment.

He was standing in front of the glass door to her balcony, looking out over the pool and courtyard, his hands in the pockets of his track pants, his beautiful back and chest bare. He seemed troubled.

“Hi.”

At her quiet word, he turned and smiled softly. “You’re awake. What can I do?” He held out his hand, and she took it, letting him lace their fingers and pull her under the shelter of his arm.

“Nothing. You’re doing it, being here. I’m sorry about today.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He stared down at her, and Bev had the clear sense that he was examining her, taking a reading. “What you wanted—you’re okay after?”

Their sex. She thought about that for a minute, searched her head for the bad associations she’d been so frightened of. “I’m okay. It helped, I think.”

“Good.” He kissed her hand. “Do you have that back, then? Do we?”

“I…don’t know. I think so. But—my head feels too small for everything in it. I need to work out one thing at a time, and right now I’m trying to figure out how I feel about Chris.”

“What do you mean?”

Bev stared through the glass. The sun was setting, and the day was darkening. The low, reddish glow of the summer sun washed over the view. In Bev’s eyes, everything looked worn out and used up in the late afternoon. “Sunsets make me sad.”

His only answer was a tightening of his hand on hers.

“I don’t know how to feel about him. We weren’t speaking—since April, we’d barely spoken. And I don’t even know how he felt about me since that day at your uncle’s. In a way, it’s like I’ve been mourning him since then. He’d already been leaving my life. And what was our friendship, anyway? Not what I thought it was. I try to remember him, but every memory feels like I got it wrong. I’m still so mad and hurt. And I don’t even know if I should be. I’m mad at him for loving me, and that seems cruel. I want to be sad, and I am, but the mad is still in there. It hurts my head. It makes me tired. I’m a terrible person.”

Nick lifted her hand and rubbed his thumb over her feathers on her wrist. “Do you even look at this anymore? Does it mean what it did to you?”

She watched his thumb smooth over her skin. She hadn’t looked at her feathers much this summer. In truth, she’d almost forgotten they were there.

“Your light was the first thing I ever noticed about you. Before I knew your name, long before we ever spoke. The first time I saw you, right after you moved in. You were coming out of the mailroom. We did the little dance in the doorway that people do when they’re both trying to be in the same space at the same time. You laughed and smiled up at me, and I’d never seen anyone smile with such genuine peace before. You weren’t trying to be polite, you didn’t seem to be flirting, you were just open. It struck me. I didn’t think much more about it, but every time I saw you, I swear I thought you glowed. Your heart was light, in both senses of the word.”

Bev remembered that day. And she’d probably been flirting a little—or getting ready to. She’d been dazzled by his looks. He’d had a couple days’ growth of groomed beard, as he sometimes did. It was her favorite look on him, and his green eyes had sparkled down at her. Later that day, she’d seen him walking out with a gorgeous, Victoria’s Secret-type blonde.

He went on. “And then I found out what’s under your tattoo, and it set me back a little, until you told me what the feathers meant.”

She remembered that conversation vividly, though it seemed ages ago. But it had been only April, not even four months ago.

“I remember. But the trouble I have now is heavier than feathers can lift.”

“Heavier than the troubles that led you to open your wrist?”

She nodded. Those troubles seemed absurdly small to her now. She’d been nothing more than a lonely teen girl, an only child, overweight and unhappy with her looks, her parents divorcing, her calm, good-natured father leaving her with her controlling, angry mother. No big trauma, no dark secret. She’d merely caved under the weight of middle-class adolescence. A boring story.

It hadn’t been a cry for help. She’d truly wanted to be gone, and she’d studied up on the right way to do it. But she hadn’t been able to get her right hand to work well enough to cut deeply once she’d slashed her right wrist. And her mother had come home from work unexpectedly early.

Bev had spent a few weeks in the psych ward. The whole neighborhood had found out, of course. Her mother had never forgiven her for the embarrassment, and they’d had only the most perfunctory relationship since. It was her father Bev had been close to.

He was dead, too.

“And yet you’re here.”

“Hmm?” She’d gotten lost in her thoughts, and she didn’t know what Nick meant.

“Your troubles are heavy, but you haven’t tried to do this”—he drew his thumb down the longest, most-raised scar—“again. You’re stronger than you were. Why?”

“You.”

“No,
bella
. You’ve said that before, but what I heard this morning is that I haven’t been here the way you needed me to be.”

That was true. It was sick, she had to be sick, but she needed his darkness. His tender care of her, his quiet, steady patience, for all these weeks and weeks since the diner had been making her more anxious by the day. He hadn’t been himself. He was being what he thought she needed, and she had personal experience with how warping and frustrating it was to be someone other than yourself for someone other than yourself. It would have killed his love for her eventually.

This morning, though, he’d been with her the way he’d been with her before, and she’d felt her old life almost in her grasp again. She wanted that back. She’d loved that life. She’d worked hard to be that person in that life. To live weightlessly.

Still staring out the window, though now there was nothing much to see but their own reflections on the darkened glass, Bev told Nick a story.

“When I left home, I got a job at a big yoga and meditation studio in Boston. I was just a receptionist at first, part-time, and I made extra money coming back in and cleaning the place in the evenings. I was renting a room from a couple of grad students, so I was living cheap, and it was enough. Anyway, I got free classes. I’d never done yoga or meditation or any of that, but I was fat and trying not to be, just trying to lose everything I could about my life with my mom. Yoga is an eastern discipline, so there’s a lot of eastern spiritualism. Hinduism, mainly. But not solely.

“Anyway, one of the instructors was a sort of equal-opportunity spirit. Whatever felt good and right to him, he went with. He started every class, just before the warm-up, with a prayer. He said it came from the Lakota Indians. The first time I heard it, it spoke to me. More than any of the other things I’d learned about centering and meditation, that hit me right in my heart. Since then, I always start every meditation with that prayer.”

“Tell me.”

Nick had directed, not asked, in as few words as possible, which was very much like him. It made Bev smile. Meditation was a private, solitary thing, and if he’d asked in any other context, she would likely have refused. But she was telling him this story for a reason, even if she wasn’t yet sure what the reason was.

She closed her eyes and recited, “
Teach me how to trust my heart, my mind, my intuition, my inner knowing, the senses of my body, the blessings of my spirit. Teach me to trust these things so that I may enter my sacred space and love beyond my fear and thus walk in balance with the passing of each glorious sun
.”

When she opened her eyes again, Nick’s expression was stunned. That surprised her, and it worried her a little, too. She didn’t understand why that prayer would have hit him so hard. “What did I say?”

He shifted, moving his hands to cup her face. “I think often about what it is about you that’s so powerful—why it is I love you the way I do, and why you so easily turned what I wanted in my life inside out. And that prayer is it. It describes you perfectly. I’ve never known anyone else who was so instinctive and in tune with themselves. You lost that because you love me. But I felt it in you today, in the shower. You’re getting it back,
bella
. You’re stronger than all of this.”