Can't Hold Back (10 page)

Quite apart from the job, quite apart from her promises to Jake, there was the reality of Nate’s situation. Of
their
situation. That he had nothing to give, and that her own motives for wanting to help him were tangled and dark. That it gave her a rush to know he needed her.
Wanted her.

And it only made it hotter that the way he wanted her wasn’t pure, either.

She set the phone on the floor. Pushed it as hard as she could, so it slid across the floor and bumped to a rest against the opposite wall.

There.

Safe.

She was awakened in the pitch dark by knocking at her door.

Her nervous system went nuts—heart pounding, breath rapid—until she realized it was only eleven—not obscenely late. Maybe Gabi stopping by after the movie for girl talk? She roused herself and went groggily to the door, peered out through the peephole.

At first she didn’t see him, because he was leaning his head against the door. She opened it very slowly so she wouldn’t hurt him. “I’m sorry,” he whispered roughly.

“You shouldn’t be here.” But there was no force behind her words. Because he was in pain, and he’d come to her, and both of them knew her well enough to know she couldn’t turn him away.

He raised his head and took her in. For the first time in her life, she wished her pajama style ran more toward Victoria’s Secret and less toward worn T-shirt and flannel pants.

Even though she shouldn’t have wished that, because she was supposed to be making sure nothing else happened between them.

And not that it would have mattered to him if she’d been wearing black lace. He was deep in his suffering. When she stepped back to let him in, he moved past her like a zombie and crumpled into her desk chair.

She turned the desk lamp on because it was the least glaring and closed the door, leaning her head against it for the briefest moment in an echo of the posture he’d been in moments before.

She knew she should make him go downstairs to her office. She’d made this mistake once before, and she’d outright promised Jake she’d learned from her error. And while even her office wasn’t a completely safe place to be with him at eleven o’clock at night, at least it would provide the semblance of professionalism. Here—

Here, they were in her bedroom. She was in her pajamas.

“Nate, I can’t—”

“Please.”

“You should go.”

He raised his head and let her see his eyes. Dark, pained, craving. “I need your hands on me.”

There were a thousand other ways he could have asked her, a thousand missteps that might have allowed her to summon the self-control to send him away, but he’d said that instead. She felt it, straight to her core, her blood heating everywhere.

She took a deep breath.

“Lie down,” she said. “On your stomach.”

She crossed the room, stood beside the bed.

She began as she would have begun in her office. Because maybe there was still hope that if she kept this official, professional, it wouldn’t go where she hoped it wouldn’t and prayed it would.

The bed was entirely the wrong height, impossible. So she pulled over a chair and tried to work from it, but the angle was difficult and her own body began to protest. Then she tried sitting at the edge of the bed, which felt risky but not terrifying. But that was awkward, too, twisted. For tapping it wasn’t so bad, but when she wanted to put pressure somewhere, when she wanted to lean in, it was uncomfortable.

She was about to tell him it wouldn’t work. She was about to say—God’s truth—that years ago she’d promised herself she wouldn’t work in a way that put her body at risk. That put her career at risk.

But then he made a sound. Not a sensual sound. A hurt sound, part grunt, part groan, part whimper.

There was probably something wrong with her, because she felt that sound not only in the parts of her that were primed for care, but in the secret, hungry parts, too. His wordless plea for help felt like sex.

She didn’t have any more resistance, not for any of the things he made her want.

She climbed onto the bed, onto him, and she felt him go rigid for a moment and then relax. This was what she’d wanted all along, to be able to comfort him with her whole body, however it was needed. She gave in to it and lay down along his back, pressing her cheek to the groove at the base of his neck, letting her hands reach around to cup the caps of his shoulders. She was hyperaware of her breasts against his back, and he must have been, too, because he groaned, and it wasn’t a groan of pain. And beneath her hips, she felt him move ever-so-slightly, pressing into the bed.

Her body reacted like a shot, molten heat pouring down deep.

What the
hell
was she doing?

She raised her head. She couldn’t. Of course she couldn’t. She started to sit up—

“No,” he said quickly. “Don’t move. Please. You’re helping.”

“Nate—”

“Please.”

