Setting the treadmill on a warm-up level, I take long slow strides to stretch my leg muscles while my mind works on the conundrum that is Nash. Why did he lie about the mansion? Why is he suddenly coming on to me? It’s as though the guy I knew all my life is gone replaced with this new person I need to analyze and get to know.
I put my earbuds in and hit play. Corinne sings about having trouble sleeping. Oh, me, too, Miss Rae. For months now, but it isn’t a love interest. It’s Val. Where the hell is she and why won’t she contact me? Is she hurt? Depressed? Is Francisco keeping her from me? I brush away a real tear. I just wish I knew what was going on with her.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Nash put a pair of dumbbells back on a rack. Forehead creased, he stares in my direction and absentmindedly wipes his hands on a towel.
Shit. Subtly, I turn my head the other way and dash the moisture off my cheeks with the back of my hand.
Val deserves a stronger sister. I need to focus on finding her. I’ve spent time with Ben and haven’t grilled him about Houston at all. I suck at this detective shit. I wipe another tear away.
A corded arm reaches in front of me and shuts off my treadmill. Nash. Gently, he pulls the buds from my ears.
chapter twenty-four
“BABY, WHAT’S WRONG?” She looks so sad and so sexy all at the same time. I make myself focus on the sadness.
She shakes her head. “It’s Ben.”
“What the fuck did he do to you?” If he hurt her, I’ll kill him.
“I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
My eyes follow her hands as she unclips the iPod from the top strap — can’t help but take a peek at those nipples. She enjoys flaunting her tits. Why shouldn’t I stare? Maybe she wants me to look.
“Ready to hit the mats?” She sighs, but smiles.
“No. I want you to tell me what’s going on.” And why you wore this getup? To torture me?
“Like I said, I don’t want to get into it right now. Let it go and c’mon.” She steps backwards toward the mats. “Unless you’re afraid a little girl will kick your big bad ass?” She taunts me with a sassy smile.
My lips twitch into a smile. “I don’t think so,” I mouth, watching her tits bounce. That top has no bra in it at all. My wolf wants a taste. I swallow my drool.
Standing on the mat, she tucks the iPod in a tiny pocket on the side of her calf.
“What are we working on today?” She asks.
“You take me down.”
She raises an eyebrow. “You’ll let me beat up on you?”
I chuckle. “Absolutely.”
Touch me, baby.
“I hope you’re wearing a cup.”
With a big smile, she stretches her arms up. My eyes go right to her chest.
In an abrupt move, she grabs the front of my t-shirt, yanking down and raising her knee at the same time. She’s trying to trip me and force me to the ground. But I barely move. I trained her better than this.
I make a game show buzzer sound. “Now what?” I say, putting my hand over hers on my chest and taking a step closer to her.
She spins with my hand and bends like she’s going to throw me over her shoulder. I weigh almost three times what she does. No way will this work.
“Ugh.” She throws her head back in frustration.
I hug her from behind, stroke my fingers across that bare belly. “What did I tell you about your body weight versus a man’s? A little thing like you will never win using brute force,” I murmur in her ear, suck in her scent. “Use your head, not your muscles.”
She attempts to head butt me, but I thwart that easily by nuzzling her neck. Brazenly, I slide one of my hands up, grazing the side of her breast. “I know you wore this for me,” I whisper in her ear. “Baby, you’re playing with fire.” My thumb strokes the side of her tit under the fabric. So soft.
In the mirror, I watch her eyes close. She’s mad — mad at me.
She raises a leg like she’s going to stomp on my foot. I move my legs apart, my foot out of the way of her heel. My movement makes her lose her balance. She falls to the mat and not very gracefully.
“Ow, ow.” She winces and holds her ankle.
Damn it.
“I’m sorry.” I kneel to look at her foot. When I do, she headlocks me and gets me to my back, putting a knee to my balls. Not hard, but I feel it.
“Move and you’ll never be a daddy.” She giggles.
Smarty pants, faked an injury. I grin from ear to ear. A few people who were watching us clap for her. She smiles and, straddling me like a prized elk, raises her arms in victory.
