Hold Me If You Can (20 page)

Understanding dawned on her face. “That’s why you drew me. Because I was suffering.”

“Yes, yes.” He pulled her close, breathing in the magnificence of her bare body against his. Sheer pleasure. Unfettered joy. Utter perfection. “But now I can see your beauty, only your beauty.” He trailed his fingers through her hair. “I see the golden highlights in your hair. I feel the silkiness of each strand as it slides through my palm.”

Her face softened, and she smiled.

“I can taste the delectableness of your mouth.” He bent his head and kissed her.
Perfection.
“I could kiss you all day long.” He kissed her again, unable to stop himself from partaking in the beauty of that gift. Of the intimacy of the connection, of the poetry of the kiss. He felt like the world was shining brighter than it ever had. There was only peace in his soul. He brought her close. “I want to make love to you again. With just us. No anger. No metal. No desperation. Making love. Nothing but the beauty of our connection.”

Her cheeks turned pink in the most deliciously tantalizing expression. “Nigel—”

“Dance with me, my love.” The feeling of unfettered freedom was simply too magnificent to deny. He began to cavort across the grass, the blades soft beneath his feet. When had he last cavorted barefoot? Ever? Most likely not. “No more boots. I love the feeling of the grass.”

Natalie was staring at him in confusion. “You seem so different.”

“I am, my love.” He kissed her again, stroked his hands over the magnificence of her curves. “I have yearned for this kind of peace my whole life.” He tasted her collarbone, he suckled her nipple, and his whole body shook with sheer delight at the feeling of her body against his. “I sought this through my art, but it was all about pain, about suffering, about trying to manage the hell.” He scooped her up and cradled her against his chest. “Dear God,” he whispered. “Your body feels so magnificent against mine. They way your breasts are pressed against my chest, the feel of your hip in my stomach, the curve of your bottom in my hand—” He laid her on the grass and kissed her again. “You are my angel, my light, my delight.”

His heart felt like it was exploding from his chest. There was no pain, no torment, just peace, peace, peace. He saw only beauty. He felt only purity. He heard only the most beautiful music.

“Stop.” Natalie pushed at his shoulders. “We don’t have time for this. Mari is after us, and Christian and—”

Ah… Mari and Christian. Such bad energy from them. He didn’t have time for that. This was his moment. “They will wait.” And then he summoned all the beauty in his soul and he kissed Natalie, pouring the music, the angels, and the beauty in his kiss into her body.

And it took less than an angel’s song for Natalie to melt into his kiss, to grasp his shoulders with the delicate grip of a woman so beautiful that the world would stop for her. She kissed him back, and it was a dance of perfection, of connection, of the ultimate grace.

Just two bodies, two souls, to spirits, losing themselves in the beauty of their physical connection.

Her breast was perfect in his hand, her small noises of exultation were like the sound of an archangel’s choir. He kissed her belly, and lower, and it was the most luxurious taste of honey and sweet plum and the purest of sugars, straight from the beauty and flawless perfection of the great earth, as only Mother Nature could provide.

The beautiful orchestra of heaven’s bells was playing in his ears as he moved over, as her body parted for him like the great seas tapping into the soul of eternity, and then he slipped inside her, a mating of such rightness, of a thousand years of harmony reaching its peak and coming into flawless alignment.

He moved inside her, smiling at the softness of Natalie’s expression, and the utter peace in her face as she tapped into that spiritual bond calling them together. He held up his hand and she entwined her fingers with his, and together they held on as he moved, as she responded. It was a coming together of such perfect unison, of flawless harmony, of the culmination of all the beauty and peace and magic in existence.

And when they orgasmed together, it was the fireworks of heaven igniting the sky above them, it was the chorus of angels glorifying the night, it was the beauty of perfection blanketing them.

“I understand now.”

Nigel’s softly spoken comment gently nudged Natalie awake. She opened her eyes to find that she was stark naked in a little league field, and she was cold. It was still nighttime, so she couldn’t have slept for long. Nigel was sitting beside her, also naked, and he was leaning forward, his arms wrapped loosely around his knees.

