I pushed through the exterior door and stepped out into the rainy night Main Street had to offer. Raindrops pelted my head, soaking my shirt. But I didn’t care. I was angry and hurt and sad and confused. Also hungry. Was this why women in movies always ate ice cream out of the carton after getting their hearts broken?
Feeling the cold stab of each drop was better than feeling the pieces of my stupid heart splinter apart.
This. This was what I got for being vulnerable. I put myself out there. I opened up. And I got punched in the goddamn heart. Which was exactly what I’d predicted. I blamed Naomi. Smug soon-to-be-married women were not to be trusted. Neither were sexy, broody next-door neighbors with great asses and heroic scars.
I knew this. Yet here I was, taking a stroll in the icy rain after making fucking cornbread.
Nash was hurting, and that devastated me in a way I was unprepared to handle. But I couldn’t fix him. I couldn’t open up those wounds of his and force them to heal.
I could only go for a stupid walk in the stupid rain so my stupid eye water could mix with the stupid sky water.
A shuddering sob ripped its way out of my throat.
If he didn’t change his mind, if he couldn’t venture out of his black-and-white thinking and meet me in the gray, I would lose him forever. The thought of that reality was terrifying. And stupid. We barely knew each other, and I was crying in the damn rain over a man who had kicked me out of his apartment.
Or did we know each other better than anyone? a nagging inner voice interjected.
“I hate having feelings,” I muttered to the empty, soggy street.
Everyone else was at home or inside, staying warm, being happy, eating hot food. And once again, I was left on the outside.
I started to walk, crossing my arms over my chest and hunching my shoulders against the cold. I’d barely made it past the warm glow of Whiskey Clipper’s storefront when I heard the door to the apartments burst open.
“Angelina.”
Oh no. No thank you. Nope. I was not letting the man who brought me to literal tears see me in those tears. I was too vulnerable right now. I wouldn’t survive.
Swiping at my wet face with my sleeves, I broke into a run.
He wouldn’t follow me. The man had just tried to dump me. It wasn’t like he was going to chase—
Fast footsteps sounded behind me.
I poured on the speed, my feet slapping at the water on the sidewalk, and thanked my lucky stars that it was a dark, miserable night, which meant there was no one else to witness my tearful humiliation.
He was tired and cold and spiraling. Any second now, he’d decide I wasn’t worth chasing after.
My heart pounded in my chest as my arms pumped harder. I was faster than he was. I could outlast him, outdistance him. If I could just make it to the corner, I wouldn’t have to witness him giving up on me. On us.
A hand closed in the material of my shirt, jerking me backward. Then strong arms wrapped around me hard, banding me to him.
“Stop,” Nash panted in my ear as he pulled me against him. He burrowed his face in the back of my neck. “Just stop.”
A new panic set in. “Let go of me!”
“I tried. I can’t.”
I went still in his arms even as more tears coursed down my cheeks. “I’m…confused.”
“I’m an idiot. An asshole. An idiot asshole who doesn’t deserve you, Angel.”
I tried to pry his hands loose, but the man wasn’t giving an inch. He was squeezing the breath out of me. “If you’re looking for an argument here, you’re gonna be disappointed.”
“All day, all I could think about was what if something happened to you.”
“Nothing happened to me. Nothing is going to happen to me,” I whispered, my breath hitching. How many conversations had I had with my parents that started the same way and ended with me making promises we all knew I couldn’t keep?
“Lucian said we’re doomed to repeat the mistakes our fathers made.”
I fought against his grip and he finally allowed me to turn in his arms. When I looked up into his face, I wished I hadn’t. So much pain. So much sadness. I ached for him.
“You went to Lucian for advice? That guy is one typewriter away from The Shining. I mean, it’s great that he owns his fucked-upness, but he’s the guy you go to for stock tips or to make someone disappear. He’s not the guy you go to for advice on women.”
Nash’s lips quirked as the rain pattered down on our heads. “I repeat. Idiot asshole. I think I was looking for someone to confirm my darkest fears.”
“Well, you went to the right place.”
“My mom asked me to go with her to the store that day. I didn’t feel like it. I was too busy doing whatever kid shit kids do. I could have been there. But I wasn’t. So she died alone in that car. I could have helped her if I’d been there. Maybe I could have even prevented it. But I wasn’t there.”
My heart ached for him when his voice broke.
“After, I made sure I was there every fucking day and I still couldn’t save my dad.”
Tears burned paths down my cheeks. Seeing them, Nash hooked a hand at the back of my neck and pressed my face to his chest. I wrapped my arms around him and held on tight.
“We lost him too,” he continued. “No matter how good my grades were, how hard I worked on the football field, nothing was enough to make him choose us. He wanted something more than he wanted us.”
