“I know his father and his uncle,” I clarified. “Seems your little visit to Montana a while back caused quite the stir.”
When he didn’t respond, I looked up from my work. His eyes were downcast and he was worrying his lower lip with his teeth.
“I needed to make sure he was safe,” Nathan said softly. “I didn’t think he’d worry…not after…” His voice dropped off.
“Why didn’t you think your own brother would worry that your life was in danger?” I asked as I went back to work.
“My life wasn’t…wasn’t in danger then. It was just a few nasty emails…”
Since I’d hacked his email account, I knew it was more than just a few, and nasty didn’t even begin to cover it. I’d also seen the police report about his vandalized car. Since he was so paranoid about things being leaked to the press, I had to wonder if there were things that had happened that he hadn’t told the cops. He certainly hadn’t let them know about the emails.
Which was why they’d attributed the car to a simple act of teenagers being assholes.
“So, you figured Brody wouldn’t be upset about you being the target, just that his name had come up?” I probed.
Nathan didn’t respond, so I finished up the stitches and then dug around in my bag for the stuff I’d need to treat the small puncture wounds on his fingers.
“You said we were going to your place,” Nathan said after several minutes of silence. “Where is that?”
“West Virginia…near the George Washington and Jefferson National Forest.”
“West Virginia? I can’t go that far away from home. I have meetings, interviews…I need to be near Charleston.”
I held onto Nathan’s hand when he tried to pull it free. I could sense a major blowup in the making, but I wasn’t in the mood. Between the close call tonight and the fact that I hadn’t gotten much sleep in the past three days, I was wiped.
“You’re going to have to make other arrangements,” I said simply.
“No, I-”
“Listen,” I bit out. “I’m not going to keep having this argument with you. Until we figure out who wants you dead – and make no mistake about it, because that guy with the knife sure as shit meant business – you and I are joined at the hip, only my hip’s in charge, got it? You do what I say, when I say. You don’t like it, there’s the door,” I said as I jerked my head over my shoulder.
Nathan hardened his jaw. Before he could respond I said, “Believe me, you’re the last guy I want to be spending the foreseeable future with, so I’m more than motivated to figure out who the fucker is that tried to skewer you tonight like a shish kabob…but if you think you can do better on your own, by all means.”
I forced myself to calm down, which wasn’t something I had to do often. The fact that this man brought out such strong emotions in me wasn’t a good thing.
Not by a long shot.
I quickly wrapped Nathan’s hand with a bandage to keep the smaller wounds clean, and then I slapped a bottle of ibuprofen on the table. I stood up and grabbed the revolver from my ankle holster and placed it on the table. “I’m going to take a shower. Someone comes through that door, pull the trigger…or don’t,” I snapped. “I don’t give a fuck.”
I pushed back my chair and stepped past him and went to the bathroom, stopping only long enough to grab my overnight kit from my bag. Not only were my emotions raging, my dick was, too.
Another oddity for me. Not because my sexual appetites had waned as I’d gotten older, but because I usually had more control over myself when I was working.
I hurriedly stripped off my clothes and climbed into the shower. I’d purposefully left the water on cool in the hopes it would drive down my libido, but even as a chill swept through my body, my dick bounced against my abdomen, demanding attention.
“Fuck,” I muttered as I reached for the knob and turned it up so that hot water began to sluice down my back. I slapped one hand against the tile wall and went for my dick with the other. I pulled up the image of the final time David and I had made love. He’d been in rare form that night, considering how much he’d been struggling in the previous months. I’d thought that moment had been about renewing our relationship after all the strain losing our careers had put on us and our commitment to one another.
I hadn’t realized it had been goodbye.
David had ridden me for the better part of an hour that night. It’d been like he’d never wanted that moment to end.
Because he hadn’t.