And what business did he have hoping so fucking badly she saw him through all the other bullshit?
After a few tentative sips and a whole lot of silence, she finally asked, “Why’d you come here, Nash?”
He held her gaze as he downed half his drink in one gulp, attempting to feign a nonchalance he didn’t feel. Why had he come? Because he hated the thought of her out here all by herself, drinking an entire bottle of wine while her ex fucked with her head. Even more, he hated the possibility that the reason she might need a little alcohol fog was because she was still hung up on the asshole.
Gripping the glass tighter in his hand, he forced himself to unclench his jaw at that thought. With a shrug that felt way too forced, he said, “Thought you could use an unbiased ear tonight.”
“Unbiased, huh?” she asked, eyebrow raised.
Well, shit. She had him there. Apparently he hadn’t been as covert as he’d hoped regarding his feelings for Sean. When it came to Rory’s ex, there wasn’t anything unbiased about Nash’s interest. He’d wanted to strangle the douchebag since the infamous night at the bar. Longer than that, if he were being honest. Against all odds, that smarmy asshole had somehow managed to snag Rory fucking Haven. And then the idiot had gone and cheated on her.
He’d cheated on her. The girl who looked like goddamn royalty and presented herself as such. The woman who’d actually been Miss Mississippi, for fuck’s sake.
Tonight, she was a far cry from the royal air she normally exuded while strutting around Havenbrook. She wore plain black leggings—thin and clingy and Jesus Christ—paired with an old, threadbare T-shirt. And, God help him, no bra. He knew because her nipples had been saluting him since she’d opened her door to find him there.
He’d always take this version of her over the one others saw. Casual Rory meant Real Rory. She wasn’t hiding behind pleasant smiles or silk dresses or perfect hair. She was just her, for better or worse.
And damn if Nash didn’t love it.
“Unbiased in that I won’t storm over there, guns blazin’, and do something you definitely wouldn’t wanna bear witness to,” he said.
She laughed, tossing her head back. Pink dotted her cheeks, a slight flush already spreading down her neck to her chest, and hell if she wasn’t the best thing he’d seen all day. “Is that what you think I need? You fightin’ my battles for me?”
He pushed off from where he’d been leaning against the counter and stepped closer to her. So close the air grew charged between them. “C’mon now, princess,” he said, his voice full of gravel. “Anyone who thinks you need your battles fought for you isn’t payin’ attention.” He had absolutely no doubt she could handle her shit on her own. Rory was a force of nature, and anyone who doubted that was an idiot. “But that doesn’t mean you should have to fight them all on your own either.”
The smile slowly melted from her face, and her eyes darted back and forth between his. Studying him. Assessing.
Shit, had he said too much? She was all hard edges and pleasantly veiled directives around town, but it was obvious she was getting tired of it all. Obvious she put on a front with everyone, especially since the divorce. Wasn’t it? Or maybe it was just obvious to him. Like recognizing like and all that. Because God knew his nothing-much-matters facade was little more than an act.
Nash may have been only twenty-five, but he was already so fucking tired of trying to climb out from behind the dark shadow his old man had cast on their shared name. So bound and determined to prove to the people of Havenbrook he was so much more than his pops and the marriages he’d destroyed all in the name of a good time.
“Yes, well…” She cleared her throat, lowering the gaze that had held him hostage, and lifted the glass to her lips. After a tentative sip, she hummed in contentment, and the sound went straight to his cock. “Don’t let me have more than this.”
“Whatever you say, boss.”
She cocked her eyebrow at the term. “Whatever I say, huh? So if I told you to leave, you would?”
“Is that what you want?”
For long moments, she just stared at him, making him say a prayer to every deity in the universe that she wouldn’t ask him to go. Except, that should’ve been exactly what he was praying for. If he were thinking with the head that wasn’t eager to get out of his pants, he’d be begging for her to tell him to get the fuck out.
The whole plan was to stay away from Rory unless absolutely necessary. Hadn’t he just decided that? That it was something he needed to do for the future of his legacy? Pursuing this thing between them would only fuck up his plans, and he knew it.
Trouble was, he couldn’t find it in himself to care.