It was less a plea than a command. He reached a hand back and grabbed her thigh, but then he made a sound that was definitely pain, twisted and harsh. The sound called out to that part of her that couldn’t refuse him, and after a moment she lowered herself again. Tried to tell his body, with hers, to let go.

“What were you doing?” she asked after a moment.

“When?”

“When the pain started?”

“I was in bed. Just lying there.”

“What were you thinking about?”

“What does it matter?”

“It matters.” Just as it mattered that all she could think about was how much better she could make him feel if there were no layers of clothing between them. If it were only her skin and his.

He was silent, under her.

“J.J.? The tower?”

He didn’t answer, so she knew she was right. “It’s. Not. In. My. Fucking. Head.”

“I know.” She touched him now, pushing his shirt up, taking unabashed pleasure in the heat of his back, the glide of her hands over his warm skin, the messages his body sent to hers through her fingertips and palms, up her arms, into her nipples. From the hard curve of his ass between her thighs, the almost-contact of those muscles against the aching vee of her sex.

He moved again beneath her. Rocking against the bed. So slightly that if she weren’t so attuned to every shift of his skin and muscle, she might have missed it. And without making a conscious decision to do it, she tilted her hips down against him, pressing him to the mattress. Again, her thighs clenching, her body tightening against the perfect pressure of his glutes, so the pull and stretch almost made her go out of her mind.

For a moment, she let herself think it, fully. To imagine exactly what she wanted to do most, to rock and press him into the bed, again and again, until he found his release. That total unlocking, pain and holding flying apart into pure pleasure, that surge of heat and light that was oxytocin flowing free through his bloodstream. She could feel it, as if it were hers. That was how much she wanted to give it to him. How much she wanted him to have it.

And they could almost pretend that it wasn’t happening. That her body solid against his from behind was part of something else, some act of nurture, even as both of them were completely aware of his cock, hard underneath him. Even as they both egged him on, her hips against his ass, his cock throbbing against the resistance of the bed, the skin stretching over the swollen head—

Whether consciously or unconsciously, his hips had found a rhythm against her bed, under her, and he clutched a handful of her pillow in his fist. As her hands moved over his body, she felt another wash of liquid heat. In a moment she’d soak through the layers between them.

His hips sped up beneath her.

“Li.”

It was a groan. Now absolutely a plea.

Her name broke the spell. His acknowledgment that he knew, that he was here, too. That there was no pretending.

She was flooded with shame.

She untangled herself, climbed off him.

“Li—”

But she wouldn’t let him talk, wouldn’t let him say whatever he was going to say to her. She sat on the edge of the bed and she made her words take up all the space in the room so neither of them could acknowledge what had almost happened. “The pain’s not in your head. It’s in your body. But your head keeps sending your body pain messages. And I think I know what might help. You trust me, right? You trust me?”

Of course, she knew the answer to his question long before the words came out of his mouth. Even though he shouldn’t trust her. Even though she was betraying the trust Jake had placed in her, by being here, but way beyond that, by letting herself take what wasn’t hers to take.

Even though she didn’t trust herself. Not at all.

“I’m here, aren’t I?”

The way he wanted her crowded out pain. Obliterated it.

What was it about her? That she could make a T-shirt and pajama pants look like something out of a porn flick? The flush of sleep in her cheeks, the tousled bed-head of hair, the fuck-me sag of her bottom lip, none of which was remotely intentional?

No. More likely, the way she’d opened the door and stepped back to let him in, even though they both knew what she was sacrificing. The way she moved in the room, businesslike, doing what had to be done. A glimpse of what she would be like taking care of people in the middle of the night, a family, a household.

The way she’d told him to lie down. The way she’d climbed on top of him. The way she’d moved against him, picking up his rhythm, so she was fucking him and he was fucking the bed, and he’d never been so turned on in his life. Like he could lift and throw a truck, though what he’d rather do was flip her off him and cover her body with his and crush her mouth until she whimpered.

Did he trust her? It was a ridiculous question. He would let her do anything to him, and he would ask her to let him do everything he wanted to her.

