Burdened (A Burdened Novel) (59 page)

I’m glad she is well. She is happy
—as if nothing happened—and she still wants Scott just as much.

Nathan pulls me to him as we walk down the hall
, but he still doesn’t look at me. It reminds me of when Scott used to go through mood swings.

“I’m not having mood swings
, Tracey.” He’s still not looking at me. “You made me mad, I’ll admit, but I still love you, want you, and need you, and you still need me.”

We walk into the elevator. “Can you please look at me?” I step right in front of him.

“No.” The doors to the elevator open.

He really just told me
‘no,’ and he walks out of the elevator first. I follow.

I say
‘bye’ to the receptionist as we leave through the sliding door. We walk back to the truck. Before we get close, I pull him to a stop.

“Wait!” He turns around
, looking over my head. “Tell me, what is it? Nathan, I didn’t think; I just acted out of fear. I know you make your own decisions. I know just anyone can’t influence you. I also know—” I lower my voice. “—I am a hindrance to you, as well as a distraction. But Nathan, I cannot deal with you not looking at me. Thank you, again, for saving my life, but please, stop—” I search for the word. “—stop punishing me.” My voice drops more. “Please, just look at me?”

He thinks for a moment
, then shakes his head. He pushes his hands through his hair. “Let’s go, Tracey. It’s getting late,” he says nonchalantly.

I feel worse
, like the denial stage of our relationship, all over again. And this time, it’s because of my stupidity.

He’s driving back to his house. “Just take me home.” I can’t deal.

“You know I can’t do that. Not after what just happened.” He sounds like I’ve irritated him.

“So
, now what?” I say with an attitude.

“You come back to my house. Hang out with Taylor, wait on Glen. And I’ll do damage control.”

“Damage control?”

“Yes, I need to talk to Roehl.”

“Talk to?”

“Yes.”

“Not kill?”

“Not yet.”

I say nothing else. His attitude tow
ards me makes me feel dejected, and the fact that he won’t look at me adds to my sadness. Him being disappointed in me and angry with me, makes me feel like I let him down, and I can’t take it.

I unbuckle my seatbelt and move closer to him.
This feeling between the two of us will not last long, and he is going to look at me. I rub my hand over his neck and move my mouth near his ear.

His eye
s squint and I can hear his hands grip the steering wheel tighter. “Tracey, don’t.”

“Nathan
,” I whisper softly, “I’m sorry.” I kiss his earlobe and his body tenses. “Forgive me, okay? Stop this.” I kiss under it. “Sometimes I don’t think and my body doesn’t give my mind time to talk sense into it.” I move to his neck, kissing it slowly.

He exhales slowly. “Tracey
, don’t.”

I continue with my kisses
. “Tracey, do,” I say, muffled.

I make out with his neck
, putting every emotion I have into my touch, making sure my hands make contact with his skin. They travel under his shirt, rubbing over his chest and stomach. His breathing becomes rugged.

“Just give me what I want.”

Before I realize it, we are pulled over to the side of the road and he is laying on top of me. “Don’t, Tracey.” He avoids making eye contact.

I stare at him
, pulling him by his neck down to me. He doesn’t fight it, but I can tell he is reluctant. I kiss him, and hesitantly he kisses me back. I fill it with my emotions—changing his—and he concedes to it. We are only a mile from his house, surrounded by trees and the light of the moon.

Under his shirt
, I touch his back, pressing his body against mine. I lift my hips and he makes a throaty sound. “Tracey, what are you doing?”

“Nathan, look at me.”

“What happens if I don’t want to?” He starts to pull back, moving from me—I don’t let him get far.

“Then I’ll make you do something you don’t want to
do.”

“I don’t like the way that sounds. But I can always go for a challenge.”

I look him over. His eyes look at everything but me. “Nathan, I love you. And I know I may have a weird way of showing it, or maybe not showing it all. But this is torture. I need you.”

“But it’s not really your needing me. It’s just the bond.”

I’m not trying to hear this bond stuff. “Doubt it.”

I kiss
him, before he can say anything else. Putting my feeling of want into him, changing whatever feeling he has, making him feel the way I want him to feel.

I watch his eyes move over my face. I force thoughts of me in
to his head, not sure if it’s working, but I know what I’m trying to do—like when he would flood my mind with thoughts of him and me, when I forgot about us or doubted him.

He blinks multiple times
, confirming it is working.

I kiss him again and think of our future, pushing the thoughts
into him. I think of us married, living together—with and without his family. I think of us having children. He, I, and our three kids, playing in the backyard, all smiling and laughing—two girls and a boy: the boy resembles me and the girls resemble him. He closes his eyes hard and a chill runs over his body.

“What are you doing?” he asks quietly.

Then I flash images of us—what I think we will look like—when we’re older, walking the trail with a huge dog that’s sniffing the ground. We walk hand in hand, then arm in arm.

The premonition
ends with him behind me, arms wrapped around me, sitting by the water. He kisses my cheek and thanks me. Our kids walk over to us and the dog is at our side, lying in the sand.

Nathan
looks into my eyes. His eyes are a bright orange and brown color. I’ve never seen it before. They are more beautiful than any other color I’ve seen on him. He blinks and they flash. I stare into them, forcing my memory to lock in the color, the look of them, and the optimism in them.

