Everything's Better With You, page 8
She exploded again, bucking and kicking. I pulled the bear from her mouth so I could hear her moans of pleasure. With one swift motion, I flipped her over, so she was face down on the bed with her gorgeous ass in the air. I pulled my jeans and briefs down to my knees, rolled on a condom and positioned myself behind her and swiped the head of my cock from her clit to her opening teasing it in just an inch or so.
“Do you want this?” I leaned over and crooned in her ear. She was catching her breath from her last orgasm.
“You know I do,” she panted. “So give it to me.” I smiled and pressed into her a little further.
“Whose tight little pussy is this?” I grunted.
"It's yours," she moaned. "It's all yours." I slid into her until my hips met the soft, warm flesh of her cheeks.
"Say my name," I growled, thrusting in and out of her picking up speed. Her moaning increased. A crisp slapping sound pierced the air each time our bodies met punctuating her cries and my grunts. She was screaming someone's name, and it wasn't Sam from the fucking barber shop.
I wanted to see her face, so I slid out of her, picked her up and placed her on the bed. I peeled the remainder of her clothes off, then my own and climbed into the bed beside her.
Her face was pink and flushed, but she was smiling. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her to me. Our lips met, and she draped her leg over my waist giving me access to her warmth, and I slid into it easily. I watched her beautiful features transformed by ecstasy as I slowly made love to her. Her eyelids fluttered, and soft moans escaped her lips. I wanted this moment to last longer, but my body had other plans.
Abby felt too good.
She looked too beautiful.
She tasted too heavenly.
She sounded too sweet.
She smelled too intoxicating.
My muscles constricted and I wrapped my arms around her and hugged her close through my release, never wanting to let her go.
We laid in bed facing each other wordlessly. Her cheeks were still flushed pink, and her chestnut hair was plastered to her forehead which was glistening with sweat. Her chest was rapidly rising and falling as she gazed at me with those sparkling blue eyes. She was wearing that smile that made me want to kiss her and never stop.
“Marry me.”
It wasn't a question. It wasn't a demand. I wasn't sure what it was. I hadn't planned to say it, and I didn't know where it came from. I just knew that every single thing that happened that day from the time I woke up in the morning until that exact moment; good, bad and ugly, was a sign telling me that I was supposed to spend every day of the rest of my life with this woman in my arms and I didn't want to wait.
She was gazing at me and still smiling. I couldn't tell if she hadn't heard me, was in shock or thinking of something witty to say. I started to get nervous, thinking I'd moved too fast. I opened my mouth to try to explain, but I had no idea what I planned to say. Abby saved me with a finger to my lips and one word.
“Yes.”
nine
abigail
I’d been smiling for three days. Nate seemed different, too. I think spending time with my family has been good for him. Nate meeting my parents made this relationship feel real. Since I moved in with him two weeks ago, we've hardly left the penthouse and almost never together. Our days were filled with a haze of lovemaking and just enjoying being together without the real world intruding, but it had to eventually. Mom, Dad, and Grammy were the perfect introduction.
We decided to keep our engagement between us until the dust settled with Nate and Cat's broken one. He still hasn't told me about the lunch, but I loved seeing him happy too much to mention it.
My father had really taken to him and showed him his studio where he'd created some of his most famous works. He even gave him a portrait he painted of me when I was in high school. My grandmother is particularly enamored with him. They've been taking long walks in the garden after breakfast with her arm hooked through his bicep. My mother seemed to like Nate too, but I sensed a reservation.
On the morning of the day we had to head back to the city, Mom and I sat on the porch sipping tea and watching Nate and Grammy stroll along the fence.
“I think you have some serious competition,” Mom chuckled. We heard Nate’s bellowing laugh carrying across the lawn.
“I am a little worried,” I joked, then turned to face her. “Mom, what do you think of Nate?”
“I think he’s crazy about you,” she sighed, “and you feel the same way about him.” I nodded sheepishly, but her tone concerned me.
“And…”
“I just want you to be careful.” She took my hand. “He is a Price.” My face snapped to hers. It was an odd thing for her to say. Did she know Nate’s family?
“Mom, what do you mean?”
"When I met your father, I was still modeling," I knew that. My parents met in Manhattan in the late eighties. She was a print and runway model. Dad was just beginning to gain popularity for his art. They partied with all different types of celebrities, had lots of sex and did lots of drugs; a fact they never bothered to sanitize for me. "I knew Nate's father." My eyes went wide with shock. Was she actually suggesting that she and Nate's father… "Not well," she added quickly seeing my expression, "but enough to know he's a manipulative son a bitch, from a long line of manipulative son's of bitches."
"Mom, Nate despises his father, and he's nothing like him." I felt myself bristling in defense of my fiancé, which was still weird to say.
"I can see that." She put her hand on mine, causing me to relax. "But be careful. You have a big beautiful heart, and you wear it on your sleeve. I don't want you to get hurt. The first two weeks of every relationship is amazing. I don't think your father and I saw daylight for months when we started dating." She smiled wistfully, and I hoped she wouldn't elaborate.