“You just made me a lovely drink, and it’d be rude to kick you out after that,” she said. “Are you callin’ me rude?”
He exhaled—in relief or defeat, he wasn’t sure—and shook his head. “I value my life too much to do such a thing.”
“Good. I hope you aren’t hungry, ’cause I was plannin’ on a liquid dinner tonight.”
Barking out a laugh, he rested his hip against the counter next to her. “Got it. No cookin’, just drinkin’. What other big plans did you have?”
“I need to finish that—” she gestured to a bright blue paperback on the corner of her counter “—for book club next week. And, if I wanted to get really wild, I figured I could take it in the bathtub with me.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “By all means, don’t let me keep you. Feel free to holler if you need help washin’ your back.”
“You,” she said with narrowed eyes and a pointed finger shoved in his chest, “are incorrigible. I’m pretty sure you say half the things you do just to get a rise out of me.”
He grinned, unable to stop himself. He could’ve let the statement go unacknowledged. Could’ve switched topics, or asked her about the book club pick, or done a hundred different things other than poking the beast. The beast that was currently sitting on his chest and the only thing keeping a tenuous hold on his self-restraint.
Leaning forward, he didn’t stop until his jaw brushed her cheek, his lips resting against the shell of her ear. He felt her breath hitch against him, and his cock hardened within the confines of his jeans. “Oh, I do, princess. I figure it’s only fair since you always get a rise out of me.”
THE LAST THING Rory needed around Nash were lowered inhibitions. Thanks to the two drinks she’d had, she’d practically decimated them. And now, the nearly imperceptible shred of them currently inhabiting her body was the only thing keeping her dignity intact.
Without those inhibitions? She didn’t even want to contemplate what she might do. For once in her life, she was fumbling around all this want. True, she wasn’t a virgin, but she had close to no experience with sexual tension.
While she’d fooled around with a couple boys in high school, Sean had been her first and only. When he’d asked her out freshman year of college, she’d agreed because he was pleasant enough to look at, but mostly because he was intelligent and focused on his future. He was well mannered and came from a good, upstanding family. He possessed all the traits she’d wanted in a husband.
Except there’d never been a spark. Never any kind of heat between them. Their kisses had been bland, their sex life boring at best. She’d never told another soul that—not even Sarah Beth. She’d spent so much time wondering if that was all there was. If she was really doomed to a life that consisted solely of three minutes of weekly missionary sex and a partner who wasn’t concerned in the least about her pleasure.
But whatever this was between her and Nash was undeniable. Her entire body had lit up from the inside at his kiss. The tension was so large, so forceful, so present, it was almost like an entity unto itself, filling up the space around them.
“You want me to turn this off?” he asked, making her jump.
They were both sitting on the couch, despite there being no good reason for him to still be there. Initially, she’d suggested he not drive so soon afte
r those drinks—never mind the fact that he was two hundred pounds of solid muscle and probably wasn’t feeling even the slightest bit tingly. The way he’d looked at her when she’d told him as much suggested he’d seen through her whole facade. Instead of calling her on it, he’d settled in and turned on some godforsaken horror show.
“No, why?” She shot him a quick glance, then glued her eyes back to the book she’d been pretending to read.
“Because you haven’t turned a page in twenty minutes.”
Having no desire at all to cop to the real reason for her distraction, she huffed and gestured to the TV. “Well, it’s difficult to concentrate on my book and the poor character dealing with the death of her momma with all the eerie music and screamin’ going on.”
“Any time you want me to draw you that bath to get some peace and quiet, you just let me know.”
When he said things like that, it got her mind spinning to places it had no business going. Made her think about what it’d be like to have someone like Nash in her life, drawing baths for her, scrubbing her back…climbing right into the tub because he was so hungry to have her, he just couldn’t help himself. What would that be like? To be the object of his desire? To have him so starved for her that he couldn’t even wait long enough to dry her off before taking her rough and fast and hard?
Her mouth went dry, and heat pooled between her thighs. Desperate to stop her imagination from running away any more, she said, “How about I turn on some nice HGTV for us to watch instead of this nonsense?”
“The Haunting of Hill House isn’t nonsense. It’s a remake of a classic, and it’s fucking awesome.” Nash proceeded to explain the plot in great detail, all the while she attempted to stifle the lust currently burning her up from the inside.
