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.