Chapter 14
Nate
I hadn’t been expecting that, but fuck me! Seriously! Josie was definitely a surprise. A surprise in the best possible way. When I planned to take her out on the bike for the afternoon I’d never expected to end up receiving the best blow job of my life. I’m not going to say it wasn’t a fucking fantastic way to end an evening, but it definitely wasn’t premeditated. Appreciated, but not premeditated. Thoroughly enjoyed, but not expected.
Yanking my pants up and tucking myself back in, I looked around. I assumed Josie would have come out of the bathroom by now. Running my hand through my hair, I grabbed a couple of beers from the fridge and popped the cap before leaning back against the counter. Taking a long swallow, the very recent memory of Josie’s swollen lips wrapped around my cock made my dick twitch. Again.
“Where is she?” I sighed as I drained the last of my beer before placing the empty bottle in the sink and heading towards the bathroom.
Knocking on the door, I was answered with silence.
“Josie?” Still no answer. “Josie? Is everything all right in there?”
The door was pushed closed but the latch hadn’t caught. Nudging it open, I think I heard my jaw hit the floor. There was no sign of her. Even the window was still shut. She’d never come in here. So where the fuck was she?
Racing through the house, I was out the back door and standing in the middle of the yard with my hands on my head, rain battering down on me as thunder boomed above. When the lightning lit up the sky, I got a brief look at every corner of my yard but Josie was nowhere in sight. My heart sped up and I felt the headache building behind my eyes.
“Fuck!” I boomed, unable to control my frustrations a second longer.
I don’t know what I’d done wrong, I just know that I felt like shit. It was more than that, though. I felt guilty and worried. Worried like I’d never been before. Darting back into the house, I found my phone on the floor and called Derek without even pausing to think about the repercussions. I fully expected to get my ass kicked. I deserved it, and I knew it would come. Right now though, right now my priority was finding Josie and making sure she was okay. Then, I planned to do some ass kicking of my own. Namely hers.
“Nate! Didn’t think I’d hear from you tonight.”
There was humour in his voice and I wanted to knock it out of him. Now was not the time for teasing. “Yeah, well…have you heard from Josie at all?”
He coughed loudly. It was that choking cough you made when you fell over your words. “What do you mean? Isn’t she with you?”
“She was…”
“What-the-hell-did-you-do?” All his words ran together. I could picture him on the other end of the line, his face turning red as a vein popped out on his forehead.
“You don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter. Is she home?”
“No. Haven’t heard from her. Hang on a minute, Nate,” he left me hanging while he called out to Mia asking her.
It felt like forever that I was sitting there doing nothing. Nothing except pacing wet, muddy footprints back and forth across my family room. I saw the mess I was making but couldn’t bring myself to care. I’d deal with it later.
“You still there, Nate?”
“Yeah.”
“She’s not answering her phone. Mia’s jumped in the truck. She thinks she knows where she would have gone, so she’s going to have a look. She’ll let me know in a minute.”
“Can you let me know?”
“You going to tell me what happened?”
“Derek, please! Can you just tell me she’s okay?”
“Yeah, I’ll put you out of your misery. But this conversation is not over.”
“Never thought it was.” I disconnected the call and threw my phone across the room, watching it bounce on the couch.
I don’t know if it was five minutes or five hours, but it felt forever. I was freezing and wet. Needing to keep my hands busy, I stacked the kindling in the fireplace before tossing a match in, watching the flames roar to life. The brighter they burned, the warmer the room became, making my damp jeans cling to my legs uncomfortably.
After some more pacing and yanking painfully at my hair, I stripped off my shirt and jeans, dropping them where they fell before stomping down to the bathroom and starting the shower. Maybe once I warmed up and dried off, this uneasy feeling gnawing at the pit of my stomach would ease. At least I hoped so. Feeling like this sucked ass. While the water steamed up the bathroom through the groaning pipes—one of the drawbacks of owning such an old house—I ran through the house and dug my phone out from between the couch cushions. If it rang, I needed to get it. This call I couldn’t miss. I wouldn’t miss.
Setting it on the chipped bathroom counter, I stepped in the shower, throwing one last look over my shoulder while my phone laid there lifelessly, taunting me. Groaning, I stepped under the hot water, hoping it would wash away my frustration and annoyance. That’s when it hit me. As much as I was worried about Josie, as much as I needed her to be okay, I was as pissed at hell at her too. I was annoyed. Pissed off. Confused. Fucking livid. And all of that was before Derek got his hands on me. I couldn’t understand what the hell happened. One minute we were hot and heavy, my cock in her mouth, then the next I had no idea where she’d run off to. As much as I wanted to wring her soft, sweet-smelling neck, I was more worried about where she was and what was going through her pretty little head. Something had gotten in there and shaken her.
