With his arms locked around me and his head hidden in the crook of my shoulder, his entire body covered mine, touching every part of me.
The closeness sparked a fire.
His breath on my skin lit the fuse.
And the way he pushed inside me, reaching parts I'd never experienced before, added the fuel needed to transform the burning embers into raging flames, licking its way up my spine.
I exploded and screamed his name. Except it came out throaty, scratchy, deep and desperate. It probably didn't matter, because I'm sure he couldn't hear me over his own chanting.
"Novah … Novah … Novah," he repeated and groaned against my shoulder. His hips jerked and convulsed, his movements were wild and frantic. "Fuck, Novah."
As if he hadn't been close enough, I pulled him even closer until he collapsed on top of me, both of us panting wildly.
Nolan eventually rolled to the side, and even though I appreciated being able to breathe again without his weight suffocating me, I immediately missed his warmth. Yet he didn't make me suffer the chill of his absence long. As soon as he settled into the bed next to me, he tucked me against his side, maneuvering me until my head rested comfortably on his chest.
We'd laid like this once before, less than a week earlier. The difference, though, was the last time we were clothed and not worn out due to sexual exertion. I wrapped my arm around his torso and relaxed into him, the rapid beats of his heart playing as our own personal soundtrack.
"I won't lie … that was a little unexpected. Fucking amazing, yet it came completely out of nowhere. When I woke up this morning, I had expected a very different ending to my night."
He chuckled quietly, causing my head to shake on his chest as the sound rumbled through him. "I wanted to wait until tomorrow to see you, but I couldn't. Hell, I wanted to come see you on Tuesday night. Staying away was pure torture. I wasn't sure I'd make it to the end of the week."
I lifted my head, resting my chin on his chest so I could look him in the eyes as we talked. As much as I loved hearing the deep timbre of his voice reverberate through his body beneath my ear, nothing was better than witnessing the contentment on his face.
"Why did you wait?" My brow grew taut as my gaze narrowed on his face. "When I … when I walked away Sunday night, it wasn't for good. I wasn't leaving you."
He pressed the rough pad of his thumb over my lips, preventing me from saying anything else. "I know that now. At the time, I didn't know what to think other than you had left me. But I get it now. And you were right for what you did. You walking away meant I had to do things on my own. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was exactly what I needed." He ran his fingers through my hair as he spoke to me.
"So … are you going to tell me what happened?"
His fingers continued combing through my hair as he put his other arm behind his head, propping himself up enough to watch me. I couldn't remember ever seeing him look so comfortable before.
"My father had a banquet dinner Tuesday night in Tampa … kind of a celebration of sorts before he announced his candidacy for President."
A gasp slipped past my lips. I hadn't heard anything about his father running for office again, and I wondered why he hadn't told me.
"I only recently found out about it," he explained, as if reading my mind. "He told me about it Saturday morning when he met me for breakfast."
"I saw you Saturday night … I stayed at your house. We were together all day Sunday. Why didn't you tell me about it?" I sounded pathetic even to my own ears. I only hoped he didn't pick up on it.
He shrugged. "By the time you got to my place, I didn't want to discuss my father." His hand stilled in my hair as he sighed loudly and stared up at the ceiling. "You were right."
I waited for him to continue, but he didn't. Instead, he kept his sight above him, only mindlessly twirling my hair between his fingers with lazy gestures. Finally, after I couldn't take the silence any longer, I asked, "I was right about what?"
His gaze locked on mine again, and a soft grin toyed at lips. "When you said something other than the war held me back. I hadn't realized it before, because I'd been so blinded by the more prominent tragedies in my life. But you were right. Had I not gone into the Army, or lost my leg, I still would've been bounded by the issues with my dad."
The muscles behind my eyebrows ached from how tightly I knitted them together. "What happened? I know you had a hard time after meeting with him for breakfast, but you never told me anything about it."
"I think it's always been obvious, if I'm being honest. I guess I never paid too much attention to it until it became too painful to ignore. And by that point, I already had something else in my life to blame it on."
I shook my head, pulling myself up more until our faces were closer. I could see his eyes better this way, and I found comfort in it. "I'm not following."
"I've already told you about how I grew up-always his trophy, doing exactly what Daddy Dearest asked of me. I've always lived my life in his image, never living for me or doing things I wanted. National Junior Honor Society, honor roll … hell, football had even been his idea as long as I made captain and could lead the team. Leader," he said with an incredulous laugh. "That's all he wanted me to be. A leader like him."
I knew he had issues with his father. I had picked up on it the night we went to the junkyard. I knew there had to have been more holding Nolan back other than his most obvious reasons, and I'd even suspected it had something to do with his dad, yet I never wanted to assume. Nor did I want to put the thought in his head. I wanted nothing more than for him to figure it out on his own-come to his own conclusions.
"I knew of this growing up … I mean, I couldn't wait to get out of the house because I couldn't stand living under his thumb. But then he shipped me off to war and everything else happened. It's hard to rewind the events of your life when you're stuck on pause-you know?" He shifted to stare into my eyes, waiting for something from me.
I nodded and then bit my lip, wondering how much I should say. Deciding to go for it-holding back would never do either of us any good-I said, "So then how exactly did you come to this conclusion? You said the dinner was three nights ago, right?"
The last thing I wanted to do was make him think I doubted him; however, I couldn't hide the uncertainty. Not in my voice and not in my face. The way he watched me with blinking eyes, the way his hand completely stilled in my hair … it all proved how I'd failed at keeping my hesitation from becoming evident.
"I had an unexpected conversation with a stranger." He shrugged, acting as if it meant nothing, yet I knew better. He wouldn't have mentioned it had it not held importance to him.
I waited patiently for more, but never got anything else from him. "That's it? You met someone and now you have such a clear understanding of everything? Some random person made you finally see how the root of your problems stem from your dad? I don't get it, Nolan. What am I missing?"
"Sometimes, things can be right in front of your face, yet you can't see it until someone else points it out. That was all I needed-someone else, a stranger, forcing me to acknowledge what I was too blind to see. And then I talked to my mom. But the biggest turning point for me that night was hearing what my dad had to say. After talking to a random stranger and then getting some things out with my mom, it was as if I was able to hear my dad's words with new ears."
"What did he say? What made you finally see things differently?"
"It was a lot of little things-like how my support wasn't good enough for him because I wasn't out campaigning. It made me realize just how unsupportive he's been of me. In front of a roomful of people and reporters, he embellished every accomplishment I'd ever made, and it made me realize he's never been proud of anything I've done. I've never been enough for him."
My heart broke-shattered-at his admission. I couldn't begin to understand how that had made him feel. I had very encouraging parents. No matter where life had taken us, or how many miles my father's retirement had put between us, they were always undeniably supportive of me and my choices. I had no idea what it was like to have such a demanding parent.
"However," he continued, "it only served to make me understand things better. What really forced me to stand on my own two feet and move forward, forcing me to overcome my hurdles, had been when I realized he'd somehow gotten into my head. I'd said something to my mom and she wasted no time setting me straight. That's when it became clear it hadn't been my words I'd repeated, but my father's. And to make it worse, I hadn't even agreed with them, yet I said them anyway. I decided right then and there I would no longer allow him to control me. I needed to take control of my own life, and starting that night, that moment, it's exactly what I did."