Provocative (Tempting Book 3) (8 page)

I
stood
off the couch and walked toward Adele, who still had that fucking blank look on her face. “What happened?”

“That’s the first thing you say?” She shook her head, brushing past me to go into the kitchen. “Not, ‘Oh, sorry for not telling you about his existence and that he likes to stop by on occasion.’”

Any peacemaking feelings that had been floating through me earlier in the day were long gone. Just a single mention of Elias’ name was like pointing the sun on a tiny speck of water and expecting to stay wet. Not only was that tiny fucking speck gone, I was suddenly roasting.

The sound of a slamming cupboard door snapped me out of it, and I followed her into the kitchen. Her back was to me while she filled a glass with water.

“Adele,” I started and then paused. What was I even supposed to say right now? Elias was such a non-issue when it came to my life with her. It wasn’t a matter of me hiding him, I’d gone years without seeing him until the first time he stopped by. “It, I don’t know … it didn’t seem important. If I thought he would be here, I would have made sure to be too, or I would have told you.”

She raised a thin, arched brow and watched me. But she wasn’t blank anymore, thank God. Her eyes were stewing and the color was high in her cheeks. “Really?”

“Of
course
.”

With one finger, she tapped the bottom of her chin, and it instantly put me on edge. “So when he said that he let you know a couple weeks ago that he would be stopping by for something, he was lying?”

Fuck shit damn it all to hell. This was not what I’d envisioned when I came home. The oily slick of sarcasm was so present in her voice that I felt every atom of my body shore up against it. Like some internal armor was clicking into place. I sank against the island behind me, digging my fingertips into my eyes until I saw stars. “No.”

“No what?”

When I dropped my hands, it took a few seconds for my vision to clear. Blinking Adele into focus, I saw she’d crossed her arms over her chest and was leaning against the counter opposite of me. It was such a small length of space that separated us. Only a few feet. But she felt as far out of reach as if she’d been at the end of an endless hallway. “No, he’s not lying. I forgot.”

“That’s a pretty big thing to forget.”

“It is,” I agreed easily. “Because I hate that man. And he very much hates me.”

His text was also immediately preceding her miscarriage. If I thought we had issues talking about it before, having Elias as the lead-in conversation basically meant we were fucked. She and I were both suited up for battle right now, I wouldn’t have been surprised if she yanked out an ax or a sword from behind her back.

“He’s a scary-lookin’ dude, too. I wouldn’t want him hating me.”

My eyes snapped to hers, and immediately my veins flooded with rage. “What does
that
mean?”

Adele gaped at me. “What is the matter with you? It means exactly what I said. He’s tall and big with a fuck-ton of hair. A fairly intimidating guy to have stomping around the house when you don’t know who he is.”

“He came in the house?!” I roared, and she narrowed her eyes at me. “Why did you let him in?”

“Why did I
let him in
?” she said fiercely and took a step toward me. “That guy is like four times my size. Do you seriously think I didn’t try to keep him out?”

I dug my hands into my hair while I watched her, so much boiling anger and frustration was rolling through me that I almost felt like I might pass out from the force of it. Because it made me feel helpless. All of this made me feel helpless.

“What did he do to you?” I asked when I dropped my hands down to brace on the counter behind me. I tried, I really, really tried to say it calmly. A solid attempt to take this conversation back down to a civil place. We were one spark away from a fucking inferno as it was. “Did he touch you?”

I’d kill him. If he laid a hand on Adele, I’d slice his neck open.

But if I expected gratitude at my protective questioning, I’d forgotten who I was speaking to. Don’t worry—she reminded me.

“
Do
to me?” Adele breathed out an incredulous laugh. “He didn’t
do
anything to me. God, you’re so fucking presumptuous. Believe me, Nathan, I’m well aware I wouldn’t know what the hell to do if a man in this house treated me like anything other than a ghost or a porcelain doll.”

The words fell from her lips and I stilled. “What?”

Her eyes searched mine as she stepped closer, close enough that I could touch her if I’d wanted to. The fact that I immediately questioned whether I should was probably exactly what she was talking about. But a ghost?

Impossible.

The word ghost conjured visions of wispy specters and horrifying visions. We’d been distant, sure, but I’d never not be able to
see
Adele. Most of the time, it felt like she was the only thing I did see.

“Do you really think that’s how I see you?”

Adele swallowed but kept her chin tilted up in stubborn defiance. “How could I not? You’ve barely been in the same room as me in the last two weeks, let alone talked to me or
touched
me.”

My heart was pounding, and she stepped closer again. I gave her a warning look when she raised her hands over my chest. “Adele.”

