Into the Light (Untwisted series Book 3) (3 page)

‘Nathan, this is Simon.’ I said coldly, with a wave of my hand, ‘… 
my brother.’
I added tightly, emphasising it slowly and clearly and wanting to make sure Nathan and all of his stupid possessiveness fully understood that he had totally misread things, and that the situation was completely innocent.

Feeling Simon's arm shift slightly across my shoulders I knew he must sense my tension so tried to lighten the air slightly by returning the introduction.

‘Simon, this is Nathan, a … umm … 
friend of mine
.’ I finished awkwardly with a small grimace, our relationship could hardly be described as friendship could it? Especially after what had just occurred in the cupboard, but what else was I supposed to say?
‘Simon, this is Nathan, the man who ties me up and shags me on the weekends and who just fucked me senseless in a cupboard like a cheap kerbside whore?’
I clenched my teeth until they hurt – that would hardly go down well with my already overprotective brother. No, I might be mad with Nathan, but I in no way wanted to cause a huge fight to break out.

The look on Nathan's face when I said Simon was my brother actually made me feel much better about recent events because he looked well and truly mortified with himself, remorse pouring from his features as his eyes widened and his mouth opened and closed silently several times like a goldfish. In fact I don't think I've ever seen quite as much expression come from Nathan, apart from on Saturday when he was caring for his brother, that is. He was usually so shuttered when I was around him that reading his expressions was difficult, but I was also fairly certain that I saw a flash of relief cross his face too. Now that was interesting. Not that it made up for the way he had just treated me in the cupboard.

‘Simon, it’s nice to meet you,’ Nathan murmured, extending his hand for a shake, ‘I'm sorry to keep stealing your sister, but would you please excuse us again for a second? I just need to speak briefly with Stella again.’ I was seriously tempted to stamp my foot and refuse, but that would just end up creating more awkwardness for me to explain to Simon later, so with a well disguised sigh I allowed Nathan to take my hand in his and lead me into the hotel lobby and over to a quiet corner.

My stark realisations in the cupboard about how emotionally attached I was becoming to Nathan had left me feeling particularly uneasy, not to mention tetchy, so I stubbornly kept my body tense and my head dipped, if he wanted to speak he could work for it, I wasn't about to initiate anything.

After an age of silence I finally relented and looked up to find Nathan leaning over and contemplating me with such fierce intensity that I shivered and found myself wrapping my arms protectively around my chest. To be honest, knowing Nathan’s dominant ways I suspect he’d deliberately been waiting me out and forcing me to make the first move, and as usual I’d done exactly what he bloody wanted.

‘You'd do well to memorise the next ten seconds, Stella, because I don't apologise often.’ He growled menacingly, leaning in close to my ear. ‘I'm sorry for the way I treated you, I was wrong in my assumption.’ I waited for more, but he stood back, crossed his arms, and was silent again. Was that it? He made it sound like I should be grateful for his apology! I scoffed out a breath and looked up at him in astonishment, the cheeky sod! Although for a man as power crazy as Nathan I had to admit that this was probably quite a major relinquishment of his usual control.

I gazed up at him speechless. He was now avoiding eye contact again, but I knew that wasn't from guilt, that was just normal for Nathan, but what did he really expect me to say?

‘I don't know what to say, Nathan.’ I muttered sourly, carefully keeping my voice low because of the hushed lobby we were stood in, ‘You treated me like some kind of tart you'd pick up in a bar for a quick fuck.’ I frowned at the unpleasant thought and lowered my gaze.

As quick as a flash, one of Nathan’s hands flew to my chin and gripped it with his finger and thumb as he glared down at me. ‘I do not consider you a quick fuck, Stella, or a cheap tart. Don’t be so dramatic.’ His jaw was tense and I could tell he was chewing endlessly on the inside of his lower lip, but apart from his heated comment he remained silent and I had the feeling that no more apologies would be falling from Nathan's tongue in the near future.

Dramatic? If anyone had been overly dramatic tonight it was Nathan and his virtual caveman impression earlier. ‘And what the hell is this about?’ I demanded in a whisper, pulling back my hair and glancing in the mirror behind me to see just what the damage was. Frigging hell, I'd been right, a bright red love bite glowed happily just below my left ear. Just great, I looked like an over grown hormonal teenager. The skin was reddened almost to the point of turning purple in places and I could faintly see the imprints of his teeth around the edge. Unbelievable.

