Before Jamaica Lane (On Dublin Street #3)(27)
Author: Samantha Young

‘Then if it makes you feel better, I want you to know that I’m glad for you. Dee makes you laugh. She makes you happy. That’s all I care about.’

‘Will you meet with her? Spend some time just you two? I know she’d like that.’

Honestly, it’s something I should have thought of doing without having to be asked, and I realized that I really had been locked up in my own insecurities and problems for so long now that I hadn’t been a very good daughter lately. ‘Of course, Dad.’

Satisfied, Dad changed the subject again, talking about Cole and how Dad and Jo were thinking of getting him a dog if he passed his exams at the end of the school year. Cole had made a comment about how he’d always wanted a puppy and Jo had felt bad that she hadn’t known that, and now she and Cam were discussing it with the landlord.

It was funny, but Jo’s behavior with Cole reminded me of how Dad was with me. Smiling lovingly at my father, I was feeling all mushy and happy for Cole that he’d been blessed to have Johanna Walker as a makeshift mom.

And it was in that moment of perfect contentment that Nate used his key and walked into my apartment.

The sexy grin on his face froze when my dad slowly turned his head and raised an unimpressed eyebrow at Nate’s appearance. They stared at each other for a moment, and then my dad slowly turned his head back to me. He was not happy. ‘He has a key?’

When I closed the door behind my dad I finally let go of all the oxygen I’d been holding inside me and turned to Nate, my eyes bugging out half in horror, half in amusement. He was sitting on my couch, drinking a cold beer and laughing.

‘That wasn’t funny.’

Okay, so maybe it kind of was. But it also kind of wasn’t. We’d just spent the most uncomfortable half hour with my dad as he not very subtly cross-examined us about our friendship. The funny part was watching him try to make Nate squirm. The not-so-funny part was the part where I lied my ass off to my dad about the nature of my relationship with Nate.

Nate put his beer down on the table and stood up, kicking off his shoes. ‘Your dad is bloody scary,’ he commented, still amused. I watched, questioning him with my eyes as he began to undress. ‘Are you sure he’s not the reason you haven’t had a man in seven years?’

I laughed, my eyebrows rising as he stood before me in nothing but his boxer briefs and a raging erection. ‘Why? You’re clearly not scared of him.’

‘I’m made of sterner stuff than most men.’ He strode toward me and grabbed my hand, pulling me toward the bathroom.

‘Tonight’s lesson?’ I asked, since he’d just gone into it without so much as a word.

Nate shut the bathroom door behind us and took the hem of my shirt in his hands to tug it up and off. ‘Spontaneity. Nothing hotter than a woman who wants to f**k you all the time, no matter where you are or what you’re doing.’

I unclipped my bra as Nate worked on my jeans. ‘I’m beginning to think these lessons are personalized lessons on how to please Nate Sawyer.’

‘You don’t realize that all men think that way?’ he teased, removing my jeans and panties.

‘I don’t know.’ My heart was racing now as he reached into my shower and switched it on.

‘Well, most men I know think that way. So … tonight? Shower sex. I didn’t manage to have one after my class, so I thought we’d share one together.’ He grinned and dropped his boxers.

I licked my lips and eagerly followed him into the shower. ‘You know I have a feeling that women like men who want to have sex with them all the time no matter where, too.’

Nate’s smile was heated as he pushed me under the spray of water and up against the tiles. ‘It’s good to know the shower does so much for you, babe. In the grand scheme of things, shower sex is pretty vanilla. I can’t wait to see how you react to me f**king you in the university library.’

My eyes widened. ‘You can’t do that,’ I breathed, growing hot and wet just at the thought of it. ‘I throw kids out for that.’

‘But you like the idea …’ He grazed his lips over mine and lifted my leg. ‘Admit it.’

Before I could answer he thrust into me hard and I would have smacked my head against the wall if he hadn’t curled his hand around it to cushion it in expectation of me arching back in pleasure.

‘Never mind,’ he purred in my ear. ‘I’ll take how wet you are as admission.’

‘Are you sure you don’t mind me crashing here?’ Nate asked, skimming a finger down my nak*d spine as I lay on my stomach beside him on the bed.

After the delicious shower sex I’d dried my hair while Nate reheated some of the pasta for himself. By the time I wandered out of the bedroom, he had finished eating and was ready for our lessons to continue. I knew this because I walked out of the bedroom only to have him maneuver me back inside immediately. Three orgasms later, I was thoroughly sated, it was late, and there was really no point in Nate heading home when I had a comfy bed big enough for the both of us.

With my head resting on my arms, I’d been staring at my headboard, my body so relaxed that I was almost purring like a kitten. I turned my head to answer him, my hair rustling across the pillow. ‘At this point you can have anything you want.’

I watched his dimples appear and decided that one day I was really going to have to kiss those sexy little indentations. ‘Do you really want to make my ego bigger than it already is?’