“No,” she said quietly, right before laying her palms over my shirt. Her fingers curled into the flesh of my pectorals and I hardened instantly. “What did you say to me the last time we were together? You said other people need air and food to survive. But us?” Adele shifted so that her hips pressed against me. Her body up against mine, her hands on me, it was the click of a lock, the turn of a key. A perfect fit. “We need something else. Nathan, when you keep your touch from me? It’s the worst punishment I could possibly be given.”

“Adele,” I whispered. Every time she broke my heart with the words she said, it amazed me. Her vulnerability was even more impressively scary than her fierceness— a yawning canyon opening up before me with no warning. I cupped her face with both hands and she sighed in relief. “It doesn’t fix anything. You know that. And we have things that need fixing.”

Her eyes snapped up to me, blazing a holy green fire at me. “I’m not an idiot.”

“I never said you were,” I countered, tightening my hold on her face.

“I need to
feel
you, Nathan.” Adele lifted her chin and stood on the balls of her feet, bringing her mouth within inches of mine. Dropping my mouth, I hovered over her, simply breathing her in.

Our lips almost touched, when I whispered. “No sex.”

“Come the fuck again?”

“Not until you see your doctor and get the go ahead.”

Her jaw dropped and she pulled her head back from mine, but her body was still pressed against mine. “It’s unbelievable.”

“What?”

“What a fucking know-it-all you can be.” Then she dropped to her knees in front of me. Her hands went to work on my belt and I hissed out a breath.

“Adele,” I said in a warning tone. But she ignored me, probably because my dick was like a fucking baseball bat in my pants.

“If I’m off limits,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone while she pulled my zipper down and shoved my pants down just enough to reach her hand through my black boxer briefs and pull my cock out, “then you’re not allowed to be.”

“Shit,” I breathed out when she licked around the crown with a slow, measured sweep. Her eyes met mine while she simply breathed on me. I knew her well enough that she wasn’t waiting for my permission. Maybe my acceptance.

“Don’t tell me you don’t need this just as badly as I do.” Every time her lips formed a word, they brushed against the head.

The war going on inside of me was so bloody and fierce, each side of me raging against the other. But she was right.

I did.

I kept one hand on the edge of the counter and took the other to her hair, weaving my fingers through the strands until I fisted it back from her face. The smile that she gave me when I tightened my grip was equal parts relief and triumph.

And then she went about devouring me.

Cupping my balls, she rolled her hand gently at the same time that she licked base to tip and back down again. My groan echoed through the kitchen, only slightly covering the wet sounds of Adele’s mouth on me.

“Take it,” I pleaded when she still didn’t pull me into her mouth fully. Little minx that she was, she gave me teasing kisses up the bottom, only stopping to tongue the vein that ran underneath the head. So I gripped her hair even tighter, smiling when she inhaled sharply in response. “This was your idea, sweetheart. Quit teasing and fucking suck.”

“Yes, Professor.” And she did.

I cursed, a lot, when she opened her lips wide and lowered her mouth onto my dick. She didn’t stop until I felt the back of her throat. Unable to resist, I flexed my hips. Not thrusting, just moving far enough that she made a gagging sound.

“That’s it, my good girl.”

Adele hollowed her cheeks when she pulled back, the hot suction of her mouth so damn perfect that I moaned. It was probably dysfunctional, that we could transition so smoothly to this after days of basically not speaking. I didn’t care though. And I bet she didn’t either. This felt like the puzzle piece being clicked back into place, even if it was brief.

Her head bobbed in front of me, and not once did her eyes leave mine.
Stay with me
, I could practically hear her say out loud. I used the hand that had been braced on the counter to cup her cheek, swiping my thumb against the satin of her cheekbones. Adele’s eyes fell shut, and she slowed her pace, but increased her suction.

My hips flexed and I made small, stabbing thrusts into her mouth, wanting nothing more than to be able to yank her up next to me and fuck her. I’d come down her throat, but ultimately, it was unfulfilling. If Adele wasn’t there with me, gasping in my ear and clenching around me, it wasn’t the same. But if she wanted this, I wouldn’t argue with her.

She gagged again when I thrust a little harder, her eyes tearing up. I eased back, letting her take the reins again with her slow sucks on my hard flesh.

“Fuck, Adele,” I groaned when she fisted the base of my cock and twisted her wrist in perfect tandem with her mouth. “You feel so perfect like that.”

She moaned around my dick and her other hand reached down between her legs to make small circles on top of her pants.

Fuck. Fire swamped me and I pitched my hips, the pleasure rolling on top of itself in waves while I fucked her mouth. She sucked harder, fluttering her tongue on me, making a mewling noise that told me she got herself off.

