Cold Shadow (Cold Country #2)(101)
He leaned forward and tumbled into the water leaving Quinn sitting on the raft. He didn't swim for the old dock, he took the shorter route back to the shore.
Quinn watched him emerge from the water and stride up the grassy embankment. He didn't turn around to see if Quinn followed. He walked up the hill toward the clearing where the cabin should have been and disappeared from view.
The sun burned his skin. Quinn waited, but Nate didn't come back. He got tired of waiting and plunged into the icy depths. If he held his breath long enough maybe he'd turn back time to that summer so long ago and he'd do everything differently. He'd saved Nate that summer. He was sure of that. Maybe he could go back and save Nate from something worse. Maybe he could go back and save Nate from him.
Chapter Thirty
The car engine shouldn't have startled him. Nathan didn't know how long he sat on the concrete wall behind what used to be his house. Nothing remained but the four corners of the original foundation and the retaining wall that kept the mountain out of the house. The new construction would cover all of this in a few weeks.
His hair was dry. His body ached in so many ways he couldn't distinguish one pain from the other. He scratched absently at the soaked dressing around his arm. The stitches underneath were supposed to be kept dry. He'd forgotten he even had the stitches.
The sleek silver sports car came to a stop where the garage had stood. Quinn sat behind the wheel looking at the place where Nathan had lost himself one more time. Nathan knew Quinn hadn't returned to this place since that night. He never told Quinn how many times he'd come back. He had no idea why he came back. Seeking some deeper meaning for what had happened to him, maybe. Trying to make sense of his part in his own rape. Why he'd found pleasure from the brutality of it. He never could.
Nathan didn't move from the wall. Quinn didn't emerge from the car. The garage floor lay between them. Did Quinn have his part of that night running through his mind? Could he smell burning lumber and human flesh? Could he hear Nathan screaming for … absolution?
Nathan couldn't see or hear or even smell any of it anymore. Just one more fucked-up thing that had happened to him in a life full of fucked-up shit.
He could see Tori's face. Not the one that stared up at him with unseeing eyes not even twenty-four hours ago. He could still remember how she'd looked at him that first night they'd met. He'd only been in town for a couple of days. He was going to be there awhile. Until he shipped out to points unknown. His unit was set to deploy. He was finally going off to see the world. He was going to leave civilization behind. He needed to … lose his virginity. He told himself that night with Quinn hadn't counted. He'd been the one to take Quinn's virginity. He still had his. He'd never fucked a man. He wasn't gay. Not really. He'd let Quinn because that's what Quinn wanted. It didn't make him gay.
Why the hell was his buddy Gentry looking at him like that? Didn't the man know he had the prettiest fucking lips … Nathan had wanted to know what Gentry's mouth would feel like on him for the longest time. Gentry smiled and winked and the girls had giggled and Nathan had way too many beers. He was eighteen goddamned years old. His birthday was in a couple of weeks. He had kept his damned dick in his pants for thirteen months, ten days, and twenty-one hours. If he didn't get some soon, Gentry was going to find out way too much about him.
His first time with a woman was in a cheap hotel room in a bed he never would have touched when he was a spoiled rich kid. His friend in the next bed watching him. Gentry had blue eyes. He was eye fucking the hell out of Nathan while he shoved his dick in the other girl's mouth. Like he wanted Nathan to be the one instead of the girl. He couldn't remember what it felt like to sink into Tori's body. He remembered the condom. She didn't want one. He wasn't completely stupid. He fumbled around so much she finally shoved him down on the bed and rode him. Gentry calling his name, telling him how to do it. Shit like that that made him forget he was fucking a girl.
He met her again a week later. She seemed happy to see him. Gentry was asleep when he snuck her into the room they shared off base. It wasn't big. It wasn't even an apartment. They weren't going to be there that long. They could have stayed on base, but they'd wanted the few months of not living on cots and eating mess hall cooking and had gotten a room in a boarding house. When he was finished and Tori left, he'd sat on his bed aware that Gentry was watching him, his hand moved under the covers. He sat there on the bed and jacked himself for Gentry. The next morning they pretended it never happened. The third time he met her, he had a ring. Because if he didn't marry her, he was going to fuck his roommate. The man who was not Quinn.