He was staring across the lumpy ball field with a look of awe on his face as if he were sitting on a mountain top, gazing down upon a valley vista of untouched, breathtaking magnificence.

She followed his gaze and saw only the chain-link fences separating the neighboring houses from the field. Some scraggly brush. And a slightly crooked and peeling equipment shed next to a Porta-Potty. “What do you understand?”

“I understand Smutty and Mari.” Nigel seemed barely aware of her, and she shivered.

When they’d made love the first time, it had been so intense, so amazing, and she’d felt so connected to him. She’s felt his pain, and his anguish, and her own, and they’d connected over the burning within both of them.

The second time (she’d made love with him twice!) it had been amazing. Magical. Totally different. A seduction of utter peace. But at the same time, something had been missing. He hadn’t been connected to her. He’d been off in some other place in his mind, just like he was now. She realized, with some surprise, that she preferred the former. Passion and connection were better than too much serenity.

Her clothes were strewn over the field as if they’d been ripped off in some lovemaking frenzy of such passion that they hadn’t even known what they were doing. Which is what the first time had been. A connection that had overruled her fears and his monster. Her body warmed even at the memory of that intensity.

She crawled over to her bra and pulled it on. Nigel didn’t even turn. Didn’t even seem to notice that she’d moved away. A warrior who used to be so tuned in that he would have noticed the slightest shift in the wind was now oblivious? A chill rippled down her arms. “Nigel? Are you okay?”

“Smutty and Mari want to remove the pain,” he said, not even hearing her question. “And that’s when peace comes in. That’s when life becomes the magic we have always wanted.”

“Smutty wants to castrate everyone’s dreams,” Natalie corrected. Why was Nigel speaking of Mari and Smutty as if they were logical, sane do-gooders? “And Mari wants to scrape your mind empty until all that’s left is a vegetable without enough brain cells to realize that you don’t want to fall in love with whoever she wants you to love.” God, the very idea made her stomach turn.

She knew what it was like to be stripped of your ability to choose who you slept with. It had been so awful to find herself walking so willingly into the Godfather’s arms when her mind and her soul were screaming at her to stop.

“No. That’s not what they want.” Nigel rested his chin on his knees like a little boy, not a big, tough warrior. “They want peace, and now I understand how their idea will work. It was when you took away my anger that I was finally able to experience beauty and the peace I’ve been striving for my whole life.”

Natalie paused as she reached for her underwear. “I did this to you? Turned you into…” A zombie who actually thought Mari and Smutty were right?

He turned toward her, and his face was utterly serene. Almost without expression. It was as if he was no longer human. Just a shell of a creature with no inner passion. “I’ve sought peace my whole life. I thought I found it with my art. But this—” He laid his hand over his heart with a gentleness that made chills bump on her arms. “This is different. This is serenity all the way down to my core. There’s no monster that I’m trying to quiet. I simply
am
at peace, all the way through to my soul.” He smiled, a distant expression. “I am happy.”

“Really?” Natalie pulled on her underwear. “Are you sure?” It sounded good, theoretically, but the way Nigel was sitting there, naked, relaxed, and utterly unmindful of anything, it was wrong. Where was his passion? His fire? He was flat.

Then he smiled, and she told herself to dismiss her worries. It was good that he had peace. Now he could focus and do his thing, right? “So, you’re ready to take on Mari?”

Nigel returned his gaze to the Shangri-La he was apparently viewing. “Ah, Mari.”

“‘Ah, Mari?’ What does that mean?” She was getting a little concerned over his lack of response to Mari’s name. “She’s coming after us. Like now.” She found her jeans over by third base and pulled them on. She picked up her shirt and Nigel’s clothes, and then headed back over to him.

“I see her point.” He didn’t even notice when she held his clothes out to him. “Perhaps the greatest gift I can give Pascal and Blaine is this peace.”

Natalie dumped the clothes at his feet. “It’s not right to force it on them. They don’t have the choice if you leave them there—” Her stomach rumbled suddenly, and she caught the scent of chocolate. Her head whipped around and she scanned the neighboring houses.

