Chapter 49 She Saw Every Twitch
Chloe was pinned flush against the mattress, sinking deep into the plush duvet.
Nathan braced his heavy frame above her, his dark eyes blazing with a feral, uninhibited heat in the pitch black.
"My turn," he rasped. The last trace of his careful, academic gentleness completely vanished, replaced by a raw, aggressive hoarseness that sent a violent thrill straight to her core.
Before she could even gasp, he crashed his mouth over hers. This wasn't a gentle exploration. It was a punishing, bruising claim, his tongue forcing her lips apart and completely stealing her breath.
His hands were equally ruthless. He swiftly tore open the buttons of her pyjama top, his large, scorching palms pressing down and kneading her bare skin with a bruising, desperate pressure. Dizzy from the violent shift in power, Chloe could only let out a series of broken, breathless whimpers.
He hooked his fingers under the waistband of her pyjama bottoms, ripping the fabric down. His exploration was direct, impatient, and entirely forceful. He immediately found the slick, aching center of her heat, pressing and kneading with a relentless, agonizing rhythm.
"Wait..." she gasped, desperately trying to anchor herself, her voice trembling.
"No," he commanded flawlessly.
He withdrew his fingers and, without a single second of warning, thrust forward, burying himself incredibly deep inside her.
A dual, shuddering sigh of absolute relief tore from both their throats.
He completely dominated the rhythm—fast, punishing, and deep. Each thrust was a precise, fierce strike, paying her back in full for having the sheer audacity to tease him moments before. Chloe was completely undone, her nails digging frantically into his broad shoulders, leaving half-moons in his skin.
Only after a long, mind-numbing eternity did his brutal pace slow, shifting into a deep, agonizingly slow grind that was somehow infinitely more torturous.
He buried his face in her neck, panting heavily against her ear. "Who started this, hmm?"
Chloe couldn't form a single coherent syllable; she could only arch and fall, completely enslaved to his movements. She realized, with a hazy, intoxicating terror, that she had deliberately unchained a starving beast she was entirely powerless to control.
He had always pretended to be so stoic and proper when they were young. But beneath that immaculate exterior, all it took was a few brazen touches to make his control violently snap.
The memory made Chloe chuckle softly against his mouth, pulling her back to the reality of the dimly lit hotel room.
Hearing her low, breathy laugh, the forty-two-year-old Nathan flushed hot. He opened his mouth to stop her, but Chloe immediately silenced him with a demanding kiss.
Her hands wandered restlessly down his chest, tracing the hard lines of his stomach, dipping dangerously low.
The absolute second her fingers brushed his belt, Nathan violently jerked back as if 10,000 volts of electricity had shot through his veins. He shoved her away with terrifying force.
Chloe stumbled backward, slamming hard against the armrest of the sofa. She looked up, her chest heaving, her eyes wide with sheer shock. "What's wrong?"
Nathan spun away from her, his broad back facing her. His entire massive frame was trembling violently. He gripped the edge of the window sill, his knuckles turning bone-white.
"Go back to your room," he ground out, his voice shaking with barely suppressed panic.
"But... you were fine just a second ago," Chloe said, slowly standing up from the sofa, her heart dropping. "Do you... do you not want me?"
"I said get out!" Nathan suddenly roared, the sound tearing out of his throat.
Chloe violently flinched. She clenched her fists at her sides, her teeth biting into her bottom lip. "Why are you being so cruel? Don't you like it? You used to love it when I took the initiative!"
"That was then. I am old now, Chloe. I don't need this from you," Nathan stood hunched over, gripping the stainless-steel window frame so hard the metal bit into his palms. Yet he felt absolutely nothing. His hands were going dangerously, terrifyingly numb.
"What the hell does that even mean?" Chloe snapped, her fear morphing into defensive, stinging irritation.
"Exactly what you think it means." Nathan squeezed his eyes shut, his chest heaving as he slowly turned to face her. The look of absolute, hollow devastation on his face made Chloe’s blood run freezing cold. "You keep looking at me and telling me I haven't changed. But I have, Chloe. I am fundamentally, irreparably broken."
His voice cracked. "I am so broken that I cannot bear to tell you the truth. I don't want you to see it. I want the person you remember to still be the invincible boy you fell in love with... not the rotting man I am now."
"I really don't understand you!" Chloe cried out, violently stamping her foot in sheer frustration. "What is wrong with who you are now? Why are you so damn convinced I wouldn't want you? Nathan, I want you! I love you!"
Hearing her desperate, beautiful declaration of love didn't bring him a single ounce of joy. It only felt like a blade twisting directly into his guts.
He closed his eyes wearily. "Stop talking. Just go. Please. I cannot hear this right now."
"No! Why?!" Chloe refused to back down, taking a step toward him.
