Taken by Two(28)

He pulled off his suit coat and tossed it over a side chair, followed by his black tie. We curled up together against the padded headboard, my head on his chest as he held me against his crisp cotton dress shirt. “I’ll get makeup on your shirt,” I said absently. “I don’t care,” he muttered, his long fingers running through my hair. “Does it ever stop hurting?” I nuzzled closer into him and honestly answered, “No. But it gets easier to deal with as time passes. You’ll never stop missing her.”

“I feel so guilty for not being there more. If only I’d—”

“You can’t change the past. She knew you loved her, that you were doing the best you could.”

“She said that to me—that she wanted me to be happy and healthy. She was so proud that I’d been clean for so long. I just keep seeing her there, all hooked up to tubes and wires, in so much pain.” His eyes misted with tears as I held him. “Tell me something about her, something that will always make you smile.”

He smiled a little. “She always cut the crusts off my sandwiches. I mean always—even as a grown man. One time I told her, ‘Ma, you don’t have to do that, I eat crusts now.’ She said, ‘Nathaniel, it’s our special thing.’ I loved her so much.”

“Love, not past tense. Love doesn’t die, just bodies.”

“I like that, Penny. Did I tell you that my dad plans to come out to Colombia next month? He says he wants to learn some jungle stuff, but I don’t see him doing that.”

“I’m glad your mother brought you back together. He didn’t ask about us, though?”

“He did,” he said quietly, his lips brushing across my forehead. “And I told him the truth. He was a bit surprised, but echoed my mom. He said as long as I’m happy, he’s supportive.”

“Your sister?”

“She wasn’t happy at all. Didn’t you see her flirting with Rex?”

“Oh my God no!” I giggled.

“Talk about awkward…” We laughed, and as we did I felt him relax, the emotional drain of the last week relenting for a few stolen moments.

“I’ve missed touching you, Pen. Feeling your skin, hearing you moan—the way you say my name when you come. I-I’m ready to feel again.”

I turned my face to his. “I love you, Nate,” I said before kissing him—the kind of kiss that binds you in a moment so perfect, so complete it lives forever. His hand stroked my cheek as his tongue explored my willing mouth. It had been so long since we’d made love, and I needed him desperately. His hand ran up my back before reaching around to pull the sweatshirt over my head. I clawed at his shirt, opening it to reveal his chiseled chest. I planted a row of kisses across his toned pecs before focusing on his hardening pink nipples.

“Shit, babe, I’ve missed you,” he moaned as I stroked him through the suit pants. Within seconds, we’d undressed, our skin craving the intimate contact of two lovers parted for too long. I straddled his hips, gasping as he entered me in one long stroke. “Ah,” I nearly screamed as his long cock knocked against my sensitive cervix. His hands held on to my hips, raising me up again. “More?” I slammed down on him again, taking his entire length as I moaned, “Yes!”

With his thumb stroking my swollen clit, I continued to fuck him hard, up and down, all in one solid stroke, over and over until I shook from the force of my climax. “Fuck, when you do that, it makes me come, too,” he grunted, spilling into me as his hands dug into my hips. I collapsed on top of him, my head against his shoulder, panting as I tried to catch my breath. When I moved to pull off him, his hands grabbed my hips once again, holding me in place. His tireless cock stirred inside of me as he said, “We’re not done yet—there’s still lots of catching up to do, babe.” My Energizer Bunny of sex went non-stop through three climaxes, never once withdrawing from my soaked, throbbing pussy. I lost count of how many times I came that night on the airplane before we finally rolled into the covers in exhaustion.

“You can go forever,” I said with a shake of my head.

“Ah, King Rex has his moves, but he can’t do that.”

From the door, his voice boomed as we startled. “Please, boy, when I was your age, I’d have fucked her until she couldn’t stand up, fucked you, fucked my hand, fucked the wine bottle, fucked the sink, and that would have just been foreplay. Then, I’d be ready to fuck the—”

“We get it,” Nate said with mock exasperation.