I chuckle and shift positions. In a split second, I have my Shav pinned under me, her arms trapped above her head. “That’s cheating,” I murmur, pressing her sweet body into the mat.
“There is no such thing as cheating in Krav Maga. You fight and you fight to win,” she says in a deep voice, repeating what I’ve told her over and over.
Good girl.
Gripping both her tiny wrists in one hand, I use my other to touch her flushed cheek. Her mouth looks so soft. I touch it and lick my lips. Bet she’ll taste amazing. “That’s right. No sense doing anything half-assed.”
“Go all in or go home.” She repeats another motto I say all the time. She licks her bottom lip, daring me to kiss her. With my thumb, I stroke that wet lip. I want a taste.
“Get a room,” a PD coworker yells out.
Yeah, I want a taste — but in private. Not here. I get to my feet and look down on her — some of her hair fell out of the ponytail, her nipples are hard, wanting me to suck them. I offer her a hand up. She hesitates for second, but takes it. I pull her to me, nose to nose.
“Hit the bags, Shav,” I murmur, staring at her mouth. She wants me to kiss her. Son of a bitch, I want to. Soon. Very soon. I smile and let her go.
She scowls. Damn if she isn’t pissed that I didn’t kiss her. Mouth tightly closed, she walks to her normal bag and proceeds to beat the living shit out of it. The frame scoots a good quarter inch with each whack.
That’s it. Hit it, baby.
Within fifteen minutes, the rig is five feet from where it started, and she’s covered in sweat — making those nipples stick out even more. Every man and half the women in the place stare at her. Damn it.
“Okay. That’s enough.” I drape a towel over her shoulders to cover her tits, and brush away the wet hair from her forehead.
“Frustrated about something?” I grin.
Scowling, she spins and heads for the locker room. I follow close behind, make sure no guys try anything — make sure I’m the only one watching her ass wiggle wildly.
“Anything I can do for you, baby?” I tease her. When she doesn’t answer, I chuckle. I’ve been sexually frustrated around her for years. Her turn.
She stops dead in her tracks and whirls on me, catching me by surprise. “I don’t understand what you’re doing,” she hisses, eyes flash angrily. “Coming on to me like you did yesterday and” — she points to the mats — “today.”
Me? I’m not the one who wore what amounts to lingerie to the gym. I try to keep my cool. “I told you, the plan has changed.”
“Changed to ‘confuse the hell out of Shavone’? A few days ago you could hardly stand to be touched. What’s changed?” Gasping, her eyes widen and she puts a hand to her mouth. “Did you have a breakthrough with your PTSD?”
“What?” I laugh. “You think I have PTSD? Where the hell did you get that idea?”
“You tense up at the slightest touch, Nash.”
Only your touch.
I laugh, a deep belly laugh.
“PTSD isn’t funny.”
I laugh harder, tears in my eyes.
“Nash! Enough. It’s a serious illness.”
“I know it is. You can stop scolding me. I’ve seen it.” I back her to a wall. With an arm over her head and the other hand gently caressing her neck, I smirk at her. “I don’t have PTSD.
“You don’
t?”
“Uh, uh. We wouldn’t be doing Krav Maga if I did. I’d be too afraid of snapping and hurting you.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know you don’t,” I whisper, stroking her lips with a thumb.
“What is this plan you keep mentioning? And why is it changing?” She stares at my mouth.
I’ll show you.
My hand back on her throat, I reach a finger up to trace the edge of her ear.
“Oh,” she gasps and squeezes her thighs.
So sensitive. Oh, baby, what I could do you. “I changed. I’ve decided to stop fighting you,” I whisper.
“Fighting me?” She thinks on that for a second or two, then smiles. “You’ll let me do what I want with no harassment?”
I laugh. “Oh, fuck no. If anything” — I kiss her forehead — “You’ll belong to me more than ever.”
Sucking in a breath, she bites her bottom lip, and, yes, there go those thighs. I can barely breath myself. Her pussy is creaming right now and that scent calls to my beast, screams at him.
