Provocative (Tempting Book 3) (18 page)

S
howing
up at the bar wasn’t the biggest risk I’d taken all night. No, it was walking right past Adele and not stopping to shove my tongue into her mouth. That was, in fact, all I wanted to do. Seeing her terrified eyes, her tight posture and her pale, panicky face was enough to send me to my fucking knees.

Her giant green eyes looked right into mine and almost turned my spine into gelatin. But I kept walking, kept breathing, until I was far enough away from her that my heart started working.

This was, hands down, the worst idea I’d ever had.

Because what if she walked out?

What if she hated me for pushing the issue?

What if she looked at me with anything other than love in her eyes?

It would be so much worse than when she left me. It would kill me. I once told Adele that we needed intimacy with each other to survive. But being in the same room as her and breathing the same air had officially changed my opinion on that.

I only needed her.

If she never touched me again, I’d still want her every single fucking day of my life. Just being around her was what I needed.

When I took my seat at an empty bar stool on the opposite side of the nicked, beat-up bar that Adele was sitting at, I did my best to not stare at her. But it was impossible. The bartender gave me an Old Fashioned in a crystal glass and I tried extremely hard not to down it in one gulp. The fiery burn of alcohol felt like the only tether I had to my seat. Without it, I might fall in front of Adele’s stool and wrap myself so tightly around her legs that she’d have no choice but to take me home.

Home.

I didn’t even know where that was without her. It certainly wasn’t the empty, quiet place that I’d slept at the last six weeks without her. The only place that would ever feel like home was where Adele curled up next to me.

If that turned out to be a tiny-ass apartment that she could afford on her own, then I’d welcome it gladly. Just the thought of it, of sleeping next to her, made me crack. I risked a glance over at her, and I wished I hadn’t looked. Her head was facing down into her lap, and her hands were steepled in front of her perfect mouth. The black shirt that was wrapped around her slim frame made my mouth fucking water and my dick harden in my pants.

Her hair was loose, the light blonde strands looking smooth and silky. Exactly the way I liked them when I’d fuck her from behind, so I could fist them easily and pull hard enough that it hurt.

“Damn it,” I said under my breath. Maybe I shouldn’t have come. Maybe this was the worst fucking idea that I could have had. Who wanted to be ambushed on New Year’s Eve at a crowded bar?

Even being in the building, the place that I met her, was screwing with my head. I’d only been here one other time, a night where the quiet of my house was enough to crush my skull. It had felt far enough removed from Northern that it wasn’t a hot spot for the students there, but enough of a dive bar that I could get smashed without anyone noticing. And then she’d been there.

The smooth sexiness of Adele plowing into me in the hallway outside the bathrooms.

I couldn’t even think about it without wanting to fucking cry. I took another huge swallow of my drink, narrowing my eyes at the glass when I realized it was almost empty. Ice cubes clicked against the crystal, sounding louder than they should have in the crowded space.

Motion from the corner of my eye made me turn my head over my shoulder. Adele and Scarlet were headed out onto the dance floor. She watched me the entire time she walked and I turned fully. If this show was for me, then I’d fucking watch it.

Her jeans were painted on her and the heels she wore underneath could probably slice my jugular. I’d tilt my chin gladly, exposing the weakest part of me just to let her know that I trusted her implicitly.

Adele held my eyes while the slow beat of the song thumped through my body. Her hips moved in torturously slow circles and her hands lifted above her head. The way her head tilted back made her hair touch the curve of her waist and I held my empty glass so tightly that I couldn’t believe it didn’t shatter in my hands.

Maybe the shards of glass stabbing into my skin would show my love, show my devotion to her. She and Scarlet danced, only Adele kept her attention on me while I sat on the chair like a fucking chump who was trying to figure out when the best time was to make a move.

But some dumbass made it for me.

He was young, even younger than Adele. And he stepped up behind her like he had a fucking right to be there, his hands sliding around her hips like he had any clue what they were capable of.

