“Sounds awfully cynical to me.”
Yeah, well, she was a thirty-three-year-old divorcée, mom of two who’d never truly experienced love or romance and had just been reminded exactly how out of her league she was in thinking this thing with Nash could be about anything but sex. Honestly, it was a miracle she wasn’t more cynical than this.
“It also sounds like a challenge.” He pulled his phone from his pocket, brushed his thumb over the screen a few times, then set it on the coffee table in front of them.
A slow song started to play, something with a soft, subtle beat she’d never heard before. He stood from the couch, plucked her plate from her hand, then pulled her up in front of him. Didn’t stop until they were pressed together, not even a paper’s thickness separating them.
He settled her hands on his shoulders before sweeping his own down her arms and back until his fingertips skimmed the upper curve of her ass. Rocking them side to side, he lowered his lips and brushed them against the side of her neck. “I dunno, princess. This feels pretty real to me.”
Real… Yeah, it’d started to feel real to her, too, and that was exactly what terrified her.
“Hmm…seems dancin’ isn’t doin’ the trick,” he said against her neck.
“What trick?”
“Gettin’ you to loosen up.”
After the day she’d had, that’d take a damn miracle, but she kept that to herself.
“Looks like I need to move on to Plan B.”
“And what’s that?”
Before she could even get the words out, he’d slipped his hands around her front and under her shirt, sliding it up and over her head. He lowered his head to her breasts, his tongue splitting its attention between her nipples. Soon, her fingers were in his hair, gripping him to her, and she couldn’t remember why her day had been so bad.
In a feat of epic proportions, he managed to rid her of her clothes while he worshiped her breasts. And then before she could blink, he shed his own, plucked a condom from his pocket, and sat them both on the couch with her astride him.
He pulled her against him, ducked his head, and took her already wet nipple into his mouth again. He licked and sucked, fondled and stroked all the parts of her that made her body sing. That made her wet and aching. That had her rocking against his erection, desperate to feel him inside her. The first glide of his cock into her always managed to steal her breath, and she desperately needed that right now.
When she finally sank down on him, his thickness filling her, stretching her so she straddled that delicious line of pleasure and pain, she couldn’t ignore the gnawing worry that had been planted that very first day. The one that she’d unknowingly watered and nourished in the time they’d been together. The one that’d had a spotlight shone on it today in the store.
The one that said she wasn’t enough to keep him. And he wasn’t the keeping kind anyway.
“Stay with me, princess.” His voice, along with his mouth, was just a whisper against her. He caressed her hips and ass, his fingers digging into her flesh and guiding her up and down his length as his breaths gusted against her lips. “You feel how good we are together? Your pussy was made for me.”
She couldn’t keep looking at him. Couldn’t stare into his eyes because it feltreal. His words and his touch and his deep, penetrating gaze all felt too fucking real. She closed her eyes, trying to block it all out.
“Don’t hide from me,” he said, swatting her ass. “Not when you’re about to come while ridin’ my cock.”
She released a moan into his mouth as he captured hers. And despite the worries pinging in the back of her mind, she couldn’t deny him this. In the months they’d been together, the easier it had become. Her releases had been a foregone conclusion each time they’d been intimate—he’d made certain of that. Even on her worst days, he played her body like an instrument, made it sing in the way only he could.
When he slipped his fingers down between them, settled them directly on her clit and circled her with the exact pressure and speed she needed, she crumpled on top of him, her sob trapped in her throat as she came in blinding waves of ecstasy.
“Shit, Rory. That’s it. Fucking made for me, aren’t you?” He moaned in her neck, his breath hot on her skin. “Love bein’ inside you when you come.”
She’d gone boneless on top of him, but he guided her with ease, lifting her up and down his erection until a primal groan erupted from his throat when he settled deep inside her.
As he claimed her mouth in a kiss while he rode out his orgasm, his arms banded tightly around her, she knew she was in trouble. The two of them were nothing but a recipe for disaster, and she’d known it from the start.
The difference now, though, was when this all came crashing down around her—and there was no doubt in her mind it would—her heart would crash right along with it.
Even though Nash hoped he’d done something good by getting Nat back to Havenbrook, he couldn’t help but worry he’d made the wrong choice in keeping it from Rory. She’d wanted her sister home—even if only at their grandma’s request—and he’d seen a way to make that happen, so he did. Maybe that was part of his whole problem—he leaped before he looked, and sometimes that meant he found himself up shit creek without a paddle.
Still, he hadn’t seen another way around it. If he’d included Rory in the plan, she would’ve told him not to bother. She’d wanted to do it all on her own—just like everything else—which was why she hadn’t asked Will or Mac to invite the youngest Haven home. Nat wasn’t the only obstinate one in that bunch.
Since the last thing he needed today was for his old-as-dirt truck to break down on the side of the road, he’d borrowed Drew’s to pick up Nat from the Memphis airport. She’d texted him that her plane had landed about twenty minutes ago, so he pulled up to the arrivals and scanned the area for her. Almost immediately, he spotted her standing by the windows, her bright-pink hair serving as a beacon.
He pulled up as close to her as he could get, rolled down the passenger’s window, then put two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Her head whipped in his direction, just like he knew it would, a huge grin splitting her face as she wove through the crowd toward him.
