Chapter 88 To me you feel like a woman
So I keep wriggling in his arms, readying myself to take the hit of the cold water for him, to make him laugh, to make him feel happiness just like he used to be a few months ago.
Natte’s happy, so am I.
Once he’s waded in to his hips, he slides me down his body, dropping me in the cold water.
“Arghhh! It’s bloody freezing!” I screech as the water chills through me. “You’re such an arsehole!”
“Don’t be a girl,” he chuckles deep and throaty.
“I am a girl,” I grin.
“Yeah? Well you feel like a woman to me,” he says low, his hands going around my waist, pulling me close to him.
I can feel he’s hard already. How, in this cold water? I have no clue. But I love that he is for me. That I do this to him.
Wrapping myself around his body, I hold on tight, as Natte wades us further into the water.
Once we’re chest deep, I decide to take the plunge. Freeing myself from Natte, I swim out a little and immerse myself into the water, wetting my hair.
It’s not too bad now I’m acclimatised to it.
As I surface, I see Natte treading water a few feet before me, staring across at me in the moonlit dark.
He’s looks so beautiful, all wet with the moon shining down on him. He looks like the star he is.
“What are you thinking about?” I ask.
“You. Then, and now. How beautiful you were back then, and how even more beautiful you are now. How I wish I’d seen you through all those years, and how I’m counting myself as one lucky bastard that I got a second chance to have you in my life and that you’re crazy enough to be mine. ”
My heart swells in my chest, replete with love for him. I never knew it possible to love someone as much as I do Natte.
I can’t ever imagine my life again without him in it, and I don’t ever want to.
Natte is my everything.
I swim to him and wrap my arms around his neck. His arms go around me, holding me tight.
“I’ll always be yours. ” I kiss his cheek, licking the cool water drops off his skin with my tongue, trailing a lead of gentle sucking kisses to his mouth. “Back then, on that day, I wanted you to make love to me under the waterfall but I was so young,” I whisper against his lips, casting my glance in the falls’ direction.
And without another word, I take off swimming for the falls.
Natte is hot behind me.
When we hit the cascading water, Natte takes me in his arms, kissing me like it’s the first time, and he makes love to me here under the falls, like those two teenagers wanted to all those years ago. The roar of the water drowned out the world, leaving just the two of us in our own private sanctuary. For that hour, the pain of the funeral and the weight of his past seemed to wash away down the stream, replaced by the heat of our bodies and the desperate, loving way he held onto me as if I were his only lifeline in a storm.
“He’s using again, isn’t he?”
Steve looks sadly across the table in the coffee shop we’re in, and nods his head once. “Yes, I think he is. ”
“You think or you’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” he says without hesitation.
Steve should know. He lived with Natte, the addict, before. He’s seen the hollowed out look in the eyes and the way the light just seems to switch off behind them.
“Me too,” I sigh, stirring my coffee, I look down into my cup. The steam rises up, hitting my face, but it doesn’t warm the cold dread settling in the pit of my stomach.
We’re in London and it’s two days here into formally taking over the office. And Natte’s using drugs again.
It’s become increasingly apparent over the last twenty four hours.
I’ve never lived with an addict before, but the signs are pretty clear.
He’s not sleeping. His moods are all over the place. His temper is short. He’s drinking more than usual. Fidgety. I could go on. Every time I try to catch his eye, he looks through me, or past me, as if he’s searching for a version of reality that doesn’t involve the crushing weight of his current life.
After the Falls, we went back to my apartment, happy together, and when we woke in the morning, everything was perfect.
Natte was Natte again. We spent time with his mum, and my folks. We all had a wonderful few days together in Texas.
Then one night everything changed. One phone call changed it all.
Steve received a heads up call from the press about a story that was going to be run the following morning. The press had found out about Peter's death. They dug a little deeper and found out he’d been in prison, and just what he went to prison for. The headlines were going to be brutal, dragging up every dark secret Natte had tried so hard to bury along with his father.
There was no way to stop the story, although Natte and Steve tried. They spent hours on the phone with lawyers and publicists, their voices growing more desperate as the night wore on.
So we left Texas that night, and flew to London to Natte’s house.
My first stay at his place, my new home to be, wasn’t exactly how I had imagined it would be. I thought we would be celebrating our new beginning, exploring the rooms of his massive house and making it ours. Instead, it felt like a cold, hollow fortress.
Natte was tense and stressed. I was alone for most of the time, wandering the corridors while he locked himself away in his office or paced the balcony like a caged animal.
When the story hit the news, I lost him. He became introvert. He stopped talking to me, stopped touching me, and started disappearing into the bathroom for long periods of time.