Responsibilities were something altogether new to Nat. Of course, she paid her bills, and when she had a scheduled shoot, she made sure her ass was there on time. But that was pretty much the extent of them. Or had been since she’d run from this town.
While her little taste of Havenbrook showed that it may not have been as bad as she remembered, it was still suffocating in this town. Mostly because being here came with certain expectations. Ones her daddy had etched in stone for her from the time she was born.Havens don’t behave that way. Havens can’t be seen doing that. Dammit, Nat, why can’t you be more like your sisters?
She’d fled, not just for adventure, but to escape the expectations of being born into the family she hadn’t had a choice about. Probably why she’d made her own family with Asher and Nash. Had made her own way, too. She’d never fit in a box, and certainly not the one her daddy had made for her. She’d always been a rule breaker. Always marched to the beat of her own drum. And Richard Haven had never accepted it. Though that wasn’t exactly a surprise, since he was as pigheaded as they came.
What was surprising was that he’d come to accept her sisters just fine. Even despite Will marrying a man he’d always hated, Rory bucking all convention and rejecting his money and assistance while forging her own way with a man seven years her junior, and Mac taking his job from him. Though that hadn’t been her sister’s intent, it certainly had to sting all the same.
But still, her sisters went and had Sunday supper every week with the family, and her daddy supported them, even if it was in the twisted way he had. But her? She didn’t even get the twisted version, though she did get the promise of a more respectable job, thanks to the family connections.
“Believe me,” Asher said, “if I were gonna tie you up, we wouldn’t be leavin’ the bedroom.”
Nat’s brows flew up toward her hairline as she stared at him. Images of him doing just that bombarded her, and she shifted in her seat, her pussy tingling at the mere thought. “Sounds like a fun, childless day to me. So, why aren’t we doin’ that again?”
“Damn, wifey, are you always this insatiable?” He glanced over at her with a smile. “I think we’ve proven we don’t need Rory to take the kids for me to fuck you. I didn’t wanna waste our free day wrapped up in bed.”
“Wow,” she said, dragging out the word. “I must be doin’ something wrong, if that’s the case.”
He huffed out a humorless laugh and shook his head. “Believe me, if you do anything any more right, you wouldn’t be able to drag me out of bed in the first place.”
Nat bit her bottom lip and glanced down, hiding the grin that had crept across her mouth. A grin that shouldn’t even be there in the first place. She didn’t smile at sweet words from a man, and she certainly didn’t get giddy from them. Whowasshe? And what the hell was this thing that was happening between them?
It was something she’d been asking herself since the wedding, but she hadn’t come up with anything yet. And though it was scary wading through whatever this was without answers, that was how she did everything in life. Leaped without looking, consequences be damned.
“What’d Will want this mornin’ when she called?” she asked.
He reached over, interlacing their fingers, and rested their joined hands on her leg. “She was hopin’ I’d play at her wedding next weekend.”
“Yeah? You gonna do it?”
“Of course.” He glanced over at her before returning his attention back to the road, the trees whipping past on either side as he drove them to their destination. “Might play this new song I’ve been workin’ on.”
“That why you’ve been scribbling in your notebook so much and hummin’ under your breath?”
“Maybe.”
“Yeah?” she asked. “You plannin’ on lettin’ your wife hear that anytime soon?”
He flashed her a grin—one that shot straight through her insides. “If you’re lucky.”
She hummed and leaned over, scraping her teeth against the sharp cut of his jaw. “Maybe I’ll get lucky a couple times tonight, then.”
Pressing her lips to his neck, she trailed kisses along his skin, her body on fire for him even though it’d only been hours since he’d been inside her. Hours since he’d groaned her name against her ear as he’d fucked her from behind. Hours since the sound of it had sent shock waves through her.
She was half a second away from telling him to pull over, destination be damned, when recognition dawned as she registered their whereabouts. “Wait a minute.” She sat back in her seat. “We goin’ where I think we are?”
Asher slid her a glance out of the corner of his eyes, a smile tipping his lips. “Well, I couldn’t exactly get us tickets to Bora Bora. But I figured you deserved a little adventure, even if we couldn’t leave Havenbrook to find it.”
Nat grinned as the car came to a stop, her stomach flip-flopping over…everything. That he would set this up for her. For them. Plan a day that she’d love just because. One he knew, without question, she’d enjoy. But more than that, it filled up her heart that he knew she needed this day even before she knew it herself.
She unbuckled her seat belt and stared out the windshield to the banks of trees lining Havenbrook Creek. A rock ridge they used to jump off soared straight out of the swimming hole that had been practically a second home to them. Back when they were nothing but troublemaking teens, they’d come out here dozens of times, bringing their dumb asses down to the creek with none of their parents any the wiser. And one time had nearly been her last.
“You ever think about what would’ve changed if we just hadn’t come out here that day?” he asked. “Our lives might’ve turned out completely different. Hell, you might not even be here with me now.”
The mere idea of not having had this man by her side her whole life—as well as this past month—pierced her chest. SOS signal or not, they stood by each other, and no amount of rewriting history would change that.
“You know even without that promise, I’d be here for you. It’s just a word, Ash. And our friendship is held together by a hell of a lot more than that.”
He was quiet for long moments, staring at her in the silence, his gaze tracking all of her features as if he were trying to commit them to memory. “Friendship, huh?”
