Broken Pasts (16 page)

“
Hello
to you, too,” she said as I heard the fridge door open and
glass clinking. “You called earlier, but didn't leave a
message. I'm guessing this is it. The conversation where I talk you
into sleeping with him.”

“
I
already did,” I blurted and my best friend paused for a moment.

“
You
did?” she asked, voice shiny and excited.

“
Try
not to sound like a Goddamn pervert for five seconds and help me
figure this out.”

“
Did
you do it bareback or did you use a rubber? Oh, oh, did he do you
from behind? He seems like a 'doggy style' sort of a guy.”

“
Jamie!”
I whispered angrily. “Christ, what is wrong with you? Would
you just listen for a second. We didn't … go … all the
way.”

“
You
sound like a fifteen year old after her first date. What do you mean
you didn't go 'all the way'? What the fuck is that? Did you screw
the guy or not?”

“
He
gave me oral sex,” I said, turning the sink on and letting the
water run like a barrier between my conversation and Mr. Sutherland's
ears.

“
He
went down on you? Wow. Nice. How was it?” I heard a second
voice in the background and rolled my eyes.

“
Who
is that?” I asked. “Who are you discussing my personal
life next to?”

“
It's
just Joel,” she said, and in my mind's eye, I could see her
shrugging loose and easy.
What's the big deal? So what if my
husband knows that you're deepest, darkest fantasies involve fuzzy
handcuffs and sex swings? Is that a problem?
“Go on. He
went down on you and … ”

“
And
the details aren't important, Jamie. What is important is what's
happening now.”

“
You're
going down on him? While we're on the phone?”

“
For
the love of God, Jamie. He's staying here. Until Wednesday. Just
him, no Cedric. What do I do?” My friend rolled her eyes
(don't ask how I knew that, I just did) and snorted like she couldn't
believe how incredibly ignorant I was. Wait until she heard about
the big 'O'. She was really gonna freak out then, probably have me
betrothed to Mr. Sutherland with a dowry of chocolate and cheap wine.

“
Theresa
McMaster, I'm going to say this once and only once. You do whatever
makes
you
happy. Do you want to sleep with him?”

“
I
– ”

“
If
you do, then just do it and don't worry about how or why or when or
what. You've spent your whole fucking life worrying about those
things and it hasn't worked out. Follow your fucking heart and let
yourself be happy. That's all I have to say on the matter.”
And then she hung up on me. Of course, I did just happen to hear her
say, “Oh, yeah, Theresa finally screwed the bodyguard,”
before she ended the call, but I don't think I was meant to get that
part.

When
I opened the door to the bathroom, I found Nathaniel redressed in a
suit and shirt and tie, hair perfect, slacks perfect, face perfect.
How the hell?

“
Oh,”
I said instead. “You brought extras?”

“
Always,”
he told me with a white toothed smile. I gestured at him and found
myself rethinking my earlier statement. Suit Nathaniel vs T-shirt
Nathaniel was not as easy a pick as I'd first thought. In fact, now
that he was redressed in the sharp lines and crisp fabrics, I was
starting to lean this way. Guess he brought a whole new meaning to
the phrase,
Likes it both ways.
“I went out to my car
and grabbed my things,” he said as his smile faded a bit. “I
hope you don't mind. Rhea was in her room and – ” I
held out my hands.

“
It's
okay,” I told him. “I think we're a little past the
whole client-bodyguard relationship thing, don't you?”

“
I
hope so,” he told me and then we both stood there stupidly
staring at one another until Rhea came out of her room and found us.

“
Adults
are weird,” she said as she rolled her eyes and moved past us.
I couldn't have agreed more.

CHAPTER 18

The
good thing about is kids is that they'll tell you the truth,
straight-up, no strings attached, no holds barred honesty. The
bad
thing about is kids is that they'll tell you the truth, straight-up,
no strings attached, no holds barred honesty.

“
So
if you marry Nathaniel, will he be my dad?” Rhea asked as I
moved a red checker across the board and tried to pretend that things
weren't weird. They were very, very weird. Nathaniel was
flip-flopping between acting like a paranoid bodyguard and a loving …
I won't say boyfriend … potential partner maybe?

“
Getting
a little ahead of yourself, Rhea,” I said as I jumped her and
she pouted her lips at me like I was the devil incarnate. “Nathaniel
and I are not getting married. We're just … friends.”

“
Friends
don't blush at each other,” Rhea said as she glanced up at
Nathaniel with narrowed eyes. “And they don't let you touch
their penises.”

“
Rhea
McMaster-Gibson, you need to cool it with the penis comments. People
are starting to wonder. And besides, how do you know that I …
I mean, I haven't … Just don't say anything like that around
your father, okay?”