“You were spying on us,” I said lustily as Rex walked over to the bed. “Don’t flatter yourselves. You woke me up with all that moaning and groaning. Sounded like two cats in heat.” He slid in behind me, fully dressed against my sore, naked body.

“You left me with sore sloppy seconds?” Rex teased with a gentle swat on my bare ass. “Sorry,” Nate said with a grin and a shrug of his shoulders. Rex pulled close to me in a classic lovers’ spoon. “How are you feeling, man? No urge to—”

“No,” Nate interrupted. “Not once did I want to turn to drugs. I had you two there to get me through.”

“I’m beyond happy to hear that. You’re on your way to being free of it.”

We were quiet in the dimly lit airplane cabin, cuddled up together in the wide bed. I thought Nate was asleep—his eyes were closed. “He looks peaceful,” I whispered, rolling over to face Rex. “Yeah, I was worried this would send him into a tailspin. I’m super proud of him.”

“Would you ever get a tattoo for Nate?” Rex’s tattoos were a constant source of curiosity for me.

“He has one,” Nate yawned behind me, rolling over to wrap his arm around my waist. “There’s a Nate in there?” I’d spent far too much time pouring over Rex’s ink, but had never seen the word Nate etched into his body. Rex took my hand and placed it on his left side, the hard ripple of his abs underneath my probing fingers. “Trust, that was for Nate. He’s the first person I ever truly trusted.”

“It’s over a scar…” My finger ran over the faint puffy line beneath the script of the word Trust.

Rex sighed and looked at Nate—I’d touched upon something.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me.” I meant it—as curious as I was, I didn’t want to push Rex.

Nate was silent, waiting to see if Rex would share. “I have an addiction too, Princess.” His words hung in the night as I absorbed them. “To what?” I finally asked. “Pain. I use physical pain to mask emotional pain. I’m a cutter, or I was a cutter. This,” he ran my finger over the scar again, “is the last time I purposefully cut myself with a blade.”

My heart hurt for him. All the fine, faint scars on his perfect golden skin… “All the piercings—I did those, to myself, to numb some emotion or another.” I lay there silently, my fingertips still tracing the scars along his torso. It was no longer a mystery why the three of us were drawn together—we all shared some vein of self-destructive behavior, we all drove those we loved, who loved us, away. My fingers drifted to his pierced nipple, the one that still contained a titanium barbell through it. “That mother fucker,” he said with a nervous laugh, “hurt more than anything I’ve ever done. I’ve taken some serious pain, but a needle through that nipple nearly caused me to pass out. This one wasn’t so bad.” He pointed to the empty left nipple piercing. “The dick piercings were tiny pinpricks on my prick compared to that bitch.” I was silent, absorbing his words, struggling to understand.

“Did it ease the pain?” I finally asked.

“Of course not,” he answered softly. “It never does. Just like drugs didn’t ease Nate’s pain, just numbed it. Taking endless douchebags to bed sure as hell didn’t make you feel better, did it?” I didn’t answer—he was right. “So the night she told me she’d never loved me and that our son’s death was my fault, I spiraled. She’d left me months ago, and had already filed for divorce. In a drunken moment of weakness, I called her and she said those words to me and hung up. I locked my bedroom door—Nate was already living with me at the time—and pulled out a new razor and began to cut. This time, though, it wasn’t enough. The blood and the faint sting didn’t ease the pain, so I pulled out a field knife, wiped it with alcohol, and cut a nice, satisfying slit across my side—right where you feel the scar.” Nate rustled behind me, the memory difficult for him.

“Well, I fucked up somehow—I’m an emergency doc, not a surgeon, and was drunk off my ass. It wouldn’t stop bleeding and I passed out on my floor.”

“Oh my God.”

“Nate somehow…”

“I sensed it, Penny, I felt it. I was sound asleep, but jolted up in bed and knew I had to get to Rex. He doesn’t believe it, but it happened.”

“Like divine providence,” I offered.

“I don’t believe in that shit, but I’m grateful as fuck that he broke the door down.”