"And when you marry someone," I stared at her in open-mouthed disbelief, and she cocked a knowing eyebrow at me. I closed my mouth. "When you marry someone, you marry their whole family.”
“You’re awfully quiet.” Nate reached over and squeezed my thigh as we headed south on the Thruway. I turned and, unintentionally, gave him a fake smile reminiscent of the one he gave me three days ago at the penthouse. He was similarly unconvinced. “Quiet Abby makes me nervous. What’s up?” He grabbed my hand and kissed it.
"I'm just happy," I said quietly.
“I’ve seen you happy. This isn’t it.” He gave my hand a squeeze. I put my other hand on top of his making a sandwich and squeezed back. “Talk to me.”
“Nate, have you ever been in love?” Upon seeing the look on his face, I quickly added, “I mean, before me.” He squeezed my hand again.
“No,” he answered. “I’ve never been in love with anyone before you. But, Abby, you know that.”
"Then how do you know it's real?" I spoke barely above a whisper. "I've never been in love either, and this feels…" I searched for words to adequately explain my feelings but I couldn't. "It's so perfect and wonderful but I just… are we being smart about this?” I wasn't exactly sure where these words were coming from or why I was saying them now, but I suspected that my conversation with my mother lit a spark that had been smoldering since I agreed to move into the penthouse.
Nate didn’t answer me right away which made me nervous. Instead, he pulled off the highway at the next exit and drove into the parking lot of a large shopping center. He chose a space in a deserted section of the lot far from the shops, put the car in park and cut the engine off. He turned to face me.
“What’s going on, babe?” He took both of my hands in his. “Are you having second thoughts about us? Is it too much, too soon?”
"No," I answered quickly, but I was at a rare loss for words though my mind was racing. He sighed and brought my hands to his lips.
"Abby, I've never been in love before, so maybe I'm not in love with you."
My heart stopped and I felt the color drain from my face. Nate quickly brought my hands to his lips again, kissing them.
"I only know that I've never felt anything like this before for anyone. I thought I loved you the first time I saw you sitting in that armchair drinking coffee, but then when we talked, and you smiled at me with the gorgeous smile that restores my faith in humanity, I thought that was love. When I almost lost you, the pain I felt at the thought of never seeing that smile again nearly broke me, and we kissed, I was sure that I was in love then. Now, I’m rambling. I’m not making sense…”
He raked his fingers over his face and groaned. His expression was a mixture of frustration and concern. I placed my hand on his cheek, and his eyes met mine. I gave him an encouraging smile. I knew exactly what he was trying to say.
"What I mean is that every moment I spend with you makes me fall deeper and deeper. Every day my feelings change. They intensify. Now that you're mine, I can't imagine my life without you. I don't know if that's what love is, but I know that it's real and it's not going away. If the word love scares you, then we can call it something else. Potato? Aardvark? Bagel?" I burst out laughing. His face brightened.
“Bagel?” I asked, still chuckling and wiping away tears.
"Yes, I bagel you so much and I want you to be my wife so I can bagel you every day for the rest of our lives." We broke into peals of laughter, and I climbed into his lap and kissed him.
“I bagel you too, Dimple.”
“Then why do you still look like you’re somewhere else?” His golden brown eyes searched my blue ones for the answer.
"You promised me that I could trust you," I said. He nodded. "And you promised me that you wouldn't keep secrets from me." He nodded again, but his brow was knitted in confusion. I didn't want to do this here, but after my conversation with my mother, I felt like I didn't have a choice. I swallowed hard and continued. "I need you to tell me what happened during your lunch with your parents. If we get married— when we get married," I quickly corrected myself. "then your family becomes my family. Your worries become my worries."
"You're right," he sighed but his smile faded, and he looked past me.
“As usual.” I joked, hoping to break the tension and bring him back to me. He rewarded me with a grin and tickled me.
"Let's go home, baby." He started the car, I climbed into the passenger seat and fastened my seat belt. "I'm going to finish that martini, and I promise, I'll tell you everything."
We arrived home just as the sun was setting. True to his word, Nate poured himself the rest of the martini stashed the freezer while we were gone. With his drink in one hand and my hand in the other he led me to the giant armchair from the coffee shop which he had moved into the penthouse, much to Winnie's delight.
He dropped himself in the armchair, settled me in his lap with his arms wrapped around my waist and my head resting on his chest. I wrapped my arms around him, burrowed the fingers of my left hand in his sandy hair, lightly scratching his scalp as he rested his chin on my head. We sat in silence for a few minutes staring out of the window at the breathtaking view of Central Park below, but not really seeing it. The only sounds were our breathing and Nate occasionally sipping his drink.
When he finally opened his mouth, he spoke slowly and deliberately, often pausing for long moments.
"It was eleven thirty in the morning, and my mother had already been drinking. Catherine came in with her parents. I could tell she hadn't told them yet. Everyone thought we were meeting to discuss the wedding and, in a way, we were." He took another sip of his martini, and I continued to stroke his hair.