Mostly, though, he wanted her to finish what she’d started. His cock was so hard, his balls drawn up so tight to his body, that they ached. And he felt he was on the brink of something strange and spectacular, because the woman who had climbed on top of him, who had tilted her hips down so he could feel how she’d be under him, soft but also rising to meet him, unyielding—

MenInUni242, is that you?

Except now she was all business again.

“I want to try something.”

As if they could forget the weight and heat of her on him. The way they’d found a rhythm together. How close they’d come to chasing it home.

He snorted. “I want to try something, too.”

“Not that.” She crossed her arms, ruining the view.

“Yes, that. Get back here. Alia. Seriously. Don’t try to play like you weren’t—”

Instead, she stepped away and sat in the desk chair. Her nipples poked through the thin fabric of her T-shirt. He rolled onto his side and winced as pain shot up his back and spiraled in his neck.

“See, you’re in no condition for
that.
”

“I’m in perfect condition for that,” he said, indicating the steel rod in his athletic pants.

Her gaze flicked to his groin, then away. Then her eyes met his. There was a challenge in them. “I want you to meditate.”

“Not that again.”

“Yes, that, again.”

“I have a better idea,” he said. “I think you should meditate. You can use this as a focal point.” He dropped his palm to where his cock was distending his pants, and ground his hand there. It was only the barest relief. There wasn’t going to be any relief for him until he was buried in her, and then—then he bet he’d be ready for her again ten minutes after they were done.

She was staring at the slow rock and squeeze of his hand, her face soft and intense. Her fingers twitched against her flannel-clad thigh. Her tongue came out to wet her lips.
Bingo.

He elaborated, a slow drawl, his eyes on her face the whole time, watching the effect of his words. “I want you to focus on it and make it the sole object in your mind. I want you to consider all its aspects thoroughly until you reach enlightenment. Or I do. Whichever comes first. I’m all for both.”

She giggled.

“Did you just laugh at me?”

“Were you expecting something else?” Now she met his eyes.

“Admit it, you’re tempted.”

She shook her head. “Nate, stop.”

But he wouldn’t let her gaze go, and the flush got deeper in her cheeks, until she shook her head, as if disbelieving herself, and said, “I admit it. Now be quiet. And listen to me.”

He sucked his breath in. “God, I love a bossy woman.”

In fact, he wasn’t sure what had gotten to him most, her bossing him or the giggle, which was so unlike her, or her outright admission that she wanted him. Whatever it was, it had him going, bad. Bad enough to want to mess with her. To get lust to win out over shame in her, to get her to finish what she’d started. What she’d promised with those hips and the press of her breasts against his back and the feel of her breath on his neck. The shift and acceleration of her breathing.

“Aaaaand. Now I don’t think I’m going to be able to meditate. Don’t I have to concentrate on something? If it’s something other than your nipples, I’m probably SOL.”

He knew he was pushing his luck, but something—the color of her cheeks, the hugeness of her pupils, the way she couldn’t look away—told him that his strategy was working.

MenInUni242
would like it this way. The banter. The alpha. The badness. The outright
sex
of it.

“You’re supposed to focus on your breath,” she said dryly.

“I could focus on
your
breath. I could focus on making you pant like a dog.”

“Nate, shut
up.
” But she was laughing. And her eyes were so warm, he could have drowned in them. “Just try this for me, okay?”

He got up and started to cross to her, but she nailed him with her gaze. “Sit. Down.”

He sat.

“Lie down.”

He obeyed. “I had no idea how dom you could be.”

“Close your eyes.”

“Are you going to tie me up?”

He heard her cross the room, and then she was kneeling beside him, her breath on his cheek as she whispered, “I know this freaks you out. I totally get it. But just…just try it, okay?”

Such a girl thing to say—
I know this freaks you out
—and usually he hated that kind of shit, that
I know you better than you know yourself
bullshit, but the thing was, she kind of did. At least when it came to pain, she was the expert.

“Take a few deep breaths.”

He was so tempted to turn his head and take her mouth, but instead he did what she’d asked.

“Relax your whole body.”

I can’t relax my
whole
body, sweetheart. Not while you’re that close to me.
But he didn’t say it out loud. Because he was willing to try this. For
her.
He was pretty sure there was no one else on earth he would have done it for.

