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When had she ever cared before? The men they had arrested had made their own decisions, yet she was beating herself up over the fact that she had to question their families.
It wasn’t those men facing the consequences of what they had done to their families, staring into their haunted eyes. It was her. Her and the people who had loved them.
As she stood there, she heard the door to the suite open. Through the reflection in the glass, she watched as Natches entered the room, and she had to clench her teeth to hold back a sob.
His expression was somber as he crossed the room, his gaze dark, concerned.
She expected him to castigate her for questioning Clayton Winston. For making his pain worse. Instead, she was shocked as he came to her and turned her against his chest.
“It’s okay to cry, Chay,” he whispered at her ear. “Clayton wouldn’t think less of you for it. And neither would I. ”
She shook her head, but she felt the tears building in her chest. Crying didn’t help. It wouldn’t bring back Clayton Winston’s pride in his son, and it wouldn’t ease the pain of a widowed mother or a family damaged by betrayal.
This beautiful town. These people that she had somehow let into her heart right along with Natches were tearing her apart.
“He deserved better,” she whispered, holding on to Natches, desperate to find some way now to control the emotions she didn’t know how to handle. “This is why I hate you,” she cried out. “I get around you, and I start feeling. I start laughing over two nitwits who broke into your apartment because they thought I was going to somehow hurt you. I cry over old men who deserved better but are a whole lot better off knowing the truth. And I start aching for things I never needed before. I hate you for this. ”
She was shaking in his arms, felt them tighten around her as she dug her nails into his back and held on for dear life.
“You love me, Chay,” he whispered against her hair, his voice quiet and deep. Secure. Damn him, he was always so secure, always so confident, and at this moment she felt as though she was struggling just to hold on to reality.
“You make me feel too much,” she whispered. “Make it stop, Natches. ”
Make the pain go away.
She shook her head against his chest and jerked away from him.
“I didn’t mean that. ” She had done that to him once before, asked him to take away the pain. She had never forgotten the way he had looked at her. The regret in his eyes, the sorrow. Because it wasn’t him she was asking for; it was solace.
“Chay, come back here. ” He pulled her back to him, one hand holding her head to his chest as his arm wrapped around her. “Do you think I mind being your shield against the world, or the pain?” He tipped her head back, forced her to look at him, and her vision blurred with tears. “Sweetheart, my shoulders are broad enough for your tears, your fists, or those sharp little teeth. However you need to hold on to me. I’m here. ”
“What about you?” Her voice shook now, almost as badly as Clayton Winston’s had trembled earlier. “Always a shield and never shielded, Natches?”
He chuckled at that, his gaze gentle. “Is that what you think?” He touched her cheek, ran his thumb over her lips. “That I have no shield? Don’t you know, Chay? You’ve been my shield since the day I met you, whether you were here or not. The memory of your laughter, your tears, the memory of your touch and your kiss. You changed me, Chay, and I think it’s only fair that I’m changing you as well. ”
Changing her, and that change was destroying her. Before he could say anything more, before the tears welling inside her could fall, she reached up, grabbed his head, and fought for his kiss.
She needed this. She needed to feel him burning inside her, just one more time, because she could feel parts of herself unraveling that she didn’t know how to handle.
She was being attacked by emotions she had promised herself since she was a girl she would never feel. All her life, she had maintained distance, but distance wasn’t possible with Natches.
He lifted her off her feet as his lips controlled the kiss despite her battle to lead it. He chuckled at her attempts to nip his lips, and nipped hers in turn. He slanted his lips over hers, pushed his tongue inside, and lit a fire in her that she knew would burn her to ashes.
She was tearing at his clothes as he laid her on the bed and stripped her of her robe. She couldn’t get him undressed fast enough.
She fought him as he wrestled her to the bed, his lips and tongue burning over one nipple, then the other. He sucked one into his mouth, lashed at it with heated licks of his tongue, and filled her with passion.
She had never known passion until Natches. She had never known this heat, this fire that became a void of loneliness and loss when she walked away from him.
How had she ever walked away?
She twisted beneath him, gasping, crying his name.
“I need . . . ” She arched as his teeth raked the hardened peak, and he growled against it. “I need you, Natches. ”
“I’m right here, Chay. ” His voice was deep, rough. It grated across her senses and made the pleasure deeper, hotter. Because she knew he felt it. Knew he was as lost in it as she was.
“Now. ” Her head tossed against the mattress as he held her in place, his lips sipping at her flesh, his tongue licking it. “Don’t make me wait. ”
