Falter: The Nash Brothers, Book Four

by Aarons, Carrie

  “Gahhh …” The sounds I’m making aren’t even intelligible.

  Fletcher pumps me, adding another finger as I begin to almost yell. I can feel it building, the orgasm swirling like a devastating tornado low inside my core. And when he scrapes his teeth against my clit once more, I’m swept up, flying through the air with no care as to how I land.

  I’m coming in breathy shudders and am acutely aware that Fletcher sits back on his haunches to watch me unravel. His eyes could make me come again, that’s how predatory they are.

  “I want you inside me.” The whisper comes out as the wracks from my orgasm begin to leave my body.

  “Let me get a condom.” He’s about to hop out of the bed when I put a hand on his arm.

  “You don’t need one.” The imperceptible shake of my head has his eyes going wide.

  My statement says that I trust him. That I know he’s safe, and so am I.

  With the hand on his arm, I pull him toward me, until we’re lined up exactly how we were made to be. He fits me, and I fit him.

  “I haven’t done this in a long time …” Those blue eyes are already trying to apologize, and he isn’t even in me.

  “I want to watch you come,” I say, giving him full consent to focus only on himself when his cock enters me.

  Fletcher took care of me. Now, I want to take care of him.

  Slowly, he pushes inside. His cock is so big, it takes three tries of pulling out and rubbing the wetness around my lips to get enough lubrication for him to slide in. When he does, I have to suck in, because it’s a been a while and he’s the largest man I’ve ever slept with.

  “Am I hurting you?” His eyebrows are pinched together in harsh concentration, and I can see the veins popping out on his neck.

  He’s trying so hard to stay in control, so hard to not let his climax take over.

  “In the best way possible.” I let out a breathy laugh as I wiggle my hips, adjusting until I’m comfortable.

  Once he’s seated all the way to his balls, I pull his hips into me, showing him it’s okay.

  “Fuck.” Fletcher drops his forehead to mine, scrunching his eyes closed. “I’m not going to last much longer.”

  Nipping at his earlobe, I whisper into it. “Let go.”

  And he does. In three long, hard, powerful strokes, Fletcher is growling and cursing the heavens as I feel him release inside me. His face is wild, pained, relieved … but most of all, free.

  It’s a beautiful thing to watch, seeing someone with his control and restrictions be completely unconfined.

  Fletcher collapses onto me, stroking my hair while he’s still lodged firmly inside me.

  “Thank you,” he says, and I know it’s not in a cheesy way.

  He means it. I helped him move past something that has been holding him back. And in a way, he has done the same for me.

  Suddenly, I’m so tired, I can’t even stand. I must begin to doze, because I’m aware of Fletcher pulling the sheets over us.

  Before I nod off, I wonder if it wouldn’t be so crazy if we decided to take care of each other, permanently.

  25

  Fletcher

  “Get ready to give us your money, boys.”

  Penelope rattles the chips in her hand, and Forrest rolls his eyes.

  “You don’t even know how to play poker. I heard you asking Travis to help you google the rules before.” My brother can’t help but get competitive with his wife.

  “It’s okay, I’m going to lose anyway. I have no idea how to play this.” Lily giggles. “I just came for the night off and the free lemonade.”

  As usual, our poker night was alcohol-free. But something it included tonight that it didn’t normally? The Nash women.

  And Ryan, of course. The two of us can’t stop eyeing each other across the table in Keaton’s basement.

  “Don’t worry, Lil. I’m not that good, either.” Ryan pops a pretzel in her mouth, and I think about what she looks like when she comes.

  It’s been two days since she left my apartment the morning after I cooked her dinner, and I can think of little else than my reintroduction to sex. Or, more accurately, who introduced me. If I had known Ryan Shea was going to be so downright fucking sexy in bed, I would have given up the whole celibacy schtick years ago.

  Maybe I had known, and that’s why I avoided her for so long. Either way, I could barely contain myself from dragging her out of here over my shoulder to go another three rounds.

