Nash (32 page)

second, but like always when we got together like this, his big frame started to loosen.

Seeing Royal making herself at home on his couch had made every concern, every worry, every

insecure part of me want to run away from him and never look back. All those questions of why he would

want me, of how long would it take until he found someone without my hang-ups, someone not stuck in

the past, barreled through my head like a runaway boulder falling off a cliff. If there hadn’t been real joy,

real gratitude glowing out of his violet eyes when he saw it was me at the door, I would have bolted and

never spoken to him again. I hated that this thing with him made me feel that way, brought such a

ridiculous weakness to the forefront of my mind. It made me feel like I was stuck in time. I just couldn’t

handle that, so I blew him off when he tried to explain. I was protecting myself, insulating my heart, but

little did I know my words were drawing a line in the sand where he was concerned and his heart very well

might be just as fragile as mine.

When he had told me to go, walked to the door like he was really ending it all, my breath had been

sucked out of my lungs and my blood had frozen still in my veins. I couldn’t give him everything he

wanted, that left me far too vulnerable, but I had to make him see this was just as important to me as it was

to him. The only way I could do that without getting stuck on words was with my body. Sure, I wanted him

and he knew it, but I don’t think he knew it was so much more than that. I just couldn’t figure out a way to

explain it all to him without sounding like a nut job or an uncertain and immature child.

I made a startled noise when he pressed me back fully into the door and tangled his fingers in my hair.

His eyes burned down at me in endless rivers of purple and blue.

“This is a conversation we are going to have to finish at some point, Saint.”

I put my hands under the hem of his shirt so that my palms could skate up the divots and hollows of his

rib cage. His skin was always so warm. He always felt so strong and vital, so resilient and secure. That he let

me call the shots, let me set the pace when we were together, made me feel like the most powerful and most

desirable woman in the world. It was intoxicating. I couldn’t just walk away from it even if that was

ultimately what was best for both of us.

“But it can wait, Nash.” I brushed my lips across the base of his throat and felt him swallow. I hated that

he felt like he had to deal with me and all my issues on top of everything he was struggling with in regard to

his dad.

He kissed my temple and then used his tongue to trace the shell of my ear. It made me shiver all over

even when he whispered, “No, not now. But soon.”

He pressed even more fully into me, making me spread my legs. He let his hands fall to the round curve

of my ass and I gasped when he shifted, hefted me up, and urged me to wrap my legs around his waist. I

was tall and not a petite girl. There wasn’t much about me that I would ever consider dainty, but he was a

monster in comparison, so he didn’t even seem like he noticed my weight when he moved away from the

door and headed down the hallway that led to his bedroom. I curled my arms around his shoulders and

sealed my mouth over his while he walked. I loved the way the motion rubbed our bodies together. Even

through my work scrubs and the layers underneath, I felt my nipples pebble, felt his body respond through

the thick denim of his jeans. I twisted my tongue around his, twirled them in a sucking, breathless kiss that

had both of us needing to come up for air by the time he got to the bedroom.

He leaned forward and dropped me on the center of the bed while pulling back and pulling his shirt up

and off over his head. Now, that was a sight that would never get old. The muscles and golden skin

stretched so tautly over them was always mouthwatering and made my fingers tingle and itch to stroke all

over, but the designs, the markings that defined him, decorated him, and made him his own walking art

gallery were just as alluring. The ink that curled and twisted up and down his arms was brilliant and eye-

catching, but it was that dragon, that other part of him, that I always wanted to touch. The wings, the fire,

the scales that covered so much of his big body … it was like he had a second skin and only a few got to

see it in all its grandeur and I was one of the lucky ones.

He popped open the tab on his belt and lifted an eyebrow at me. I sat up and pulled my top off. Hospital

work clothes were not the most flattering thing a person could wear but he didn’t seem to mind them. His

gaze did that thing where it went almost all the way black when I was left in front of him on the bed in

nothing but my underwear. He reached out a single finger and trailed it down the valley between my

breasts.

“I love your freckles.”

It made me shiver, but the look in his eyes, and the expression on his face, had my body going liquid

and warm all over. I went to reach for him, to pull him over me, but he bent down and used the same finger

to pull the cup of my bra down off of one of my breasts. The tip eagerly surged up to meet his descending

tongue. I squirmed and wiggled under him as he licked at it, circled it, sucked it into the warm center of his

mouth. I was pawing at his nonexistent hair, tossing my head back and forth across the comforter because

he was being so meticulous, so thorough with his attention to what he was doing to me. I lifted my head to

tell him to stop, to get his pants off and get the show on the road, when he moved on to the other breast and

that one was the other end of his pleasurable torture.

By the time he was done, I was panting and ready to explode just from his attention to my breasts. He

pulled my bra all the way off and pushed me back farther on the bed. I thought he was going to just pull my

panties off and get on with the sexy time. I wanted him desperately, felt my body weeping in welcome and

anticipation, but Nash seemed like he was in no hurry and he wasn’t letting me call the shots tonight. He let

his jeans drop, and I took a minute to really appreciate the bulge that was in the front of his boxers. There

wasn’t anything I would change about him, and the wings inked all along his sides seemed to flutter when

he took a deep breath and let it out slowly while working the last of my clothing out of the way.

His eyes were indigo and there was a flush under his burnished skin. Something was going on in his

head, something I wasn’t privy to, but when he crawled on the bed between my legs and put a biting kiss

on the inside of one thigh before lifting it up and over his shoulder, I knew.