I was off my seat before my heart pumped a single ounce of blood into my veins. It only took me three strides to reach her. But I stared at him when I put my hands on his chest and shoved.

“What the fuck, man?” he slurred. “I was just trying to dance.”

“Dance with someone else,” I warned, barely speaking loudly enough for him to hear. But he heard; I could tell by the way he stepped back. Then her cool hand slid down my forearm and I had to close my eyes to the onslaught of emotion that swamped me.

Pure, undiluted peace filtered through me at one brush of her fingers after so long. It felt better than any fantasy of her that I could have conjured.

“Nathan, don’t.”

And her voice, spoken into my ear, felt like a rush of pleasure so potent that I couldn’t believe that I was still standing. I pivoted to face her, and she was only inches away from me.

“Don’t what?” I asked in a voice that was raw with pain. “Don’t push that stupid little boy away from what he could never handle in a million years? Or don’t pretend like I have a chance to earn that same thing?”

Her eyes glossed with tears and then blinked away. The DJ slowed the beat of the music into something sexy and slow, and the people around us shifted together in response.

“Adele,” I started, smoothing my hand around her waist. But she stepped back, breathing hard from just a single touch of my hand. I shook my head. “No, please don’t run.”

She took another step back, still holding my eyes. Red hot arcs of light must have sparked between us; I felt so hot and alive. Like I was one giant live wire.

“If I run,” she asked, the low sexy pitch of her voice almost knocking me over, “will you follow?”

Before I could even process that, she’d turned and disappeared into the crowd, only the flurry of blonde hair telling me which direction she went.

Naturally, I did exactly what she asked. I followed her.

Adele had just turned the corner to the hallway that led to the restrooms when I figured out exactly what she was doing. She was taking us back to the exact spot we’d started. But when I caught up, she didn’t stop in the place that she’d almost taken me out.

She paused in front of the unisex bathroom, taking one long moment to look back at me before she opened the door and pushed into the single stall room. There wasn’t even one second that I considered not following her.

When I shoved the unlocked door open, she was leaning up against the sink, chest heaving.

“Adele,” I whispered, completely undone by being in such a small, private space with her.

She met me halfway, her arms wrapping around my neck in the same moment that I gripped her ass and lifted her legs to wrap around me. Her lips felt like hell and heaven, the fierce possession that I felt in them the only kind of home that I could have ever wanted.

I speared my tongue into her mouth and groaned from the sheer fucking torture of tasting her again. Adele tasted like sin and sex, like every light piece of life that I’d been deprived of in the last six weeks.

“I miss you so fucking much,” I said into her neck, hating that speaking the words deprived me of small moments of kissing her.

But it was so worth it when she whispered back, “I’ve missed you too, Nathan.”

From there it was a flurry of tangled hands and ripped clothing. I shoved her shirt up while she wrestled with my belt. I was so fucking hard, and when she shoved her hand down the front of my pants, I almost came like a fifteen-year-old.

The throbbing bass surrounded us like a private soundtrack, and I started tilting into her on the same beat.

“Oh fuck,” she moaned when I palmed her breast and squeezed.

“I need inside of you,” I said into her mouth, and then licked the line of her bottom lip.

For two long beats, we stared at each other, the world around us fading away. It was certifiably insane to do this. But getting my hands on Adele felt like the best kind of sanity. Like it would ground me to the earth in a way that I hadn’t felt since the moment she walked out of the door.

Breathing into my mouth, Adele gripped my shaft and twisted her wrist, wrenching a groan from deep within my chest. I wanted to
devour
her, in this dingy bathroom that was quickly becoming my favorite spot in the entire world.

“Why the fuck did I wear jeans?” she said when I attacked the button and zipper.

“It’s okay,” I said when they were open enough that I could work my hand beneath her underwear. With two fingers, I rubbed flat circles along the hard nub of her clit. “Fuck, baby, you’re so wet. Were you saving this for me?”

