Into the Light (Untwisted series Book 3) (16 page)

Just then Nicholas opened the door and disturbed us. I disliked eye contact, but always made an exception where my little brother was concerned and I immediately caught how his eyes instantly hardened as they settled on where Rebecca was touching me. Smirking I felt slightly reassured by the fact that jealousy was obviously a Jackson family trait and then shifted myself to hopefully alleviate his concern.

Nodding briskly to Rebecca I turned for the door determined to head home to Stella and try out some of Rebecca’s advice. ‘I will, thanks Rebecca. I gotta go.’

Just before I reached the door I heard Rebecca gasp and then call out to me, ‘The good stuff, Nathan, only tell her the good stuff!’ she cried, and I couldn’t help but grin at just how well she’d read my very own thoughts about my depraved mind.

Chapter Nine - Nathan

The whole journey home I’d debated what to say to Stella – how to broach the subject of our relationship, or what I should do first, but even with nearly twenty five minutes thinking time in the car I was still undecided as I reached my apartment block and entered the underground parking garage. Exiting my car I beeped the lock on my Audi and then strode towards the lift, anxiously chewing on the inside of my lower lip. The silver doors opened immediately, giving me no extension on my thinking time, then after typing in the code for the penthouse I leant back against the mirrored wall and continued my pondering.

Thinking back to Rebecca’s advice I narrowed my eyes as I considered my choices with regards to how to approach Stella.
Kiss her
 – well that wouldn’t be an issue, I loved kissing Stella. I could get right on that one straight away.
Hold her hand
 – it wasn’t something I did frequently, but it would be easy enough, too.
Make her feel special
. I smirked, I was pretty confident that I already did that in the bedroom, but somehow I didn’t think that was what Rebecca had been referring to. As perplexing as the idea seemed, I was going to have to work on what I could do to make her feel special other than through sex, but I really had no idea where to start.

By-passing that for now I considered the other things Rebecca suggested.
Treat her like an equal.
I did that already, didn’t I? But my teeth clenched hard as I thought more about it – seeing as she was my contracted submissive Stella probably didn’t view our relationship as particularly equal at all, I realised with a scowl.

Jeez, this was so much harder than I thought it’d be. There was so much to consider it was starting to make me feel rather inadequate, not a feeling I liked one bit, so I instead concentrated on what I
could
do.
Take her out for a meal in public together
, we often ate together at my apartment so it would be easy enough to upgrade that experience to a restaurant I suppose, but as it was only 9.30 in the morning it would have to wait.
Buy her flowers
, fuck no, my nose wrinkled at the thought, I might want to change the direction of my relationship with Stella but I wasn’t a fucking wimp.

A grimace creased my brow in my mirrored reflection of the lift doors and I shuffled on my feet in agitation. Perhaps this was my whole bloody problem: like the selfish pig I was I had been thinking about myself again, not Stella. If I wanted to make a go of things with Stella I would have to start thinking about her feelings for a change, instead of being selfish and ignorant like usual. Would
she
like it if I bought her flowers? Fuck yeah, she would probably love it, wouldn’t she? Slamming my hand on the button panel I reversed the direction of the lift with a scowl and decided to make a quick trip to the flower stand on the corner of the street.

How was it that I could stand in front of a room full of businessmen and not give a damn what one of them thought about me, but the idea of seeing Stella again after being so vulnerable in front of her last night had me completely terrified and practically shaking all over? My shower confessions had probably been my biggest moment of weakness in my entire life, spewing my entire pitiful history in one go like a pathetic little wimp.
Fuck
. And for some reason I chose to do this in front of the woman I now wanted to extend my relationship with? God, I was such a loser. What would she think of me after my confessions? Would she think any less of me? Christ, if I was any more nervous I think I would actually throw up.

Clutching the stupid bouquet of flowers that I’d bought for Stella, supposedly the best in the shop – and they’d better have been for the extortionate price I paid – I finally plucked up the courage to enter my own apartment and face her.

Stella

The metallic sound of a key in the apartment door jolted me from my troubled thoughts and almost caused me to drop the coffee mug in my hand. After waking to Nathan’s warm but empty pillow I had been feeling quietly hopeful that maybe we’d turned a bit of a corner last night, that perhaps I wasn’t the only one developing feelings beyond the stupid contract we’d agreed on weeks ago. But then when I got up and discovered him gone from the apartment the doubts started to settle in thick and fast – his absence couldn’t have indicated anything good so he probably did regret last night as I’d first feared.

