I urge him up, tunneling my fingers into the silkiness of his ebony hair as I pull him to me for a slow kiss. I am aroused and needful of him, but right now I just need to feel him in my arms. I need him naked with me, if only to feel him warm and strong and alive against me.
I undress him with the same care he showed me, allowing my hands to worship every firm, muscled inch of him. His cock is fully erect, his gaze blazing with desire as he tenderly leads me into the shower and under the hot spray.
Yet instead of taking me with the kind of animal need that’s radiating off him, he begins to wash me with utmost care. I do the same for him, my lathered hands sliding over his skin in worship, in relief, in unabashed devotion.
“Thank you,” I whisper, once the heat of the water and the comfort of Nick’s hands have chased away the bone-deep chill that had been with me since we left the park. “Thank you for everything you did for me today, Nick.”
“There’s no need to thank me.” He strokes his palms down the sides of my arms, water sluicing from us as we hold each other under the soothing spray. “I wanted him gone too. Just knowing the bastard had threatened you was more than I could stand. If I didn’t get rid of him like this, through legal channels, my other solution would have been far less merciful.”
I swallow, acknowledging the danger in his steady, but lethal gaze. He would have killed for me. He still would. His solemn expression leaves no room for doubt.
“When you shut me out of your office today, I worried that I was losing you. You didn’t tell me what you were thinking.”
He smooths a wet tendril of hair away from my eyes. “Beck and I didn’t have much time to put wheels in motion. Once we had our plan, I couldn’t risk bringing you in on it. I needed to provoke Rodney, and that meant your reactions had to be natural. They had to be real. We had to make him show his true intentions in order to give the police plenty to use against him.”
I nod, knowing he’s right. Rodney would have seen through me if I’d been anything but terrified. He would never have let Nick steer him into the trap of his own damning words if there was any doubt that the meeting was his to control.
“What happens now?” I caress my hand over the muscled slab of Nick’s chest, feeling his heart throb beneath my fingertips. As relieved as I am that Rodney can’t harm Nick and I, we aren’t the only ones he was willing to hurt in order to satisfy his greed. “What about my mom? Rodney must have friends inside the prison. What if they retaliate when they hear he’s been arrested?”
“Beck and the police are already on top of it. We contacted the prison this afternoon to explain the situation. They’ve assigned your mother extra security and they’re also going to be looking more closely at the report of her accident to see what they missed.” He cups my cheek in his hand. “She’s going to be okay, Avery. I’ll see to that.”
Gratitude overwhelms me at his earnest promise. But I feel ashamed too. “I’m sorry I kept all of this from you, Nick. I’m sorry for my lies. I should have trusted you with the truth.”
“Yes,” he says. “You should have. If I had known everything you’d been through, I would have been gentler with you from the beginning. God, Avery . . . everything would’ve been different.”
I smile sadly, seeing the softness in his eyes. The regret. “If I had told you everything in the beginning, we wouldn’t be together now, would we?”
He doesn’t answer. I see him gauging the weight of my question, and his careful silence puts my heart in a vise.
When I can’t take it any longer, I answer for him instead. “No, we wouldn’t. Because you would have looked at me with pity in your eyes, the way you are now.”
“Pity?” The word rushes out of him, a harsh denial. “What I feel when I look at you is astonishment. It’s respect. Jesus, it’s more than you can possibly know.” His touch still lingers on my face. I feel the vibration of his deep voice against my skin and all around me. I see the ferocity of his emotion in his darkening scowl and the penetrating heat of his eyes. “You came through fire, Avery. The last thing I feel when I look at you is pity. You’re stronger than I ever imagined. You suffered so much at the hands of someone you should’ve been able to trust, but you survived.”
“So did you,” I remind him gently. We’ve both come through fire. We’ve both had to find a way to survive. To not let our pasts destroy us. I reach for his hands, kissing the pristine one first, then the other. “Why didn’t you tell me about your art? Or that the man who stole it from you was your father?”
“Nobody knows that.”
“Kathryn does.”
He scoffs, drawing out of my loose hold. “And she coul
dn’t wait to use it against me, to try to humiliate me in front of a house full of rich, useless snobs.”
“Is that what you think?” I slowly shake my head. “Nick, she loved you. She was proud of your work. She told me so. She wanted to share your gift with people who would appreciate it as much as she did.”
“And then they could all cluck their tongues and shake their heads in dismay over the poor, mutilated artist as they speculated on what kind of lowlife monster would shove his own son through a window just to make him shut up.”
His answer is so full of anger, so sharp with pain, it takes me a moment to find the courage to speak. “Is that what happened? With your father, I mean.”
“Who knows.” He raises his hands to his head, scraping his fingers over his scalp on a heavy sigh. “Who the fuck knows why my old man hated me so much. He was drunk half the time anyway. Let’s forget it, all right?”
He pivots around and shuts off the water.
“Nick—”
“Drop it, Avery.” The curt reply sends my pulse hammering with concern. The only thing worse is his long, agonized pause, and the tight whisper that follows. “Just . . . enough, okay?”
“Okay, Nick. We don’t have to talk about him anymore.”