Sweet Temptation (30 page)

Nate moved up towards her, a vibrator in one hand and lubrication in the other. Kneeling in front of her, he started lubricating the vibrator. She tried kicking him away, but he was too strong for her to move.

“Nate,” she whispered. She tried to pull away from him, but he only followed.
This wasn’t happening again
, she thought.
It was only a dream
. “I don’t want this, Nate.”

“Sure you do, baby.”

“No, I don’t,” she thrashed her body around in an attempt to throw him off.

Nate stopped. “Why? You want it from everyone else, but not me?” he growled.

“I don’t want it like this. And the only person I would want it from would be you, but not like
this
, Nate!”

He leaned back and ripped his shirt from his body, buttons flying in every direction…then he lay over her again.

“No,” she growled, pulling harder on the handcuffs, but he didn’t listen. God, she didn’t want this to happen again. She tried to close her legs to stop him, but he gripped onto them and ripped them apart even further, making her cry out in pain.

“Nate, please remove the handcuffs,” she wept. She didn’t like being tied up, with anything. Lucas would do just that to her so he could do whatever he wanted to her, and this felt exactly the same as what he did. She started to panic, as he wasn’t listening to her. “No, no, no,” she sobbed, thrashing on the bed. “Please, undo my hands, Nate. I can’t do this,” she whispered.

Nate reached for the toys he had on the bed. “Is this what the other guys use on you, Skylar?” She shook her head in reply. No one ever used anything like that on her, only she had. She had to get away from him, he was close to doing the exact same thing Lucas did to her; if she didn’t do anything now, she wouldn’t be able to stop him.

“You’re close to doing the same thing Lucas did to me, Nate” she screamed. Nate shot up so quick that he nearly took her out in the process. “Undo them, please, I need to get out of here,” she sobbed louder. Nate stood up shocked, shaking his head in disbelief, and moved over towards the boxes.

Ripping everything out of all the boxes, throwing items all over the place, he screamed in frustration. “I can’t find the keys anywhere.” Skylar pulled at the handcuffs trying to release them, watching as Nate rumbled through the boxes. Pulling harder, she felt them move over her wrist. Yanking one more time, she screamed out at the pain. She could feel something running down her arm but she was concentrating more on getting the hell out of them.

Nate’s mouth hung open as he watched her. Pulling one more time, the handcuff released one of her hands, and she pulled it through the other side. “Skylar,” he whispered. She didn’t answer him. Slowly moving towards the bed, he reached out and touched her shoulder.

Skylar screamed and threw herself sideways, away from him. Breathing heavily, she watched Nate carefully as he moved and sat down on the bed, rubbing his hand over his face. “I don’t like being tied up, or anything close to it, Nate,” she whimpered.

“I would never hurt you, Skylar. Can you tell me what Lucas did to you?”

Shivering at his name being mentioned, she looked up at him. “The last night I was with him, he came home drunk. He said he wanted to try something different and I agreed.” Pulling her legs up, she wrapped her arms around them. Skylar closed her eyes before she said the next bit, not wanting to see his reaction. “It was getting pretty heavy between us, when I noticed two shadows near our bedroom door. Lucas got up and closed the door, leaving them with us in our room. I didn’t know what was going on.”

Shaking her head, Skylar kept her eyes closed. “Lucas had invited two of his friends to join in. I wasn’t up for that, but he didn’t care what I said. He wanted to watch them take me. I tried to get out of the room, but he grabbed me and they all had a turn beating me. When I couldn’t move anymore, Lucas threw me on the bed, and waited for one of them to –”

Nate stood up and slammed his fist through the wall, making Skylar scream out. Turning around and facing her, the fury she could see on his face was the scariest thing she had ever seen. Moving slowly towards the side of the bed, she jumped off and ran straight out of the room.

“Shit!” Nate yelled.

As she rounded the corner, she heard Nate running after her. “Skylar!” As she grabbed the handle to open the door to go out, Nate slammed into her, taking the breath out of her. Skylar fell to the ground, light-headed.

“Fuck. Baby, I didn’t mean to do that.” Nate lifted her up off the floor, and held her to him. She was feeling ill and knew she looked like it, too.

Before she could say another word, she heard Craig’s voice from behind him, “Nate, put her down
NOW!
”

“I need to know she is all right first,” Nate answered him, still looking at her.

“Let her go, and I’ll check.”

Nate heard the click of a gun. He turned slowly to look at him. Craig had a gun aimed at his head. “What the hell, man?” he asked.

“Don’t push your luck, Nate.”

He slowly let her go.

“Why would you do that, Nate?”

Shaking her head, she walked over towards Craig. Nate grabbed her arm before she went past him. Ripping her arm out of his grip, she stared him down. “Stay the hell away from me, Nate.”

“Why are you bleeding?” Craig growled.

Looking down at herself, she noticed how much blood there was. Lifting her hand, she inspected the trails of blood lines down her hand, and then looked over at Nate. He turned pale as he looked at her wrists.