The way she blinked made her look drunk, even though I only tasted the sugary sweetness of Coke on her tongue. “Yes. God, Nathan, you’re the only reason I ever get this way.”

“Because this pussy is mine,” I said into her ear and bit down on the fleshy part of her lobe. I lifted her so that her ass perched on the sink behind her. From there it was only the muffled sounds of the room outside of us, and the breathy exhales of Adele. I barely wanted any sound to escape from beyond my lips, because it felt greedy. The fact that I was getting this tiny, stolen moment in time where neither of us cared about the consequences was precious enough without letting the sounds of my greedy pleasure out into the universe.

But when she pulled my cock out of my jeans and I ripped her jeans down her ass until they bunched at her knees, I couldn’t stop the lewd curse that came out.

“Holy fucking hell, look at you,” I ground out. With just the tip of my pointer finger, I traced the seam of the outer lips of her pussy. Adele dropped her head back onto the mirror behind her. “You’re perfect.”

I started dropping to my knees for a taste when she dragged my mouth to hers. Our kisses were fast and hot, no finesse and no caution. We couldn’t slow enough for practiced movements, because rational thought would probably intervene.

Dipping my knees so that the angry purple head of my cock lined up at her entrance, I took a second to breathe through the fucking amazing feeling.

“Yes,” she whispered, squeezing her thighs together around me.

Then I started to move. Instead of a fast, hard thrust like she was probably expecting, I slid in one inch at a time until I was completely bottomed out a few breaths later. Around me was hot, tight perfection. Adele flexed her internal muscles, God bless kegels, and I lost my fucking mind.

All she could do was hold on while I fucked the shit out of her. She whimpered into my mouth while I rolled my hips fast enough that my balls slapped against her ass. The sheer overwhelming pleasure of being inside of her, the pleasure I’d missed during her absence, flooded my system.

No. I couldn’t come yet. So I slowed my movements when I was fully seated in her again. Adele nipped the side of my mouth and the confusion in her eyes at this distance made my pinch my eyelids shut.

“Adele, I can’t do this.,” I whispered. “I can’t let this be over and wonder whether every night of the last six weeks has been easier for you than it has been for me.”

“Baby,” she replied, and the wet, fullness of her voice made me pull back. “You think this has been
easy
on me?”

“No,” I started but the abject horror of seeing Adele cry, while I was still inside of her, shut me right the hell up. “Adele, please don’t cry.”

I cupped her face with both hands when she broke down completely in my arms.

H
e was wiping my face
, and touching me all over. It was too much, and at the same time not enough.

“Adele, you’re shredding my insides. Please don’t cry.”

But it was unending, this flood of emotion. It poured from my eyes uninhibited, because it wasn’t enough. Having Nathan on this dirty bar sink would have made the Adele from a year ago very happy, but who I was now? I’d be happy for five minutes, before being hollowed out from the realization that sex couldn’t fix us.

He was deep inside me, but five minutes with Nathan wasn’t enough.

I shook my head, leaning forward until our foreheads touched. My body was still throbbing, especially between my legs. I shifted a little, which brought him even deeper within me. I had a thought, a wish, that we could find ourselves in this little bathroom, with him fucking me against the cold porcelain. But we weren’t young and carefree. There was so much brokenness between us that couldn’t be fixed by a quick fuck in a dingy bar bathroom.

“Talk to me,” he pleaded, bracing my ass on the sink so his hands could frame my face. “Please, God. Tell me how you feel.”

I pulled my forehead away from his and sniffed, the hot tears pouring down my face. He was still inside me, and feeling him growing soft as we stopped quivering around one another made the intimacy that much harder to bear.

Placing a hand on his chest, I said, “It’s not enough to have you temporarily.”

“Then come home.”

God, if only it was that easy. “I can’t.” I shook my head sadly and gripped his shirt in my fist. All I
wanted
was to go home with him. But I’d been so hurt, and my abandonment issues prevented me from bending to temptation. “You hurt me.”

