Missing (3 page)
Authors: Noelle Adams
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Women's Fiction, #Contemporary Women, #Romance, #Contemporary, #Contemporary Fiction
So they needed to use the condom.
He was still mostly dressed when he positioned himself
between her legs and lined himself up at her entrance. Lynn bent up her knees
and released a sound of involuntary response as she felt the hard substance of him
pushing into her. “Oh, yeah.”
Nathan groaned wordlessly, his damp face twisting in
pleasure as he pushed deeper. He was big and hot and tense above her, and he
closed his eyes when he completed the thrust.
The penetration was so full, so tight, so good, that Lynn
couldn’t possibly hold still. She pumped her hips, whimpering as the friction drove
her crazy.
She knew Nathan was catching his breath, but she couldn’t
seem to stop moving. She clawed at his white dress shirt and rode him from
below, rocking and bucking up clumsily as a climax tightened improbably soon.
“Lynn,” he rasped, bracing himself on straightened arms, so tense
he was almost shaking with it. His eyes were still closed. “Lynn, wait. Hold
on, so I can—” He broke off with a moan as she kept tightening around him as
she approached orgasm.
“I can’t,” she gasped, rocking her hips desperately. Her
vision blurred over, and all the muscles in her body clenched. “Oh, fuck,
gonna come.” Then she came, her body arching up and her mouth falling open.
She rode out the contractions, her body washed with waves of
pleasure, and she was finally able to slow down her breathing when the tension
released.
But she was tight—so tight—around him now. She could feel
every little shift he made inside her, and his tenuous control seemed to have
snapped.
“Oh fuck,” he muttered, his hips starting to pump urgently
and his eyes blazing with something almost primitive.
His fast rhythm was exactly what she wanted to feel, even
after her climax. She wrapped her legs around him again and tried to match his
motion.
She'd never known anyone as intense as Nathan. She thought
she might drown in his absolute focus, in the coiled energy held taut inside
him, always on the verge of implosion.
That intensity was almost tangible, visceral, at the moment
in his damp skin, strained body, and deep eyes.
They both gasped rhythmically as they worked up toward
climax. The bed shook, and their bodies slapped together with an oddly
compelling sound. Soon Lynn couldn’t keep quiet, ignoring any
self-consciousness because it all felt so incredibly good.
Nathan was nearing the end of his restraint. He was fucking
her hard now, and she urged him on with her hips, her hands, her choppy
wordless sounds.
As orgasm overwhelmed her again, she cried out raggedly, and
he choked on a sound as he froze for just a moment before his body erupted in
his own climax.
He shook against her, his face transforming with relief and
pleasure at the very last moment.
She loved how he looked when he came, as if all of the
absolute control he kept on the world was suddenly unleashed.
They were both panting desperately as he collapsed on top of
her, his weight heavy and incredibly hot.
She clung to him for a minute, until she felt him start to
soften. He groaned as he heaved himself up and pulled out, taking care with the
condom.
“Well,” she said at last, finally regaining her voice. It
wasn't even nine yet, and they had all night. “Maybe this will be the highlight
of my week after all.”
Twenty-one
months earlier
Elizabeth was gone—vanished without
warning or clue about her whereabouts.
She’d been gone now for more than two months, and Nathan was
finally having to reconcile himself to the possibility that he might not ever
find her.
Elizabeth was gone, and now Victoria was gone too—in Tuscany
for two weeks, visiting her mother.
So Nathan ended up in a bar.
Because of the girls, he’d given up most of his vices years
ago. He didn’t drink too much anymore. He didn’t fuck random women. He didn’t
drive too fast. He didn’t take unnecessary risks with his safety.
Nothing was holding him back tonight, though. He could get
drunk if he wanted. He could hook up with a gorgeous woman and spend the night
with her.
He could do anything he wanted. If he wanted.
It turned out he didn't really want to.
The bar wasn’t a trendy place, and it wasn't very crowded.
He had a few drinks, and a dark-haired twenty-something hit on him—probably
because she recognized who he was. He hadn’t had sex in a while, but he just
couldn’t conjure up enough interest to consider a one-night-stand.