“I’m sorry for what I did, and for calling you a whore.”

“What did you call her?” Craig snarled.

“I called her that after I followed her to that guy’s house tonight.”

“You never asked me once what I do as an actual sales rep. I work for my friend’s shop, and just started throwing parties, that’s it. I didn’t think I needed to tell you since everyone either knew or guessed.” She pulled at her arm, but he only tightened his grip again.

“Nate,” Craig growled again.

“You were going to force yourself on me, again. Why would you do that, especially after what I told you about Lucas?” she whispered.

“What?” Craig roared. Dropping his gun on the floor, he stomped over towards Nate and threw a punch that connected to his jaw. Nate’s head twisted to the side with the force of the punch. He wiped the blood off his lip, growled, and then ran at Craig, tackling him to the floor.

“Stop!” she yelled at both of them. They were rolling all over her floor, both throwing punches at each other. Racing into the kitchen, she ripped her phone off the wall and called Dom.

“Hey, darling,” he said.

“You need to come over straight away, please,” she sobbed.

“What’s up?”

“Nate and Craig are having a fist fight, rolling all over my lounge room,” she said.

“I’m heading there now, call Joey and tell him to meet me there.”

“Okay.” She hung up and called Joey.

“Hello.”

“It’s Skylar, Dom asked me to ring you; he said to tell you to meet him at my place,” Skylar said.

“What’s your address?”

“260 Crescent Road.”

“I’ll be there in two.”

Skylar hung up the phone, and ran back into the other room. There was blood all over her carpet. Both of them were standing up; Nate’s lip was spilt, blood was running from his nose, he had a black eye and he was holding his side. Craig’s eye was swollen shut and blood was coming from his nose, too. Nate took a swing at him, hitting his jaw.

“Why would you call her that?!” Craig screamed.

“Because that’s what it looked like to me.” Craig laid an upper-cut to Nate’s jaw and sent his head flying back off his shoulders.

“Stop it!” she screamed. She picked up anything she could and threw it at them, but they didn’t stop.

Dom and Joey stormed in, “What the fuck is going on?” Dom asked her.

“Please stop them, Dom!”

Joey took off his jacket and wrapped it around her shoulders. She knew she was naked, and was grateful that he was a gentleman to offer his jacket to cover her. She gave him a tight smile. Dom and Joey made their way past her towards the fight. Dom pulled Nate away from Craig as Joey pulled Craig back.

Nate struggled against Dom. “Let me the hell go, Dom,” Nate panted.

“Not happening.” Dom had him in a choke hold and he wasn’t going anywhere. “What’s going on here?” Dom growled.

“He called Skylar a whore,” Craig yelled.

“Why did you call her that?” Dom asked Nate.

“Because that’s what it looked like to me at the time.”

Craig got out of Joey’s grip and charged at Nate again, but Joey stopped him in time before he got too close.

“Why would you think that?” Dom frowned.

“Because I saw her arrive at some guy’s house wearing lingerie and carrying a box full of sex toys,” Nate growled back at him.

“He tried to force her into sex,” Craig roared.

Dom swung Nate around, “You what?!” Dom was in his face.

“I didn’t mean for it to happen like that. I handcuffed her to the bed…”

Dom shook his head and looked over at Skylar. “What happened?” he asked her.

She swallowed the lump that was forming in her throat. “After he called me a whore, he handcuffed me. I couldn’t deal with it, I asked him to find the keys, but I ripped my hands free before he found them. I got out of the room, and then Craig was here. I was working tonight, you know that,” she sobbed into her hands.

Nodding, he looked at Nate. “We’re leaving, right now.” Dom dragged Nate towards the door.

“No, I want to make sure she is all right,” Nate whispered.

Skylar walked closer to him, but out of his reach. “Why can’t you trust me, Nate?” Skylar turned her back on him and walked away.

“Skylar, after seeing you wearing what you did, then seeing that guy with you, how can I trust you?”

Skylar walked back over towards him, lifting her hand so quick he had no time to react, and slapped him so hard her hand stung. Nate’s head flung to the side and then he looked at her.

“No one deserves that treatment from
anyone
, especially not from an asshole like you!” she yelled. Skylar looked at Dom.

He pulled Nate from the room and dragged him outside. Pushing him towards his own house, he ripped open the door and walked inside. “I don’t want to hear it, Dom.” Nate held up his hand, knowing he was about to say something. “I’m going to bed.” He stomped off towards his room and slammed the door closed.

* * *

Skylar left both Craig and Joey in the lounge, and went to her room. Lifting the sheet, she crawled under it, and closed her eyes.

“Do you mind staying the night?” Craig asked Joey.

“Not at all,” he answered.

“You can take my room, I’ll stay with Skylar.”

“Sure, I’ll see you in the morning.” Showing Joey the room he was staying in, he walked into Skylar’s. Closing the door halfway, he went and cleaned himself up in the bathroom, and jumped into bed beside her. Skylar rolled over, and cuddled up to Craig. He held onto her tight. “Are you all right?” he asked.