  When Presley insisted on an all-family poker night, we guys had groaned about it. This was our thing, our time as brothers. We talked shit, didn’t have women nagging us, and could burp as much as we wanted.

  But now that all four women were present, I was happy as a pig in shit. It gave me ample opportunity to make flirty eyes at Ryan.

  I’ve never slept with another person in my bed while I was sober. In my heyday of drunkenness, I’d wake up on coffee tables, crammed into couches, in the back of a pickup truck that wasn’t mine. Sometimes there would be a girl under my arm, sometimes there would be a whole slew of people next to me. I’d never know what had happened the night before.

  But when I woke up to Ryan in my bed, her warm, naked body there for me to wrap my arms around and pull in … it was one of the most indescribable feelings in the world. It hit me; maybe this is why my brothers are so gaga over their women. Because they get this every day. Just holding her was incredible enough, but then she’d stirred from her sleep and drowsily laid her lips on mine before straddling my hardening cock and riding me in a daze of dreams and sunrise.

  Christ … I was getting a boner just thinking about it.

  I cover my lap as Bowen and Presley finally take their seats around the table, snacks in hand.

  “All right, we’re playing stud poker, which means everyone is dealt five cards, and will try to work out the best hand they can from those. We’ll go around, placing bets, until someone folds because they’re a little bitch who can’t stand the heat.” Forrest describes the game in a crude manner, and Bowen rolls his eyes.

  “Or because they can’t count, like me.” I lighten the mood with a little self-deprecation, if nothing else than to make the women feel better.

  “If you have a question, don’t ask it. Loser has to jump in the lake in Bloomfield Park, naked.” Forrest finishes his lightning round of rules with a hand wave and then begins to deal.

  “No, they don’t!” Lily protests, looking to Bowen for backup.

  “I’ll take your loss if you lose.” Ryan leans over and rubs a hand over Lily’s arms. “I could use the dip anyway. It’s humid as hell here.”

  And now I was definitely going to lose the poker game because I couldn’t stop picturing Ryan’s perfect tits and round, smooth ass dripping with lake water.

  Everyone gets their cards, and the looks being exchanged around the table are comical. My brothers are eyeing their wives up, and the girls are trying to throw these tough expressions out there like that will help them win the game.

  “Gah, I fold.” Lily immediately puts her cards down. “Y’all know I’m not a good liar.”

  “Babe! You didn’t even let me see your hand to know if you had a good one!” Bowen laughs but then gives his wife a kiss on the forehead.

  “So, who is going to quit while they’re ahead? Or, just give me all your money. You know you want to,” Forrest taunts.

  Keaton throws in a one-dollar chip, while Forrest and Bowen throw in fivers, and Presley and Penelope match them. I put in a twenty-five-dollar chip, feeling pretty confident about my full house, and when it comes around to Ryan, she throws in a black hundred-dollar coin.

  We’re not really playing for that much money, but we use the chips that came with the poker set Keaton bought. The highest we’ll go is a ten-dollar bet, which is what she just threw in.

  Bowen snickers. “You sure about that?”

  Ryan shrugs. “I just like the color black.”

  We go around again, placing bets and tryi
ng to pull off our best poker faces. At the end of the first hand, it’s down to Ryan, Forrest, and me, with a sizable pot in the middle of the table.

  “Lay down your guns, Ry. You don’t want this to get ugly,” Forrest tells her.

  She’s either got a hell of a hand or has no idea what she’s doing. Either way, if my twin is throwing out black chips the way he is, he must have some good cards.

  “I’m out.” I fold my cards and throw them down, not really caring that I just lost my “money.”

  “All right, I’m all in.” Forrest winks a cocky eye at Ryan.

  Her jet-black hair moves slightly around her shoulders as she cocks her head to the side. It catches the light and shines like a dark diamond in my direction, and I’m momentarily distracted.

  “I’ll go all in, too.” She nods, and I can’t tell if she’s playing right into his hands or playing him.

