Then shit happened to let me know I’d barely scratched the surface, and it came tonight in the shape of his deep and rich voice humming the indie tunes my kid loved so much. Fuckin’crooningthem as he got into it and seemed to forget I was there.
Nash sang super quietly, like a man who was used to being alone with his craft in the dead of night, but I heard every damn note, and it did me in. All that was missing was a mass of long, dark waves to bury my face in. A soft, curvy body to hide behind as my dick had a rave in my jeans.
Fuckin’ hell.
Nash finished the song. “You like Gerry Cinnamon?”
“Willow does.”
“What else does she like?”
“Anything that belongs on the acoustic stage at a festival. She plays classical shit too.”
“I figured.”
“How?”
Nash wrapped his knuckles on the Santiago. “This is a classical guitar.”
“If you say so.”
“I’ve said a lot of things today.” Nash set the guitar aside and fixed me with a stare that was, for him, unfathomable. “Sorry if I made things weird.”
I was buried in the sofa, swallowed whole in blood-red Orla-scented velvet. It was a battle to sit up, but for Nash, I’d always fight. “You didn’t make anything fuckin’ weird.”
“No?”
“No.”
Without the guitar to hide behind, Nash had nothing to do with his hands. It was a moment when he’d usually reach for a cigarette, but Orla’s gaff was a no-smoking zone, and his fingers wound up in a restless steeple.
He doesn’t believe me.
I slid off the couch and onto the hardwood floor, kneeling between his legs. My hands found their way to his knees, and it was the hardest thing on earth to stop them sliding up his ripped thighs. “Nothing’s weird. We’ve all got a devil in our brain, one way or another.”
Nash stared at my hands. Then at my mouth. “I didn’t know it would be like this.”
“Like what?”
“So good and so fucking terrifying.” Nash sighed. “That’s a lie. I knew it would be good, but I didn’t realise how messed up I’d be about it. Like, if I was going to get in my head about something, I thought it would be jealousy, you know? But when I think about you and her, it makes everything better. When I think you andme, I—my heart feels like it’s going to explode, and I had no fucking clue it was coming.”
Orla did. Our wise and clever queen. I rubbed Nash’s knee, the one that gave him aggro when it rained. “Your heart’s not going to explode. It’s safe with me.You’resafe with me. You know that, right?”
Nash covered my hands with his own. “It’s not you that I’m scared of. It’s how I feel. You deserve better than me to push you away because I can’t live in the moment instead of being stuck in my life how it was when I was a kid.”
I wanted to tell him that I didn’t deserve shit from him, the good or the bad. That it washimwho’d earned a better man out of all this than what I had to offer.
But this wasn’t about me and my fucked-up self-worth. It was about a damaged man—a brother—who needed anything and everything I could give him, and I’d give him my whole fuckin’ world if he wanted it.
I sat up taller, reaching for him, coaxing him forward, letting my palms ghost over the bare skin of his ribs. “Kiss me, Nash. I’ll catch you if you fall.”
Nash gripped my shoulders. Then his hand slid to the back of my neck. “What if I land on top of you?”
“Then I’m right fuckin’ here.” I held steady, waiting for him, tracking the nerves that hadn’t been there before I’d crushed him against the sink in the bunkhouse bathroom. “Do it, brother. Jump.”
Nash took a breath, and then he was on me, sliding off the couch and into my lap, his lips fused to mine like a goddamn dream, fear and desire pumping up a storm, a tremble dancing beneath his red-hot skin.
I held him tight like I’d promised, letting him control the pace, only taking over when he faltered to reel him back in.
