Deep(91)

Smiling shyly, she pulled away. He let her go—she wasn’t ready to give him more of her body.



As he watched, she turned and went to her phone. “Huh. Bruce called. I hope he’s okay.”



“Why would he call?” Nick didn’t like the way his pulse had picked up speed, and he strove for, and found, control over it.



“I don’t know. I just talked to him a couple of days ago.” She tapped the screen, going to voice mail. While she listened, Nick rinsed out his cup. When he turned back around, Beverly was staring at her phone.



And it was time.



“What is it, bella? You look upset.”



She lifted her eyes and stared at him, speechless.



“Beverly?”



She swallowed. “It’s Chris. He…he…died last night. He ran off the road in the rain. He’s dead.”



He went to her and took the phone from her hand. “I’m sorry.” That was a truth that he could say. “What can I do?”



Standing motionless and silent, she didn’t respond at all.



Again, he said her name, and again she responded to that, her eyes shifting to him. “I don’t…understand.”



“Would you like me to call somebody, see what I can find out?” Nick felt like he was reading from a script. He was not unfamiliar with lying; it was a part of his world. But lying to someone whose trust he valued—that was foreign to him.



But the truth would hurt her more.



“No. I don’t—I—I don’t need to know more. My God. Chris is dead.”



He led her to sit on the sofa, and she went, docile and pliant. “I’ll cancel my day and stay with you.”



Still with that look of dazed absence, she shook her head. “No. I’m okay.”



“I’m staying, bella. I won’t leave you today.”



At that, she smiled a little, one side of her lovely mouth lifting a fraction. “Do you ever take no for an answer?”



He smiled back and brushed her wet hair back from her face, the pressure in his chest increasing at the sight of the trust in her tiny smile. “Depends on the question.”



“Okay.” She stood back up, and he followed. “I—I have to…to…”



“What?”



“Take a shower.” With that, she walked through the apartment and to the bathroom.



Nick stared after her. He had not expected this reaction from her, but now, as she closed the bathroom door between them, he understood that he should have. She had been on autopilot for weeks, describing herself as numb, and her responses to anything had been accordingly flat. Only recently had she begun to break through that. She was reverting to robotic flatness, and that scared Nick more, made him feel more guilty, than a deluge of tears would have.



He heard the water in the shower running.



And then he heard something else. Moaning.



There were her tears.



Knowing full well that she’d closed herself in the bathroom for privacy, Nick went to the door. He tried the knob—it wasn’t locked. So he opened the door and went in.



In lieu of a bathtub, Beverly’s bathroom had a large, walk-in shower, tiled in iridescent glass tiles. All of her towels and bathroom accouterments were in pinks and purples. Surprisingly, Nick had grown used to living in such a feminine environment. In the past two months, he’d spent easily ten times as much of his down time in her apartment as his own. Even the magenta wall didn’t bother him as it once had.



She was sitting on the floor of her shower, her arms wrapped around her folded legs, sobbing. He was glad to see it. Despite his regret for the cause of her tears, the show of emotion gave him hope. Real hope.



What he did next, he did on instinct, operating on a level beyond rational control. He pushed his track pants off his hips and stepped into the shower with her.



“No! Get out!”



He bent down, ignoring the spray of the shower, and grasped her arms. “I’m not here for that, bella. I’m here for you. Come up. I’ve got you.” He pulled her up. She fought halfheartedly, sobbing harder, but stood, and he closed her in his arms. She put her forehead on his chest and wept. “I’ve got you,” he murmured into her hair.



Again, his world had crashed into hers and left her suffering.



Since she’d been attacked, he had not had her nude body so close to his own, and his body reacted immediately and strenuously to the contact. It was fucking torture, and his mind twisted into a roiling snarl of need and regret and love.



But it truly had not been his motivation in entering the shower with her. His instinct had been to protect, to console, and, above all else, to keep her close. But as badly and incessantly as he wanted her, he wouldn’t push her. This no, he did take for an answer. Of course he did.