Provocative (Tempting Book 3) (14 page)

I
fell
four steps inside the house, landing hard on my ass right at the foot of the staircase. “Fuck me,” I grumbled, leaning to rub the side of my sore ass. My eyes caught on the sneakers I was wearing and I glared at them—surely, those fuckers were to blame.

It took longer than it should have for me to yank them off before I threw them across the room. One of them ended up in Nathan’s
beloved
study and I giggled. He was going to be pissed.

He probably already was.

I hadn’t intended to get totally trashed. I rarely drank more than enough to feel that delightful little brain tickle, but the last few months—with everything—had come to a head earlier today and I needed to forget the bullshit that pulled me down for a little while.

My other shoe ended up somewhere in the living room behind me and I hummed, happy to leave my mark in Nathan’s house.
Diana’s house.

She was mother fucking everywhere. All over the wallpaper in the entry, the paint colors in every single room in the house—hell, even the table I sat at to do my work had an ink stain that Nathan had told me was caused by
her.

I rubbed a hand down my face, feeling a tingle in my cheeks. I needed to get something in my stomach to avoid the uprising in my belly. Crawling, I made my way to the kitchen. When I reached the island, I grabbed one of the stools and slowly pulled myself to standing. Why was it so hard to stand up after you’d fallen so spectacularly?

I heard the slam of the front door and kept my back to the thunder I felt approaching as I opened the refrigerator and surveyed its contents.

Milk would probably react badly with the tequila in my belly—no milk. There was a bunch of shit to assemble a salad, but fuck salad. I pushed the cucumbers to the back of the fridge with more than a little hostility, spying what I wanted.

Chocolate mother fucking pudding pie.

“Aw, yeah!” I cheered as I pulled it up. I felt like a champion for finding pie, and pumped my fist in the air in triumph.

Not even bothering with a plate, I set the pie on the counter and grabbed a large spoon. As I shoved the first bite into my mouth, Nathan entered the kitchen.

He looked like he wanted to say something, but I was too invested in my pie to listen. I held up the spoon and looked at it adoringly. My phone started ringing to my current ringtone—"What’s Your Fantasy" by Ludacris and I immediately started dancing. It was a bit of a throwback, but it was a pretty sexy song and usually granted some blushed looks from my fellow public transportation riders whenever my phone rang.

“Are you going to answer that?” Nathan asked.

With a mouthful of pie, I shook my head. “Nah, I’m gonna daaaance.” And so I did, spoon in my hand as I slid in the space of six tiles in front of the fridge. I wasn’t sure what it was about drinking tequila, but it was as if it served as a direct line to my legs, turning me from someone with no coordination to someone with even worse coordination but less concern for those who witnessed my dancing atrocities.

When the music stopped abruptly, I snapped up my phone and pulled up my music app—setting it on a playlist I usually ran to. When “Blister in the Sun” came on, Nathan quietly remarked, “What eclectic taste you have.”

I wasn’t sure if it was a criticism or not, but I wasn’t going to let a curmudgeon ruin my dance groove. I ate three more bites of the pie while I danced across the kitchen before I put it back in the fridge, laughing at the spooned gouges across its surface.

“Here,” Nathan said, grabbing the fridge door before I could close it and pulling out a bottle of water. “Drink this, so you’re not miserable tomorrow.”

I swiped it from his hand and leveled him with a look. “This might help keep
me
from being miserable, but is it going to help you not be an asshole?”

Ohhh shit. I couldn’t believe I said that. I knew the alcohol was wearing off bit by bit, especially after eating half of that pie, so I was lucid enough to know that it was a bitchy thing of me to say.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

But I was still buzzed enough to reply, “Are you sure you even heard me? You were so silent this morning that I thought I should take you in for a hearing test.”

“Adele, you’re drunk.”

I set the water down with more force than necessary, causing it to splatter all over us. “Gee, Professor. I think you took the wrong career path because you’re so Goddamn astute.
Detective Easton
has a certain ring to it, don’t you think?” I saluted him and pushed my hair away from my face.

Nathan sighed and pressed the water bottle back into my hands. “Just drink this.”

Suddenly, I felt a sharp press against my heart. Nathan, even though he was likely pissed at me, was still taking care of me. Like he’d promised, before everything went to shit.

The tears pricked behind my eyes more quickly than they would have if I’d been sober, but I shook them off still, wrapping my hand around Nathan’s as he pushed the water bottle against mine.

He looked at my hand for a beat. Then, slowly he extracted himself from my hold. “Drink the water,” he said again, before turning around to walk away.

