Page 25 of On the Edge

I stare at the phone for less than a minute before the dots appear letting me know he’s responding.

Marco:Please be careful.

Jackson:That’s it? You’re not mad.

Marco:Just concerned about you, Bella. Please be careful. And please don’t let anyone see you two in the hotel together. You know the trouble that can cause! ;-)

Jackson:Promise ... XOXO

* * *

“Why don’t you take a bath while we wait for room service? That way you can fully defrost.” Nate’s so at ease as he gestures toward the bathroom, but I can’t relax enough to imagine bathing in the same suite as him. Coming here was a mistake. The physical attraction I’ve been fighting at work is only amplified now that we’re in a hotel suite together.

At least there’s no chance anyone saw us arrive. He pulled into a private parking spot next to an elevator that brought us straight up to the penthouse. Because, of course he has a penthouse suite. He’s always been so approachable and real, sometimes I forget what it means to be a Davenport.

“What about you?”

“I’m all set, I showered at the Center before heading home. I’ll start a fire. We can eat in front of it when the food gets here. I’m pretty sure I saw some bubble bath in there.”

“Nate, you haven’t even been in the bathroom,” I remind him. But then I realize that he already had the keycard that let us into the elevator and into the suite, so maybe he has been here before.

“This is where I was staying before I moved into Josh’s place. I’ll show you where everything is.” He walks past me, close enough that I can smell his scent—deeply masculine like the woods and also fresh like laundry detergent, because Nate is in every way a contradiction. He continues down the hall, and I trail behind determined not to focus on his wide shoulders that taper to a narrow waist, and how his pants hug his muscular ass.

The bathroom is almost as big as the bedroom in my condo, and every inch of it is covered in marble and glass and mirrors. A huge freestanding soaking tub takes the spotlight. Opposite it is the longest double vanity I’ve ever seen, topped with Calacatta gold marble so gorgeous that my mother’s interior designer heart would stop beating at the sight of it. A walk-in glass shower with two rainfall shower heads, a door to the separate toilet room, and a door to the bedroom complete the far wall. It’s amazingly luxurious.

Nate turns the water on and it pours out of a waterfall faucet. “Still like it scalding?” he asks, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world that he knows, and remembers, how I like my bath water.

“Always.”

A little smile tugs at his lips as he opens the vanity door under the sink and grabs a bottle of bubble bath, then turns and pours a healthy amount into the tub. My toes curl into the plush bath mat as I envision soaking in the tub, surrounded by those vanilla sugar-scented bubbles. I can’t wait to be warm, and apparently my body agrees because it shudders like someone’s dragging ice along my spine.

“Here,” he says after he steps into the shower and reaches into an alcove on the wall. He hands me full-size bottles of luxury shampoo and conditioner, the kind that’s so expensive normal people like me only buy it if they find it on clearance. “I’ll let you know when the food arrives,” he says, as he takes three quick strides right out the door, shutting it behind him with a decisive click.

When I realize the floor is heated, I almost lie down on it to wait for the bathtub to finish filling. Instead, I peel off my socks and let my bare toes enjoy the feel of warm stone. As my feet defrost, so does the rest of my body. My sweatshirt lands on the countertop, followed by my yoga tank and my leggings. While I wait for the tub to finish filling, I take a minute to evaluate myself in the vanity mirror. My scars are still there, along the back of my hip and the front of my abdomen, but they’ve faded and are far less puckered now that I’ve spent years rebuilding my core muscles. I take off my underwear and my sports bra and toss them on top of my pile of clothes before stepping into the tub.

The warm, scented water transports me to Tahiti, where Nate and I spent two glorious weeks the summer before my accident. Back when it felt like we had the world at our fingertips, before everything went so wrong. The entire trip was magical, but what I’m remembering now is that there was an enormous wooden soaking tub, about the same size as this one, on the deck of our overwater hut. Every night Nate would draw us a bath out there, and fill it with vanilla scented oil and the orchids that they left on our pillows each night. It was like being in a tropical spa, outside looking at the billions of stars. The sex we had in that tub, on that deck, and in that hut still haunts me because sex with Nate was like nothing I’ve experienced since.

And now that’s all I can think of. I recognize that familiar pull, the tightening between my legs, and the heaviness in my breasts. I want Nate’s mouth on them—his tongue was capable of pure magic. Still, my hands move up my body, grazing over my stomach, and cupping my breasts, my thumbs sweeping over the hard peaks of my nipples. I swallow the moan that’s rolling up the back of my throat and reach one hand down between my legs. My fingers find the sticky slickness that I knew would be there, and I dip two fingers into the warm depths until they’re coated and then bring them back along my folds to roll over the sensitive bundle of nerves that are aching for touch.

With one hand I alternate between stroking and pinching my nipples, and with the other I increase the pressure on my clit. In my mind, the scene from our last night in Tahiti plays out, when Nate picked me up out of the bathtub and carried me to the chaise lounge on the edge of the deck. The way he knelt down and laid me back on the thick cushions, before returning to his knees. The look of absolute possession in his eyes as he gazed down at me. The warm breeze on my wet skin sent goose bumps across my flesh, but Nate held me pinned there with the weight of his stare. My eyes traveled down his body, slick and wet, every muscle defined in the light of the moon, and I couldn’t help but reach out, capturing him in my hand. My thumb swept over his tip as my fist closed around him and I began the torturously slow pace that I knew drove him crazy.

As I dip two fingers back inside myself and stroke upward, I’m not sure if the moan I hear is Nate in my memory or me in the present. But I seal my lips and return to picturing him bending down to capture my nipple in his mouth, the pull I felt as he sucked just hard enough to bring pleasure at the edge of pain. I envision the way he pulled my legs up around his waist, sinking himself into me as I welcomed him, ready with a hot slickness he could bring about in half a second of touching me.

Nate had leaned forward and rubbed his nose along mine before pulling back enough to be fully in focus. “I want forever. I want it with you.”

“I know.” I reached up and stroked his jaw with the palm of my hand before threading my fingers into his hair. “And we’ll have that. Just give me time.”

“I’ve been giving you time,” Nate said, beginning to move inside me slowly. “For years. I need you to commit.”

“I am committed Nate,” I told him, bringing my hips up to meet him thrust for thrust. “I’m one hundred percent in.”

“Then marry me.”

“I will. I promise.” The word escaped on a sigh. “Just let me win my championship first, then we’ll focus on that future.”

“I’m not asking you to choose between the two,” he all but growled, moving in me with more intensity. This was an old argument already. One World Championship, that’s all I needed. Then I planned to walk away from racing—not that he knew that yet, but in my mind I had already decided. He’d followed me around the globe for years as I competed, he deserved time to pursue his dreams too, whether that meant getting back to racing or something else entirely.

“I love you,” I told him, and as I stroke my fingers inside myself now it’s impossible to forget how I felt then.

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