Maintaining our
eye contact, he kisses me softer than he ever has.

In his pull back
, he says, “I think I lost that challenge,” in a whisper as soft as his kiss.

“Any challenge with or against me, you will always win.”

“That’s the future you want with me?” he asks, just as soft.

“Or better.”

“How could it get any better than that?”

I shrug
. “Doesn’t matter.” I lift my head to kiss him. “I love you, and I’m sorry.”

He nods. “You want to go in the house
?”

“Yea
h. I guess so.”

Scott is walking out the door when we pull into the driveway. “Scott, what’s going on?” Nathan asks, helping me out of the truck.

“I’m ready to go get Glen.” He walks up to us. “Why didn’t you tell me about Roehl? And when did he come back?”

“You weren’t well-enough to speak with, and I’m not sure.”

Scott looks at me. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’ll be fine,” I answer.

“So what time are we leaving?” Scott asks.

“When you’re finished with Glen.”

“Well
, I better get going. I’ll let you know when I’m ready.”

“Take your
time. I’ll be with her. But reach out to me, don’t knock on my door. I don’t want everyone to know we’re going—just you, Olar, and myself.”

“Got it.” Scott takes off
at a run.

“So he’s not going to drive to the hospital
?” I ask.

“Looks like he isn’t.” Nathan looks back
at me. “Let’s go in the house.”

In his room
, Nathan goes to the bathroom and turns on the shower, and I follow behind him. “So what are we going to do?”

“Let me worry about
it. I’ll know more after we talk tonight. Then I’ll decide what I’m going to do.” He pulls two towels.

“And what are your choices now?”

“Live or die.” He turns back to me.

“For him
, right?”

He gives me a stern look. “Who else?” He bends down
, taking off my shoes, then the rest of my clothes. “Get in.”

I do
, and I hear him walk from the bathroom. I let the hot water run over me, washing off today—all of today. It was full of so much…so much fighting, pain, and hurt. I’m really ready for it all to be over.

Nathan joins me, turning on the rain showerhead over us. He kisses the top of my head, then my shoulder that was hurt. I turn
, facing him. He takes my face, kissing my mouth. He washes me and I him. I want to say so much, but the silence is consuming.

He picks me up
, turns off the water, and—all at the same time—grabs the towels and puts himself in me, while laying us on the bed.

“Don’t feel like anything that happened today was your fault. And I shouldn’t have let you feel like you had to apologize to me.”

My mouth opens for words, but lets out a moan. “I love you, Tracey, and your vision of our future.” He pulls back from me and kisses down my body, taking his time on my sensitive spots, until he makes it to his destination.

My body chills, craves, and desires him more. I grip the sheets, his hands, and his arms. I moan against the pleasure and my body fills with pressure. He stops
, lying back against my body, putting himself back where he was.

It’s aggressive
, yet full of desire, love, want, and need. He looks at me with new eyes. I stare into them and I see my desired future with him, and then I see how I look to him. Being in his head takes me to a new level. He sees me as more than what I am and what I present. I’m the world to him, crowding every corner of his mind.

Something about mixing this kind of love with sex makes everything more intense.

“Nathan—” His name comes out with a moan. “Don’t do that to me anymore.”

He moves his head near my neck, increasing
his speed. “I’m sorry.” He moves harder.

I fall deeper. I turn him over
, returning his slower, faster, deeper, longer.

He moans against me, grabbing tightly
, then letting go, when he thinks he is gripping too hard. He is everywhere, hand and hand, moan and moan, body to body.

He tur
ns me back over. His hands make acquaintance with my back, then in my hair on the back of my head. I pull at the sheets and bite at the pillows until I can take no more.

He leaves too quickly
for the bathroom, and then comes back. “Can I lose it?” he asks in a low voice.

I turn to look at him, immediately craving more. He is standing there in all his bareness. The moonlight glistening off him, his hair fallen over his forehead. I nod, rubbing my neck to calm me down.

He goes to the closet, coming back within a second. He loses it. Not an inch of me goes without shaking when we finish. I feel refreshed and unrestricted. Whatever happened today is gone, and I have a new, better outlook on
this
life.

He pulls back the covers
, lying under them with me.

“You’re about to leave
, aren’t you?” I ask, preparing myself to watch him go.

“You don’t want me to?”

“You don’t want me to answer that.”

“If you want me to stay
, Tracey, I will.”

“When did your eyes start turning that color?”

“Some type of orange?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not sure.” He pulls me closer.

“Why do you waste your time fighting people?”

“What are you asking?”

“The question I asked.”

He’s quiet for a moment. “Because if I just go around turning people into dust, everyone will know I can do that. It’s mostly used as a last resort, unless they piss me off.”

“So are you about to leave?”

“Yeah. Scott got here about 45 minutes ago. But he hasn’t let me know he is ready yet. Why?”

“Just asking
.” I look to him. “So am I staying in here, or do I have to go to Taylor?”

“You have to go to Taylor. Or she can come up here. It’s up to you.”

I lay against him, breathing him in. “Let me get a nap first. We’re going back to my house tomorrow, and my parents are going to want to talk again.”

“We’ll work on that too.”

“So are you going to tell me what’s in the closet?”

He smiles. “Why?”

“Why not? What are you hiding?”

“If I don’t tell you
, will you try to look?”

“Probably
,” I answer honestly.