I let out a shuddering sob, my heart shattering for the boy who wanted to save everyone.
His arms tightened around me until I could barely breathe.
“I wasn’t there when Lucian was arrested. We found out after the fact. He didn’t deserve to be punished for defending himself against his own fucking father. I thought becoming a cop would mean I could finally fix it all. I could protect the ones who needed protecting.”
“That’s what you’re doing. Every damn day, Nash,” I murmured against his damp uniform shirt. His badge was icy against my cheek.
He gave a bitter laugh. “Who am I protecting? I couldn’t even save myself. If not for dumb fucking luck, I wouldn’t even be here.”
I wrestled my arms free so I could cup his face. “On your darkest days, you drag yourself out of bed and you choose to go protect your town, your people. That’s what a hero does, you idiot. What you do is nothing short of heroic.”
Eyes closed, he bowed his head to mine.
Tears continued to spill free onto my cheeks, scalding hot against the icy raindrops. “I’m so proud of you, Nash. You face down your own demons every damn day so you can show up and be there for everyone else. You single-handedly made your entire town safer. Hell, even Tina respects you.”
“My family doesn’t.”
My heart ached for him. “Baby. Your brother and grandmother are two of the worst communicators in the world. Maybe Knox doesn’t understand why you do what you do, but he is so fucking proud of you for doing it. Just like you’re proud of him for using his money to help support the same people you protect. Not that you’d ever tell him that. But you’re the one who stands between your people and danger. You’re the one who’s there immediately after to restore order. You’re the one who does whatever he can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
He crushed me to him again as the rain pelted us. “I miss her,” he whispered. “I–I think maybe she would have been proud.”
I held on to him like he was dangling off a cliff. “She is proud of you.”
He took a shaky breath, his chest rising against mine. “They used to dance in the kitchen. My parents. They used to be happy. He loved her so much. And when she was gone, he didn’t love us enough. He chose booze and pills over and over again. He needed them.”
“And that sucks, but it was never because of you. It was never because of anything you did or didn’t do.”
“I want you like that. I need you like that.”
“You are not your father, hotshot. And I am not some unhealthy habit that needs to be kicked. We are all very different people from the ones who made us. You didn’t turn to me to numb yourself to the pain. You turned to me to remember what felt good. To give yourself a reason to fight through the pain.”
“Jesus. Why in the fuck did I talk to Lucian and not you?”
My laugh was half hiccup. “I think it has something to do with the idiot asshole thing.”
He started to sway with me, side to side in the rain as the reflection of streetlights danced over rivulets of water trickling into the gutters.
“You know this is crazy, right? That’s what we should be freaking out about instead of all our stupid baggage. I’ve known you only a few weeks,” I reminded him.
Nash rested his chin on the top of my head. “Doesn’t mean this isn’t real. My parents met, fell in love, and got engaged in three months.”
“They were happy? Before?” I asked.
His hands shifted on my back, pressing me closer. “Yeah. We all were. Before they got married, Dad got 0522 tattooed on his arm. May twenty-second. Their wedding date. He said he knew even before it happened it would be the happiest day of his life.”
“Wow.”
“When we were kids—before—we all celebrated that day like it was a national holiday. Hell, their wedding date is my PIN number. I never changed it. It felt like the only way I could hang on to those good times.”
“Maybe…” I began, but emotion made the words stick. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Maybe your good times are yet to come.”
“If I haven’t fucked up my chances already.”
“Nash—”
“No. Listen to me, Angel. I’m so fucking sorry. I let you walk out that door, but that’s as far as I’m willing to let you go. Please don’t take another step away from me. Please be patient with me.”
“Nash, I wasn’t trying to leave you. I was trying to give us both some space.”
“You ran,” he pointed out.
“I was trying to give us both a lot of space very quickly,” I amended.
“You’re cold,” he said, noticing my shivers. “Come home with me.”
I could feel the shift in gears from wounded soul to take-charge hero.
“Okay.”
“Thank God,” he murmured. “I was afraid I’d have to pull a Knox and carry you back.”
He led me straight to the shower. After carefully undressing me and then himself, Nash guided me under the hot water. He followed me in and we stood there, my back to his front, letting the hot water take the chill out of our bones.
His hands were gentle as they combed through my wet hair and slid down my body. Soothing. Reassuring.
I felt raw, vulnerable. And when I felt the brush of his erection against me, I felt a new kind of warmth spiraling through my body. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to make him feel as good as he made me feel. But I understood that he needed to give. So I surrendered to his touch.
He stroked and kissed his way up, then down my body. And when he turned me to face him, I found him on his knees in front of me.