Nathan turned his back to her again, his jaw locked so tight his teeth threatened to crack. His body was entirely spiraling out of control.
The extreme emotional spike in his blood pressure was triggering a catastrophic electrical storm in his damaged brain. His head throbbed with a blinding, agonizing pressure, as if his skull were physically splitting open.
He gripped the railing, violently torn. If he told her the medical truth—that his brain was scarred, that he was staring down the barrel of a massive stroke that could leave him paralyzed and drooling in a wheelchair—he knew she would never leave. She would sacrifice her brilliant, vibrant youth to become his live-in nurse. She was too good, too beautiful, and far too radiant. How could he maliciously chain her to a dying, crippled old man?
He absolutely couldn't do it.
The agonizing guilt spiked his heart rate further. The violent trembling in his hands rapidly spread to his arms, then his chest. He was completely losing his grip on his own nervous system.
Suddenly, a horrific, violent convulsion ripped through his entire body.
Nathan collapsed hard against the carpet.
"Nathan!" Chloe screamed in absolute, unfiltered terror.
Nathan’s face drained of all colour. He fell onto his side, his muscles locking, but he managed to desperately, weakly point a shaking finger toward his suit jacket pocket.
Chloe dropped to her knees beside him, frantically tearing into his pockets until her fingers closed around a plastic pill bottle. Her hands shook so violently she could barely pop the childproof cap. She poured a handful of white pills into her palm. "How many?! Nathan, how many do you take?!" she sobbed.
Nathan couldn't answer. His body began to thrash violently against the floor, his back arching in a brutal, uncontrollable spasm. He could barely pull oxygen into his lungs.
Yet, inside the prison of his seizing body, his mind remained shockingly, horrifyingly lucid.
God, I am utterly repulsive.
A wave of suffocating frustration and violent rage tore through his mind. He genuinely wished he could just die right there on the carpet. The absolute darkest, weakest, most pathetic version of himself—the side he had dreaded exposing to her—was now violently laid bare.
He tried desperately to scream, to tell her to look away, but only a choked, guttural sound escaped his locked throat. The brutal convulsions forced his jaw to snap shut. He bit down violently on his own tongue. A thick stream of dark red blood trickled out the corner of his mouth.
Chloe stared at the blood, hyperventilating. She desperately squinted at the tiny print on the prescription label. Take three tablets.
She pinched the pills between her trembling fingers and tried to force them past his lips, but she couldn't. His jaw was locked tight in a brutal spasm. It was physically impossible to pry his teeth apart.
Sweat beaded on her forehead. She scrambled backward, frantically ripping through her purse until her hand closed around her metal apartment key. She crawled back to him, wedged the cold metal of the key between his clenched teeth, and violently twisted, prying open a gap just wide enough to shove the bitter pills into his mouth.
Nathan’s body continued to thrash. Terrified he would choke or fracture his skull, Chloe aggressively shoved him onto his side, using her own body weight and her bare hands to brace his head and violently trembling shoulders against the floor.
After what felt like an agonizing eternity, the violent electrical storm in his brain finally began to short-circuit. The convulsions slowly, painfully subsided.
Nathan lay on the floor, gasping for air as he slowly regained control of his limbs. He tasted copper and ash. In absolute, suffocating silence, relying entirely on sheer, stubborn willpower, he forced his massive, exhausted body to sit up.
Chloe immediately reached out, her hands stained with his blood, to support his back.
Nathan violently shoved her away. "Go back to your room," he rasped. His voice was a guttural, shredded whisper.
Chloe froze on the floor, staring at the ruined man she loved with absolute, bottomless sorrow.
Nathan didn't look at her. He repeated the order with lethal, icy finality. "Go back. Now."
Chloe understood immediately. She could see the absolute, devastating humiliation radiating from his rigid posture. He couldn't bear the pity in her eyes. His impenetrable pride was entirely shattered.
She quickly scrambled to her feet, aggressively wiping her tears away. "Alright. I'm going right now. Please don't be angry," she choked out, forcing a fragile, broken smile to her lips even as her voice completely betrayed her. "I'm leaving. Just... get some rest."
Nathan didn't turn around. He didn't dare utter a single syllable, terrified that the slightest movement would trigger another wave of convulsions and subject her to his pathetic weakness all over again.
The heavy hotel door clicked shut.
Chloe stood entirely alone in the freezing, silent hallway. Her head bowed, her shoulders shaking with silent, violent sobs.
Nathan had always been an absolute titan. When they were young, he was in flawless, terrifyingly excellent health. He had never suffered from anything like this.
When did this begin?
What catastrophic trauma had broken his brilliant, perfect mind into this violently seizing shell?
Chloe pressed her bloodstained hands over her mouth, her heart physically breaking in half. God, she thought, slowly sliding down the wall until she hit the carpet. How did he endure all these agonizing years without me?