"We told them we were calling off the wedding because we weren't in love — Cat was planning to have another more private conversation with her parents— and my father became enraged. He launched into a tirade about marriage being about duty, not love. Among other hurtful things, he said he never loved my mother and only married her because she had the right pedigree, he actually used that word, like she was dog or horse; pedigree. She was sitting right there, just listening to every word. Then…” he took a long pause. I was dangerously close to telling him he didn’t have to say anymore. I could tell he was in immense pain and it broke my heart.
“…he turned on my mother and blamed her.”
“How in the hell…” I felt the words leave my lips before I could stop myself. I took a deep breath and clamped my mouth shut. I knew his father was an asshole but how could he possibly hold his mother responsible? Nate squeezed my thigh and planted a kiss on the top of my head in approval before he continued.
"He said she was too lenient with Adam and I, as children. He said that was the reason he sent us away to boarding school."
Another pause.
Another sip.
"He separated us from her because…she loved us too much. I was ten and Adam was only eight. He didn't want to go, but my father told us that we were Price men and Price men were brave. I didn't want to go either, but I wanted to be brave for Adam. My father made it sound like some kind of adventure. I had no idea… When we returned for the semester break my mother was different. She was distant. I realized as a teenager that she had begun drinking too much and taking too many pills. I never knew why."
“Oh, Nate,” I sighed and hugged him closer, “you were only a little boy.” I felt him shudder against me. He was crying. My heart was breaking for him again.
“He just berated her in front of me and in front of the Covingtons, like she was nothing. I finally lost my temper and put a stop to it. He stopped, but my mother just sat there, like she was numb.”
“She didn’t say anything?” I asked still holding him. His chest expanded as he drew in a deep breath and released it.
“She called him… cruel.”
I gasped in horror and guilt.
I had called Nate cruel just hours later. I was joking, but I would have never said it if I'd known. Nate interrupted my thoughts by sitting up, taking my chin in his thumb and forefinger and kissing me.
“I know what you’re thinking and stop it.” He kissed me again. “We’re not my parents. We never will be.”
He placed my head on his chest again. I resumed stroking his hair as a steady stream of warm tears rolled down my cheeks. "We were all she had, and he took us away from her. All these years and I never knew. I could have done something or said something."
“Well, you know now. It’s not too late.” I leaned up and kissed him.
He sat up straight, turned me around on his lap, so we were facing each other. His hands were on my upper arms. His thumbs were caressing my shoulders. He was looking at me as if he was seeing me for the first time. He was studying my face with a look of awe and bewilderment.
“Abby,” he sighed. I searched his face for some small clue of what he could possibly be thinking. “You’re amazing. You know that don’t you?” I could only smile in response. I knew because he told me almost every day. “I’m pretty sure I just fell in love with you again.”
“Don’t you mean in bagel?" I half sniffled, half laughed. A sexy smile tugged at his lips, and my favorite dimple emerged. He rose from the chair with me cradled in his arms.
"I'm going to take you upstairs and bagel the shit out of you," he growled in my ear. I threw my head back in laughter, all my tears were forgotten.
My words ignited something in Nate. I wasn't sure what it was, but it brought him back to me, and I was grateful. I was still sad for his mother and Adam, furious with his father, and protective of my Dimple but feeling closer to him than ever. I wrapped my arms around his neck and relaxed against his chest as he took the stairs two at a time to our bedroom.
I woke up in with the biggest smile on my face. Nate didn't put it there, but he was responsible. We made love all night long, and when we weren't making love, we just held each other and talked. When I finally drifted off to sleep in his arms any doubts about our relationship were long gone.
Instead of my usual awakening, I found myself alone in bed, and I was greeted with a note on my pillow.
Good Morning Angel,
I had to do something important.
I’ll be home in a couple of hours.
Text me if you need me.
Love,
Nate
P.S. I left you a surprise in the kitchen.
I read the note three times before I rolled out of bed. The clock read 12:27 pm. I wondered when Nate left this note and how long he'd been gone. That was when I heard noises coming from downstairs. The staff doesn't come in on the weekends so there was only one person it could've been. I shrugged into Nate's giant bathrobe which has become my favorite and headed for the kitchen with a massive grin on my face.
I stopped short at the bottom of the stairs. As I looked at the kitchen, I saw a huge tray piled high with an assortment of bagels and another dish with condiments. This was undoubtedly the surprise Nate left for me, but it was not as surprising as the man standing in the kitchen.
“Ah!” he called as he slowly turned to face me. “You must be Abigail.”
There was no mistaking his identity. This was Nate's father. He had the same height and build. At one time they might have had the same sandy blond hair, but the elder Price's hair was half gray. He even looked like Nate, if someone had left Nate in the sun too long. His unnatural tan accentuated the wrinkles around his mouth and eyes. He grinned at me with a mouth full of teeth that were too perfect and too white. He had the look of someone who spent a lot of money on their appearance, but in Cat's case, the effort enhanced her natural beauty, in Nate's father's case it made him look ghoulish and artificial. I was being sized up by golden brown eyes, that unlike his son's warm and inviting gaze, were calculating and menacing. I reflexively tightened my robe, feeling self-conscious and apprehensive.
