Sweet Temptation (11 page)

She backed away from him, scared he was going to hit her.

“Tell me what the problem is, Skylar.” He strolled over to her, and grabbed her arms. “Tell me what the hell is going on. I don’t like games, Skylar.” He raised his voice at her.

She started crying and shaking her head, trying to pull her arms out of his grip, “You’re hurting me, Nate.”

“Answer me,
now, Skylar
,” he roared.

Someone grabbed him from behind and dragged him away from her. “What the fuck?”

Turning around, he saw Dom had his arms around his shoulders, pulling him away. Chantal moved past him, straight to Skylar. “Did he hurt you, Sky?” She looked her over, trying to see if there were any marks.

Nate tried to get out of Dom’s grip and go over to Skylar. “Let me go, Dom.”

“Not on your life, Nate. What the fuck do you think you’re doing, man?” Dom growled at him.

“Nothing.”

Chantal got up and walked up to Nate and poked him in the chest. She was pissed. “What the hell do you think you’re doing grabbing her like that? No one does that, especially you!” she yelled at him.

“I wanted an answer, Chantal. She won’t tell me what is wrong with her. I grabbed her arms so she wouldn’t walk away,” he growled.

“Well you did a good job of that, Nate. You left marks on her arms.”

He lost the colouring in his face. Looking over at Skylar he noticed that there were light bruises forming on her arms where he gripped her. Nate looked at her face and she was crying. Fuck, he felt bad. He didn’t mean to hurt her at all, that wasn’t his intention.

“You need to leave, Nate,” Chantal said, walking back to Skylar.

“I’m so sorry, baby. I had no intention of hurting you at all. I just wanted to know why you keep acting like that,” he whispered.

“I told you what I went through with Lucas,” Skylar said softly.

“I know what you told me, but that’s not all of it, and you know it. Why can’t you just tell me?” he growled at her.

“I told you what happened, Nate, and I don’t have to do anything you tell me. Get out of my house,
now
!” Skylar screamed at him.

She was so over dominating males who tried to control her.

“With pleasure, princess. I don’t need this shit. If and when you even decide to tell the truth, you know where I am,” he yelled back at her. Nate pushed Dom back and stomped out of her house. He was over women playing games with him; that’s why he hadn’t had a relationship in the last five years. If he needed to get laid all he did was call up Tracey, and if not her, then someone else. He didn’t need this at all. Walking into his home, he picked up the phone.

“Hey, gorgeous, what’s up?” Tracey answered on the third ring.

“Can you come over tomorrow night?”

“Sure, baby. What time?”

“Be at my place at eight, no later.” He hung up, not letting her say another word. He knew Tracey wouldn’t say no to him, she was always ready when Nate called. Grabbing a beer, he walked out to his shed to take his mind off what had just happened.

* * *

Dom knew Nate was over at Skylar’s place; there was nowhere else he would be. He met up with Chantal at the front of the house. “Hey, beautiful.” He kissed the top of her head and wrapped his arm around her shoulder and started to walk up the steps.

“Hey. I thought you were with Nate this morning?”

“We were supposed to work, but he’s not home. I’m guessing he’s here with Skylar.”

“Really.” She smiled, glad Skylar was finally moving on from the past. When they walked up the stairs, they heard Nate yelling. Dom let go of Chantal and opened the door. They both ran in to where they heard it coming from. Once they were there they saw Nate was holding Skylar, and not in a good way. Chantal looked up at Dom and he knew something was wrong. He walked up behind Nate and dragged him back.

Something very wrong was going on here. After the commotion, Nate stormed out and left. What was he thinking, grabbing Skylar like that? He had never done anything like that in his life. He has never hurt a woman physically, only emotionally, but that’s it.

“Are you all right, Skylar?” He didn’t move from where he was; he didn’t want to scare her more than she was now. She nodded. Looking over at Chantal, he told her, “If you need me for anything, you know what to do.”

She leaned up and kissed him on the cheek, “I know, thanks Dom.” Dom left and went after Nate.

* * *

Skylar slid down the wall she was leaning against. She couldn’t believe what just happened. Chantal came over and sat beside her, wrapped her arm around her, and they sat there in silence.

After a while, Chantal spoke, “Sweetie, what happened in here?”

Skylar felt bad for leading him on, she didn’t want that at all. Sighing, she answered her, “I tried Chan, I really did, and I just can’t stop thinking of what Lucas did. I really want to be with Nate, but it’s so hard to just forget what happened, it’s not that easy. And now I’ve ruined everything by leading him on again,” she sobbed.

“What did Nate do, Skylar? He left some nice marks on your arms.” Chantal lifted one of her arms up to inspect it. “Why did he do this to you? You have to tell me. If you don’t, you know I’ll go over next door and demand that he tell me.”

“He didn’t mean to, we were having breakfast and one thing led to another.”

“Did he rape you, Sky? Because I’ll kick his goddamn ass.”

“No, of course not, Chan. Things just got out of hand, that’s all. He kissed me and I wanted more, but when he started, you know… I freaked out and told him to stop. That’s when everything went wrong.” She couldn’t tell her any more and hoped to God she would figure it out herself.