“Nathan,” I said.

He paused, his back to me and I took the opportunity to walk up behind him and press my chest to his back. My hands slid around his midsection and held on tight. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

I felt the muscles under my cheek tense. “Why are you sorry?”

I was still a bit too liquored up to explain myself, so I just kissed his back and ran my fingers over the rock hard abs I could feel under my fingers. With my chest still to his back, I ran my hands up his button-up shirt, sliding a nail right in the gap between the buttons. Gently, I scraped his skin and felt him again tense under my cheek.

“What are you doing?”

I rubbed my face against him. “Maybe you’re not as astute as I thought.” I unwrapped my arms and stepped around him, putting my hands over his pecs and sliding them up to his shoulders.

God, he felt so hard, so warm. I pressed my thumbs along the curve of muscle and looked up at him under my lashes. His eyes were dark, but the lust for me burned bright. The tick in his jaw emboldened me to undo the top button of his shirt, then the next, until his shirt was open from neck to waist.

With my eyes on his, I leaned down and licked a path from his belly button to his neck. When my lips hit his Adam’s apple, I sucked on it, nibbling just a little. I felt a hum from his throat when I did that, but his hands stayed at his sides.

My fingers glided up his neck, my nails digging in just a bit as they scratched over his five o’clock shadow. I ran one of my nails over the line of his lips, and let my other hand travel down his chest to his waist, scratching and pressing and touching him as much as I could.

I rose up on my tiptoes to kiss him fully on the mouth, and it was then that I felt the first give, with him finally relaxing against me. I led the kiss, sucking on his bottom lip as I gently bit down. There was a fire racing down the center of my chest, and I realized how badly I needed this, to kiss him and to love on him a little bit.

Pressed so closely, I could feel his erection against my belly. Leaving his mouth, I dropped to my knees in front of him and kissed the hard length straining against his slacks. He made me feel downright wicked, especially like this. Tequila had nothing on Nathan.

I opened the button of his slacks, breathless for a taste of him, when I felt his hands in my hair. But instead of encouraging me, they tugged me.

“What?” I asked, pulling to standing. My hands wandered over his expanse of skin and muscle because I couldn’t stop touching him. I felt like I’d been starved of him, and here he was—ripe for the picking.

“Not tonight.”

I shook my head, squeezed his waist in my hands. “Come on.”

“I said no.” He pushed me gently away, but enough for me to get the hint. I nearly stumbled thanks to the way my head spun but I grabbed onto the island for balance.

He walked away and I followed him, all the way into his study. He sat in his chair and acted like he couldn’t see me following him like a lost puppy.

“Go to bed.”

I stopped my pursuit as I stared at him. “What’s your problem?”

He didn’t look at me, just slid his glasses on his face. Those fucking glasses. “I’m not in the mood.”

“You sure seemed like you were.” I walked next to him and lifted myself so that I could sit on the corner of his large desk. “I miss you, Nathan.” I picked up one of his hands and placed it on my thigh, moving it up. “Touch me. I miss you,” I repeated, my voice hoarse.

He yanked his hand away. “We need to talk about our argument this morning, but not when you’re drunk.”

I shifted off his desk, a little hurt that he was pushing me away so easily. “I’m not that drunk. I’m just a little buzzed.”

When he said nothing to that, I crouched beside him. “Let’s have some hot makeup sex. We haven’t had that in a long time.”

He flipped open a book on his desk, not looking at me still. “We’re not making up. We can’t just fix all of our problems with sex. We’re supposed to be adults.”

Whoa. I pulled my head back, surprised at his harsh tone. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Just go to bed, Adele.” Still he didn’t look at me.

I stood. “Fuck you, Nathan.”

“I’ll sleep on the couch,” he said to my retreating back as I climbed the stairs.

I was so angry and humiliated by the turn of our conversation and the fact that he wasn’t going to sleep in the same bed as me for the first time since I moved in with him. I wanted the old us back, when things weren’t complicated—when sex brought us back together whenever we were feeling lost.

S
ometime in the
middle of the night, I was in the bathroom vomiting. As I clutched the seat and let my stomach empty itself, all I could think about was the last time I’d been in the bathroom doing the same thing. When I’d still been pregnant.

So there I was, crying and vomiting and wishing that Nathan and I could find our way back to each other. It was then that I acknowledged that we’d had months of this, slowly separating as we adjusted to living together and Nathan’s new job. The miscarriage hadn’t been the catalyst to our split, but it had only driven it deeper than I felt was manageable for us both.

