They stood there for eons, not talking, the only movement that of his hands caressing her back. “Tell me what you need,” he said. “What can I do?”
In response, she shook her head. A few seconds later, she straightened. “Can we go outside?”
“On the balcony?”
Sophie nodded.
He took her hand and walked toward the door. On the way, he snagged the blanket from the back of the easy chair.
Outside, the two teak lounge chairs stood sentinel over the view, which was now shrouded in darkness. Purposely not turning on the outdoor light, Nate sat on the one in the corner, the most protected from the wind, and pulled Sophie down crosswise on his lap. Once she was settled, he draped the blanket around her shoulders. She tucked her head into his shoulder, her hand resting on his chest.
They sat like that for several minutes, not speaking, the roar of the waves insulating them from the rest of the world. Nate had so many questions about her brother, but he didn’t want to infringe on any calmness she’d found since the chief and Penn had left. It wasn’t time for talking yet, unless she started it. He could be patient.
Sophie curled in closer to Nate, if that was possible.
The news from the arson investigator had caught her off guard, but honestly, when she thought about it, wasn’t really shocking at all. Her brother was a loose cannon. Always had been. Though she wasn’t aware of any record of him doing something on this scale, he’d always been on the edge, like he was just one rage away from blowing up the world.
The fear of him was so old, so much a fundamental part of who she was, that there was no grieving for what he’d done to her. Mostly, now that the facts had started to sink in, there was … profound relief. She hadn’t realized it before, but now it was clear as day that, on some level, she’d always been waiting for Robert’s crazy to surface somehow, sometime. Always. Even though he hadn’t been in her life for years and years and she hadn’t laid eyes on him for more than a decade. Didn’t matter. She’d always known that he and his brand of crazy were out there somewhere.
Now he wasn’t. Or not free, anyway. He was in custody, and hopefully he’d be put away for a long time. At any rate, Sophie would breathe easier.
Was she pissed? On some level, she felt fury, but she didn’t have the energy for it. Robert Alexander wasn’t worth it. So she pushed any anger aside, maybe for another time. Maybe for never. She’d learned early on that getting angry was letting him win, because getting a rise out of people was part of what her brother thrived on.
Not today. She wasn’t going to give in to it. Honestly, she just wanted to forget it. Forget him.
With one finger, she traced a line up Nate’s ridged chest and back down, over the faded red cotton of his T-shirt. His body was a perfect male specimen, like a model for a drawing class where the challenge was to show all the ripples of muscle and valleys between and arcs of perfection. The only drawing she ever did was for building schemes and plans, with lots of straight lines and angles, but she imagined sketching his masculine beauty as she continued to explore his chest and shoulders.
His strong, scruffy jaw was next, and she relished the texture under the pad of her finger and tried to commit the exact curve to memory. She was drawn to the contrasting smoothness of his lips and hesitated only a moment before running her finger over the bottom one and then the top. He opened them slightly, as if to say something. Sophie traced another circle over them, her heart rate picking up, and she finally got the nerve to lean in and press her mouth to his, gently. Their breaths mingled, and then she traced the same path with her tongue, lightly, teasing his lips.
“Sophie.” His voice was a low rumble, barely more than a whisper. “You must be reeling…”
She toyed with his lips a moment more before answering. She had no desire to talk about her criminal, psychopathic brother. Brushing her knuckles over his jawline, she shook her head. “I’m okay.”
“Do you want to talk about…?”
“No. I don’t want to waste a single second on him. He’s so one thousand percent not worth it.”
She pulled his head back to hers and kissed him again, less gently, more insistently, trying to communicate without words. She managed to distract him for a minute or so before he broke contact and spoke again.
“I came with the chief and Penn to be here for you, Soph, but this doesn’t feel like what we should be doing.”
A wave of self-doubt rolled through her, and she straightened. “You don’t like me kissing you?”
His lips flirted with a grin. “I always like you kissing me, but you just found out—”
“Please, Nate.”
He brushed her hair away from her face, running his fingers over her cheek and then cradling her jaw. His milk-caramel eyes stared back into hers, searching.
Maybe it wasn’t normal of her to not be in hysterics over tonight’s news. Maybe it was crazy that she wanted to distract herself from everything with this beautiful man. There was nothing normal about her situation or the way she’d lived in constrained fear for practically her whole life.
“Tell me what you want, Sophie. What you need…”
She swallowed, knowing full well what she wanted but unsure whether she had the nerve to ask for it.
Screw it. No more fear.
She shifted so one leg was on each side of his thighs and her body was centered over his, and it was impossible to miss that, regardless of his protests, his body was hard as stone and good to go.