“God, baby, yes, fucking yes,” I growled as it overtook me and I poured into her throat. I held the back of her head and slowed my movements until I’d stopped pulsing. She made one slow lick along the tip and then rubbed her lips together. They were red and puffy and it made me want to beat my chest.

She winced when she tried to stand, and I hooked my hands under her arms to help her up. Once she was on her feet, she folded into me, wrapping her arms around my back so tightly that I think my ribs creaked.

I cupped the back of her head, smoothing down her hair. We stood that way until the kitchen was dark. Eventually, she pulled back and took my hand. Wordlessly, we got ready for bed. When I slipped into the sheets, she was already on her side, facing the nightstand. I didn’t hesitate to tuck my knees in behind hers and wrap my arm around her stomach like I used to. Adele wove her fingers through mine and shifted our hands up to rest in between her breasts.

We hadn’t even kissed, I realized later when I was almost asleep and Adele was breathing deeply in my arms.

We hadn’t kissed and I hadn’t told her I loved her.

Which made me feel even worse about myself than when I’d first walked in the door.

T
he waiting room
at an obstetrician’s office was a certain kind of hell. No, it wasn’t the noise caused by the small children slipping from their mothers’ grasps, nor was it the woman holding a barf bag up to her mouth, her face the color of mashed peas.

No, it was hell because all these mothers had something I didn’t. The heavily-pregnant woman who huffed as she chased her wild toddler, stubbing her toe on a chair and cursing, was a mother.

The woman holding the barf bag with one hand protectively around her belly as she breathed uneasily through her nostrils was a mother-to-be.

What did that make me? Was there a title for a woman who lost a baby, especially so early in her pregnancy?

The heavily-pregnant mom gave an exasperated smile to a woman rocking her newborn in the corner. “Enjoy it while you can,” she laughed, pushing the hair from her sweaty face with one hand as she held her toddler with her other hand.

The words were said simply, without any deep thought. So I shouldn’t have felt like someone had just sliced me from hip to hip, disemboweling me on this putrid brown carpet. But I did—because there was no joke for me, no subtle warning of what was to come. There was no after with a miscarriage, there was just the before.

“Adele?” a nurse called from the doorway. As I stood, I avoided the gazes of all the lucky bitches in the waiting room. What did they think when they watched me walk back?

She doesn’t look pregnant.

Is she trying to get pregnant?

Where’s her baby?

As I followed the nurse back, I was immediately struck by the scale that waited by the door the nurse led me through. No reason to stand on that wretched thing again. And yet, it made me sad all over again.

Fuck miscarriage.

The nurse pushed a cup in my hands and handed me two little toilette packets. It was like a repeat of before.

I stared at the items in my hand before looking at her. Did she not know I wasn’t pregnant anymore? “I…” What the fuck was I supposed to say?

As if she sensed my discomfort, she placed a cool hand on my forearm. “We just need to test your urine.”

I looked at her like she was out of her fucking mind. “Why?”

She looked around before leaning in. “It’s common, after a miscarriage.” Her voice was soft and her tomato face bobbed up and down, trying to get me to understand.

She said it like it was a secret we couldn’t say too loudly, lest we disturb the still-expecting mothers. A rage flooded my hands and I shook as she walked away and closed the door to the bathroom.

Humiliating as it was, I pissed into the cup and joined the nurse in the exam room just next door. She did the standard shit, taking my blood pressure and asking me if I’d been avoiding hot tubs and bathtubs, but she was so detached—like she was a shitty actress reciting lines she’d said so often that she was indifferent to how they were delivered.

For the first time since I stepped into the office, I wanted Nathan with me. With the exception of the spectacular blow job I’d given him, we’d been like a betrothed Amish couple for as much as we’d touched recently. As fucking cheesy as it sounded—because I knew it was the cheesiest of shit—touching him that night had felt like we’d found our way back to one another, even if only momentarily. We’d fucked the night we met—I shouldn’t have been surprised that sex was what brought us together time and time again, and not just the kind of together that equaled his P in my V.

“Dr. Parker will be in shortly to do a pelvic exam,” the nurse continued, pulling a paper sheet out from the cupboard behind her. “Undress your lower half and climb up onto the table.”

And with that, she was gone.

I stared at the sheet for a moment, trying really fucking hard not to grind my teeth. Having anyone’s hands—anyone who wasn’t Nathan, at least—on or in my vagina was the last thing I wanted. But I did as the nurse directed and was flat on my back when Dr. Parker entered.

“Hello,” he said with a soft smile as he walked to the sink and washed his hands. It occurred to me how awkward this situation was and I held onto that thought. Some levity was needed right now, before he’d open me up and tell me again I was empty.

