Gravity

Monacco Desert Cottage – Vista Hills

If she had been asleep, the bright morning sun gleaming through her windows would have easily woken her up, but she hadn’t closed her eyes, even for a moment, all night long. Worry and uncertainty, along with the nagging sense that he might disappear if she blinked, had kept her company instead, while she rotated between watching Nico sleep and pacing.  She hadn’t gotten any closer to an answer to the question that had run circles in her mind: what happens now?

She felt him stir as she lifted the arm he had around her waist off of her.  Pausing for a moment to make sure she hadn’t woken him, she slid out of the bed and headed into the bathroom; a hot shower might clear some of the fog in her brain.

She turned the water on full force; the hot stream loosening up her tense muscles. It felt good washing over her head as she continued to ponder.  So much had happened in the last day; too much to process and way more than she could make sense out of.

The night had been a blur of bare skin, tangled sheets, and Nico’s hands and mouth glued to her body; devouring her. She had been just as starved for him and could still taste him on her lips as her tongue slide across them, licking off drops of water.  A familiar piece of what made being with him so addictive was a welcome change from the disconcerting strangeness of her encounter with Blake, which, if she was honest with herself, wasn’t strange at all, which was the part that made it so disconcerting. Thankfully, she had put a stop to something that never should’ve started. Blake Bolthouse would not be one of the many issues she and Nico had to deal with.

Suddenly, the shower door swung open and two strong hands cupped her breasts from behind before she could turn around. “Shhhh,” Nico whispered when she began to speak. He slid the wet hair off her neck and put several soft kisses in its place. She leaned her head back as he continued to massage her body and then let his hands move down, following the stream of water running down her stomach and between her legs. 

The water turned cold as his touch set her body on fire. The intensity started to build, waves of pleasure coming faster and faster, each one stronger than the one before. She couldn’t get sucked into this again.  If she didn’t stop it now, she never would. Reluctantly, she removed his hand from her pelvis and turned to face him, staring for a long moment at the water hitting his body and running south, and, using all the strength she had, walked away without a word.

Puzzled, he shut off the water, threw on a towel and charged out after her. "Baby what's wrong?"

“I can’t do this," she said, keeping her back to him as she threw on a robe. Those were the exact words she had said to Blake only hours ago and they betrayed her true desire just as much now as they had then.

“What?”

“This!" she said, pointing to herself and then to him.  "I can't keep losing myself in you and ignoring everything else.   It never gets me anywhere. I shouldn’t have done it last night and I’m not doing it now."

“What the hell does that mean,” he said, snatching his jeans from the bend at the foot of the bed.

“It means I’m not falling back into this pattern. You don’t just get to disappear for weeks and then come back as if nothing happened, as if everything is fine.  It’s not fine! I’m not fine and I’m tired of dealing with it alone!”

“I must have missed the part where I was sitting on the beach twiddling my damn thumbs all this time? I’ve got police watching me, reporters calling all day and harassing my daughter, assholes trying to throw me under the bus for shit I didn’t even do.  I’m dealing with all of that and not being able to talk to you or see you.”

“That was your choice! I’ve called you, I’ve texted you, I came by the garage and I got nothing back; not one word. The only reason I knew you were still alive is because of what Reese has told me.”

“I bet that son of a bitch has been telling you a lot of things. Knowing him he’s been trying to do a lot things with you too; prancing around here with his little superman badge on, just waiting to make a move. 

“Don’t try to put this off on him. He’s not the problem.”

“And I am? Izzy, I didn't call you because the Feds are after both of us!  They're watching everything we say and do. They want to put me down and make an example out of you.  I’m not going to let it happen; you don’t have to like it, but that’s the way it is, so fuck me for trying to protect you. "

“Well if that’s true, then why are you here now? You got what you came for last night; why didn’t you just leave like you always do?!”

Glaring at her incredulously he closed the space between them with one step and grabbed her by the shoulders.  “Someone almost killed you yesterday.  Why do you think I’m here? I love you.” 

Before she could say another word he grabbed her by the waist and pulled her into a deep and urgent kiss. He held firm against her initial resistance but soon enough she relented, returning the embrace and letting a trail of salty tears run down her cheeks and onto her lips.

An overwhelming wave of relief hit her hard as he grabbed her tighter and peppered her face and neck with kisses. Doubt had dug its claws into her so deep; her mind had written him off so completely, she had almost forgotten how good his love felt inside of her heart.  All she had known over the last few weeks was the unbearable void of uncertainty his actions had left her with.  But her heart had always known better; it had held on to the only thing it knew to be true: nothing could ever destroy the love they had for one another.  But could love really be enough? 

“I love you too, but I don’t see how we can make this work anymore. Every time we get to this place where I think we have things figured out something worse happens and the situation we’re in now is impossible. Saving us means risking everything else. There’s no way around it and we can’t keep pretending that there is.” 

“So you want to pretend like what we have is something either of us can walk away from? It won’t work.  I tried like hell to stay away from you to protect us both and I ended up right here anyway.  I didn’t have a choice when I lost you the first time, but I do now and I'm not letting you go. I don't give a damn what I have to do.  I can’t lose you again.”

Tears began to well up in his eyes, despite his best efforts to blink them back, and while he would die before he let her see even one of them fall, she let hers flow freely as the weight of his words hit her.  She had been fighting so hard with herself to let their past sink back to the bottom of her soul, where it probably belonged, but something would never allow her heart to release its grip on his. It bound them together, pulling her back to him like the tide; a current strong enough to drown them both.

But that emotional death would be better than the pain that had been slowly killing her up till now; it had to be.  She didn’t remember how she had accepted a life without him before -- the naiveté of her youth, most likely-- but there was no way she could do it now. They had spent half their lives apart and what they shared hadn’t waned an ounce.  There was no doubt about how much he still loved her, so how could she possibly walk away?

“I don’t want to lose you either, but I don’t understand what else you can do, Nico.” She watched him pace in a small circle refusing to make eye contact with her; the expression on his face was pained rather than perplexed. He wasn’t thinking, he was hesitating, trying to find a way to get out what he needed to say.

“I’m not the one that has to do something,” he said, letting out a sigh. “There’s only one way this is going to work and I think we both know what that means.”

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