‘Hmm, good point.’

We smiled at each other before my eyes drifted closed.

I was dozing when I felt the touch of his lips against my bare shoulder. ‘Liv?’

There was something in his tone, something solemn that made me instantly alert. Opening my eyes, I searched his face and found his expression equally grave. My stomach flipped with uncertainty as the blood rushed in my ears with the sudden pounding of my heart. ‘Yeah?’

Nate rolled onto his back, his hands clasped behind his head as he studied my ceiling. ‘You really are one of my best friends, you know.’

My pulse slowed a little as warmth rushed through my chest. Touched, I reached out to skim my fingertips affectionately down his stomach. ‘Back at you, babe.’

‘So promise me something.’

I stilled. ‘Okay?’

‘Promise me, no matter what, this … what we’re doing … it’s not going to ruin that.’

I didn’t understand the sharp, serrated pain that cut across the warmth that had flooded my chest, but I did understand why he was asking what he was asking. Flattening my palm across his stomach, I moved it until it rested over the ‘A’ tattooed on his skin. ‘I promise.’

His whole body relaxed under my hand and when he turned his head to look at me I saw tenderness and gratitude in his eyes. We smiled at each other again, and I ignored the jagged pain.

After a moment he moved his head back and returned to staring at my ceiling.

I couldn’t look away from his face, my eyes committing the sharp cut of his jaw, the perfect profile, straight nose, sooty lashes, beautiful lips, to memory. I was no longer surprised by the way my body prickled to life at the mere sight of his handsome face. For now I put that feeling aside, sensing that his mind was somewhere else, somewhere a little darker than usual.

My fingers circled the ‘A’ on his chest.

‘Nate?’

‘Mmm?’

‘When you’re having a hard time about it, you know you can talk to me, right?’

He gave a slight shake of his head. ‘I’m okay, Liv.’

‘Really? Because when Cole mentioned your tat, you seemed a little off for a few days afterwards.’

Nate slanted a look at me and gave a long, shaky sigh. ‘I don’t know if I can admit it out loud.’

‘Hey, as if I’m going to judge you about anything,’ I teased, trying to relax him again and remind him he was safe with me.

I wanted to follow the little sad smirk curving his lips with the tips of my fingers, but I refrained.

And I waited.

Until he said, ‘I got the tattoo so I’d remember Alana every single day.’

‘Yeah, you told me,’ I reminded him softly.

‘I sometimes wish I hadn’t gotten it.’ Shame entered his gaze as he looked at me, and I hated that he felt it. ‘Sometimes I think it would be easier to forget her most days.’

‘That’s understandable, honey.’

Nate shook his head in denial. ‘I promised her.’

‘Promised her what?’

His voice was hoarse now as he confessed, ‘I promised I’d never leave her.’ He cleared his throat, trying to bury the emotion, but he couldn’t. My friend was still carrying around so much history and I knew that for a fact as he continued. ‘When we were kids I protected her from everything. Crappy stepdad, kids who’d tease her because she didn’t have a lot of money, nightmares, even sad stories. But I couldn’t protect her from the cancer. I couldn’t protect her, so the least I could do was never leave her.’

A new ache wrapped its bruising hands around my ribs, and I leaned over to press a comforting kiss to his chest. ‘Nate, moving on with your life doesn’t mean forgetting her, or leaving her.’

Eyes narrowed, he wasn’t impressed with my comment. ‘How can you say that? You of all people know it doesn’t work like that. I should want to see that tattoo in the mirror every day, Olivia. I shouldn’t resent it.’

The hands around my ribs squeezed as the voice inside me told me to speak up, confess my own deep buried secret, the real reason behind all of this. I should. For my friend, I should. I pressed my cheek to his chest and struggled to find control of my breathing, tears pricking my eyes as I forced myself to be brave for him.

‘Do you want to know the real reason I asked for your help?’ I choked on the last words, the tears falling from my eyes. Nate tensed when he felt the splash of salt water on his skin.

He moved beneath me, but only to release his arm from behind his head so he could wrap it around me. ‘Liv?’

Looking up at him now through my tears, I whispered my own confession. ‘I was scared of resenting my mom. I was scared that somewhere deep inside of me I blamed her for the fact that I’d never had what everyone else had – first love and sex, and time to explore it when every one else was. I thought’ – I brushed away my tears – ‘I thought if I could just do something about it, it would take the chance of that resentment building away. Because resenting her for that would just make me the worst person ever, and I don’t know if I could have handled that dark part of myself that blamed a woman who was kind and gracious until the very end.’ I wiped at my tears and braced myself over him, running my fingers tenderly through his thick hair. ‘You’re not alone, Nate.’

I pressed a comforting, tearstained kiss to his lips.

And promptly found myself flat on my back, my hands pinned above my head as he braced himself over me, his eyes burning. ‘Nate?’ I gasped at the sudden movement.