No Strings Attached

Chapter Sixteen

“Who the fuck are you?” Walters visibly shook – his belt was still undone and his hands scrambled around the buckle as he shuffled backwards as far as he could go from Nate and from Shannon.

Nate’s body was carved from steel – it was coiled, uninhibited, predatory tension. He wasn’t restless or nervous, his body was shifting with eerily controlled movements – and it only served to make him more intimidating. Lazily dragging his military jacket off his broad shoulders and throwing it over the back of a chair, he sneered at the smaller man.

“I’m your worst fucking nightmare.” He shrugged casually, until his muscles bunched beneath his thin shirt, and the movement became more of a preparatory rolling of bone and sinew, “I also never said you could say a fucking word!” Steel toe caps met gaping, yellowing teeth as Nate slammed his boot into Walters’s face, blood gushed from the other man’s mouth and Shannon gasped as she thought she saw a tooth fall from his lips onto her hardwood floor.

Nate turned to her immediately, his eyes suddenly filled with a burning intensity as they met hers, and she had no more strength than to labour the panting breaths that were coming from her.

“It’s actually a funny story ...” Nate started, his voice menacing and directed at the man groaning in agony on the floor rather than her, who he couldn’t take his eyes away from, “I’ve been over this way now for almost a week, just waiting on some information about where to find you. Had a guy looking into it, and I guess I just couldn’t muster the patience to get up here. Took a while, to be fair, all I had was this card I found when I was clearing out my little sister’s flat. Didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was yours. And then I’m caught on the hop, just coming home from a nice relaxing break, thinking of nothing but hitting the sheets with my woman here, and BAM! There you are!” His eyes when he turned them to Walters were ice cold, and the sardonic smile he laid out was downright chilling, “And I’ve just been dying to meet you.”

So that was how he knew.

A fucking business card?

Shannon’s own hands were clenched so tight that she was cutting crescents of pain with her fingernails, just to bring everything to the surface. Having this man is the same room as Nate ... she felt tarnished, as though the last three days had been nothing but an unreachable dream she didn’t and couldn’t ever deserve.

“Shannon. Go to your room, and lock the door, please...”

She couldn’t move, her feet were rooted to the spot, her eyes vacant. Only when Nate ran cupped her chin in his hands, bending his knees to meet her gaze, did she startle out of it

“Please, babe, I really don’t want you to be here right now.”

She knew what he was saying ... asking. He didn’t want her to see the shadows in him, she could understand that.

 But in the end, it was the expression in Walters’ eyes that made her disobey Nate – that cocky, taunting expression that he wore to hide the fear when he looked at her. Despite the bloodied mess of his face, despite his obvious disadvantages in the comparison between the two men – hers broad and muscular; coiled and unleashed power in every simple movement, while Walters was a scrawny, gangly frame standing at just under six foot, before he was sprawled across the floor – he wanted her to feel threatened, and small. He wanted to wield his strength over her even now.