Crash Lights and Sirens, Book 1 (18 page)

Yeah, that works all right, embarrassing as it is to actually articulate. Nick slides in all at once, rolling his hips to get himself situated. Then he pulls out slowly, bracing one hand up over her head before he fucks her—Mary mother of God—halfway up the freaking bed.

“Shit.” Taryn scrabbles at the sheets, looking for leverage, but he’s still holding her wrists down. “Nick. Shit.”

“That’s it,” he mutters quietly, his voice a low, humming vibration right down beside her ear. It feels insane, the burn and stretch of him inside her, how it’s right on the edge of being too much. She pushes up against his grip on her wrists just to see what’ll happen, and Nick slams them back down to the bed. “Behave,” he warns her gruffly, tightening his hold without breaking the rhythm, these deep, deep thrusts Taryn can feel all the way into her stomach. She curls her toes against his calf muscles, butterflies her hips even more.

“Make me,” she manages breathlessly. Arches her spine to meet him stroke for stroke.

“Fresh.” Nick grins back, fast and sharp and wolfish—he makes her though, collecting her wrists in one hand and reaching down to pluck at her nipple with his free one. Pinches hard enough that Taryn yelps. She feels overwhelmed and out of control in a way that’s never, ever worked for her up until now. Anything, Jesus, she really would let him do—fuck. Thirty seconds later and she’s careening toward the edge of it too quick to even think about making it last.

“Nick.” She never gets off this fast on the bottom, but it’s happening now—he’s hitting some improbably perfect angle, the drag of his body so incredibly good across her clit. “Nick Nick Nick, please, I’m—right now, I’m—” As she comes she wants to tell him other things too, all kinds of insanity she’s never, ever going to actually admit to: that she’s never wanted somebody as much as she wants him, that she’s ridiculously glad he called her tonight, that he’s the biggest and the best and she loves—

Loves what, exactly?

Taryn snaps her jaws shut midmoan like she can shut her brain down that way also, panic cutting through the haze of the orgasm like a siren through a snow-silent night. God, it’s not—she definitely doesn’t, all right, they’ve been hanging around for like a month, she hardly knows him. She couldn’t possibly—whatever. It’s fine. It’s all the sex, it has to be. It’s messing with her hormones something fierce.

Nick doesn’t seem to notice, thank God. Two more hard, sloppy thrusts and he’s done for, the feel of him pulsing hot and thick between her legs. Taryn forces herself to refocus, murmurs nonsense in his ear until he’s through. “So, um,” she says quietly, once his breathing calms down. He goes to lift himself off her, and Taryn tugs to keep him where he is. Freaked or not, she likes how he feels. “You wanna tell me what that was?”

Nick shrugs, kisses along her shoulder. “Rough night,” is all he says.

Which—clearly. He shifts his weight onto the bed for real now, the mattress dipping underneath him. As soon as he moves, Taryn’s whole body feels sweaty and cold. “With your family?” she asks cautiously, propping herself up on one elbow; that’s who he was with, she knows, the casual way he mentioned it to her making it feel like anything but.

Nick nods. “Mm-hmm. Roll over,” he murmurs then, sitting up. “On your stomach.”

Well. Taryn does it, stretching out on the bedspread and lifting her hips obediently so he can slide a pillow underneath. The safest thing to do is quit talking, probably. This is getting out of hand, whatever it is. Still, “What happened?” she asks into the bed.

Nick gathers her hair to one side and sucks at the nape of her neck, uses his teeth down across her shoulder blades. Taryn shivers, this time not from cold. “Just family stuff.” Nick sighs against her spine. “Alexandra being Alexandra.”

Taryn rolls her hot forehead back and forth against the bedspread, telling herself to stop. Nick’s mouth is at the dip of her waist now, moving down with clear intent. It is not the mouth of a person who wants to talk about it. “I’m sorry,” she tells him uselessly, weirdly hurt by his reserve. They are not dating, God. He doesn’t owe her any explanations.

Nick pushes himself back up the bed for a second, leaning down to nose at her ear. “Don’t be sorry, Falvey,” he murmurs, planting a kiss on the thin skin at her hairline. “Night’s looking up.”