  Forrest looks like someone peed in his Cheerios but flourishes his cards on the table. “Four of a kind. Now give me my money.”

  He begins to reach toward the middle of the table, but a tsk of Ryan’s tongue has him pausing, and all of us looking toward her.

  “Straight flush. I think I won, didn’t I?”

  The words come out of her mouth like she knew what she was doing this whole time and was playing us all with her dumb girl routine.

  “She’s a goddamn hustler!” Forrest cries as Ryan rakes everyone’s chips across the table, smiling a devilish little grin.

  Presley snickers. “Did I forget to mention that Ryan played in some pretty prominent amateur poker tournaments?”

  Keaton raises an eyebrow at his wife. “Why yes, you did conveniently forget to mention that.”

  “You’re a dirty little cheat.” The smile I give Ryan is so wide, I think I’m about to start cackling.

  This woman continues to surprise me, in the best ways possible. Smart as a whip, sexy as hell, a knockout in bed, and she knows how to run a poker table? Should I just get down on one knee now?

  “The biggest mistake is underestimating one’s opponent on the table. If you don’t know what they’re capable of, how can you ever see them coming?” She winks at me, and I want to pin her hands above her head and torture her slowly with my mouth.

  “So, who has to skinny dip in the lake now that Ms. Poker over here has shown her true ability?” Presley folds her arms across her chest, eyeing Keaton up like he’s her next meal.

  He holds his hands up. “You know I only get undressed for you, babe.”

  We all crack up, because it’s so unlike my big brother to say something like that.

  She’s right, though. In the sense that, if you didn’t know what a person was capable of, you’d never see them coming until they hit you full force. Kind of like she had with me. I hadn’t bothered to know Ryan Shea, because I was too damned scared and selfish focusing on my own struggle.

  But the minute I opened myself up to the idea of her, she slammed into me like a freight train. And now I couldn’t escape the way everything about her was slowly taking over my brain.

  Nor did I want to.

  26

  Ryan

  I’ve just stepped out of the shower when my phone rings.

  Glancing at the clock on the nightstand, it reads 4:30 p.m., and I realize I only have an hour before Fletcher comes over with dinner after his shift.

  He’s supposed to be bringing lemon pepper chicken wings and a few other specialties from Kip’s Diner, things I haven’t tried yet and he’s appalled I haven’t sampled. But at the rate I’m going, my hair will still be wet when he arrives.

  Not that I ever make much of an effort with my daily appearance. A quick blow dry, a swipe of mascara, a spritz of perfume. I’m gifted with high cheekbones and pretty manageable natural hair, which I thank my lucky stars for.

  I’m scared to look at the screen of my cell, because I know who’s calling. Yanis stopped contacting me months ago … and I’m surprised in this moment that I haven’t thought of him in that long, too. Maybe Presley was right when she said I felt differently about certain men. Or maybe it was because I had a new man on my mind … that was typically how I operated.

  How could I tell if I really felt differently about Fletcher, or if I was just using this relationship with its shiny new sex presents as a distraction?

  Shaking that unwanted thought from my brain, I pick it up to see my mom’s name flashing across the screen.

  My sigh is audible in the small guest cottage, and I wish someone was here to swat the damn thing out of my grip. Her calls have been increasing, and this is the fourth one in the many months I’ve taken up residence in Fawn Hill. Four calls in a couple months might not sound like a lot, but after not hearing from someone in a year and a half, it was odd. And since this is my junkie mother we’re talking about, it is dangerously suspicious.

  I didn’t want to hear her voice. I didn’t want my heart to weep for the mother she should have been, or for the childhood I could have had. I didn’t want to worry about her, because I shouldn’t have to. And I didn’t want to have to refuse, essentially sentencing her to mania, when she asked me for money to get high.

  So, instead of taking the call, like I’ve done so many times before, I send it to voicemail.

  And in a moment of spontaneous growth and courage, my finger hits the block button before I can think about stopping it. Time seems to stop for a nanosecond, and I hold my breath, expecting the sky to fall or something equally as disastrously grand.

