Love's Cruel Redemption (The Ghost Bird #12)(99)

I was lost in thought as well. I replayed the situation with Volto over in my head. Should we have gone the other way? No matter what direction, I was pretty sure getting us to go into a dark area so he could take Nathan down was all Volto needed to do.

And maybe we did need to know. Volto’s antics aside, we hadn’t known Hendricks was even looking for me. Now we knew. Taking extra precautions wasn’t a problem.

It wasn’t until we pulled into the neighborhood that I noticed Nathan’s hand, holding tight against the wheel and twisting.

I reached out to him, worried more he’d break the steering wheel if he gripped it any tighter. “Hey,” I said quietly.

His eyes blazed in my direction just once and then softened. He groaned. “Volto’s on my shit list,” he said. “I’m fucking tired of him.”

“Me, too,” I said. “But we’ve got other priorities as well. Hopefully the guys find him in the school. But what are we going to do tonight?”

Nathan huffed but seemed to agree with me. “Right. Well, the diner, perhaps? It’s as public as it gets and open at all hours.”

“It’s either that or staying at Kota’s house,” I said.

He slowed the car down. We were halfway between each option, already past the diner and almost to the other side of the road beyond the curb. He twisted to look back at the diner. “We can’t sleep at the diner.”

Something in the way we were talking around the subject bugged me. “We can’t avoid Erica forever.”

Nathan sighed. “I was trying to give Kota a chance to talk to her. I’m not sure he’s done it. And I know she’s been giving him some space too. I don’t know how she’ll react if we walk in together without Kota.”

“Maybe I can go in separately,” I said and then paused. “No, wait. I don’t like that idea. Volto or Hendricks to get to you if I leave you out here alone.”

He twisted in the seat to look at me. He stretched an arm out. “Come here?”

I leaned over the center console. He wrapped an arm around me, and then brought the other one around to complete the hug.

I pressed my hands to his chest, dipping my face into his shoulder. I breathed in the deep leather and cypress scent he had, letting it take over my senses.

He pressed his face into my neck. He kissed it once and then spoke, his lips tracing against my skin. “I’m sorry.”

“Why?”

“I shouldn’t have let him get to you,” he said. “I should have had you stay with me.”

“Don’t talk like that.” I pressed my hands against his chest and made him look at my face. “Nathan, we did what we could. I could have done it differently, too. But it happened. Now we’ll do it right.”

He nodded and leaned in, pressing his forehead to mine. “I’m still sorry. After what happened to me at the lake, and then we saw the masks...”

After almost getting killed, I understood why he was upset. It could have happened to me.

But it hadn’t. It just could have. However, Mr. Blackbourne had told us often not to play a what if game, and I was pretty sure that worked with this. We could only do so much, prepare for what we knew. We couldn’t prep for everything. We were in the Academy. This was our life. Sometimes dangerous. But we had to get through it.

Instead of letting him dwell any more, I cupped my hands at his cheeks, holding him, feeling the roughness of coarse facial hair at my palms.

He redirected his attention to me, and his eyes fell to my lips.

My heart raced. Without thinking, my palms tugged him toward me.

His lips locked on to mine.

I kept holding his cheeks and kissed him. The only pressure was on my side at first. He remained still, his lips open but not responding.

I kept going. I’d drag him out of his dire thoughts, like I was trying to pull myself out of it as well.

Slowly, he came to life again. His lips moved slowly at first, and I slowed down to his speed. He kissed me deep, sensually. His hands went lower on my back, gripping my waist. The way he pulled at me, my hip hit against the console between us.

The pressure delighted and thrilled me. The way he was always rough with me excited me to no end. It was always different from the others. It wasn’t wild like North, or calm and sweet like Kota.

This was Nathan, natural and unbridled. It was all slow, deep. A hungry passion.

And I felt it more when his hand slid down to my butt, squeezing and nearly lifting me out of the seat.

I broke the kiss to breathe against his cheek, and he lowered his head, kissing his way down to my neck. He nipped once and then locked down and sucked hard at my skin, close to my ear.

I gasped, inhaled again and gripped at his shoulders. We were breaking the rules by hanging out here when we were supposed to be grounded to somewhere with other people, but I needed this, and I sensed he needed it, too.

He tugged at me again, and then his body jarred the center console, like he’d break it with his own body just to get to me.

I gripped him harder and breathed out. “Nathan...”

A rapping at the window startled us both. Nathan launched himself away from me and turned.

Danielle stood in the dark, hovering over the window, blinking in. She banged on the window again. “Idiot. What the hell are you doing?”

“Fucking shit,” he said. He rolled down the window, breathless and growling. “What the hell do you want?”