I barely slept all night. Part of me kept waiting for Nathan to come to bed, to quietly hold me and assure me that we’d be okay. I stared at that door, willing it to open with Nathan on the other side.

But he didn’t come up to even brush his teeth.

I sent a text to Leo, asking him to come pick me up. He replied with a question mark but said he’d be fifteen minutes.

I’d concocted a hundred things to say but as I walked down the stairs, faced with Diana’s wallpaper and my sneakers on the mat by the door—like a guest’s shoes would be—I realized what I needed to do.

Nathan was in the kitchen, sitting at the island and reading his newspaper like he did every morning. The fact that the coffee maker was full of coffee—instead of just enough for him—made my heart throb over what I was going to do.

The mug I pulled from the cabinet said
Kennebunkport, Maine
where I knew Nathan had honeymooned with Diana. My fingers curled firmly around the handle, and I loosened them only when I thought I would accidentally break it. I took the first sip of my coffee before setting it down.

“Nathan.”

“Hm?” He looked up from his paper for a moment before returning his attention to whatever was in today’s headlines.

“We need to talk.”

He set the paper down, sipped his coffee and appeared completely at ease. How was he not burning from the inside out, like I was? I felt like this conversation would tear me in half.

“I…” I wasn’t sure how to start this. How to say what I needed. I loved Nathan, but I no longer felt like love was enough to shoulder all the weight we carried. I couldn’t live with his silence; with the guilt I wore like a brand on my skin.

“I love you,” I said, and stopped him when he opened his mouth. “But I can’t do this. Not right now.”

His eyebrows scrunched together. “Do what?”

“Us.”

His eyes changed, from disbelief to confusion. “Explain.”

I didn’t like how he said that, like I was a student in his class, being asked to defend my stance on a subject. “You either ignore me or patronize me,” I blurted out.

“I don’t.” He shook his head, but I held up a hand.

“No, you were silent yesterday when I was
begging
you to speak.” I took a deep breath, hoping for courage, to do this without crying. “I need to say my peace and leave.”

“Leave?” He shook his head again. “And go where?”

“Leo’s picking me up.”

He gave me a look. “Are you going out? Again? After last night?”

My heart ached. He was doing it, again, talking to me like I was a child. “Are you even listening to me? I need a break. From you,” I threw my hands up and gestured to the entire kitchen, “from this house, where I don’t belong. I’m going to stay with Leo for a while.”

“Don’t be ridiculous; you can stay here. I’ll take the guest bedroom.”

“No.” My voice was as firm as the fists I made with my hands. “I’m not being ridiculous. I’m hurt. I can’t live under
your
roof—sleep in
your
bed—clean
your
house.”

“Clean?” He raised an eyebrow and I shook from the inside out—anger was an earthquake in my bones.

“Jesus, Nathan! Do you think I leave messes because I don’t know how to put a fucking bowl in the sink?” I walked to the sink, set my mug inside of it. “Look—I know how to do it. It’s not that I’m incapable—it’s that I’m invisible.”

“No, you’re not.” He stood but I backed away.

“I
feel
invisible. I’m in your wife’s house. Her bed. That mug,” I pointed to the sink, “was the mug you bought on your honeymoon with her. There is nothing of me here.” I pressed my hands to my stomach, to hold in the despair that rocked me in my gut. “I leave messes because it’s my only mark on this house, your house—her house. I’m trying to remind the both of us that I’m here.”

Nathan sighed, and my heart sank.

He didn’t believe me.

He didn’t think I was serious.

I stared at him, begging him with my eyes to see how fucking serious I was. But he just stared back, his face a portrait of disbelief.

“Here we are again—you acting like I’m not completely serious. Treating me like a petulant child, throwing a tantrum.”

He looked weary, as if we’d been through this before. But we hadn’t. In all our fights—and there had been many—I’d never threatened to leave. I’d never even slept in a separate bed if we fought at night. I was always the one making us have it out before we went to sleep.

And still, he seemed under the impression that I wouldn’t be walking out of this house in a few minutes.

“I’m going to pack a bag,” I said, before leaving the kitchen and climbing the stairs.

To his credit, he followed me up to the landing, standing just outside the door to the master. “You’re not going to get me to jump when you’re being dramatic,” he said as I shoved clothes into the weekender-sized bag I had.