Taryn reaches back automatically to clutch at his hair, holding his head down nice and close. It’s a graceless angle but Nick stays, breath woofing across her neck as hot and humid as Atlas’s. “Yeah?” Taryn asks, shy and dumb. And like—yeah, of course it is, he just had an orgasm, but somehow Taryn gets the feeling he’s not just talking about the endorphins that go hand in hand with being buried in her vagina.

“Yeah,” Nick confirms. “Don’t have any bad nights with you.”

Oh. Well. Taryn cranes her neck around far enough to hurt, hell-bent on receiving the kiss Nick seems equally determined to give her. “Glad you called,” she finally murmurs against his mouth, picking through all the thoughts in her brain until she hits on the least embarrassing. The impulse to confess everything else too is almost irresistible. Nick just smiles, nipping at her bottom lip once before letting her turn her head to a more comfortable position.

“Not as glad as I am,” he promises, raking his teeth across her shoulder and lower, kissing down her body with intent. He’s got a thing for her dumb tattoo he thinks she doesn’t know about, how he always pays extra attention to the skin at the small of her back. “Now, are you gonna let me do this?”

Taryn wiggles against the pillow, the wet spot spreading underneath her. If he’s about to do what she’s pretty sure he’s going to do… “Um,” she pants, her brain practically shorting out as he bites at the curve of her ass. “Yes?”

Nick bites again, lower this time. “You don’t sound sure,” he teases. He rubs his scratchy chin down the backs of both thighs, licking at the places where she’s sticky. If it bothers him, no condom and the way the mess is still sliding out of her, he certainly doesn’t show it. “Are you sure?” He reaches up to spread her open, then one hundred percent doesn’t follow through, his breath washing across all the newly exposed skin. “Taryn. You gotta tell me.”

Taryn whines against the mattress, impatient. She’s not afraid to ask for what she wants, but Christ. Instead of using words she shifts up onto her knees, spreading her legs wide and pornographic. Nick groans against her body so she can feel the rumble of it clear up her spine, clever mouth everywhere like there’s no part of her he isn’t after. Taryn fists her hands tight in the blankets and hangs on.

It’s close to four in the morning when she finally makes it home (“Stay,” he muttered, one arm slung heavy over her hip, both of them in and out of sleep in his big, warm bed—and God, she thought about it, but she promised to quiz Connor on his state capitals at breakfast and probably some distance isn’t the worst thing in the world right now). Jesse’s in the living room when she lets herself in, TV glowing blue across his sharp face.

“Hey,” she says, dropping her bag on the armchair. She feels fucked-out and sleepy, damp and slick inside her jeans. She’s got to be up by six thirty. “Thought everybody would be in bed by now.”

Jesse raises his eyebrows at her over the back of the sofa. “Why?” he asks, a teasing lilt in his voice that might be friendly and might not be. “Is it late?”

What are you, my warden?
Taryn almost echoes, then thinks better of it. He hung out with the kids tonight after all, even though Rosemary’s still behaving herself for the most part and it would have been easy for him to just shrug and take off. That’s what he did all last fall, the temper tantrums that started up the second Taryn floated the idea of moving in with Pete—Rosemary was sober then too, so at first it wasn’t like he was actually leaving the kids alone. Whole weeks at his girlfriend Sheena’s, pouting like a kid, but Taryn let it go because in the beginning it didn’t matter that much. She’d laid out her plan for him calmly, visiting and how she’d still chip in on the bills, and that was that. She really believed they’d be fine without her. It didn’t matter that Jesse didn’t believe it too, because she always assumed he’d come around.

Only he never did.

He fell off the face of the planet entirely, and then everything went to shit, and here they all are. In the interest of avoiding a repeat of that cycle, Taryn purposely hasn’t said anything about Nick to her family. Still, if the way Jesse’s looking at her is any indication, the cat’s basically out of the bag. “Thanks for tonight,” is the reply she finally settles on.

Jesse shrugs, eyes on the television. “No big deal,” is all he says.

Taryn hesitates. Back when they were younger she and Jesse used to stay up all night watching crap movies on Channel 11, buddy comedies and 80s cop flicks until the sky turned gray through the windows on the east side of the living room. For a second she thinks about asking him what’s on now, if they can find something extra awful with Mel Gibson or something, but when she opens her mouth to try it the words get stuck in her throat. “Night, Jess,” she tells him quietly. Heads up the stairs to catch some sleep.