‘You are mine.’ he stated simply with a trace of a shrug.

As ridiculous as it was, those three words thrilled me, not to mention put my mind slightly more at ease about our situation, but regardless of that I wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. ‘That's it?
You are mine?
’ I hissed, my eyes widening as I did my best attempt at copying his stupidly possessive tone. ‘That's supposed to make up for me having a great big hickey on my neck? It's going to last for weeks Nathan!
Weeks
!’ My voice rose several notches on my last word and I had to work hard to tamp down my rising hysteria so I didn’t draw attention to us.

In response his eyes darkened and a small smirk curled his upper lip, as he completely ignored my flustered state, ‘Then men will know that you are taken, won't they?’ he added, reaching out a hand and curiously inspecting my humongous hickey with his thumb and looking quite pleased with himself. Oh my God, if I was reading his expression correctly then I think he was actually considering repeating it when this one faded. Not a chance in hell!

His thumb moved from the sore spot on my neck to trace down and across the necklace he had given me and I heard a hum of approval rumble in his throat. This was crazy, after a sleepless night spent thinking that he was through with me I had now been branded by him, and was left dazed and trying to work out exactly what Nathan’s possessiveness meant, if anything, but before I could come to any conclusions he interrupted my thoughts, ‘Just imagine if it had been the other way round, Stella.’ he murmured, ‘If you had seen me with another woman, what would you have done?’

I tried to imagine this scenario and unfortunately was immediately inundated with visions of Nathan and various different beauties hanging adoringly from his arm with sickly sweet smiles on their plastic faces, and tiny dresses on their equally fake boobs. Ugh, it was far too easy to picture. Clearly with his looks and bedroom skills Nathan hadn't been short on partners in his past, but I had to say the images left me with a tight knot in my stomach and a distinctly bad taste in my mouth.

‘Fine, I get it, but I wouldn't just have dragged you off and claim-fucked you, I would have spoken to you and asked what was going on.’ I muttered moodily. Not mentioning that I would probably also have slapped the woman around the face, kicked Nathan in the nuts, and then stormed off.

‘Claim-fucked?’ he raised an eyebrow in apparent amusement, but I swear to God if he smiled I would punch him. ‘You're certainly swearing a lot this evening, Stella.’ Nathan chastised me calmly. My eyes widened at his frustrating coolness.
You think?
I fucking wonder why? I stood staring at him in open-mouthed disbelief as he continued.

‘I see your reasoning, but for me words mean very little. Actions are clearer.’ That sounded a bit strange, but kind of made sense of what I'd already noticed about Nathan in our time together; he wasn't a big talker and physical contact and sex
did
seem to be his way of communicating with me. Shaking my head I ran a trembling hand over my face to try and clear my head. God, I had a lot to try and process after tonight.

‘I’ll see you Friday?’ he questioned briskly, in a tone that was more statement than request, but once again I thought that maybe, just maybe, there was a hint of concern in his tone, which brought my eyes to his in curiosity.

Considering all the dominance and fierceness that I knew he kept trapped inside him, Nathan actually looked rather childlike as he stood there chewing on his lip and gazing at me expectantly with his huge blue eyes averted just below my gaze as usual. Sighing heavily I was at a loss for what to do. He hadn't harmed me in any way this evening – actually if I’m honest I'd enjoyed the way he'd emphatically taken me in the cupboard, and stupidly there was a little part of me that was thrilled that Nathan had felt possessive enough to want to mark me as his, but still his behaviour had been pretty extreme. On the other hand what else could I do? I definitely still wanted to keep our arrangement going and I'd already got an apology from him, which by all accounts didn’t happen very often, so really it came down to a simple choice; stay with him, or to tell him that because of his irrational behaviour both tonight and last Saturday, that it was over between us.

I let out one final huffed breath to show that he'd really over-stepped the line tonight before finally conceding to him, yet again, ‘Yes. I'll see you Friday.’ I said softly. Nodding his approval with what sounded distinctly like a sigh of relief, Nathan then grabbed my hand and, without waiting to see if I was following, dragged me back off in the direction of the bar. God, with all this drama my brother was going to be firing questions at me later, I just knew it.