I nuzzle her throat. “You like the sound of that, don’t you, Shav?” I whisper in her ear. I want her as hot for me as I am for her. “You want to belong to me, don’t you?”
She swallows, her breathing pants through an open mouth.
“Oh. You do. Your beautiful nipples give you away.” I press my chest to hers and bite down lightly on her earlobe.
She whimpers sweetly for me.
I blow on the ear I just loved on. “You’re mine, baby. Always have been, always will be.” I kiss behind her ear. I just can’t get enough of her scents — her skin, her breath, her pussy. “Don’t ever forget it.”
The get-a-room guy walks past. He chuckles. I raise my head and stare down at her. Mouth parted, eyes droopy and dilated. She wants me. I grin slowly.
“Who knew sweet little Shav was so sensual?” My hand moves to her waist. I caress the soft bare skin there and stare at her tits.
“Who knew big bad Nash was such a tease?”
I smile even bigger. Like she has room to talk, standing here in this top. The foot traffic in the hall is getting heavy. I push off the wall and step away.
She leans back against it — licking her lips. Our eyes lock — heat to heat. Holy shit. I want her. I blow out a breath.
“C’mon. Hit the shower.” I step farther away.
“Together?” She mumbles. She lifts her chin, daring me.
I’m speechless for a second. That’s the last thing I expected to come out of her mouth. “That is quite an invitation, very tempting. But not now, and certainly not here.” I grin, grip her shoulders and turn her toward the women’s locker room.
chapter twenty-five
IN A DAZE, I sit on a bench in front of my locker.
Harper, the lady firefighter who loaned me the shorts last time, smiles at me. She’s a wolf, Norse, I think. “You okay, honey?” She opens her locker.
Tears fill my eyes. I shake my head violently. “No,” I whisper.
“The detective?” She sits beside me.
Partly.
“I don’t know what to make of him.” Or of this ache for sex I’ve suddenly developed.
Her forehead scrunches. “I think it’s pretty obvious.”
“It is?”
“Girl. C’mon the UST between you two has all of us hot and bothered.”
What an inappropriate thing to say to someone you barely know. I giggle through my tears. “I’m not sure he’s serious or if he’s playing games with me.”
“Listen, you didn’t ask for my advice, but here it is. The next time he does that, force the issue. You kiss him.”
Me kiss him?
“His response will tell you what you need to know.” She pats my leg and stands. “It’ll work out.” Smiling, she leaves me sitting there. A moment later, I hear a shower come on.
I make myself move to the showers as well. I let the warm water soothe my muscles. Next, I lather my hair and scrub my scalp — almost viciously. My mind cranks through the never ending list of Nash questions.
Is the attraction thing real? Then why would he set me up with Ben? Or maybe he’s feeling guilty about that. Oh. Could he be attempting to protect my self-esteem should Ben reject me after all? Or is it my original hypothesis that he’s distracting me from hunting for Val? Every way I look at it points to Nash faking it.
Oh boy. If he is, he’s good. Very good.
The more I think about it, the more confused I get and the angrier I get, using the loofah so vigorously that my skin tinges red all over. There. I’m exfoliated for the month. As I towel dry my hair and get dressed, I roll the details around in my brain again, finally coming to a decision.
Nash waits for me when I come out of the locker room. Smiling for a split second when he sees me, eyes narrow when my expression registers.
“Come with me.” I grab his big hand and tug. He doesn’t budge.
“What’s wrong?”
“I need to talk to you in private.”
He looks around. “We’re alone. Talk here.”
“Fine.” I drop his hand. “You have to stop flirting with me.”
He exhales exasperated and tilts his head in thought for a second or two. Then, smirking, he advances on me. “What happened to taking a shower together? You don’t want me to wash you” — his eyes travel up and down my body — “all over?”
My jaw drops. Oh my god, that sexy tone of voice from Nash. It does things to me, to my libido, things that I can’t control.
He licks his lips.
“Stop it,” I hiss.
I swallow and step to the side so I can dart down the corridor if necessary.