She immediately pinpointed the scent as emanating from the third house on the right. She took a step closer and sniffed again. “It’s a person,” she said. “A Sweet.” Her teeth began to elongate. She took a step. And then another. And ano—

A child’s scream pierced the night. She froze. Then she heard another scream, followed by laughter, and then she saw three young girls running through the backyard of the house she’d been headed toward. “Oh, my God. They’re children. I was scenting
children.
” She stumbled backwards. “Nigel—”

His arms closed around her and he pulled her against his chest. “I’ve got you, babe.” His arms were like steel around her. “We’ll take you to see Smutty. He’ll clear that—”

“Smutty? Are you insane?” She wrenched out of his grasp and whirled to face him. “I don’t want some unseen force directing my actions. I want to control myself. I want to be able to fight, to keep myself safe—”

“I can still fight. But I don’t need to.” He set his hands on his hips, proudly in the buff like some nature boy. “It’s about peace.”

Oh, no. What had she done? She ran over to him and grabbed his shoulders. “You’re a warrior,” she shouted, throwing all of her soul into the words. “You have fire and passion and—”

“Stop!” Nigel grabbed her arms and slammed his hand over her mouth to silence her. “You don’t get to take this peace away from me. I won’t let you.”

She shoved his hand away. “But this is wrong! You won’t want to be like this! You’re empty and—”

“And I’m safe, dammit!”

“Safe?” She stared at him. “But you’re always safe. You’re a warrior. You’re so tough you can—”

“I mean that I won’t hurt others.” He touched the bleeding wounds still in her body, the ones she hadn’t even noticed. “Like I hurt you.”

She looked down at them and saw that the cuts from the blades were already healing. “Why am I healing it this time?”

“The smut’s turning you into a demon.” He thumbed a wound thoughtfully. “Demons are pretty immortal.”

“Oh, God.” Her legs started to shake. “I can’t handle this.”

“You can.” Nigel patted her shoulder. “Just chill out and you’ll feel good.”

“No, I won’t! I’m going to start preying upon innocents if I don’t stop this! That’s not okay, and getting a lobotomy from Smutty isn’t going to make it okay! And you’re some tree-hugging freak now, and you can’t keep me safe. For God’s sake, you’re actually thinking of handing Christian over to Smutty? What’s wrong with you?” Dear God, what had she done to him?

“Hey!” He caught her arm. “I killed my own parents.”

She stared at him, trying to grasp the sudden change of topic. “You what?”

His jaw was ticking, the only sign of the old Nigel she once knew. The one driven by passion. “When I was five, Angelica came to steal me away from my family. She had heard about my talents for art, and she thought I would be a good addition to the Den. Be a good example of how a man could tap into his inner artist.”

Natalie rubbed her arms against the encroaching deedub numbness and tried to breathe through her mouth so she couldn’t smell the chocolate. “Did your parents turn you over to her?” She remembered Reina telling her that Blaine’s parents had sold him to Angelica.

“No, they tried to stop her.” He sat down on the grass and crossed his legs. His face became distant again, as if he’d shut down the emotion that had just started to come to life. “They were gardeners. Simple people who spent their days with flowers and beauty. They weren’t warriors.” His body was relaxed, his voice devoid of the emotion that he should have had when talking about his dead parents.

She knelt next to him and touched his face. His skin was cool, lifeless. “Did you love them?” Anything to get him to tap into his passion again.

“Of course.” But his voice was flat and he continued with his story, barely even registering her question. “My parents had no chance to stop Angelica.” He picked a clover out of the grass by his feet and tickled the leaves over his forearm, smiling faintly at the sensation, like he was some drugged-out man. “My dad pulled me aside and told me to let Angelica take me, and then he would come after me with proper reinforcements and get me out. But that if I fought now, they would all lose.”

“Seems logical, I guess.” Angelica was tough to beat even by those trained to do so. What chance did ordinary people have against her?

Nigel set the clover on his bent knees and blew softly, so its tiny leaves rippled gently. “He was right, of course. That was our only chance. He was a brilliant man, and I knew he would find a way to get me. He’d never failed at anything in his life.”

“But you didn’t listen?” Natalie felt a sinking weight in her belly. “You fought?”