Another nurse came in, this one looking significantly more in touch with how someone like me might feel. The first nurse, with her tomato red face, had made me feel like my miscarriage had scarlet-lettered me, like I’d better be mindful of how others might feel for my loss.

Something about the new nurse’s face made me want to cry. Maybe it was the fact that she was near my mom’s age, or maybe it was the way her eyes stayed trained on me, as if she was looking for fissures in the armor I was wearing, to reveal how fucking awful I felt under all of it.

Dr. Parker began the exam, explaining that he was ensuring no tissue had been left behind. The nurse stood by me, smelling like lavender and I kept my eyes on the wall so I didn’t look at her and give in to the burning behind my eyes.

After it was done, they left to allow me to redress.

Suddenly, I wanted tomato-faced indifferent nurse back.

However, when the doctor returned, the sympathetic nurse was with him.

“Let’s talk about birth control,” the doctor said after expressing his seemingly very sincere apology for what happened. He’d asked if I had questions, but I sure as fuck did not, not with lavender nurse looking at me like she was waiting for me to crack in half.

“The pill,” I said immediately.

“Have you used it before?”

I nodded and Dr. Parker went over some of the different options. “Whatever won’t make me a raging bitch around that time of the month—bonus points if it helps my occasional breakouts, too.”

After writing down a prescription, the doctor said I was cleared for sex but that if I needed to wait, I surely could. The phrasing of that question threw me off—if I needed to wait for sex, I could anyway—I didn’t need Dr. Parker’s permission for
that.
But maybe other women felt pressure to fuck their significant others after a loss, regardless if they actually wanted to or not, but I only fucked when I wanted to. Which, granted, was all the time with Nathan.

After Dr. Parker left the room, sympathetic nurse remained. It was then that I noticed the pamphlet in her hands.

“How are you doing, Adele?” she asked like we were best friends about to catch up.

“I’m fine,” I said, looking at the door to my left like it was my mother fucking salvation.

“It’s okay if you aren’t, you know?” she asked softly. “You’ve suffered a loss, and it’s okay for you to grieve—openly, if you need to.”

Maybe other women felt safety confiding to others, but I sure as fuck didn’t. She was picking at me, waiting for that fissure to split wide open. “I’m fine,” I said, through clenched teeth.

She handed me the pamphlet.
UNDERSTANDING MISCARRIAGE,
it said in large, bold letters. What was there to understand? You were pregnant until you weren’t.

I had an instant urge to twist the pamphlet in my fist, but instead I looked into the nurse’s gray eyes. “I don’t need this. I’m fine.” Honestly, how many times did I need to lie until the nurse believed me?

“Is your partner supportive?”

“I’m pretty sure he isn’t supportive of me losing our baby, so no.” My tone was sarcastic and biting, but it did nothing to push the lady back.

“Well, a loss affects both parents, of course. But it sounds like you think you were responsible. It wasn’t your fault.”

“How do you even know that?” I asked angrily. “
I
was responsible for the baby. Why shouldn’t I be responsible for … what happened?”

“Adele, I know this is hard to process.”

“Again, how do you know?” I knew I shouldn’t sound as angry as I did, but fuck. I wanted to get the hell out of there, far away from her sympathy eyes.

“I’ve had four miscarriages.”

I knew in the rational part of my brain that she wasn’t saying it to make me feel worse, but I couldn’t help it—I suddenly wanted to shrivel up. Her losses were multiplied from mine. “Four? How did you even try again after the first time?”

“I wanted a baby badly enough that I pushed on. But trust me, I was consumed with guilt—each and every time. I have three healthy children now, but that’s seven pregnancies in total.”

It shocked me. That she would try after the first time, knowing what she knew.

“Trust me—let go of the guilt. It’s the only time I’d tell a woman who has been through what we have that she shouldn’t feel a certain way. More than half of miscarriages are caused from mismatched chromosomes—which is completely out of your control.”

I didn’t know what to say. Despite her telling me to let go of the guilt—it wasn’t that simple. I’d been wallowing in guilt for two weeks—there was no way I could turn it off that easily.

“I know you must be hurting, and I’m here to listen.”

At my shifty eyes, she smiled and reached over, flipping the pamphlet over.

“But if you’re not ready now, there are a number of support groups in the greater Boston area, as well as forums all over the internet. You’re not alone—not by a long shot.”

She touched my arm and squeezed. “When you’re ready, talk with someone who will support you. You don’t need to suffer in silence.”

As I walked out of the appointment, I didn’t feel lighter—but I felt less alone.