He frowns. “What’s going on, Shavone?” He uses a close to normal voice. That’s better.
My gym bag falls forward and I push it back. Oh, my muscles are jelly from the extra strenuous workout.
“We’ve never” — The damn bag won’t stay on my shoulder. It falls forward again. I shove it up one more time.
“We’ve never what?” He asks softly, studying my face. He gingerly lifts the bag off my shoulder and slings it over his so that the bag rests on his back.
Geez. He does such chivalrous things sometimes.
Nash smirks. “I can think of dozens of pleasurable things we haven’t done” — he flashes that new panty busting smile — “yet.”
It doesn’t escape me that instead of me tormenting him as was my plan, he’s tormenting me. “Oh, Nash,” I beseech him. “What are you doing to me?”
He curls a finger around a damp strand of my hair, lightly grazing the side of my breast as he does. “Not what I want to be doing to you.”
How does he do that? A little touch and I’m panting like I’m an animal in heat. I grimace, do my best to make my body calm down.
“What’s wrong, baby?” He steps closer. “Why are you fighting this?”
“Because I’m not clear on what this is.” I sigh in frustration. “Explain it to me, please. Until yesterday morning, we’ve always had a sibling-like relationship.”
“No, we haven’t,” he says. “You’ve had a crush on me since grade school.”
I feel my cheeks heat.
“Yeah, don’t think I didn’t notice, Shav. If your puppy dog eyes weren’t enough of a clue, the scribbled hearts around my name in your sixth grade notebook were.”
Oh, god. How embarrassing.
“You were so adorable, a sweet little girl with a heart of gold. But you were far too young for me then. Six years is a big spread when you’re kids.”
“We’re not kids anymore.”
“Don’t I know it, baby,” Nash mouths. His gaze drops for a second. “You’re definitely not a little girl anymore.”
So stealthy that I hadn’t noticed, Nash has been inching closer. Now I’m trapped in a corner, the wall behind me and his arm over my head again.
“Things changed. You changed. When I came back from ROTC, you were a young lady —
surprised the fuck out of me. And dating.” He frowns his disapproval. “But you were still too young for me. I couldn’t, wouldn’t do anything about it. I couldn’t take advantage of you like that. My body reacted anyway” — his eyes squint in remorse — “inappropriately. ”
His body reacted?
There’s guilt in his eyes. “That’s when I stopped touching you.” He puts his nose in my hair at my throat. “And when I came home to visit after Iraq, you were with Dillon. And I had changed.”
“You said you don’t have PTSD.”
“I don’t, baby. My — um” — he hesitates — “my sexual wants and needs changed. I wasn’t into conventional relationships anymore.”
I don’t understand what that means. I glance down at my fingers.
“Look at me, Shav.” He caresses my chin. “Even though I was all wrong for you, I still wanted you. Your sixteenth birthday at the water park? You in that pink bikini? Oh, baby,” he whispers, nuzzling my hair. “The way that wet fabric stuck to your curves, the way your breasts bounced while you ran around. Jesus, it took everything I had to keep my hands off your sexy little jailbait body.”
Wow.
The heat rises to my cheeks. I remember that day. I wore that bikini especially to get his attention and made sure to prance around in front of him as much as possible. I didn’t think he noticed at all. But he noticed everything.
“Explain what you mean by all wrong for me,” I murmur.
“I was twenty-three. You were a teenager — a child really. And like I said, by then I was into unconventional relationships and you were a sexual innocent, baby.” He grunts. “Still are in a lot of ways.”
“So teach me.” My cheeks heat not only at the thought of what he might do to me, but at the bold words coming out of my mouth.
A broad grin spreads across his face, revealing that dimple I love so much.
“That’s the new plan, Shav. I’ll take you as far into my world as you want to go.” Nash presses against me and I feel his desire. That can’t be faked, can it? I breathe deep, try to slow my panting.
Licking from my shoulder up to my ear, Nash bites my lobe lightly.
Soft Shatter (Wolven Moon Book 1) Page 18