“I didn’t want to go. I knew I was strong.” He picked up a blade of grass and smoothed it across his knee beside the clover. Creating art, all the time. “So I unleashed my blades at Angelica.”

Natalie grimaced. “It didn’t work?”

He laughed softly. “Hell, no. I was five. She was a highly talented witch. She knocked me on my ass.” Nigel’s gaze returned to hers, and she could see hints of understanding in his eyes, but still a lack of emotion. It was as if he was talking about a movie he’d seen, not a life he’d lived. “I was terrified and angry as hell that she would take me. I lost it. My knives went everywhere. Living poison. I killed my parents almost instantly. I still remember the way my mom reached out for me before she fell.” His voice got quiet. “She didn’t blame me. She loved me until the end, and I murdered her.”

Natalie’s heart ached for his loss, for the anguish that had stalked him his whole life, pain that he now refused to feel. “I’m so sorry.”

“My parents deserved better than for their son, who they loved, to turn on them.” Nigel stood and turned his back to her. He clasped his hands behind his back and raised his face to the heavens. “I kept my talents under lockdown after that,” he said quietly. “I drew until my fingers bled, keeping that anger and self-hate at bay. Using my art as an outlet, I shut down who I was so I could keep those around me safe.”

Natalie walked up behind him and slid her arms around his waist. “I understand now.” She understood his fear of being who he was. It was the same as her own fear of tapping into her own core. “It sucks to have to suppress who you are. To be afraid of the repercussions if you let your true self out.”

He leaned against her, an intimacy that made her yearn for the old Nigel, the one who lived and fought and kissed with his soul. “And then, yesterday, I snapped. Nearly killed you.” He turned toward her, his face grim, but still empty. Devoid of anguish and pain, but also of the happiness and joy he’d so recently displayed. The euphoria hadn’t been real. He wasn’t real now. “So, yeah, I’ll take an emotional void over killing the people I care about all day long.” He set his hand on her throat, gripping lightly. “And I won’t let you take it away from me. Your safety, the safety of my team, it is more important than anything else.”

“No, it’s not! What’s the point without you being a part of it?” She flung her fist against his chest. “I want to make you care! For God’s sake, you want to leave Pascal there! That’s awful you killed your parents. I get that. I stood around and couldn’t save my family when they died. It sucks! I’m all alone, too! But dammit, I’m alive now, and I want the chance to live, to care, to not be afraid—”

“That’s what I’m doing,” he snapped. “I’m shutting down the crap so I won’t endanger everyone.”

“No, you’re not!” How could she get through to him? He wasn’t thinking. His aversion to hurting others was so strong he couldn’t even see the value of his passion and his fire anymore. “You wanted to stop drawing so you didn’t trap anyone else in the Den. You wanted to find a way to get focused so you could go in there and rescue your friends from the hell that you all suffered in for so long! And now you’re flat, emotionless, and you don’t care! You aren’t even going to go get them back, are you?”

His fingers dug into her throat, a hint of the passion that had once driven him. “I’m going to give Pascal the gift of peace. That’s what we all want, right? Everything we do in life, everything we yearn for, it’s because we think it will make us happy.” He knocked her hands off his shoulders and locked down her wrists. “You want to be free of fear because you think it’ll make you happy. Well, I’ve got news for you, sweetie. Taking away my anger and my monster gave me peace, and it’ll give him peace too, and that’s what we all want.”

“No, Nigel.” She ripped her arms free. “Apathy is not the same thing. Taking away free will and passion and desire is a not a gift.”

“Yes it is.” He lightly thumbed her cheek. “You just don’t understand, sweet girl.”

“Oh, I understand! You want to hear my story?” She was so frustrated! She could feel darkness coursing through her, the pointiness of her teeth. She was turning into a demon and that was not acceptable! “My dad died when I was little, so I never knew him.”

Nigel raised a brow that was far too cavalier. “Did you kill him yourself? Because that’s what I did.”

“No, I didn’t.” She shoved at him. “But a deedub attacked me, six of my sisters, and my mom when I was little. Do you know what happens when you get bitten by a deedub?”