Valorous(22)

She doesn’t look at me when she says, “Uh-huh. All done in the shower?”

“Yeah. Nat…”

“I’d better get in there before they’re telling us to take our seats for landing.” She gathers the sheet up around her naked body and takes it with her into the bathroom. The door closes, and the sound of the lock engaging is like a bullet through my heart.

I’m so f*cked.





Something is terribly wrong. Flynn is fairly vibrating with stress. I’m afraid to even ask because he looks like he’s about to lose it as we get off the plane and into the SUV that awaits us on the tarmac. I’m carrying Fluff, and Flynn has his phone pressed to his ear, but he hasn’t said a word that I could hear since he took the call. Addie has gone in a different car after saying she’ll see us later.

“Fine,” he finally says, “give me a couple of days and then we’ll talk.” After another pause, he says, “Sounds good.” He ends the call and stashes the phone in his pocket.

“What’s wrong?”

“What? Nothing. That was my partner Jasper. Oscar nominations are in the morning and he’s wound up.”

“I know you well enough by now to be able to tell when something is wrong, Flynn. You’re so tightly wound, you’re about to snap.”

“I’m not tightly wound because of Jasper.”

“Oh. How come, then? Is it the Oscars?”

“No.” After a long moment of silence, he says, “Why can’t you look at me?”

“What?”

“You haven’t looked at me once since we got up.”

I turn my head and deliberately look him dead in the eyes. “Like that?”

“Yeah, just like that.”

“What’s your point?”

“I’m sorry about before.”

“What’re you sorry about?”

“The stuff I did and said… It was too much too soon. I shouldn’t have…”

“Flynn,” I say on a huge exhale of relief, “stop it. I loved everything we did. And if I couldn’t look at you, it’s only because I was embarrassed by how much I loved it.”

He stares at me. “You loved it.”

“I loved it, and you would’ve heard as much if I’d been free to scream my head off. But with your assistant on the other side of a thin door, I felt it necessary to curb my desire to scream.”

His fingers curl into the stiff muscles of his thighs. “You have to tell me what happened to you, Nat. I have to know so I won’t do anything to trigger a flashback.”

I look down at my hands, which are folded in my lap. “I don’t know if I can.”

“I’m so afraid of doing the wrong thing.”

“Nothing you do is wrong, because you love me.”

“I love you more than life itself. I’m obsessed with you. I want to hold you and kiss you and touch you and make you scream, but the thought of doing anything to make you afraid… I’m losing my mind over that, Nat.”

I lean into him, and he puts his arm around me, drawing a low growl from Fluff that makes us laugh.

“At least she’s not biting you anymore.”

“I’ve been going crazy thinking about the things I did and said…”

“I loved it. I want more.”

“Natalie…”

I giggle at the way he says my name, as if he’s barely able to contain himself. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d find a man like him. We’ve known each other a matter of days, and yet I believe, deep in my bones, that he will love me for the rest of our lives. And I will love him just as much for just as long.

“Are you laughing at me?” he asks.

“Maybe a little.”

“Do you know what happens to a naughty girl who laughs in her lover’s face?”

“No,” I say breathlessly, “what happens?”

He leans in to whisper in my ear. “She gets her sweet ass spanked until its red and rosy.”

My mouth goes dry and my hands begin to sweat. “You wouldn’t dare…” But I already know he would, and I’d probably love it as much as I’ve loved everything else we’ve done together.

“Try me.” He kisses me, a soft, sweet caress that belies the intensity of our conversation. “But I’m not laying one finger on you again until I know what happened to you. I can’t handle the fear of scaring you. I have to know, Nat.”