Stanton Bliss(24)

“No,” I reply coldly.

His face falls.

“Don’t call me, don’t visit me.”

“Adrian, no,” he whispers.

“Nick.” I pause. “I can’t be the reserve. I can’t be the backstop. If you come back to me, come back to me with a full heart, not half a heart.” My voice cracks as hurt pierces through my chest. “I deserve a full heart, Nicholas, because that’s what I give.”

His eyes tear up. “I know, babe.”

I stand in a rush. “I’m leaving.” I need to get out of here before I make a full-blown fool of myself and beg him to stay. I look around for Peter, where is he? I see him against the wall, signal that I’m leaving, and point to the door. He nods.

I leave the club in a rush and jump in a cab with Peter. I don’t look back and I don’t wait for Nicholas. My heart just couldn’t bear it.



It’s three am, I have been for a swim and am now in the shower. Nicholas’ door was shut when I came in from the pool, so he must have come home and gone straight to bed.

I’m crushed, but also relieved at the same time. I did the right thing. I had regretted my decision to push him away, but he just confirmed what I knew all along. I wish I could talk to the girls. I think I might go next door and crawl into bed with Bridget. We can nurse our broken hearts together. I need to be with my people and lick my wounds.

The bathroom door opens and I turn. Nicholas stands amongst the steam in a pair of boxer shorts.

My breath catches but I don’t cover up. I want him to see what he’s missing out on. This body was his once.

He closes the door behind him and walks over to the shower. It’s a walk in shower with no screen door and double showerheads.

His eyes drop, searching hungrily down my body, and I feel the pull of his arousal.

“Adrian,” he whispers as his haunted eyes look straight through my soul.

I stare at him. “I need to say goodbye to you properly. He whispers.”

I swallow the lump in my throat as my eyes drop to the obvious erection in his shorts.

He moves forward and his thumb brushes over my nipple and up to cup my face.

“Let me say goodbye, my love.” He leans in and takes my lips in his. We kiss, slowly, his tongue tentatively meeting mine. “I need to say goodbye.” He whispers again, and I feel the blood rush to my cock as my body goes into sensory overdrive. “I need you.”

My eyes close. Oh God, I need him, too.

“Adrian, please. I’m begging, let me say goodbye to you.”

That’s it, I can’t take it. I grab the back of his head, pull him into the shower and pin him up against the wall. We kiss almost violently, and I rip his shorts down his legs only to be rewarded with his huge, thumping penis stretching up against his stomach. His dark skin is rippled with muscles and my hand runs over his abs and down to his cock where I begin to stroke him hard. He hisses in approval as his hands drop to mine.

I need him, more than anything.

He wants to say goodbye to me then he’s damn well going to remember it for a very long time. Never have I been with a man who is so perfectly, sexually suited. For ten minutes we kiss as if our lives depend on it until I can’t take it. I need more and I need it now. I grab his head and push him down to his knees, his grateful dark eyes hold mine and a shudder runs through me just knowing the pleasure he is about to bestow on me. Nicholas Anastas is one hell of a lover.

With his big red lips, he takes me in his mouth and I grip the tiles to keep me on my feet. My head falls back in pleasure. God, he feels so f*cking good, it’s been too long since I’ve been in his perfect mouth. His tongue sweeps over the end of me before he bares his teeth.

“Fuck, I need you.” He growls around me.

I rip his head back by the hair, bending down to kiss him violently. “Shut up and suck me.”





Chapter 5

Natasha

It’s slipping.

The relief at being found alive, the elation to marrying my love, the mask. I feel as if I am locked in a room and poisonous gas is being slowly pumped in through a tiny hole, each hour that passes making it harder and harder to breathe, to carry on as normal. I look to Joshua who is naked and fast asleep next to me. My oasis in this desert. I love him so desperately.

Last night I woke to find him sitting in the chair next to our bed in total darkness, watching me silently. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t need to. I knew exactly how he felt and I’d held out my arms for him. He came to bed and we held each other tightly. It was as if the tighter we clung to each other, the further we could push the darkness away.

If only.

We are both playing the game, living the charade that all is well, neither one of us wanting to spoil our honeymoon for the other. We’re refusing to let the trauma win.

My eyes go to the purple scar above his eyebrow. He didn’t have that before I went missing. How did he get it? What has he been through?

My thoughts go to last night when Joshua and I took Didge home after she fought with Ben. She was upset and crying, and it had been Joshua who took over the situation. He sat her up on the kitchen bench and made her tea. Mum heard us, got out of bed and came out to investigate and then he, Bridget and Mum sat on the kitchen bench while they drank tea and talked about anything except what had just happened. I stood silently in the corner as I watched their deflection. I felt as if I was hovering in the sky, witnessing them in the scene as they consoled each other over my death.