Those callused hands pressed me against the tile wall.
He watched me with solemn eyes as he slid one hand from my ankle up to my thigh. Our gazes held in a way that was so intimate it made me tremble. Hooking me behind the knee, he draped my leg over his shoulder, baring me to him.
My head thumped against the wall, breaking our eye contact.
Steam rose around us, but I barely noticed, because Nash used two fingers to part the lips of my sex.
“Such a pretty pussy, Angel,” he said, his voice barely audible over the water.
Gah. Who knew the law-abiding man with the shiny badge would be such a dirty talker?
It was the last coherent thought I had before his tongue traced everything his fingers had just bared. My knee went week and nearly buckled at the first swipe of his tongue. Every muscle in my body seemed to contract at the same time as all my consciousness coalesced to the nerves at the apex of my thighs.
He licked his way up and back, driving me wild with his mouth, tender and loving, yet determined to conquer. When my supporting leg shook again, he merely wedged his shoulder behind my knee so I sat astride him, my back to the tile.
I let out a long, low moan as he devoured me.
My thighs trembled as his tongue alternated between thrusting into my opening and laving my clit with a fervent kind of worship. He was magic. We were magic. And I knew, deep down, something that felt this good couldn’t be wrong.
“Nash,” I whispered brokenly as things inside me began to give way.
He groaned against my sex as if hearing his name from my mouth was too much to bear. Mindless now, I bucked against him, then gasped when he thrust his fingers inside me again. His tongue concentrated on the desperate need that kept building and building.
Without warning, I came. My inner walls clamped down on his fingers as he licked and sucked my swollen bud through the orgasm.
I rode his face shamelessly, relishing the way his tongue forced the pleasure to spiral on and on. I was still feeling the echoes of it when he withdrew from me and spun me around to face the wall.
He caged me in with his arms, his palms flat against the tile. His erection was hot and hard against my back.
Nash’s need made me feel both powerless and powerful.
His head dipped and I felt his lips trail over my tattoo.
“Need you,” he murmured before using his teeth against my skin.
I needed this too. “Hurry,” I whispered. “Please.”
He didn’t make me wait. Those big, rough hands of his slid down my hips, canting them at just the right angle. He guided the blunt crown of his penis down the cleft of my cheeks. I went still and tensed when he eased the head over my anus, reminding me just how intimately vulnerable this position was. He let out a guttural groan and then he was dragging the tip lower still, between my spread thighs, sliding through the lips of my sex.
I could feel the pulse of him against me, and a fresh wave of longing crashed over me.
“I lose my mind when I have you like this,” he murmured, sliding one hand up my stomach to cup a breast.
I dropped my head against his shoulder. He wasn’t the only one losing their mind here.
My thighs trembled. My palms flattened against the tile. My hips had a mind of their own, pressing against him, begging for more as if I hadn’t just come mere moments ago.
His hand kneaded my breast, squeezing and plumping. “I can’t let you go, Angel.”
“Why would you have to let me go?” My knees were knocking now. From excitement. From need. From the weight of his body pressing me down, down.
“Just lettin’ you know it’s not an option now. You’ll move here or I’ll move with you. Maybe we’ll find someplace to start over. But I can’t. Let. You. Go.”
“Nash,” I whispered as a hot tear slid down the side of my nose.
“You breathed life back into me. You brought me back to the light. Let me have you. Let me take you. Say you’re mine,” he demanded.
He thrust his erection through my slick folds.
“Y-yes,” I managed. I’d worry about the consequences of what I’d promised him after. I needed this, him now.
“Thank God,” he said, dropping an open-mouthed kiss to my shoulder. The shift of his weight had me angling my hips for more.
“Nash!” I gasped.
His grip tightened at the back of my neck as he dragged his erection back and then surged forward again, the crown of his cock nudging against my clitoris.
He needed this. And I needed to give it to him.
“I can never decide which way to take you,” he rasped, continuing those short, measured thrusts. “I fucking love watching you come. Watching your tits bounce while I move in you. But I love you like this too. When you give it all up and just surrender.”
I love you like this.
I can’t let you go.
His words echoed in my head like a mantra. A mantra that I had no right repeating. He didn’t mean it like that, I told myself. And then I stopped telling myself anything because Nash lined up the head of his cock with my eager opening and surged inside me.
Our shouts echoed off the tile.
Full. So full. He snaked one arm across my abdomen. His other hand closed in my hair, holding me to him. And then he began to thrust.
Hot water pelted me from above. But it was Nash’s heat that warmed me from the inside out. He powered into me, bringing me up on my toes with every drive of his hips until we both came, shaking and panting as each wave sent us tumbling. Each warm wash of his release branding me, soothing me from the inside.