“
I
want Nathaniel to be my dad,” Rhea said as she played with the
stack of plastic chips on her side of the table. “He's taller
than Dad and nicer and he has a better car.”

“
Well
all of that is true,” I said with a grin. Sorry, but I
couldn't help myself. Don't judge. Glen was a human slime ball and
even if it wasn't appropriate to mention that in front of Rhea, it
certainly wasn't appropriate to
lie
about the man. I mean,
what she'd said was true. “Your dad will always be your dad,
no matter what.” Rhea groaned and I had to fight to keep a
grin off of my face.

“
We
can be friends,” Nathaniel said, and I had to glance over my
shoulder to catch his eyes. They were smiling at my daughter,
looking at her with a sense of whimsy, of what might've been,
could've been. It wasn't hard for me to imagine what he was going
through. I often thought about what my unborn daughter would've
looked like, if she'd have taken after Glen or me, if she'd have
disliked him as much as Rhea did. I tried
not
to think about
it for obvious reasons, but sometimes it was inevitable. Nathaniel
was having one of those moments. “I even know how to do French
braids.” Rhea sighed and shook her head.

“
Everybody
knows how to do French braids.” She paused. “At
least you don't suck at bowling.” And that was that and she
was finished with her poor, tired, old mother for the evening, off to
defend the land from Japanese monsters whose names I couldn't even
begin to pronounce. I sighed and rested my arms on the table,
surprised when Nathaniel came and took Rhea's chair. It was actually
kind of weird seeing him sit. The suit folded neatly around his body
as he took a deep breathe and looked at me like he didn't know what
to do. If he was looking for help he was looking in the wrong place.
I didn't know what to do either.

“
This
is going to be hard, isn't it?” I asked him and he nodded.

“
I
think so.”

“
And
can you maybe clarify what exactly this is? The day's been kind of a
blur. I mean, what's going on here, Nathaniel? You're a bodyguard
one minute, boyfriend the next.” I cringed at the stupid 'b'
word. Really, the English language is kind of limited in that
department. We needed a word for
man-who-could-possibly-mean-something-but-doesn't-yet. I sighed.

“
I'm
just … nervous about Gary. I'd actually be less worried if I
did see him outside. Theresa, I think this is the quiet before the
storm. I want to get to know you. I want to sit on the couch with
you and have a drink and not keep putting things off. There's a
spark between us. I haven't felt this way with anyone since Gillian,
and I'm not letting it go now that I've found it. We owe it to each
other to try this, see if we could be something together, but I can't
do it when I'm already worried about losing you.”

“
It's
that bad?” I asked him, and he shook his head.

“
I
don't know. Maybe? Maybe not? Not all stalkers are created equal.
Maybe he will just stop, go away and forget about you, but probably
not. I just can't say.” I looked down at the linoleum, at the
ugly 80's off-white linoleum, and tried to figure out what I was
going to do.

“
So
you're staying tonight?” I asked, knowing that I could actually
sleep peacefully knowing he was there. I wasn't going to tell him
this, but when Cedric was there, I got about half as much sleep.
Something about Nathaniel just seemed
right
to me. I told
myself that it was some deep, basic instinct, like I could sense a
good mate the way other creatures do, but I knew that was a load of
bull because I'd picked Glen and Gary. Still, it was hard not to
trust the feeling in my gut, the one that told me he was the good
guy. And I wanted to believe it, I really did.

“
And
tomorrow,” he said. I could tell from his voice that he didn't
want to talk about the night after that. He thought I was going to
send him away, and he didn't like it, not one little bit.

“
Sounds
good,” I said. I wasn't ready to go there. We would just have
to take the next few days as they came and figure it out from there.
I didn't tell him this, but I did look up at him, absorb his strong,
straight nose, his chiseled cheekbones, his smooth brows that
certainly weren't plucked but weren't by any definition
shaggy.
“How do you do it?” I asked him. “How do you
keep everything so neat and tidy and perfect? I can't even seem to
button my blouse up the right way.” Nathaniel sat back and
watched me with his green eyes, traced the edges of my lips, my jaw,
dropped gently to my breasts and then lifted back to my face.

“
It
just has to be this way. If I let it all loose, I'll fall apart.”

“
Do
you believe in soul mates?” I asked him and wondered if it was
going to be possible for him to ever love again. If it wasn't, then
I needed to get on a one way train away from Nathaniel Sutherland and
I needed to do it
now.
He looked down at the floor like I
thought he would, but when he glanced back up at me, he was smiling.

“
I
believe in love eternal,” he told me. “But I also
believe in second chances. Your past doesn't have to dictate who you
are, but it can help you discover who you're meant to be.”