So he left the bar and a disappointed brunette, and he
walked, thinking about what his girls might be doing, what he could have done
better to make them want to stay, if they were going to get hurt because he
wasn't around to keep them safe, if Victoria was going to find out how selfish
her mother really was, if Elizabeth really hated him.
Nathan could deal with her hating him as long as he knew she
was okay.
She’d left a note, which was why he knew she’d run away and
wasn’t kidnapped or murdered. She’d just said she was sorry, she couldn't stay,
she couldn't live like this anymore.
Their last fight had been about his refusal to let her go
anywhere except school for the foreseeable future. He’d been sure he was right
to discipline her, since she constantly defied him. He’d had no qualms about
using his security team to ensure she didn’t leave the apartment.
But so much of the time he’d been an absent father, the way
his own father had been. At least he’d had a decent mother. His daughters
didn’t even have that.
When he’d realized he was too distant and made efforts to
get involved in their lives, he’d overcompensated. He’d been too controlling,
and he’d only gotten worse when Elizabeth constantly rebelled. He shouldn’t have
expected her to obey and respect him when he’d never really let her get to know
him, but he had—and he kept getting more desperate, more rigid, every time he
failed.
He wondered if other fathers messed up as much as he had.
He walked the streets of the city until he ended up down by
the river. By that time, reality hurt so much he stopped into the first bar he
saw and bought another drink, hoping to dull some of life's jagged edges.
It had been so much easier when his daughters were little
girls, when his only role as father was to have fun with them. The memory of
how they used to kiss him trustingly was so bitter his eyes darkened briefly.
He had to do better—no matter how hard it was. He had to be
a better father to Victoria. And to Elizabeth, if she ever came home.
He was sitting in a corner of the bar, working on a glass of
Scotch and staring at the wall, when a familiar voice startled him out of his gloomy
reverie.
“Nathan? Are you all right?”
He jerked his head toward the voice and stared blankly up at
a woman he knew to be Lynn Madison.
The last time they'd spoken in private was ages ago, when Lynn
had been just out of college and an intern in his office, back when she’d
wanted to go into politics.
He still saw her around occasionally. He respected skill and
talent in whatever form he found them, and what Lynn had accomplished—what she
still accomplished every day—was impressive.
They’d never been friends, but Nathan wasn’t looking up at a
stranger in that bar. And there was genuine concern in her voice.
He released a breath of bitterly ironic amusement. “Define
your terms.”
Lynn evidently took that as an invitation to sit down across
from him. She still had the small, curvy figure and vibrant presence she’d had in
her early twenties—with the same chocolate brown eyes, revealing an almost
hidden vulnerability that was a compelling contrast to her sunny smile. Her blond
hair was longer than it used to be, and she wore a black pants suit with a
vintage lavender camisole beneath it, which somehow looked both professional
and incredibly sexy.
She’d been married for several years, he remembered, but he
thought he recalled that she’d gotten divorced.
She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring now.
“Well,” she said, her lips turning up in a dry smile. “Were
you thinking about drinking yourself into a stupor?”
“I was considering the possibility.”
“Did you mess up someone’s campaign strategy?”
Lynn was sharp by nature, but the edges of her question
weren’t cutting at the moment. The faint concern he saw in her eyes was both
annoying—since he hated the idea that anyone would feel sorry for him—and
strangely comforting.
“Not business,” he replied, wondering even while he spoke
why he was sharing any part of the truth with her.
“Ah. Family woes. I can sympathize.”
“You don’t have children, do you?”
“No. But family woes don’t always come from children.” Lynn
paused, looking down at her hands on the table. Her eyelashes fanned out across
her skin until she raised her eyes. “Is everything all right with your girls?”
“Yes, they’re both in Europe at the moment. Victoria at her
mother’s and Elizabeth at school,” he lied, falling into the story he’d
prepared for the world to explain Elizabeth’s disappearance. He couldn’t risk
it being known that she was alone and unprotected. Even if
he
couldn’t
find her, that didn’t mean someone unscrupulous wouldn’t—even just by accident.
