Page 55 of Fierce Love (Tucker Billionaires)

“I want you inside me. Please. Please, Nate. I love the feel of you inside me.”

Within seconds, I’m getting exactly what I want, his body pressed tight against me, filling me up in the most delicious way.

“Yes,” I breathe out. “God yes.”

His teeth graze my ear, and his heavy breathing with the faintest hints of bourbon is an aphrodisiac that I’ll never get tired of experiencing. He cradles my head with one hand, and his other is on my hip, hitching my leg up to go deeper.

I curl against him, and the pleasure coming from the brush of our bodies is so intense that I might cry when my release finally arrives.

“Do you feel how connected we are? How perfectly we fit?” His breath is hot in my ear. “You’re mine, Hollyn. You were always meant to be mine. And this time, you’re mine forever. No one else will ever have you like this. Just me. Guiding you to the brink. Just me watching you come.”

“Yes,” I say, moving against him, in complete agreement with how possessive he is because it’s how I feel about him too. Nothing and no one will come between us again. “Yes,” I say again as he drives us over the edge together.

“I had a lot of time to think today while I was packing,” I say, trailing figure eights on his arm. He’s the big spoon to my little spoon.

“I hate that you packed. Those suitcases are going to be emptied back out and put somewhere that only I can find them.” He kisses my neck. “What were you thinking about?”

“When we were younger—” I take a deep breath because I hate admitting this, but I vowed to myself that if Nate forgave me, I’d be more honest. “I used your wealth as a shield to protect myself from getting too deep with you. Money was the reason we wouldn’t work, a reason I couldn’t go all in, and I’m sure now that wasn’t fair.

You never cared, and I definitely cared too much.

I did the same thing when I came back too.

Another self-protection measure. If wealth was an obstacle, then I didn’t have to admit the truth—what I did, what Celia did. ”

“I knew. And I was probably too dismissive then and now. But I’ve never wanted a socialite—someone who throws parties and manages charities.

Maybe I didn’t make that clear enough. I’ve only ever wanted you from the minute you pressed your hand to my back and I turned around.

To be with you, the money, the status, didn’t matter. I’d have given it all up.”

I rotate in his arms, and I caress the side of his face with my palm. As tenderly as I can, I kiss him, and he wraps his arm around me, tugging me flush.

“I want to put all of it behind us. My parents are going to jail, and all the other secrets are out.”

“I feel an ‘and’ here.”

“I don’t know how you’re going to feel about this,” I say.

“Okay,” he says, slowly.

“I think I need to talk to your mom, clear the air.” I don’t say now that we’re on equal footing, but that’s how it feels. Like the weight she put on me that night is finally gone and I’m not being ground into the dirt under her will.

“I’ll support that, but I’d rather not be there. She’ll take it as a sign that I didn’t mean what I said.”

“What did you say?”

“I told her that it’d be a long, long, long time before we’d have anything to do with each other again.”

“She is sick…”

“If she ends up needing a donor, she’ll have to hope Ava volunteers. She doesn’t deserve anything from me after what she did.”

I can’t blame Nate. After hearing Sienna describe the change in Nate after I left, I can’t imagine Celia was oblivious.

It must be deeply painful to realize she did this to me, but she knowingly did it to him too.

Her son. I’d go to the ends of the earth for Kinsley, and she’s only my sister.

I can’t imagine hurting a child like she hurt him, like my mother hurt me. It seems unfathomable.

“She’s still got lots of treatment options,” Nate says, and I’m not sure if he’s soothing himself or me. The reality is that he’s not the type to watch someone die, even if he hates them right now.

“You’re okay if I talk to her?”

“If that’s what you need, I can get Owen to find someone to escort you to the hospital tomorrow.”

“Hospital?”

“She collapsed at the end of our fight. Family chat has been going off all night, but I’ve been ignoring it.”

If this is how he needs to deal with Celia’s betrayal, who am I to criticize him? This doesn’t feel like him, but I also know that we make different decisions when our nervous systems are overloaded.

“If she was dead,” he says, his tone flat, “someone would have called. They’re probably gossiping about me in the chat, and I don’t need to add to that noise right now.”

That makes more sense. Seems more like Nate, and I breathe an internal sigh of relief.