***

I
want to say that I grabbed Nathaniel by his suit jacket and kissed
the hell out of him for saying what he said. But I didn't. I froze
like a deer in the headlights and started to sweat profusely before
excusing myself to the bedroom. He followed, of course, because
well, that's what bodyguards do, and then he stood in the doorway,
silent and dark, but with this little hint of a smile hovering around
his lips. That might've been because he'd seen me pick out a pair of
red lacy panties and a matching bra, but I wasn't going to admit that
to myself.

“
Goodnight
Nathaniel,” I said and then wondered briefly if I should invite
him into my bed. Chances were though that he wouldn't take me up on
my offer, and I'd end up feeling frustrated and embarrassed, so I
kept the thought to myself.

“
Goodnight
Theresa,” he said. “Sleep tight.”

“
Don't
let the bed bugs bite?” I joked and he chuckled softly.
Oh
my god. There it is.
Nathaniel
did
have one of those
chocolatey, masculine, throaty laughs in his repertoire. He'd just
been saving it. “You did that on purpose,” I told him,
and even in the darkness of the room, I could see that he glanced
over his shoulder to look at me.

“
Did
what?” he asked innocently.

“
Never
mind.”

Silence.

“
Nathaniel?”
I asked. “Are you sure you're okay over there? I mean, you
didn't get any sleep last night either.”

“
I'll
be alright,” he told me and in his voice, I could hear this
fierceness and this determination to keep me safe, no matter the
cost. I had this feeling that a little fatigue was a very small
price to pay for Mr. Sutherland, that he'd give his life to save me
if he had to. And sure, I bet in some way it was helping him deal
with Gillian's death, but that was okay with me. He had a past; I
had a past. In many ways, we were a perfect fit.

I
rolled onto my side and tried to sleep, tried to think of anything
and anyone other than Nathaniel, but I couldn't. I just kept
imagining his chiseled chest, his biceps, the feel of his hard cock
pressing against me through his slacks. It didn't help that I could
hear his steady, quiet breathing in the still air. All that did was
serve to remind me of the sounds he'd made when I'd touched his skin,
pressed my body against his.

Theresa,
my inner voice began as my hand slid under the blankets and
brushed against the silken fabric of my panties. It only took one
touch to shut her up, to give into the feelings that had been
bubbling up inside of me since I'd first seen Nathaniel. Our little
romp in the living room hadn't helped either. In fact, I'd have to
say that it had only made things worse.
What if he hears you?
I
wondered as I worked my fingers in gentle circles.
Well then,
wouldn't that be nice?
And then my brain went wild, supplying
images of Nathaniel spinning around, ripping off his tie and leaping
into bed with me, pressing me into the sheets with the warm weight of
his body, kissing my lips with fevered passion and nibbling the skin
on my breasts with his teeth. It was so real that I swore I could
feel his hands on me, that I could hear him breathing.

I
paused.

You
know the whole 'on the lawn there arose such a clatter' bit from
The
Night Before Christmas
? Well, this was like that only it wasn't
from the lawn, it was from across the room, and it wasn't a clatter,
it was Nathaniel. Moaning.

“
Don't
stop,” he said as I rolled onto my back and tried to spy him on
him through the silver gloom of the bedroom. The moon's light was
doing little to illuminate my bodyguard, but there was one thing I
knew for sure: that break in the dark, that pale circle in all of
that black, was his ass. I stared opened mouth as I listened to the
noises
from the doorway.
Please God, don't let Rhea wake
up,
I thought, but I couldn't ask Nathaniel to stop. I didn't
want him to stop. I wanted to join him.

I
slid my hand down the skin of my belly, brushed across the dark curls
there and found my clit.
Theresa McMaster,
I thought as I
writhed in the pillows, moved my hand to the tune of Nathaniel's
breathing.
You are a fucking pervert.

“
Come
over here,” I whispered in the dark. Or moaned in the dark.
Same difference. “Nathaniel … ”

“
I
can't,” he breathed. “If I get in bed with you, I won't
be able to get back up, Theresa.”

“
Like
you're any more prepared standing there with your dick in your hand,”
I whispered fiercely back at him, but I never stopped masturbating
and neither did he. I moved my hand down the slick wetness between
my legs and inserted my fingers, imagined that they were Nathaniel's
and copied the motions he'd used on me earlier. It was like having a
magic wand. “Nathaniel … ” I whispered as I found
that sweet spot and my eyelids fluttered like butterflies.

“
Theresa
… ” he called softly back as I found the big 'O' for the
second time in a single day. Pretty impressive for someone whose
total life score was also two. I came into my hand, wishing it was
Nathaniel, wishing he wasn't such a good bodyguard, that he wasn't so
fucking sexy, and bit my goose down pillow to keep from screaming.

Afterward,
when Nathani
el's perfect ass
had disappeared from view and he was once again just a black splotch
in a whole lot of darkness, I told myself that I could actually fall
in love with this guy.

How
scary is that?