Chapter Fourteen: Ever Coming Back For More

Haley's binders and textbooks were spread neatly over her desk, but her mind was not on them. She was thinking of Nathan. How she had truly begun to fall for him, how he'd already made her feel things that Lucas had never made her feel.

She glanced back down at her math textbook with disinterest. The numbers blurred, the formulas she knew like the back of her hand seemed completely lost to her. Throwing down her pencil in frustration, she grabbed her car keys and ran out.

Haley noiselessly entered the house when her knock entered futilely on the door. She smiled as she looked around. On the front hall table, on the walls, pictures of Nathan, his younger sister, his mother, even his father in the earlier ones. She smiled at the image of young Nathan, holding a basketball and beaming with pride.

The wooden stairs creaked as she slowly ascended them. When she reached the upper floor hallway, she tried the first door she came to.

Blue painted walls and dark wood furniture was revealed before she saw Nathan, sleeping, half covered with his sheet, one arm slung over his pillow.

He didn't stir as she walked in, shut the door and stripped down to her underwear before slipping in beside him, staring at his innocent sleeping face, his chest rise and fall.

Hours passed and her boredom grew. As night began to fall, she slowly rose and sat astride him. He stirred, but did not awaken as her hands began to run over his muscled chest.

Deciding she needed to use a stronger tactic, she blindly reached backward and slid her hand down his boxers and began to stroke him. He woke up quickly and blinked in confusion.

"Haley?" he murmured, looking at her, almost fully naked astride him. She leaned down and nibbled on his earlobe.

"Expecting someone else?" she whispered. She giggled in excitement as he rolled over and the weight of his body was on her.

Nathan took her hands, still roaming over his chest, and held them above her head with both his hands. Her eyes slide close in expectation, but he surprised her by tenderly kissing her lips as he hadn't the time in the tutoring centre.

His lips slowly progressed down her neck, taking his time, touching her gently. She expected him to adjust his speed, to delight her with passion as he'd done before, but instead his lips again sought her mouth and he nibbled on her lower lip.

His hands still held her wrists, but as his lips moved to her exposed breast and gently began licking her nipple, he transferred them to his left hand and gently began stroking her smooth skin.

"You're beautiful…" he whispered, as her nipple hardened and he moved on to the other.

His slow, ardent, tender kisses made their way down her own flat stomach. If she could think, her thoughts would have been how different this was… how tender, how loving, how beautiful.

She gasped as he began to tease her, licking her out as he hadn't done before. As he found her, she prepared herself for an orgasm, but instead he pulled out just in time. He brought her to the brink many times before making her come again and again.

Slowly, as everything had been, he entered her. His unsheathed hardness was much more sensitive, making the act more pleasurable on both sides. Desiring more than anything to continue the beautiful act, he kept it going as long as possible.

He released her wrists as they finally finished, and took her in his arms, kissing her forehead, her neck, her lips, over and over. Somehow she was more shaken by the gentle, loving experience than by the passionate, raw desire of the day before.

His arms tightened protectively around her as he felt something like fear quiver through her. He pressed his lips to her hair and murmured her name gently.

At long last she relaxed, draped her own arm around him and fell asleep, her brown hair spread wildly around, using his chest as her pillow, listening to the beating of his heart.

XxxxxxX

Much earlier, Brooke sat on Nathan's porch steps, shakily analyzing what she'd heard. All she'd done was what she'd done for years-enter Nathan's house without knocking, run up the stairs when he'd failed to answer her call. Impulse had made her knock on the door, but she'd snatched back her hand the moment before her knuckles connected with the wood.

A sound had come from the room, one she'd remember all her life-the low, desiring moan of a woman. A moan that wasn't of lust, but of love. Of a woman that wasn't Brooke.

Brooke had never remotely contemplated the fact she was, or had ever been, in love with Nathan, but she thought about it then. As surely as she knew she wasn't in love with him, she knew that she had been once and if she'd taken a chance on him they'd be together still.

Still anxious, she climbed back into her car and sped toward her new love's house.

XxxxxxX

When Haley awoke the next morning and gently attempted to ease herself out of Nathan's embrace, but he awoke when she did so and opened his arms for her, watching her run around the room, gathering her clothes.

"Going?" he asked. She stopped and turned to face him.

"Do you want me to?" she asked.

"No. Come back to bed," he suggested.

"I can't. I'm starving," Haley whined. As she wandered close to the bed, he caught her hand and pulled her into it.

"Fine. Here," he said. Reaching over her, he plucked a package of Cracker Jacks from it and split it open. Automatically his hand reached for the gift within.

Both stared as the cheap, colourful bracelet tipped into his hand. He stared at it a moment longer.

"For you," he said, at last.

"Nathan…" she protested weakly.

"No. Don't say I never gave you anything," he said, as he slipped it onto her wrist.

She curled up next to him, her hunger forgotten as morning swiftly turned to afternoon.