He opened his mouth but a noise against the bathroom door caused him to slam his fist on the wood. “Bathroom’s closed,” he growled. He turned back to me, the steel blue of his gaze pinning me in place. My body positively ached to move, but moving would mean I’d lose him.

Why the hell wasn’t this easy? Why couldn’t I walk away and not look back? Why couldn’t I leave him and heal?

Because he was, in every possible way, the absolute love of my life. And I had come second. To Diana. To his job. To his grief.

If I hadn’t been sitting on the cold sink, I was sure my knees would have given way under my weight.

“Adele,” he said, eyes searching. “I miss you. Every fucking molecule of my being misses you. I can’t go on like this, spending my nights without you. It’s killing me.”

“Do you think it isn’t killing me?” I asked, swiping the back of my hand over my face. “I’m sad, all the fucking time. I can’t so much as enjoy my day because all I think about is telling you about it. And I can’t.”

“You can,” he insisted, his fingers digging in my face. “You can tell me anything.”

I pulled back, and shifted so that he fell out of me. We both winced, and then we were standing there, completely exposed but no longer connected. “Can I tell you that I’ve been hurting for months? That it’s been two months since I lost the baby and the entire time I’ve felt a loneliness so large that I can barely eat or drink, because the obstruction is so great that I’m not allowed to enjoy a single fucking thing without guilt.” I put a hand to my chest. “It
lives
in me, reminding me of what we had and what we lost. There’s no forward for me. No resolution. There’s just loss; overwhelming emptiness.”

“Adele, I feel it too. Trust me, I do.”

“But you never told me. You never consoled me. After we lost the baby, you distanced yourself from me. You kissed me on the forehead and left.”

“I needed space.”

“And I needed
you
.” I felt a fresh sheen of tears and angrily wiped at my eyes before they could fall.

“You should’ve told me.” He sounded so sad.

“I wanted what you promised me. After you found out I was pregnant, you were around so much more—and you made me feel desired and beautiful and like maybe we wouldn’t fuck this up.” I reached out and grazed a finger over his shirt, wanting to touch him but not too firmly, lest I fall back under from the feel of his skin. “And then, when I had the D&C, you were gone again.”

He ran a hand over his unruly chocolate hair and I took his face in for the first time that night. His hair was overgrown, as was his beard. He looked like a man who hadn’t seen the sun in weeks, and I ached to run a hand over that hair, the reminder that he was probably just as lost as I was without us by each other’s sides.

It was as if I needed him to remind me to breathe. How did I function without him these last six weeks apart?

It would be far too easy to fall back into his touch and pretend that we could solve this with a round of hot makeup sex. But he’d been right earlier, when he’d pushed me away and told me that sex couldn’t solve everything.

“I want you home.”

His words. Jesus Christ, his words. They called to another me, a woman much less brave than I was. “It’s not my home.” Because
he
was. But where he laid his head was in a home he shared with his late wife. It wasn’t
my
home.

His mouth turned into a fine line and his eyes hardened. “It’s not mine either when you’re not there.”

Again, I was nearly undone by his words. “You left me alone, Nathan. I don’t know how you thought I wasn’t hurting.”

“Because you never seemed happy or excited about the baby.”

“I’m twenty-two!” I reached down and yanked my underwear back up over my hips. “I’m still in college, and I don’t even have a way outside of my savings to support myself.”

“I told you,” he growled, “that I’d take care of it.”

“Did it occur to you that maybe I wanted something of my own, to be able to take care of myself before I brought a baby into our relationship?”

“No.” At least he was honest. He touched the ends of my hair with his fingers and rubbed them together. “I assumed you didn’t want a baby because you weren’t ready.”

“I wasn’t.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Who the hell
is
ready to be forever responsible for someone other than themselves? I probably would have kept on being not-ready until it was born—if that had even been a reality for us.”