He carved me hollow with that—with his disbelief in my decision. Closing my eyes, I told myself that he was probably just safeguarding his own feelings. I braced my hands on the bed and turned my head to look at him. “Don’t you feel it, Nathan? The emptiness? I accepted that you were too busy—that you had a lot on your plate—to cater to me. But I can’t live with your patronizing tone. I can’t live with your
silence
.”

I wondered if he remembered the piece I’d written about my father a year before, the piece that had been a turning point in our relationship. I’d talked all about my father’s silence, how it had developed me into the person I was. I couldn’t see his face that well in the early morning shadow of the hallway, but he seemed to still for a moment.

“I’m not silent now. I’m listening. Talk to me.”

“Now? Now you want to talk? What about the last few weeks since I miscarried? Where the fuck were you then?”

He opened his mouth but I put my hand out and stopped him. All my anger was cresting now, like a wave about to pull us under.

“No, you weren’t here. You buried yourself back into work. All your grand declarations of being here for me, of taking care of me, had fallen away the moment they’d removed
our
baby from
my
body. You never once asked how I felt.” Shit. The tears were in my voice and in my eyes and just breathing hurt. I whipped my hand around the bedroom. “Diana lives in every corner of this house—she’s here more than I am. I don’t feel like I belong here.” I zipped up my bag and tried to shove past him in the hallway, but his hands reached out and wrapped around my arms, holding me still.

“You’re not actually leaving.”

“Yes, I am.” I shook my arms to get away from his hold. “We need a break.”

He squeezed me tighter, the look in his eyes changing. He finally understood. “We don’t need a break, Adele. Maybe we just need to talk.”

“Talk?” I shouted, probably louder than I needed to. “You haven’t been talking to me in months. Not until…” I waved a hand around my stomach. “You promised, Nathan.” I hiccupped, the grief settling in my throat. “You said you’d take care of me. And then…you just stopped.”

It was as if he transformed before my eyes. His face had remained impassive until I’d started packing my shit. He leaned in, maybe to kiss me? I didn’t know, because the instant he leaned in, I pulled back.

“You said you’d take care of me, of us. I believed you.” I shook in his arms, trying to free myself. His grip only tightened. He wasn’t going to make this easy to leave him. “Let go.”

“I won’t.”

It was killing me, that he wouldn’t leave me alone. After months of wanting him like this, I now couldn’t stand him holding me, holding my heart, hostage.

“So what if we’re both a little broken, Adele? We can fix it. We can.” His voice was hushed, such the opposite of mine.

“It’s not the fact that we’re broken.” I shook my head as tears shook my voice. “It’s the fact that you let me pick up the pieces alone.”

“So, what? You leave and then what? You come back at the end of the week?”

My throat burned, fire racing up the column of my neck. I couldn’t stop the tear that fell from my eyes. “You’re not even taking me seriously right now and let me tell you, Nathan.” I swallowed, hoping to keep the nausea that threatened at bay. “I’m living with a hole inside of me.” Tears made me scrunch up my nose. “And I’ve been suffering for weeks. Alone. I don’t need silent Nathan or patronizing Nathan—I need the Nathan who loves me, who reaches for me the second he sees me. I
need
you. But you’re not here. And when you are here? I’m invisible to you.”

“You’re not invisible, I’ve just been busy.” He shook his head and his grip loosened so that he was running his hands up and down my arms, trying to soothe me.

“You’ve been busy for a long time. I can’t remember the last time I felt like a priority to you. I’m supposed to be the woman you’re in love with; we’re supposed to be building a life together. But we’re not. And I need you to let me go.”

With that, I pushed away from him and walked down the stairs just as my phone buzzed in my pocket. Thank God for Leo’s timing, I thought as I opened the front door and walked out to his truck.

“Adele!” Nathan roared from the door.

My steps faltered for a second, because I heard the aching, the longing in his voice. It was instinct for me to want to go to him, so fighting it back was more difficult than I imagined it could be. But I couldn’t keep telling him I was a priority—he needed to see it for himself. I paused only a second before I ripped open Leo’s door and gave him a quick smile before I buckled up.

“Whoa,” he said when he saw the bag.

I felt Nathan moving toward the car and said, “Just drive, please.” My voice cracked as I pleaded with him to press the gas, to take me away from the one place that had felt like home in years. When we were halfway down the block, I asked, “Can I crash at your place for a while, until I figure out what I’m doing?”

Leo stared at me, blinking. He was more stunned than Nathan had been right away. “Uh, sure. But there’s not a lot of room at my house. You’d probably be more comfortable at Scarlet’s.”

Oh, shit.