To my horror, instead of just escorting me back to the bar Nathan soothed and massaged my hand with gentle swirls of his thumb as he walked me right up to Simon and smiled broadly as if absolutely nothing unusual had occurred this evening.
Un-frigging-believable.

Finally letting go of my hand I could feel the skin tingling with remnants of his touch and tucked it back at my side to hide the pathetic trembling he had caused. ‘Sorry about that, Simon, here she is, safe and sound.’ Nathan said popping me back at my brother’s side, but I couldn't help but scoff at how Nathan had suddenly turned into this light hearted man – talk about changeable!

‘I didn’t realise Stella had a brother.’ he commented mildly whilst raising an eyebrow at me almost accusingly. Shrugging slightly I flushed. Seeing as all Nathan and I did together was sexy stuff, family trees hadn't exactly come up in conversation.

‘So where did you say you two met?’ Simon asked me with an amused smirk, making me baulk. I hadn't said where we'd met because I'd been deliberately avoiding talking about him! Glaring at Simon I saw his eyes dancing, could he tell how nervous I was? He bloody could as well, he was laughing at me, the git.

‘Ummm …’ I was lost for words and quite frankly finding this whole evening rather overwhelming. I could tell the truth – 
we met at a sex club where I asked Nathan to be my dominant partner and introduce me to the joys of being a willing sexual submissive.
Nooo, perhaps not, God, seeing Nathan outside his apartment had clearly scrambled my brain if that was the best I could come up with, but I literally couldn't think straight enough to come up with anything better.

‘We met through work.’ Nathan supplied calmly and I flashed him an appreciative glance, my shoulders relaxing marginally. Seeing my look he gave me a tiny lopsided smile in return. It had been almost undetectable, but wow, a real genuine smile from Nathan … and it was directed at me. That definitely got committed to my memory as a first time occurrence.

‘So, Simon, do you live locally?’ Nathan enquired lightly, accepting the bottle of expensive Spanish beer that my brother handed him from the table.

‘I have a small apartment in London but I'm an officer in the Royal Navy so I'm mostly based down south or out at sea.’ Simon explained before taking a swig of his own beer and considering Nathan over the top of his bottle. I could almost hear the cogs turning in my brother’s head as he continued to study Nathan thoughtfully and I chewed on my lip nervously, knowing that it would be a bloody miracle if I managed to avoid an inquisition from Simon later.

‘Wow, very impressive, I imagine it’s a job that never gets dull.’ I stood back to observe this new side of Nathan as he chatted easily with my brother – gone was the dark, brooding man I was used to, instead he was relaxed, laid-back, and conversational. It was quite an eye-opener. Not to mention attractive … 
very
attractive.

‘Well, it was a bit of a surprise seeing Stella here so I thought I'd pop over and say hello, but I should get back to my brother so I'll leave you to it.’ Nathan said with a nod. Words that I translated to
‘I just wanted to drag my submissive off into a cupboard and fuck some sense into her to make sure she wasn't messing around with another bloke on the side.’

Raising an ironic eyebrow to let Nathan know I knew exactly what he'd been thinking I was completely taken aback when he leaned in and placed a hand on my waist, caressing my hip with the briefest of touches.

‘You look very beautiful tonight, Stella.’ he murmured next to my ear before gently kissing me on the cheek. ‘I'll see you soon.’ he promised softly in what I can only describe as his ‘panty-soaking sex voice’, leaving me rather flushed and overcome as he sauntered away. Wow, he'd never been that affectionate with me before.

Turning back to the group of Simon's friends I immediately flushed as I saw their inquisitive glances – especially from the females – and gave them a weak smile and shrug as if nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred. Awkwardly trying to avoid eye contact so I didn’t have to answer any Nathan related questions, I realised that as well as being about as red as a post box, I was also missing Nathan's closeness already. Stupid girl. Rolling my eyes at my own utter ridiculousness I reached forwards for my glass of champagne and then took a long and very unladylike swig of the cool, bubbly liquid to try and calm my shaky composure.

Unfortunately even with my lips around a glass of crisp deliciousness I couldn't fail to see the questioning way that Simon was looking at me. No, not looking,
staring
would be more accurate.