It was Sunday so technically one of our days together, but with Nathan gone I hadn’t known whether to stay or go, and as such had pretty much spent the last half an hour standing and staring at the coffee maker, deep in thought wondering if I should cut and run whilst the going was good or stick around. Now it was too late because behind me I could hear the door opening and Nathan’s footsteps entering the apartment and heading straight for the kitchen. Taking a deep breath I turned to face the music.

Out of all the sights I might have imagined coming through the door on Nathan’s return though, it certainly wasn’t this. Nathaniel Jackson, casually dressed in a white T-shirt and jeans, looking rather rueful and carrying the most enormous bunch of flowers I think I have ever seen. Bloody hell, it was like he had half of Chelsea Flower Show in his arms. They were stunning; sunflowers, yellow roses, irises, jasmine branches … blimey, I was stunned into complete silence as I stood blinking and gaping at him like an idiot.

‘Um … these are for you,’ Nathan murmured awkwardly, sounding embarrassed and unsure if I’d actually want them. For me? My shock grew again, and by this point I was pretty sure my mouth was hanging open in surprise rather unattractively.

‘Do you like them?’ He sounded affronted that I hadn’t said anything yet, so I made an effort to quickly snap my mouth closed and nod. Almost immediately I winced as I remembered how much nodding pissed him off, so frantically forced my tongue to moisten my lips so I could put my mouth into action. ‘I love them, Nathan. They’re beautiful.’ My voice was all girly and whimsical and soppy-sounding, but I couldn’t help it, this was the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for me ever, let alone non-romantic, dominate-you-in-the-bedroom Nathan.

Stepping forwards I took the gigantic bouquet from him and staggered towards the kitchen sink to deposit them on the counter, which given its size was actually quite difficult. Gazing down at the glorious blooms I suddenly felt tearful, my eyes welling up as tears threatened to spill over down my cheeks, which was ridiculous and would no doubt freak Nathan out, so to hide my watery eyes I leant forward and buried my head in the gorgeous scents coming from the flowers.

Once I had control over my girly emotions I lifted my head and risked a glance at Nathan, half expecting him to be rolling his eyes at me, or scowling his trademark dark look, but instead I caught what looked quite a lot like a smile on his lips. Wow, whatever next!

‘Do you have a vase?’ I asked, really not expecting him to say yes. I couldn’t imagine a man like Nathan buying flowers just to make his house look and smell nice. In fact, given his uncomfortable stance I wondered if this was the first time he’d ever bought a bunch of flowers in his life. Scoffing, I shook my head.
Don’t flatter yourself,
I thought sourly, mentally giving myself a ticking off. With his charm and bedroom skills Nathan had no doubt ‘flowered’ his way into many a woman’s knickers in his time. The thought was distinctly unpleasant, but instead of lingering on being a jealous harpy I instead focused on the fact that today Nathan had bought them for me, and they were glorious, and probably very expensive.

‘Shit, I didn’t think of a vase,’ he muttered, looking momentarily crestfallen. ‘I think there might be one around here somewhere – Miranda my cleaner bought some flowers for the table last Christmas.’ Let’s hope so, otherwise this stunning display was going to spend the next week prettying up the kitchen sink. In silence Nathan and I both began searching through the various cupboards until eventually I spotted a dust-laden vase right at the back of a cupboard full of pans. Poor Miranda, she must have used it once and given up on him.

Busying myself trimming the ends of the stems I then filled the vase with water, tipped in the little sachet of plant food, and set about arranging the flowers as elegantly as I could. ‘Wow, they really are beautiful, Nathan. Thank you,’ I said softly, standing back to admire them again with a happy little sigh. Clearing his throat gruffly Nathan turned away and started to fiddle with the pile of post on the kitchen counter and I smiled – even though he’d bought the flowers for me apparently he wasn’t comfortable with my gratitude just yet.

‘We’re going out today,’ Nathan suddenly said, still focusing his gaze on the letters in his hand, although he didn’t really seem to be reading them.

