The next morning, Emma woke to a text sent at 3:30 a.m.:
Mr. Wonderful: I need to cancel Friday. Will resched if I can.
It was so formal it left a pit in her stomach.
Emma: OK. Hope everything is all right.
He didn’t reply.
By Sunday afternoon, Emma was starting to worry. Yes, Nathan Bishop was a player of epic proportions. Yes, he once famously woke up on the skating rink in Rockefeller Plaza surrounded by cops and several Today show cameras. (He had simply smiled for the cameras, shaken hands with the hosts, and asked the weather assistant for a date, which she accepted.) Yes, he did stupid, dangerous things every day and seemed to emerge unscathed, but something told her this absence merited concern.
Emma busied herself by going over her notes. Something Caroline had said at the bar the other night struck a chord: you can rock climb anywhere. Why Morocco? Something scratched at the back of her mind, and then she remembered the whiteboard in Farrell’s office. Tucked in a corner next to a detailed photo spread on how the government faked the moon landing. White Hat Black Ops. Could Nathan really be doing covert paramilitary work? She wanted so desperately to believe the tabloid manwhore was a façade, but even she realized, as she clacked away on her laptop, that this was extreme. Masking some hidden pain of a damaged youth with booze and women? Sure. But Batman? She checked the long list of daredevil adventures Nathan had chalked up. Yes, they were all in or near hot zones. Yes, news stories coincided with his trips, but nothing stopped her dead in her tracks. It wasn’t like Nathan was hiking through Syria when a local terrorist leader had been assassinated. There were all kinds of things happening in that part of the world all the time. Nathan’s presence or lack thereof didn’t seem to be a factor... until she noticed one particular coincidence. It was a story from Ukraine, about two years old. A school bus of children from a small village near the Romanian border had been taken by Chechen rebels. A child was being executed each day until the government met the rebels’ demands.
As that was occurring, Nathan and a small group of “outdoorsmen” had gone on a rock climb in the Carpathian Mountains and then partied on a yacht in the Black Sea. Two things struck her about the trip: in the interview, Nathan described the trip as “last minute,” and, while the children hadn’t been rescued until days later—Nathan was already being photographed at sea with a topless Miss Moldova—the Ukrainian rescue force reportedly met with no resistance during the operation, and no children had been harmed.
The biggest mistake a researcher can make is trying to force the facts to fit their theory. It was a notable piece of information, but if she wanted proof that Nathan was some sort of, she didn’t know, vigilante? Superhero? This wasn’t it.
It did go a ways toward confirming her theory that Nathan liked having these “playboy pics,” as she had come to call them, and the reason wasn’t to feed his ego. If nothing else, her investigation was a time-consuming distraction.
By 2:00, she was pacing her apartment.
At 2:30, he texted.
Mr. Wonderful: My place, 1500
His use of military time pinged in her brain, but she was so relieved and frantic to get to him she didn’t dwell. She threw on the fastest, flirtiest thing she could find, a breezy lavender sundress with flat sandals, and texted JT where she needed to go. She raced into his lobby at 2:57 p.m.
Leonard glanced up over half-glasses and smiled.
“Hello, Emma. He just walked in himself.”
“Oh, good.”
“You can go on up. His floor is unlocked. He’ll probably be in the shower from the look of him.”
With that curious comment, she opened the door to the stairs that Leonard had buzzed open and headed up.
Nathan’s door was ajar, and she heard water running in the kitchen. As she rounded the corner, she saw his broad back under a soiled T-shirt bent over the sink, his hands resting on the counter on either side.
“Busy week?”
He turned and looked at her and time stopped. His cheek was scratched as if he had fallen on pavement. There was a butterfly bandage on his scalp and his knuckles and forearms were cut. But the thing she couldn’t look away from was his gaze. His clear green eyes were relieved and needy, and she didn’t hesitate for an instant. She ran to him. He met her in the middle of the kitchen, and they exploded.
Emma had never felt anything like it. Her legs wrapped around his waist, hands snaked around his neck, and he held her up without breaking the kiss as he set her on the counter.
“I need you.”
“I need you, too.”
He kissed his way down her neck to the swell of her breast while his hands deftly dropped her zipper. The dress pooled at her waist. She unclasped her pink bra and freed her breasts as Nathan sucked the berry tip into his mouth. She groaned with pleasure. He cupped and squeezed her breasts as he explored them with his mouth. Nathan was at her like he was parched, and she was a pool of cool, clear water. She didn’t think. She didn’t analyze. She didn’t spin out. She just felt. She tangled her fingers in his chestnut hair as he kissed his way down her middle. When he got to the fabric of her dress, he dropped to his knees and began a ground assault. Her thighs parted.
He snapped the elastic of her thong and pulled it from her body like a man possessed. Then he pushed his face between her thighs. For a long moment, he didn’t do anything but breathe her in. She bunched up the fabric around her waist as much to have something to hold onto as to see him. His expression was worshipful; it was almost as if words would shatter the moment. He held her gaze as his tongue ran through her folds. When he began to focus on her clit, Emma saw stars. She clenched her thighs, and Nathan pushed them apart with his big hands, holding her open. She was melting and throbbing. When he sank a long finger into her, then two, she cried out. Even his fingers were a tight fit, but he felt so right, inside of her. He curled his fingers gently as they fucked her, and she was lost to sensation. She was wanton, greedy. She tilted her hips, pushing toward his hungry mouth, urging him on. When he pulled the pearl between his lips and sucked, the orgasm hit her like a freight train. She shouted his name incoherently and pulled his hair. Her body was on fire, electric, as wave after wave of heat and pleasure shot through her. She bent forward, struggling to catch her breath and met the top of Nathan’s head as he continued to lick and kiss, gently bringing her down from her very. first. orgasm.
Holy mackerel.
Nathan kissed his way back up her middle, giving a quick suck and soothing lick to each nipple. She grabbed his head with both hands and pulled him to her mouth. He tasted sweet and salty. Her body stirred.
“You taste good.”