“Pay attention to your breath. Just follow it. In, out—”

“Better stop that, babe.”

“In…out…”

She was stubborn. Or maybe she was doing it on purpose to be provocative. Either way, he liked it.

“Just notice the breath. Don’t try to control it.”

It was surprisingly relaxing. The pain was still niggling in his neck and shoulder, but it wasn’t as bad as it had been.

As he was about to drift off to sleep, he heard her voice, soft and husky. “Now choose a spot in your body where there’s pain. Focus on that spot.”

He shook his head. “I don’t want to
focus
on my pain.”

“Just do it.” He couldn’t tell if she was amused or exasperated.

“Tyrant,” he muttered, but he obeyed. Ah, shit
,
that
hurt.
Teasing her, joking with her, having her body all over his—those had been great distractions, but now here he was, focusing, and
fuck.

“Observe the pain.”

As if he had a choice.

“Notice whether it’s hot, or cold…”

Hot. Like something had seared him. But there were places where it felt cold, too.
Huh.

“Whether it’s buzzing or burning or twisting or itching…”

Part of his brain was resisting her—
Fuck this. It’s pain. I don’t give a shit if it buzzes or burns or twists or itches
—but the part that was going along with her was intrigued. Now twisting. Now almost—shuddering. Now sharp, then suddenly much duller. Now—

“Notice if it’s steady or if it comes and goes.”

Where had it gone? Oh, there it was again—and now gone.

So it wasn’t a steady thing. It was a thing that came and—
Fuck.
He dug his fists into the bed.

“Try not to fight it. Try to
accept
it.”

“You
fucking accept it.”

“I can’t do this for you.”

She was so stolid. A wall of determination.

He tried. To accept it.

“
Yes, pain.
Say it. In your head. Yes, pain.”

“No—”

“Try it.”

Yes, pain.

It ebbed. Just a little. Surprised, he drew his first full breath in several minutes.

“If it becomes too much, notice another part of your body that isn’t in pain. Like your feet, or your hands—”

Or my cock—huh.
Not hard anymore. He’d been concentrating so intently on his pain that he’d forgotten that Alia was still practically in the bed with him. And now he’d unforgotten. He could smell her shampoo. Something that was probably deodorant. And that deep-down, sweet sex smell.
Damn.
He wanted to bury his face between her legs and—

“And if something takes your attention away from the pain”—so she’d spotted the fact that his attention had wandered, huh?—“notice that, and then come back to the pain. Try to relax all your physical muscles around the pain—”

Physical muscles? That was redundant.

“And all the mental muscles you’re clenching around the pain, one at a time—”

Huh. Mental muscles.
She was a quack. She was just a quack, and this was bullshit, and he was going to get up from the bed in about three seconds and back her up against a wall because it was going to be
his
turn to tell her what to do, and he wasn’t going to waste any more time on hokey bullshit voodoo.

“And all the emotional muscles you’re clenching around the pain.”

All at once, he got what she meant. There was a kind of holding in his chest, and he
could
let it out, like a breath. It felt like a flower unfolding, one petal at a time. Because right here, here was how badly he craved one of those little white pills he’d flushed down the toilet. And right here, here was how scared he’d been ninety percent of the time in Afghanistan, and the time he’d felt safest had been the time he’d been least safe. And right here? How much he wanted one more chance to give J.J. shit. And how goddamn much it sucked that Braden couldn’t go on a fucking kayaking trip with his fucking father and had to accept Nate as a shitty substitute—

“It’s okay,” she was saying.

A tear slid down the side of his face into his ear. That wasn’t
his,
was it? In his chest, something was thawing and breaking up like an iceberg.
Oh, fuck, no. No fucking way.
He swiped the back of his hand across his eyes.

“Accept whatever comes up. Say
yes
to it.”

“Shut up. Shut
up.
”

“Yes, anger. Yes, grief.”

“Shut
up,
Alia.”

“Yes, to whatever is there—”

“Alia!” He sat up and grabbed her arms, shook her. “Shut the fuck up and get up here and let me kiss you. Okay? That’s all. That’s what I say yes to. Just—just—”

Then she was in his arms and her mouth was on his and
yes,
this.