“Okay, I get what you’re saying, but why didn’t you go through with it? What is stopping you from doing that? The way he looks at you, I’m amazed you haven’t done anything about it by now. But I’m not pushing it, okay?”

She knew now that Nate wanted her, but only after him telling her that earlier. Skylar was so close to letting it go further, but now she knew that it wasn’t going to happen, which upset her even more. She fucked up and thought nothing she said or did was going to make it better now. If she told Nate what really happened he would think differently of her and feel sorry for her, and she didn’t want that at all. Skylar got up and went into the bathroom, turning on the water. She sat at the bottom of her shower. She would give him a day to cool down. They both needed it, then she’ll go and see him tomorrow night and sort out what had happened.

* * *

Dom found Nate in his work shed, throwing tools across the shed and missing where they were meant to go. “What happened in there, Nate?” He had known Nate since they were really young. They did a lot together and went through thick and thin for each other.

“I have no bloody idea what the hell happened. Everything was going great one minute, then the shit hit the fan after that,” he growled.

“Well something happened, what did you do?”

“I didn’t fucking do anything, and I didn’t mean to hurt her either.” He clenched his fists at his sides.

“Okay, okay. I’m not going to argue with you now. It just didn’t look good when Chantal and I arrived,” raising his hands up in
defence. “Give it a day or two and go see her, everything will be good, just don’t go and do something stupid, man. You have something good with her and I haven’t seen you this happy in a bloody long time.”

“I’m not going to see her, Dom. If she wants to talk, she knows where I am. I’m not chasing anyone again,” Nate answered. He wasn’t going through this again after what happened between him and Natalie; that’s why he didn’t date any more. He had chased Natalie for over six months before they finally got together. They had been happy then… he thought. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He went home early one night to propose to her and he found her in their bed with some guy. That had hit him low, right in the gut. He walked out; he didn’t need to see any more of what was happening in there. Jumping in his truck, he drove to the pub. And that is where he met Tracey. They made an agreement from the beginning, no relationship, casual sex only - and he had been doing that ever since.

Eventually Natalie came and grabbed her stuff from his place. He asked what went wrong and she told him that he was too committed to his work and never had time for her, so she had met someone who could give her just that. It didn’t just happen once, it had been going on for over a year and he didn’t even know it was happening. He didn’t trust women anymore, so he only used them for sex, but he wasn’t the only one doing it. He didn’t mind being used for sex either.

He stopped thinking about this and told Dom, “I’m going to work on the Mazda. If you want you can help, but if not there’s the door. I don’t want to talk about anything unless it’s work issues.” Walking off to where the car was, he grabbed his tool kit, opened the hood, and got to work.

“I’ll stay and work on the car with you. I was here this morning to work, but you weren’t here. That’s why both Chantal and I were over there. We heard you yelling and went inside,” Dom answered, as he walked over and grabbed his tools. They both got started working on the Mazda. After four hours of figuring out what the owner claimed was the problem, it ended up having nothing to do with what they said. But they fixed the car anyways and sent it back to its owner.

Nate had enough for the day. He sent Dom home, went inside, and went to bed. He couldn’t deal with anything else right now.

* * *

Chantal slept in Skylar’s spare room that night. After they had dinner she was too tired to do anything and she just wanted to go to bed. She cried herself to sleep thinking of what Nate had said to her and her body was aching everywhere, her arms hurting the most. Chantal left for work early this morning and she knew she had nothing to do today. She would put off seeing Nate til tonight, hoping he would listen to whatever she was going to say, but she had no clue herself.

After her shower, she strolled into the kitchen to find something to eat. Chantal had left her a note,

“
Hey, Beautiful. I’ll be back at your place around six, and I’ll bring dinner and dessert, love you to bits.
”

Smiling, she thought of how happy she was to have a friend like her. Putting the note back where it was, she finished her breakfast and decided to clean up.

Going from room to room she wrote down what she had to do, starting with the kitchen. When she was about done she heard a knock on her door. She opened the door; it was the courier delivering the packages she had ordered for Stacy’s shop. She was excited to check out the products she had ordered. Signing for them, the courier placed them all on her couch and left. She grabbed her phone and called Chantal, “My order of lingerie and sex toys that I got for Stacy’s shop just arrived.”

“I’ll finish up early just for that. I’ll be there between four and five. I’ll see you then.”

She couldn’t wait to open the packages and actually see what everything looked like. She reluctantly went back to sort out her room, realizing that if she did it now she wouldn’t have to do it later. A couple of hours into it, her stomach started growling, and she realized she hadn’t had lunch. Walking back into the kitchen, she opened the fridge and pulled out the left over salad. Her phone started to ring. Thinking it was Chantal, she answered, “Hello?”

“Hey, Sky.”

“Craig!” She screamed into the phone.

“Miss me?” he said, laughing.

“
I always do when you’re not around. When do you get back?
”
she asked.

“I have a surprise for you. Open the door.”