I’ve spent so many years with feelings in deep opposition to each other that it’s hard to rewire my brain to place most of what happened on Celia’s shoulders.

She could have made different choices. Helped me and let Nate and me stay together, especially after she saw how miserable he was.

I never expected her to be easy on me when I showed up at her house that night.

She had a lot of leverage, but my feelings about the life she gave me are hard to pin down.

I wish things had gone differently, but they also could have gone so much worse.

What would she have done if I hadn’t taken the deal?

Let my aunt go to prison? Petitioned to have Kinsley returned to my parents’ care when they got out?

There’s no doubt in my mind that she had that kind of power and vengeance.

“Tomorrow, we put all your things back where they belong—in my house, in my life, in this fucking bed—exactly where they always should have been.”

Confronting Celia in the hospital wasn’t the power move I needed, so I’ve waited until she returned home. At the Tucker mansion, I’m given much different treatment than the last time I was here. I’m shown directly into the main living room and announced with fanfare. It’s a full circle moment.

“Come to gloat, have you?” she asks from the couch, where she’s sitting with her tablet.

“Came to clear the air.”

“Nathaniel did all the air clearing I think I can handle.” Her gaze rakes over me with a critical lens, and she sets her tablet aside. “We really have nothing to say to each other. I gave you a better life, and this is how I’m repaid.”

“The thing is,” I say, “you didn’t have to give me that life at the expense of your son. You had a choice.”

“You and he are not a match.”

In previous interactions, I’ve found her certainty to be hard to handle.

Her tone and proclamations have put me on my back foot, unsure of where to step next.

But I can’t let her keep doing that to me.

Maybe she’s out of my life and out of Nathaniel’s life, but I can guarantee she’ll still be a crucial part of Bellerive society. That’s just how the island works.

“We are a match,” I say. “Despite the forced time and distance, we’re just as in love as we were as teenagers. We’re going to get married and have kids, kids you’ll probably never meet except in passing.”

“You threw him away, and I get punished.”

“You set me up. Why can’t you just admit that you set me up?”

“Your aunt was guilty, did you know that? Mickie and Niall weren’t, but your aunt was. She was laundering money through the deli she worked at. I got her off. Made sure she didn’t pay for her crimes. And this betrayal is how I’m repaid.”

I have no idea if Celia is lying. My aunt kept all those documents, and there was nothing in there that would lead me to believe Celia is telling the truth right now.

We certainly never had any extra money from these supposed illegal acts, so my gut says she’s lying—one last-ditch attempt to hold something over my head.

Or it’s possible that Mickie was the one laundering through the deli and they’re all lying to me.

Maybe my aunt didn’t know. Either way, I’m not letting her tarnish the good memories I have.

“The least you could do is speak to Nathaniel. Make him see reason. Tell him that I gave you and Kinsley—even your aunt—a good life.”

“I won’t tell Nathaniel how to feel about anything, actually,” I say, straightening. “He’s innocent in all of this. He can feel however he feels, and I’ll support him completely.”

“You’re only saying that because he still wants you.”

“I’m not. But I don’t expect you to understand what it means to love someone like that—to want what’s best for them, even when it’s not what’s best for you.”

“You two will never make it long-term. Bellerive society might accept you while you’re on television, but the minute that shine wears off, you’ll just be another poor Davis girl.”

“You can think what you like, Celia. The only person who needs to accept me is Nate. Took me a while, but I understand that now. Nate doesn’t need Bellerive society to accept me.

” Talking to Sienna also reminded me how much people can change—both me and Bellerive’s upper class.

Seeing Kinsley thrive has taught me that this island, these people, don’t have to represent what they once did.

I need to fit into Nate’s life, not Bellerive’s harsh social classes.

That’s the important part, and I’m finally sure I can.

Celia gives me a grimace, but she doesn’t contradict me.

“I just came to tell you that your hold on me is done. Your hold on Nathaniel is done. We’re going to live our best lives together, without you, and I hope that watching it makes you realize how wrong you were then and how wrong you are now.

” I stare her down. “Because if you’re not careful, you’ll alienate all your children, and you’ll die in that hospital you were just in, alone. ”

Then I turn on my heel and I leave before she can dismiss me. We don’t need her approval for anything anymore. For the first time since I was a scared kid standing in her living room, I finally feel like I’m in charge of my life again.