Enlightened (12 page)
I couldn’t frigging believe it when I saw Nathan leap from the balcony like some enraged version of Superman and begin his charge in my direction, but I did at least know the cause of his over-the-top and unnecessary hurdling. About two seconds ago a fairly attractive guy with a cute, shy smile had shimmied his way into our group and made the fatal mistake of putting a hand on my shoulder as he leaned in to speak to me. I was quite prepared to politely decline his tentative approach, but no, that wouldn’t be enough for Nathan, would it? He clearly felt the need to charge in like a bull in a china shop and make a massive scene. Taking a deep breath I prepared for impact, and then a second later winced as Nathan arrived at my side, leaned into the guys face, and yelled so loudly that we both leant back to avoid the fallout. ‘Get your fucking hands off her!’ The poor guy had only been trying his luck, and he’d actually been very sweet about it, but now he was practically shaking in his boots as he stuttered an apology and began to back away.
Bristling with anger, Nathan took a step to follow the man and was no doubt set on continuing his rant, but I quickly intervened, grabbing him and pulling him back by sliding both my arms around his neck. ‘Stella,’ he growled in warning, trying to pry me off him so he could carry on his hunt, but there was no way I was letting him pound out his jealousy on a relatively innocent man. Tangling one hand in his hair I tugged on it until he winced and relented, allowing me to lower his head towards mine.
‘Why would you want to follow him when I’m right here?’ As I said my last four words I lowered my spare hand to his groin and cupped him through his trousers, giving him a squeeze. A
hard
squeeze.
Even above the music I heard the hiss that escaped his lips as his eyes widened. ‘Christ, Stella, easy, woman,’ he stuttered on a choked gasp and seemed to instantly forget all ideas of chasing after the man, clutching at my shoulders instead. Grinning up at him I felt him hardening in my grasp almost immediately and was quite content to play, but he gripped my wrist and gave me a warning look accompanied by a dirty smirk. ‘Time and place, Stella, time and place. Save it for later, baby.’
I nearly laughed out loud at his remark, because it always seemed fine for Nathan to attack
me
in public when he felt like it; my orgasms in Club Twist, London backstreets, and the back of his car were evidence of that.
Deciding not to push it I reluctantly released Nathan’s twitching groin and slipped my arms around his neck for a dance instead. ‘If you take your brother and head home now, then I’m happy to ignore the fact that you came here during Rebecca’s hen-do when you know you shouldn’t have,’ I murmured mildly, wanting him to know that regardless of what had just occurred, he had stepped over some serious boundaries tonight.
Making a dismissive noise in his throat Nathan jerked his head back and looked at me as if I was crazy. ‘You expect me to leave after that fucker just tried it on with you?’ Giving him an even firmer look I began to pull my hands from around his neck. Nathan held onto my waist to stop me moving further away, but I’d had enough of his overbearing behaviour for one night and twisted from his loose grip. Raising my chin I nodded definitely, ‘Yes I do, Nathan, if you’d given me a few more seconds before you’d done your raging Hulk impression you would have seen me knocking back his advances.’ Crossing my arms I drew in a deep breath before stating one final truth. ‘If our relationship stands any chance of surviving then I need to know that you trust me, Nathan.
Me
. I would never have let anything happen with that guy, and if you had any faith in my commitment to you you’d know that.’ I was close to shouting volume now and I could see Fiona and Louise watching from the side-lines and looking like they were debating whether to join in and help me, but I flashed them a quick reassuring glance then looked back to Nathan. ‘What’s it to be, Nathan?’ I asked, amazing myself with how calm and authoritative I sounded.
Nathan looked so torn that in any other circumstances I might have felt sorry for him, but not tonight. Finally he threw his hands up in exasperation and ran them through his hair. ‘Fine.
Fine
. I’ll take Nicholas home.’ Using his thumb he tilted my chin up and stared deep into my eyes, clearly not happy leaving me. ‘I do trust you, Stella, more than you know,’ he suddenly muttered softly, then without any warning he crushed his lips to mine in a kiss so possessive I almost felt branded from the searing intensity of it as I sagged against him and surrendered my mouth along with the last of my anger. ‘Come home to my house when you’re done with the girls then,’ Nathan demanded against my lips, making me giggle at his continued desperation to be the one in charge.