We had had plenty of sex over the last several months,
plenty
probably being an understatement. Nash

using his mouth on me was no longer foreign or scary and new. He was good at it, I always enjoyed it, but

this was different, all of it was different. He wasn’t just making love to me, he wasn’t just trying to turn me

on or wind me up. He was worshipping me. He was trying to
show
me in yet another way just how

beautiful and perfect he saw me as being.

“Nash?” I said his name … well, more like choked it out, because his mouth and his hands were doing

things that were making me come undone. I felt my hands twist into tight knots in the sheets as he stroked

the flat of his tongue over a particularly sensitive bundle of nerves.

“Hmm?” He hmmed back at me and it made me cry out because when he did it he trapped my clit

between his teeth and the vibration made my eyes roll back in my head.

His hands were on either side of my hips, both my legs were dropped over his wide shoulders, and his

dark head was buried quite thoroughly at the heart of me. It felt wanton and decadent because of how intent

he was on proving his point. I tensed, felt small tremors start in the base of my spine, and when his mouth

was replaced with exploring and stroking fingers, all it took was a gentle shove and I dropped over the

edge. I vaguely felt him kiss along my quaking stomach, felt his fingers moving, playing with me to draw

out the response, but it was his eyes, so dark, so focused on me, that had my heart surrendering and all the

noise rattling in my head finally going quiet.

He let my legs slither to either side of him and traced a pattern on the soft skin right below my breasts.

“You are so sweet. Inside and out.” His voice was gruff, so I reached down so that I could pull him up

and over me.

He always said stuff like that to me. Told me I was beautiful, told me I was nice and fun to be around.

He often told me I was his favorite in bed. I never replied to any of it, but there was no getting past what he

had just given to me.

“Thank you.” It sounded rusty and underused to my own ears. Taking a compliment shouldn’t be that

hard. The way Nash saw me, the reflection of myself in those endlessly purple eyes, was the most beautiful

thing in the world, and I was having a much harder time pretending like I didn’t see exactly what he saw in

me.

My simple words had shadows and light shifting in his beautiful eyes. He levered himself up and over

me in a stiff push-up so that I could work his boxers off and around his straining erection. It sprang free,

thick and ready, wearing a new adornment. I blinked at it and then looked up at him in question.

“Why is your penis wearing a ring?”

He snorted out a laugh that I think had more to do with the clinical term for the body part in question

than it did with my actual question.

“I just switched out the barbell.”

Behind the ridge of the head of his engorged erection was a thin hoop that circled the entire

circumference of his cock. The little silver ring was fascinating. I wasn’t an expert on body piercing by

anyone’s standards, but I had never seen anything like it, especially paired with that piercing at the tip that

he used to its full advantage and I had to admit I was a huge fan of.

“Your dick is wearing jewelry.”

That made him laugh for real and he hooked an arm around my shoulders and rolled us over so that I

was straddling him. He stacked his hands behind his head and grinned up at me.

“I like to switch it up. It’ll feel good, trust me.”

I didn’t doubt it, and for the first time since we started having sex, I really wished I wasn’t so scarred,

so scared about talking to him about what this thing we were doing really was. If it was a relationship, a

committed partnership, I would be on birth control and get to feel all that hard and hot flesh against the

cool slide of metal without latex between us. That sounded divine and I was mad at myself for being my

own stumbling block in figuring my life out, in figuring out what I was doing with this gorgeous and

engaging man.

I leaned back and dug around in his nightstand for the box of condoms I knew was in there. While I

was all stretched out he used his thumbs to trace the line of my ribs on each side of my body. He was

always so reverent, so tactile, when he put his hands on me. Even a simple caress like that had my heart rate

speeding up and my blood heating in anticipation.

Before I covered him, I took a few minutes to play with his new hardware. The ridge it left, the way it

got hot against his skin, promised a good time for sure. I wanted to put it in my mouth but he stopped me

with hands in my hair.

“Not this time.”

I lifted an eyebrow at him as he took the condom from me and covered himself. He urged me up higher

on my knees and placed me over the tip of his straining erection. I got that he was trying to make a point.

That he was trying to show me something I just wouldn’t accept or hear, but there were two of us involved

in this and I wanted to make sure he knew just how much I felt for him as well. I was just confused about it

and trying to be realistic, keep it all in a box I was comfortable with.

I didn’t get the chance to reciprocate the feeling or emotion because he tugged me down over him and I

lost the ability to think. Nash was a big guy, everywhere. He was already thick and turgid, so after that initial

penetration, having that ring he was wearing stretch me apart even further, having it drag along my sensitive

inner flesh with a rolling, warm glide … it made me incapable of being able to do anything but feel. The

pressure was greater than usual, the slither of our internal flesh was sexier. I thought I was going to come

before he even got all the way inside of me.

“Oh my …” I’m pretty sure my eyes rolled all the way back in my skull.

He chuckled, which only made the sensation sharper, and I pried my eyes open to look down at him

once he was fully seated inside of me. I think he liked it best when I was on top because I had no choice

but to look at him. Right now he looked smug and pleased with himself.

“It gets better. You have to move, Saint.” He lifted both of his hands and cupped each of my breasts.

I threw my head back and groaned. I took his advice and did as he asked. I started to ride him, the up