‘Oh … OK.’ This was new too. We never went out together, apart from that one visit to Club Twist a few weeks ago. We never did anything together except sex and eating, but that was mostly done in companionable silence, and always at the apartment.

Possibly hearing my hesitation, or my surprise, Nathan closed his eyes and frowned as if considering something very hard, ‘That is, if you would like to?’ he added, sounding like the words were particularly hard for him to say.

I had a choice? I always enjoyed our Sunday sex sessions – by then, Nathan was always less fevered and so the sex was a little more like lovemaking, slower and attentive and lovely, albeit with a few handcuffs or blindfolds thrown in the mix, but going out and spending some time with him would be totally new, and getting to know him better was a rather exciting prospect.

‘Um, yeah, that would be nice,’ I replied, immediately hoping we weren’t just going to repeat our last excursion and go back to Club Twist. I wasn’t keen to bump into Dominic again, I’d thought Nathan was going to kill him last time, but seeing as it wasn’t even lunchtime yet a trip to the club didn’t seem particularly likely. ‘Where are we going?’

Once again Nathan tensed his jaw as if selecting his words very carefully. ‘You choose,’ he offered, sounding almost reluctant.
What?

‘My choice?’ I squeaked. I couldn’t help it, I was stood frozen in the kitchen staring at him like half of his brain was hanging out of his nose. What had happened to him? The dominant Nathan I knew never asked for my opinion and he was certainly never considerate like this. He was almost acting as if his brain
had
been pulled out of his nose.

‘As long as we can get ice-cream I don’t care where we go,’ he added shrugging out of his jacket.

‘Ice-cream?’ God, I sounded like a complete imbecile repeating all his words back at him, but I was seriously struggling to grasp this new reality that I had been thrown in to. First flowers, and now ice-cream? Where the heck had Nathan been this morning to make him so different?

‘Yeah, it’s hot outside today. Ice-cream would be nice,’ Nathan murmured. ‘I’m going to change, be ready in fifteen minutes,’ he ordered. But as he stepped towards the kitchen door I heard him sigh and pause, dropping his head as he did so. ‘
Please,
’ he added, before walking from the kitchen, leaving me standing stock still and gaping at his retreating figure.

What in the name of all things holy was going on? Was I missing something? Was it National Be Nice To Your Submissive day? Shaking off my haze of confusion I hastily made tracks up to my bedroom to change, deciding that whatever the reason for Nathan’s odd mood I may as well make the most of it.

Slipping into some lovely new ivory lace underwear – a replacement set from Nathan for the panties he tore up at my office – I stepped into a pale yellow sundress, grabbed a cardigan just in case, and then after touching up my light make-up I headed back to the kitchen.

As quick as I’d been, Nathan had still beaten me to it; he was still in his jeans but he’d changed his white T-shirt for a navy blue polo shirt which did devastatingly good things for his pale blue eyes. Blimey, talk about sinfully sexy. And all mine. For today anyway.

We walked to the lift in silence and it wasn’t until the doors closed that he spoke again. ‘So, where are we going then?’ he asked, tossing his car keys lightly in his hand. He wasn’t smiling, but I thought perhaps I could hear a trace of humour in his voice as if he too found it strange to be asking me my choice in matters.

‘How about Greenwich Park?’ I offered – it was just the other side of the River Thames from here and if we took the Docklands Light Railway I knew we could be there in less than twenty minutes, plus there was great little ice-cream parlour near the entrance that I was fairly sure would satisfy Nathan’s demand for icy goodness.

Nodding, Nathan stepped from the lift in the direction of his car but I took hold of his arm and stopped him, a smile popping to my lips. ‘We don’t need to drive Nathan, its only three stops on the train.’

‘The train?’ Nathan sounded almost appalled by my suggestion and I couldn’t help myself, I laughed at him. Loudly. Which of course immediately echoed off the concrete walls of the parking garage like surround sound.
Oops
. First he looked mightily pissed off, then slightly offended, then determined to shut me up and I promptly stopped laughing as he stepped forwards with a particularly menacing look on his face. I expected a telling off, or a harsh word about my behaviour, but what I got instead was a long, firm kiss on the lips which quickly heated to something far more passionate as his tongue pushed into my mouth and whipped me into a needy frenzy within seconds.