In reality I knew the only reason he wanted me to go to his house was so he could feel like he’d won a small victory and claimed his prize – me. Not that I minded really, and if I hadn’t promised Rebecca that I’d get her home safely then I probably would have caved in to his demand. ‘I can’t, Nathan, I promised Rebecca I’d stay fairly sober and make sure she gets home tonight. It’ll be late by the time we leave, and your apartment is another half an hour from Nicholas’ house so I’d have to get a taxi on my own, which I don’t want to do. I’ll take them up on their offer to stay over, and I’ll head to yours tomorrow after breakfast.’
Watching carefully, I saw Nathan’s entire body tense again as his earlier irritation resurfaced – even his legs seemed to straighten out a little more and his hands definitely formed into fists at his sides. ‘You’re spending the night at my brother’s house?’ he demanded on nothing short of a low snarl.
Rolling my eyes at my man and his stupid possessiveness I shook my head, ‘Nathan, I’m spending the night at my best friend’s house. Yes, she happens to be marrying your brother, and yes, they live together, but that does not give you cause for any more stupid jealousy. I’ll be in the spare room for God’s sake.’
Seeing Nathan still struggling with how to deal with this information I tried to reign in my annoyance and remember that his unnecessary jealousy was really just insecurity because of his inexperience with real relationships. ‘Seeing as you’re out with Nicholas you could head home with him and stay over too, I’m sure he wouldn’t mind,’ I suggested. ‘That way I’d see you when I get in. You could have the bed all warmed up and ready for me.’
I’d added my last remark suggestively in the hope that it might loosen him up, but Nathan looked far too stressed out by all this to lighten up and instead turned to me, chewing frantically on his lower lip. ‘I’m a fully grown man, Stella, I don’t do fucking sleepovers,’ he huffed petulantly. Raising my eyebrows I smirked at him, my troubled man might not do sleepovers, but quite apparently he did do full-blown toddler temper tantrums.
In the end it took me another ten minutes to actually get both of the Jackson brothers out of the club before I returned to Rebecca with a rueful smile as we resumed our dancing. Leaning over she was grinning from ear to ear. ‘I fully expected Nathan to go into caveman mode and drag you away over his shoulder,’ she joked, but to be honest, I had kind of been expecting the same thing and was still slightly shocked that Nathan
had
left. Grabbing my hand with relish, Rebecca twirled herself under my arm and dragged me back to the group of girls so we could carry on celebrating in style.
When we finally got back to her Primrose Hill home later that night – technically the following morning – I made Rebecca drink a full pint of water and then gently pushed her through the door to her bedroom before retreating to the spare room. To my surprise, as I stripped off and crawled into bed I found Nathan’s warmth under the covers waiting for me. So apparently he wasn’t too grown up for sleepovers after all. I’d honestly believed that he was too stubborn to give in and sleep here tonight, but I was so glad he’d changed his mind. Thinking he was asleep I snuggled up to his back carefully, loving the scent of him on the pillow and his warm skin touching mine, but he moved, rolling over and feeling about to find me. ‘About time,’ he muttered thickly. Finding its target his arm snaked around my stomach and I couldn’t help but grin as he tugged me against him so we were spooning.
Nuzzling in my hair Nathan let out a long contented breath. ‘I have hated every single fucking second of my evening since I left you in that bloody meat market.’ I was expecting him to lecture me or have a moan about the events of the night, but to my surprise Nathan just cuddled me closer and fell silent as he almost immediately began to fall back asleep. Pondering my complex man for a few more seconds I gave up trying to work him out and instead let my dance weary body follow him into slumber.
The following morning I woke up feeling surprisingly good – there was no hangover in sight whatsoever, so apparently there were some benefits to being the designated sensible person then. The guest bed in Rebecca and Nicholas’ spare room was incredibly comfortable, and with the curtains filtering the early morning sunshine I could have easily stayed here for longer, but the warm sheets quickly lost their appeal when I discovered Nathan was no longer in bed with me. Dragging myself to the bathroom I grabbed a quick shower, pulled on last night’s discarded clothes, and then went in search of him.
