Page 58 of Evil Queen

Nikita

Ifought and failed many times to find the words I needed to say. Nathan was sitting on his couch, not pressing or pushing, just waiting for me to make the first move. I’d driven straight back to my house and left Jaxon to get Brayden back home to try to get more information out of him. I had to talk to Nathan.

His taking Cherri’s side in the fight had been bad, and his paying off teachers left and right to cover for her had been bad. But fifty grand? That was a lot of money. I simply refused to believe that it wasn’t related to some form of feelings anymore. Nathan hadn’t spent that amount of money on anything in his life before. The only thing he owned that cost that much was his car, and his parents had given him that.

“Nathan.” I finally started. “Fifty thousand dollars? For what?”

“She’s not going to graduate,” Nathan replied. There were tears already bunching in the corners of his eyes. “After four years of hard work. After everything she’s done, she’s not going to graduate unless I help.”

“That’s a lot of help!”

“It’s not just her!” Nathan said. “I had to help Avery too. I was going to help anyone who needed it, even Sicily.”

“But none of them did,” I responded. “Just her. Why does it keep falling to you to look after her? And why do you keep doing it? She’s made it very clear how she feels about you.”

“Can you blame her?” Nathan asked. “You said so yourself that you understand the position she’s in more than anyone.”

It wasn’t fair. No, I didn’t blame Cherri for the way she felt about Nathan after everything that had happened. No, I didn’t fail to understand the position she was in after thinking that Deon died. But I had people that I loved too. I loved Nathan, and I loved The Royal Court. For the past few months, she’d done nothing but embark on a course to hurt and harm them continuously. Why wouldn’t they give up on her? Was there something I was missing? I’d been hurt by my father too. I had to watch my mother turn her back on me too. Did that mean that I’d earned the right to run around with callous disregard for everyone else? I had to hoist myself up and figure out how to deal with it.

Why didn’t she?

“What about me?” I asked. “Would you have paid that amount of money for me?”

“Nikita.” Nathan stood up and walked over until he was able to reach out and put his hands on my arms. “Fifty thousand dollars is the least I would pay for you. I’d do whatever I had to for you but, fuck.” He laughed. “You don’t need me. You take care of yourself just fine.” He reached out and lifted the pendant of the necklace he’d given me and turned it over in his fingers. “I’d love to take care of you for once, but all this time, you’ve been the one taking care of me.”

“If I asked you to stop taking care of Cherri, would you stop?” I asked.

Nathan looked up at me. “Are you going to ask me to do that?”

“If I did, what would you do?” The tears bunched in his eyes started to slide down his cheeks. Emotions turned to a knot in my throat. “Is it that bad? Thinking of just letting her go?”

“Nikki.” He caught me off guard, leaning forward and pecking my lips. It had been a while, and it felt so good to have his lips on mine again, so much so that I leaned toward him as he pulled away, keeping us tethered a bit longer. “Nikki, do you think your dad should pay for the pain he caused you?”

“It’s…different,” I responded, but even as the words left my lips, I realized it wasn’t different. Well, it was different because Nathan wasn’t even a portion of the monster my father was. “I get that you’re trying to do what’s right, but I think you’re fighting a losing battle. There is nothing that my dad could do as payment for his actions. He could give me millions and millions of dollars, and nothing would make it right.”

Tears gathered a little more in the corners of Nathan’s eyes. “So you’re saying he’s unredeemable?”

“Maybe?” I replied.

“But…” Nathan wrapped his arms tighter around me and pulled me into him. His head landed on my shoulder, and he started to cry outright. “If he’s unredeemable, doesn’t that mean I am? I don’t want to be a man who brings you pain. I want to be someone who you can look at and be happy to see and not feel conflicted by.” He pulled away and looked into my eyes. “Doing all of this for Cherri, it’s about doing right by her, but it’s also about doing right by you. I want to be a good man that you deserve.” My heart started to beat even faster as I was overwhelmed by that sentiment. Was he doing all of that to try and earn my second-hand forgiveness? “If you thought I was like that, like your dad, you wouldn’t want to be with me, right?”

“Yes,” I said, “but you’re not like him. I don’t know how it all works, but you aren’t like my dad. Don’t do it for me. You’re different. I don’t know why, but you are.”

Nathan pulled me toward him and pressed his lips against mine again. I was powerless to resist him. After the time we’d spent apart after the fight, I didn’t want to spend any more time apart from him. I didn’tunderstand anything. Was there some invisible line that all rapists fall on? I’d always assumed that it was one size fits all, but Nathan wasn’t the same as my dad. Some people could be redeemed. I believed that. It was all so complicated, but did I have to figure it all out right now?

Did I have to question myself when Nathan’s hands felt so good sliding up my spine? His lips traveled away from mine to trail down my jaw and eventually over my throat. He nibbled a little bit there, and I fell back onto the couch, taking Nathan with me. He slid his hands up my torso, taking my shirt up with them, and he peeled it over. My hands went to his stomach, dragging his shirt up as well, and he leaned back just enough to pull it the rest of the way over and tossed it to the side.

He started to climb back over me, but I put my hands on his chest and pushed him back to sit on the couch. I dropped to my knees in front of him, my body already growing hot all over.

“You don’t have to,” Nathan said.

But my hands were already on his jeans, unbuttoning them. “I want to. I like doing it.”

Nathan rolled his eyes. “If that were true, then it would mean you’re even more than perfect.”

I shrugged. “I guess I’m just that perfect.”

Nathan didn’t complain. His hands combed into my hair and gently held the back of my head as I pulled his growing arousal from his jeans and leaned in to lick it. He let out a deep sigh, and I closed my lips over him, sliding my tongue down until I hit his base. I slid my way back up and spent some time on the tip before slipping down again. I closed my hand over Nathan’s shaft and worked it down as I pulled my mouth back up and moved into a rhythm. Each time he let out a groan, my skin prickled with excitement. My other hand moved between my legs, with the plan to service myself, but Nathan noticed and grabbed it.

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