“I want all of it,” he said. “All your secrets. Every filthy last one of them.”
She slithered lower, her mouth on his chest, kissing, licking, nipping him with her teeth. Her hair was light and cool on his skin. He sank his hands into the curls.
“This is my fantasy,” she mumbled at his waist. “You. Like this.” She unbuttoned his belt. “I touch myself, but I want you.”
Nathan felt the heat of her breath as she pressed her lips against him. When she took him in her mouth, his body seized. She pressed her hand to his chest, to his heart, like she wanted to measure how thoroughly he was being wrecked. His hand fisted mindlessly, a gentle hair pull that made her hum in pleasure. Soon he was begging for release, pleading for mercy.
Rachel climbed on top of him, and he entered her with a long, rough stroke. They were wild and frantic, fighting to move deeper and harder than their bodies would allow. Eventually, they settled into a rolling, seductive dance, one body instead of two. Rachel came with a series of moans into his mouth, and Nathan held them in his chest like smoke. His release was a punishing, spiraling thing that gripped him so hard that he shouted her name. When it finally receded, he collapsed on the couch, shattered and wasted.
Rachel lay on top of him, and he studied her face as they both came back to themselves. Her eyes were soft and hazy. He touched her chin, tracing the perfect line of her mouth with his thumb.
She was his. But once they left, she wouldn’t be. Not completely. “What if we stayed?” he asked.
Rachel hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“Stay with me. Just for a few days.” He kissed her temple, her cheek, the corner of her mouth, trailing small I love yous over her skin. “Let me take care of you.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Rachel’s dad used to say that instincts were your heart trying to be heard over your head. If you ignored them too often, they would eventually go quiet. Her instincts, her heart, used to fantasize about running away. She thought about it when she wandered through a bookstore until they took down the open sign. Or when she ate her muffin slowly at a coffee shop so they’d keep refilling her mug. It happened the day she dropped Faith off at culinary school. Rachel had roamed around the city for hours because she didn’t want to go home.
But those were fantasies. Her head would remind her of how grateful she should be for her life. Over the years, it happened less and less. So when Nathan asked her to stay, it felt like her heart, tired of being ignored, had put those desires into someone else’s mouth instead, hoping this time she would finally listen.
“The tow truck just left.” Nathan handed her a coffee mug. “The guy sold me a used tire, so we’re not stranded anymore.” They’d woken up on the couch after a heavy night’s sleep and migrated to the sunroom for breakfast, which seemed redundant given the entire house was one big atrium. Someone had designed it with sunrise backdrops in mind.
“I was about to go shopping,” he said. “We need actual food and a change of clothes.” Nathan had found a collection of Tshirts and sweatpants Joe had left in a drawer upstairs, but the weather had settled into a brisk fall chill. They both needed something warmer. Nathan was bursting out of clothes that were a size too small.
“I should go with you.”
She sat up, but Nathan touched her arm to stop her. “I can go. You look tired.” He stroked her cheek. “Do you want to talk about yesterday?”
She wondered if he realized his hands were extended, palm up, as if he might need to catch her. “I had a panic attack.”
“I know,” Nathan said. “I also know they can have triggers.” He hesitated. “Did something happen to you? In a car?”
“No, not like you mean. It’s a long story.” She was stalling. People who love you think they want to know everything about you. Like the unseen parts are wrapped gifts they’re eager to open. But Rachel knew it was more like reading someone’s diary or going through their internet search history. Once you know, you can’t unknow.
“When Faith was two, I left her with my dad so I could go to college. My freshman year, I came home to visit them over Christmas and again the following summer. After that, I stopped going home at all.”
A mother can decode their child’s pain by the way they cry. Faith’s was a breathless whine when she was hungry, and a hiccuping staccato when she wanted attention. The high-pitched scream that burst from her tiny body when Rachel came home for the holidays was pure pain. It was Where were you? and Why did you leave me? and Please don’t go, in one long, scream. All Rachel could do was hold her arms down in the center of the bed so she wouldn’t hurt herself.