I was a little wary of finding Nathan, especially after his sleepy comments on my arrival in bed last night, and was desperately hoping he wasn’t going to make a scene in front of Nicholas and Rebecca this morning. Finding him alone in the kitchen was actually quite a relief, until I took stock of the tenseness of his shoulders and my stomach plummeted. He stood leaning back against one of the kitchen counters, his legs spread and arms crossed over his chest looking so sexy and broody that I felt my heart give a kick in my chest. ‘Good morning,’ I murmured softly.
Instead of a reply I was greeted by silence and a pair of intense, heavy lidded blue eyes watching my every move. Hmmm … it looked like someone had definitely gotten out of bed on the wrong side this morning.
‘I’d like to go home,’ were his first words, but they were laced with petulance, and not anger as I had expected. A smile curled my lips; instead of being stroppy about last night he felt put out because his routine was off, and judging from his awkward stance, he didn’t like it one little bit. ‘Let’s go,’ he said, handing me a travel mug full to the brim of steaming coffee. I accepted the mug, but placed my other hand on his forearm to halt his movement.
‘Can we say good morning properly first?’ I murmured softly, and he immediately paused and looked down at me intently. I slid my hand up his arm and into the hair at the nape of his neck, which was damp, presumably from a shower. After running his gaze across my face a tiny flicker of a smile twitched on his lips before he leant down and placed his soft warm lips on mine in a brief but lovely kiss, and then leant back a fraction. ‘Good morning, beautiful.’ His endearment was so quiet that I barely heard it, but it was there, and my heart beat just a little quicker because of it as I instinctively leaned into his body.
‘You’re still not forgiven for last night. I wonder how I’ll get you to make it up to me …’ he added, as he leant back and gently smoothed some hair from my face. Crikey, my heart was pounding now; the contradictory clash of his soft actions but firm words had fully awoken both my sleepy body and my thundering arousal.
‘Rebecca said to say thank you for last night, and that she’ll call you later.’ Nathan said as he guided my stunned body towards the door with a firm hand on my lower back, but I felt too shocked to speak. How could he lace his previous words with a delicious threat of kinky naughtiness and then seconds later be conversing like nothing had happened? Mild amusement replaced my shock and I shook my head at how changeable he could be. I literally couldn’t keep up with him when he was like this so I may as well just go along and enjoy the ride.
‘They’ve gone out this morning, some appointment in Herefordshire with a group of musicians Nicholas knows. Turns out my brother is being very finicky about who will be playing at the wedding,’ Nathan said with a small snort of dry laughter.
Nicholas wasn’t the only one with his finicky ways
, I thought with a smile as I allowed Nathan to guide me from the house and help me into his car. What with his hand-washing, suit adjusting, and general possessiveness Nathan could certainly give his brother a run for his money in the obsessive control department. Sipping my coffee as he drove I began to feel more alert from the caffeine and rather aroused at the thought that Nathan might have some sort of punishment planned for me today. Apart from the liaison in the back of his company car a few weeks ago it had been ages since he’d really let his Dominant side out. Imagining all the things he might do to me, all the things I
wanted
him to do to me, was enough to keep me quiet for the entire journey home.
Arriving at his apartment Nathan headed to the lounge and paused by the dining table before turning to me, widening his stance, and then slowly and deliberately pushing his hands into the pockets of his suit trousers as he looked at me from under lowered brows. Such a normal stance, but God Nathan looked sexy when he stood like that. Like me, Nathan was still dressed in last night’s clothes, despite the showers we’d both taken at Nicholas’, which meant he was suited and booted in a charcoal three-piece, and looking completely delectable.
‘So, Stella. About last night. As much as I enjoyed dancing with you, I did not take any pleasure whatsoever in seeing you surrounded by a pack of men as you flaunted yourself on the dance floor.’
Flaunted myself? Pah! Hardly. I danced in a group with the women I was out with and paid no attention to any men. I was just about to huffily state as much, but as I studied Nathan’s expression very closely I suddenly realised that he was playing with me when I saw the corners of his eyes crease with just the tiniest hint of a smile. Ah, OK, so Nathan wasn’t really irritated, he was merely intent of setting up a scene, was he? Well that was just fine by me, especially as I was now completely recovered from my flu and feeling back on top form. Although truth be told, knowing Nathan like I did, he probably was carrying around a touch of lingering frustration about last night as well, bless him.