“What are you doing?”
Brittni’s unwelcome voice stirs me, bringing me back to cold reality with a thud.
“I’m leaving,” I say, deadpan. “Thanks for the drinks.”
Even in the dark, I can see her open mouth and offended expression. More than ever, I don’t give a shit. There’s only one person’s opinion that I’m really starting to care about. I just don’t know what to do about it.
TWENTY-FOUR
Marissa
The click of the deadbolt opening wakes me. I listen closely, trying to determine if I was dreaming the sound or if it was real. The closing of the door assures me it was real. Very real.
My heart starts to race inside my chest as my mind flits through my options. I’m just getting ready to ease out of bed and head for the bathroom to lock myself in when I hear the light metallic clink of keys hitting the table in the foyer. It’s where I always put my keys. For some reason that makes me feel less threatened. Anyone breaking in with an ill intent wouldn’t likely be dropping off his keys on the table.
One thought runs through my head, one face.
Nash.
When he appears in the bedroom doorway, I recognize him instantly. Something about the way he moves is familiar to me, like I’d be able to pick it out anywhere, as long as I could see a silhouette.
He doesn’t say anything as he makes his way to the bed. I’m both excited and a little aggravated, considering that he left the bar last night with a trashy blonde. Thinking of her, of how it felt when he left with her, rises to the surface first.
“Where’s your friend?” I ask tightly.
At first he doesn’t say anything. I can see his movements and hear the shift of his clothing as he undresses. Despite my irritation, desire sweeps through me, making me breathless and achy.
He walks to the side of the bed, staring down at me in the dark. I can see just enough of his face to discern his expression. It’s serious. Determined. Heated.
“I realized something tonight.”
The mattress depresses where he sets his knee on it. I feel the brush of his fingers against my skin as he curls them into the covers at my shoulder. He pauses, as if waiting for me to respond.
“What’s that?”
My stomach is full of lava. It pours through my core and down my legs when he slowly pulls back the covers.
“I realized that no matter how tightly I closed my eyes, no matter how much I tried to ignore it, no matter how much I wanted her to be . . .” His voice is so quiet, I have to strain to hear him, even in the silence. “She just wasn’t you.”
My racing heart flips over in my chest.
Nash’s hand stills, hovering at my hip. He’s waiting for my permission, for my acceptance. For my participation.
I reach down and cover it with mine. Now we both wait—motionless, speechless, breathless. It’s as if something important is being decided. Or declared.
Then, purposefully, I roll onto my back and bring his hand to my breast. I hear him suck in a breath.
“Show me,” I demand simply. I know what I want him to show me. I know what I hope he meant by wishing she had been me. What I don’t know is if he’ll do as I ask, if he’ll show me that he’s in this, too. Just like me.
He makes no verbal response, but his answer is as clear as if he had. He slides onto the bed, stretching out beside me. He stares down into my face, his eyes sparkling black diamonds in the sliver of the moonlight pouring through the crack in the curtains. He watches me, his thumb absently moving back and forth over my nipple.
Finally, he lowers his head to mine, his lips brushing softly, sweetly over mine. “I don’t know what to do with you,” he whispers.
“Love me,” I answer, reaching behind his head to pull his mouth more firmly against mine. I don’t want him to comment and ruin the moment. I just want him to love me, like we aren’t two broken people with an impossible future. At least we can have this—this moment, this feeling, this one perfect night.
My heart and my soul and my body thrill at his touch. Nash’s hands and fingers, his lips and tongue move over me like they were made to do nothing else in life. Expertly, he brings my aching body to a fever pitch before he slips between my legs and positions himself at my entrance.
It feels as though the entire world is on pause, waiting in breathless anticipation for him to thrust into me and ease the ache that only Nash can give me.
My eyes are closed and every nerve in my body is focused on the place where our bodies are touching most intimately. His voice surprises me when he speaks.
“Look at me.”
I open my eyes and they meet his. He stares at me for several long, puzzling seconds before he flexes his hips and moves into me, inch by excruciating inch. And when he’s deep inside me, filling me up in so much more than just a physical way, he presses his lips to mine in a kiss that reaches the most sacred, terrified part of me.
When I feel the brush of his tongue, tender turns to passionate and my body clamps down around his. He begins to move within me, pushing me relentlessly toward a pleasure I’ve only ever experienced in his arms, at his touch.
My orgasm is unlike any other. It washes over me like warm honey, slow and sweet.
“I love to feel you, so tight and wet all around me,” he groans, slowing his delicious torture to prolong my pleasure.
He doesn’t stop until the earth is firm beneath me once more. Then, with a gentleness I haven’t seen in him thus far, he slips out of me and rolls me onto my stomach.
I’m boneless, with neither the will nor the desire to resist him as he stuffs a pillow beneath my hips. I feel like I have nothing left to give when his lips touch me.
“I love this ass,” he says softly, kissing my cheek then nipping it lightly with his teeth. His hands caress my butt, then travel down my thighs to tenderly spread my legs. He slides a finger inside me and, much to my surprise, I feel a gush of heat flood my stomach. Again. “There’s at least one more in you,” he says. I feel his weight against my butt when he leans over me and whispers in my ear, “Can you do that for me? Can you come for me one more time?”
I don’t know the answer to that, so I say nothing. But when his finger moves down to rub back and forth over my clitoris, I feel like there’s a distinct possibility.
His legs between mine force them farther apart and I feel his thick head probe my entrance just before he pushes into me. That full feeling, that glorious full feeling, makes me groan and my body comes immediately back to life.