If people thought Elizabeth was where she was supposed to
be, far away, they wouldn't be likely to think anything more of a girl who bore
a passing resemblance to one of the Livingston daughters. Very few pictures of
them had ever been published, and there were a lot of slim, pretty, dark-haired
teenagers in the world.
He prayed that would be enough.
“So you’re taking the rare opportunity to go out and have
some fun?” It sounded like a genuine question, but she didn’t look like she
believed it was true.
It wasn’t true. He hadn’t been having fun tonight.
“Something like that.”
“It’s lonely,” she said, after a long pause. She wasn’t
looking at him now. She was staring at a blank spot in the air. “When you’re
used to people being there, in your house, in your life, and they aren’t
anymore.”
She was trying to be nice, and she seemed to understand, as
if she'd felt something similar herself.
For some reason the kindness, the empathy, soothed an ache
in his chest. He obviously wasn’t at his best this evening. He’d drunk more
than he had in years, and he couldn't seem to rally his normal defenses against
the sympathy.
Lynn lifted her hair up from her neck and blew an upwards
breath. “Damn, it’s hot in here. Do you want to take a walk?”
“Are you here alone?”
“No, I came with some friends, but they’ll get along fine
without me.”
Nathan studied her face—the large eyes, full lips, and
lovely cheekbones. She was prettier now than he remembered her being before, but
she was more than just pretty. Her gaze was intelligent and almost tender.
He couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking, what had
prompted her to approach him earlier.
He needed to clear his head anyway. The bar was overly
stuffy.
Plus, he really didn’t want to go home yet.
“Let’s walk,” he agreed.
They didn’t talk much as they walked down toward the river.
The evening was crisp, and the cool air sliced into his fuzziness.
After several minutes, Lynn asked him about his former Chief
of Staff—just an idle question about where the man had ended up.
They ended up talking for two hours, walking by the river
and then sitting on a bench. They talked about politics, about books, about the
urban redevelopment Nathan wanted to see happen in the city.
He’d forgotten—or maybe he’d never really known—how clever
and informed and funny and understanding Lynn was.
He’d been married and she’d been too young when she’d been
his intern, so he’d never considered her sexually back then. But he was
attracted to her now, more so the longer they talked. He couldn’t help but
notice the way her soft hair lay against the curve of her neck. The way her top
dipped a little whenever she adjusted her position, revealing a tempting
glimpse of cleavage. The way she slightly licked her lips when she was thinking
deeply.
But the conversation was as compelling to him as the
attraction, and it was after one when Nathan became even remotely conscious of
how late it was.
“It’s late,” Lynn murmured after a lull in conversation,
glancing at her watch as if she’d just realized what he had. “Do you need to
get back?”
Nathan gave a slight shrug. “I don’t tend to sleep a lot.”
She leaned forward, scrutinizing his face in a way that made
him feel naked. “Do you miss the girls?”
He did. So much. More than he’d ever believed himself
capable of missing anyone. “Yeah,” he breathed, staring out at the glinting
water of the river.
She didn’t reply, so he turned back to look at her face, see
what she was thinking.
There was something mesmerizing in her eyes as she gazed at
him. Then, before he knew to expect it, she’d leaned forward and pressed a soft
kiss on his mouth.
His breath hitched.
She pulled back about an inch and took a deep breath. She
smelled warm and fresh and faintly like beer. Then she closed the distance
between them again and brushed her mouth against his, her lips gentle, almost
questioning.
He responded. He couldn’t help but respond as a heady rush
of pleasure washed over him. One of his hands lifted to tangle in her loose
hair, and he deepened the kiss with his tongue, running it lightly between her
lips.
With a little moan, she pulled back, her expression almost
dazed.
“Lynn?” he asked, his voice unexpectedly thick. He’d started
to harden in expectation from nothing more than the kiss.
She seemed to be thinking, and he imagined she was weighing
her options—the enjoyment of a night of sex that promised to be really good
against the possible consequences.