I took a deep breath and continued on. “But regardless, you promised to take care of me—it was the only thread of sanity I had over the whole situation. Your promise sustained me. But then when I had the miscarriage, your offer of taking care of me was off the table. You weren’t there. I was alone, all day. Every day. Do you know how suffocating it is to live with someone who is completely blind to your internal pain?”

He ran a hand down his face. Another knock at the door came and Nathan slammed his fist against the door so hard, I swore I could see the ripple effect slide up his arm and into his jaw. “Take a fucking hint!” he shouted.

Rarely had I seen Nathan lose his temper. When he did, I always trembled—not from fear, but from a blazing hot lust. Seeing the man I loved burn bright with rage had a direct line to my vagina, and I cursed myself for wanting him because we were getting nowhere with our talk.

My tears had dried up, but they’d pooled in the hollow around my collarbone.

“Where are you staying? With family?” he suddenly asked.

“You were the only family I had.” I leveled him with a look. “Fuck my blood family—I’d be homeless before I’d crawl back to them like a dog with its tail between its legs.” I poked him in the chest. “
You
were my family. And we were supposed to build a family, together. When things fell apart, you weren’t there for me.” I dropped my hand from his chest and wavered back and forth. I wanted to lean into him, because I was so unsteady on my feet from the exhaustion that had settled around me from the outpouring of emotion.

“I’m so fucking sorry.” And I knew he was. But I also knew that if I returned to his house, nothing would change. I’d be in his home, surrounded by his late wife’s imprint throughout the house. He’d work late, and I’d tell myself that my many nights alone— with cereal for dinner— would be okay.

But it was a shadow of the life I wanted with him. I wanted to be his priority, but I didn’t want to force him to make me that priority. If he couldn’t make me feel like I came first, I couldn’t settle for being second, or third.

“I’m sorry too.” Unable to stop myself, I leaned forward and kissed him on the mouth, lingering just long enough that it hurt. After pulling back, I said, “We didn’t talk, and you distanced yourself from me. You should know me better, Nathan. You should know that abandonment is a trigger for me. It’s one thing to be busy, but it’s another thing to avoid me. Which is what you did.” I curled my fingers into his shirt. I couldn’t let him go just yet. “You were embarrassed of me at your work party. And I don’t know how to forget that.”

He dropped his head and I felt the shuddering of his breath in his chest. “I’m so fucking sorry, Adele.”

This hurt, so fucking bad. Seeing what my words were doing to him was unbearable. I realized that I could barely shoulder my own pain—bearing his too was crippling me. I wanted to drop my head to his shoulder, to tell him I’d go home with him and we’d figure it out. But living with him wouldn’t fix our problems, it’d only make them more pronounced.

“I love you, Nathan. God. I’m desperate for you. But there’s an acre of pain between us, and I don’t think I can be with you the way I want to until we sort through this. On our own.”

“I don’t want to be without you.”

It was as if his words were shrapnel, imbedding themselves in my chest. I wanted to drag my nails down my chest, if only to show him how much I hurt, too.

“I don’t want to be without you, either. But I think we need to be. At least for now.”

“Don’t let me go,” he whispered, gripping my shoulders and pulling me close.

I swallowed, knowing I had to get away from him and away from the agony that wouldn’t fucking stop. He was piercing a part of my soul with his every admission, so I said the one thing I could think to say, to get him to see why I was so completely shattered. I put my hands on his, pulling them away from my shoulders as I said, “But Nathan, you let me go first.”

He didn’t deserve the pain I was giving him, but neither did I. It was all so confusing, the back and forth and the way my body suffered when I didn’t arch toward him. The way my heart yearned to be fed by his love. But it wasn’t enough. I needed him to make me feel as if I was as important to him as he was to me.

So I did all I could manage the strength to do and left the bathroom, left Nathan, alone to grieve. Just as he had left me, months before.