  But nothing does.

  Life just keeps on going. I get a Facebook notification from a friend in Germany, somewhere down the block a neighbor is cutting their lawn. I know when I walk out of the cottage door, sunshine and humidity will greet me. I’ll go teach the kids in my summer course tomorrow, and I’ll still be able to grab drinks with the girls on Friday night.

  For so long, I allowed this idea of my mother to fill my soul with tension and dread. Would I get a phone that she overdosed? Would she show up at my job asking for money? Would my life suffer if I cut her out completely … because after all, she’s the only blood relative I know of. It seemed like a harsh mistake to end our relationship, because I was the child and love from my mother was something that was supposed to be a no brainer. It was simply supposed to exist.

  But it didn’t have to be like that. The families we were born into didn’t have to be that source of love for us. We could find it in other ways, like the friendship I had with Presley. Recognizing that some bonds were toxic … it was a relief.

  That’s what I had just done, the minute I’d stopped making it possible for her to contact me.

  I rub a fist into my chest and sit down on the edge of the bed, thinking there should be some monumental swell of emotions in me. And maybe relief is there, but sadness and hurt … I think they left a long time ago where my mother is concerned.

  My stomach grumbles, and I have to laugh, because if this isn’t my body’s way of telling me that life goes on, I don’t know what is.

  Realizing I can’t wait another hour for food, I throw on the outfit I’d already picked for when Fletcher arrives and make my way through the backyard and into Presley’s kitchen. I find Hattie sitting at the kitchen counter.

  “Hey,” I say warmly, giving her a side hug before moving to explore the pantry.

  “Hiya,” she responds, popping a piece of watermelon in her mouth. “The course going well?”

  It’s what she asks me every time I see her. I’m not sure if she really just wants to know that, but I suspect the question is deeper. Part of me suspects Hattie wants me to plant permanent roots in Fawn Hill, and that’s just her way of planting the seed in my head.

  She isn’t the only one who’s tried to broach the subject. Presley slips it into conversation now and then, Lily told me the other day that she thinks it would be so sweet if I moved to town, and then there was the whole awkward encounter with Fletcher at his kitchen table.

  The truth is … I don’t
see myself staying in this small town for the rest of my life. Sure, I like it well enough, and this break was long overdue. But I’m a traveler; wanderlust has infected me like a virus, and the only cure is to take off for the next destination. I like having a home base to come back to, and maybe Fawn Hill could be that, but I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t spend a month in Vienna and the next in Bermuda.

  Ducking into the fridge, I grab a snack pack of pretzels and cream cheese. Keaton buys them for himself, but I’ve become addicted, and subsequently stolen his supply over the last month.

  Opening it and popping the first dunked pretzel in my mouth, I nod. “The kids are really getting the hang of it. I should have thanked you a while ago, I’m so—”

  “Don’t you go apologizing now. There is no need. I just brought two things together that we’re looking for each other. That’s thanks enough for me. It suits you, teaching. You should think about doing it long term.”

  And there it is, that little suggestion again. I’m not one for running at the first sign of commitment, that was never my problem. No, Presley and I used to joke that she ran to avoid getting hurt by anyone, and I ran only after I’d been hurt and overstayed my welcome. Was that what I was doing here?

  “What? Do I have ‘I’m in my thirties and still don’t know where my life is going’ stamped on my forehead?” I joke, only half meaning it.

  Hattie raises her eyebrows at me. “I’m not the one who said it. But if you think about it, you do know where you’re going. You know a lot more about yourself than most. You’re just scared to implement the decisions you know those preferences call for.”

  “Like what?” I ask, genuinely curious now.

  “You know you love computers, but you’re tired of your job. Perhaps you’ve outgrown it, or more likely, you need a position that calls for more than just fixing rich people’s problems. What you crave is to help those who could really do good with the skills you can teach. And in doing so, you do good yourself.”