Chapter Eleven

Nick’s got two days off in a row the following week, so he buckles the hell down and has Joe come over to help him get the kitchen counters laid before the hockey game. Once they’re in he finishes up the downstairs bathroom too, and just like that the whole first level is pretty much done except for paint and hardware. Slowly, slowly, Nick starts ripping out the dusky pink carpet in the upstairs bedrooms. Guest bedrooms first, one by one, until all that’s left is the master.

“Looks good,” Taryn says when she comes by after shift one afternoon, this little pink smirk on her face like possibly the whole HGTV thing is working for her. Nick—yeah. Nick’s not above taking advantage of that at all. He lays her out across the newly installed granite as soon as the mortar’s set, everything coming full circle since the night of the fire.

She must be remembering it too now, because she butts her face at his to get his attention, and when Nick looks up her eyes are serious and shy. “Sorry I was a dick,” she murmurs, rubbing her sticky mouth along his jaw. “After that first time. I liked you, I just—”

Nick breathes out hard against her neck, touched and not wanting to let on. “I mean, you’re always kind of a dick,” he says after a minute, laughing when she comes out swinging.

Things between him and Taryn are surprisingly good, considering. Nick was worried he’d scared her off with how heavy shit got on Sunday night, but she’s come over twice and stayed over once since then, messy-haired and childish when he wakes her up for work the next morning. Nick makes pancakes while she sits beside the butcher block and yawns, those small, peach-tipped breasts stretching out the front of one of his old undershirts. For the first time in years, Nick thinks seriously about calling in sick.

“Here,” he says instead, sliding a full plate toward her, plus the bottle of sickly sweet Aunt Jemima he bought special. He’s learned a couple of things about Taryn these past few weeks, mostly inconsequential stuff like how she prefers her eggs—runny—but also larger clues, like the fact that she’s never had real maple syrup before and hates the taste. “The fake stuff is a third of the price,” was all she said when he asked, shrugging as if that explained everything.

Which—maybe it does.

They haul ass to work a while later, both of them in the Tahoe because an early March storm has rendered Taryn’s car useless. Nick is careful to drop her off at the front door before parking, staggering their arrival times by a few precious seconds. Lynette may be on to them but nobody else is, at least if the roster is any indication. Together again today, Nick notices, glancing at the posted list. It’s the second time this week. He’d be lying if he said he minded.

“Stop stalking me,” Taryn accuses when he meets her by the bus, tongue caught firmly between her teeth. Her hair is neat as a pin now, scraped back into a tight bun. The young pre-med kid named Doc looks up from her checklist just as Nick tweaks a stray piece.

Shit.

“Yeah,” he says, pulling back and shoving both hands into his pockets, stupid and obvious. “I don’t actually think that’s what I’m doing.” Fuck fuck fuck. He might as well have gone ahead and kissed her, for all the good the damage control does—Doc’s eyes are saucers.

Taryn doesn’t seem bothered. “I’ll be the judge,” she declares, shooting Doc one of those secret girl looks that could either mean shut up or later. Still, Nick goes through the rest of his own checklist on autopilot, dread weighing down his stomach like lead.

Turns out he’s worried for nothing. When they’re both inside the ambulance cab, sealed off from the world, Taryn takes one look at his face and bursts out laughing. “Oh my God, relax,” she tells him, this tickled expression behind those pale, witchy eyes. “It’s just Emily. We’re friends.”

Nick exhales. “You relax,” he says, aware he sounds just as full of it as she does most of the time. He’s smiling though; he can’t help himself. He thought he blew that play, and it turns out he didn’t, and—well. He’s smiling.

It’s a light day, a baby in respiratory distress and a high school hockey player with a gruesome broken femur. They’re standing in the ambulance bay loading the stretcher back into the bus when the plexiglass doors to the ER whoosh open and somebody calls Taryn’s name. “Hey. Tare, wait.”

Nick turns around before Falvey does, already sort of knowing. Sure enough, there’s Pete, her ex-boyfriend, wearing scrubs and Chuck Taylors, a stethoscope slung around his neck. He’s maybe twenty-eight, twenty-nine at the outside.