Page 36 of Fierce Love (Tucker Billionaires)

One way or another, I’m bound to break his heart again, and if I let myself dwell on that, we’ll both be miserable right now. So I drag him into another kiss. I run my hand along the waistband of his pants, and he shudders at the contact, deepening the kiss.

Right now, with the day I’ve had—my parents’ assault and threats, finding out about this house, knowing that I can never have all this long-term—I need a solid connection with him. I need to feel him around me, inside me.

“I want you, Nate,” I murmur.

“Here?”

“Yes. Right now.”

He groans into my mouth and then falls to his knees to push my dress up, tug my panties to the side.

Without hesitation, his tongue sinks into me, and I lean back, bracing myself on the edge of the railing.

His lips and tongue and the barest hint of teeth sweep me out of my head and into this moment, where I’m somehow back with Nate, where we’re in sync like I’ve never been with anyone else.

If I thought about it too much, it would make me want to cry how much I’ve settled since I left Bellerive, how much I lowered my expectations for men and sex and relationships.

Or maybe, deep down, I just knew no one would ever measure up, no one would ever slot into my heart and soul the way Nate did when we were teenagers.

I loved him so deeply, so completely, that I’m not sure I was ever able to dig the roots out, kill the feelings. And god knows I tried to poison it all.

“Please,” I say, almost unable to take the unbearable pressure he’s been building inside of me with his persistent assault on my senses.

“Please what?” he says, chuckling against my thigh. “Tell me what you want.”

“I want you inside me when I come,” I say, barely able to get the words out with the amount of pleasure that’s cascading through me. I’m so close, but I don’t want it to end yet.

He leaves between my legs, and I almost cry out at the injustice even though I just asked for it.

Wiping his mouth, he urges me off the railing and then spins me around, planting my hands on the edge of the wide railing.

He tugs my panties down so they pool around my ankles, and then he lifts my dress.

The sharp sounds of his belt buckle and zipper makes me feel like I might explode in anticipation. He draws me back, and then as he slides in, he hisses, and I glance back to see the look of pure ecstasy on his face.

“You’re so wet. So ready,” he says, stroking slowly before bringing his hand around to swirl against my clit.

“Nate,” I murmur, caught up in feeling once again.

“Look out,” he says, his voice thick with desire. “Look out and know that you were once out there with me, wishing to be here, and now you’re here with me. Always with me.”

The notion brings tears to my eyes, that if I’d made different choices back then, there might not have been years and so much pain between the two moments. But I’d have avoided my pain and his only to cause an equal amount for other people.

“Tell me,” he says against my ear, causing a shiver to race through me.

I know what he wants me to say, what he used to love hearing when we were together. I glance at him over my shoulder, hoping my tears aren’t visible. “I love the feel of you inside me. I love it so much.”

He searches my face, and I can see the war in his expression, between wondering what’s going on in my head and giving into the pleasure we’re both drowning in.

“Are you okay?” he says, concern for me overtaking his desire.

“I want this,” I say. “I want you. Faster,” I say, bracing myself. “Please.”

“Hols…”

“Please,” I say, breaking eye contact to look out at the ocean, letting myself drown in the intense physical connection rather than suffer at the rocky shore of the emotional one.

He does as I ask, and the edges of my vision start to blur out, my orgasm just out of reach.

“Can you come? God, I’m barely holding on.”

“Keep going,” I say, focused on the horizon.

Then his hips jerk, and he groans just as I crest the wave and catch it. I let out a moan of relief, clutching on to his hand, stilling its rotation on my most sensitive parts.

He kisses my neck, his breath ragged like mine. His hips jerk, driving him deep inside me. It takes us both a few minutes to come down.

“Just a second,” he murmurs near my ear. “I’ll get a cloth.”

He pulls out, and I want to cry at the loss of connection. It’s like there’s a part of me that’s terrified I’m going to lose him again, even if I think that’s the only logical outcome to this whole thing.

He returns with a warm cloth, and he gently cleans me up, sliding my panties back up my legs and into place. He leaves again, and when he comes back, I still haven’t turned around.

“You said you wanted it,” Nate says in a gentle voice, “so why does it feel like you didn’t?”

Tears spring to my eyes, and I keep my back to him. “I did,” I say, my voice thick. “I did.”

“Talk to me, Hols. What’s going on with you?”

“I’m terrified to let you in again,” I say. “And every time we’re together, it feels like you’re unlocking doors I’ve bolted and kept shut just to survive.”

“Maybe we forgive each other one bolt at a time,” he says, his hand on the base of my neck.

“Forgive each other?” I say with a scoff. “What’d you do?”

“I gave up. I stopped looking. Even though I was sure what we’d had was real, I didn’t keep pushing to get you back. Instead, I locked all my doors, boarded up my heart. Maybe if I hadn’t let hurt and pride get in the way, we would have worked things out sooner.”

For him to say that when he doesn’t even know why I left, what I did… I just… I shake my head. “You have nothing to be sorry for. And we said we were going to leave all that in the past.”

“Hard to do that,” he says, his tone wry, “when you can’t let it go either.”

A heavy silence sits between us, and then Nate says, “I want to move in here, too, if you’ll let me. I can’t imagine being in Tucker’s Town and wondering if you and Kinsley are safe. Security is great, but I want peace of mind.”

“We said we’d keep this just between us.”

“The house is ten thousand square feet. If we don’t want to see each other, we don’t have to. But I won’t sleep at night knowing you’re here, wondering if you’re truly safe.”

“You don’t think people will wonder about us if you’re here?”

“I’m going to have a bodyguard with you constantly, and I’m going to get Owen to get permission from Kinsley’s school to do the same there.

Because of the connection to Owen, people are probably going to assume, rightly, that I’ve done that.

We work together already.” He takes a deep breath.

“And a lot of people on the island already know I own this house. It’s just that you didn’t. ”

Finally, I turn to face him, and his gaze is laser focused on the bruise on my cheek. As long as that visual reminder is there that my mom can get to me, that she can hurt me, Nate will find a way to stay close. I can make that hard for him, or I can make that easy.

But in making that easier for him, I’ll be forcing myself to confront some of my past I’d prefer to keep buried.

If he’s right and people will make certain assumptions—correct ones, for better or worse—then I’m sure I’ll have someone knocking on my door, reminding me of choices and promises I already made.

“As long as we’re in separate wings of the house,” I say. “Is that possible?”

“The master suite is on the main floor. You can have that. I’ll sleep upstairs on whatever end Kinsley doesn’t want.”

“We just need to be careful around Kin,” I say. “While other people in Bellerive might assume certain things, I can’t have Kinsley thinking we’ll be staying in Bellerive. I don’t want her to believe that whatever is going on between us changes whether we return to New York.”

“God forbid,” Nate says, a hint of annoyance in his tone. “Whatever you want, Hols. I just want you safe.”

Then he leaves me standing on the porch alone as he strides back into the house.