Desperate to make the feelings disappear, she sat and watched the show with him, attempting to terrify the lust right out of her. Didn’t help, even a little. With every brush of his large hand against her hair as he rested his arm on the back of the couch and every word spilling from his distractingly full lips, he stoked the embers inside her. If she weren’t careful, he’d make her burst into flames where she sat.
And heaven help her, but she desperately wanted to know what it’d be like to burn for him.
“I’ve been thinkin’ about what you said.” He reached up, gently tugging on a loose piece of hair that had escaped her topknot.
“What I said when?”
He tipped his head behind them toward the kitchen. “The other day. Before the hottest kiss of my life.”
She snapped her eyes to his, trying to read him. Was he joking? Exaggerating? It’d been the hottest kiss of her life, too, but that wasn’t saying much. Her previous partners had been fumbling at best and abysmal at worst. Kissing Nash wasn’t even in the same realm. It was like comparing a single sparkler to an entire sky lit up with fireworks.
But as much as her mind wanted to focus on that detail he’d let slip, she was too mortified over what he was referencing. When she’d spilled that horrifying truth about her life—something she hadn’t even shared with her former best friend.
So she did what she did best—avoid and redirect. “You mean about the best way to get wallpaper off? It really is a wonder how quickly—”
“No, princess.” He leaned closer to her, his big, solid body eating up the space between them in a blink. “It was when your pretty little lips uttered the word cock.”
The word from his lips sent her stomach flip-flopping, a jolt of heat zinging straight between her thighs.
“I, um…” Words failed her. For the first time in her life, she had no idea what to say to get out of this, no idea how she could possibly spin this in her favor. “Let’s just forget I ever said that.”
Nash breathed out a laugh, the air sweeping over her lips. “Oh, babe, if you knew how much I’d thought of you saying that single word over the past two weeks, all the while remembering how good you felt pressed up against me, you’d know what a lost cause that suggestion is.”
She froze, her curiosity sidestepping her mortification for center stage. “You’ve…thought about it?”
His gaze dropped to her lips like he was recalling what they felt like against his. How she’d opened for him without hesitation. How she’d whimpered like a hussy the second his tongue had touched hers. “Every damn day.”
“Why?” she breathed.
“Because it was hot as hell. I wasn’t lying when I said that before.” He shook his head. “Besides, the thought of you left wanting…of you not being satisfied damn near kills me.”
Satisfied? She nearly snorted at that. The only time she’d been satisfied in her entire life had been thanks to her own fingers, though she’d been damn close all thanks to Nash’s talented mouth. She’d gone from fumbling boys in high school to a fumbling man in college, and not one of them had ever given her needs even the basest consideration.
“Did you mean it?” he asked, his voice thick and rough.
“What?”
With his tongue, he swiped a slow, seductive line across his bottom lip. “You know what you said, Rory.”
She did. She remembered it in great detail, because, like him, she’d replayed it over and over in her mind, constantly reliving her mortification.
I wouldn’t know anything at all about a good cock.
She lifted a shoulder. “I’m not sure what you want me to tell you.”
“The truth,” he said with complete sincerity. “I always want you to tell me the truth.”
The truth? Um, no. She’d have to take a pass on that. The truth would only paint her in a negative light—poor little Rory, too much of a prude to ask for what she needed.
She wanted to tell him that he had it all wrong. It hadn’t been like that at all. She’d had years of fabulous sex complete with more orgasms than she knew what to do with. She knew a good cock as well as the next girl.
Instead, what came out was, “He couldn’t make me come.”
Oh my word, how much vodka had been in those damn drinks? Except…she wasn’t drunk. Wasn’t even tipsy anymore and hadn’t been for more than an hour. Which meant she wanted him to know that shameful tidbit.
Nash stilled, his eyes sparking with disbelief. “He what?”
Rory waved her hand. “Well, I suppose it’s possible he could have…” She shrugged. “He just never tried.”
Nash’s entire world teetered on the edge of annihilation. He had no idea what the hell he should do with the morsel of information she’d just dropped in his lap. Moreover, he had no idea what kind of man didn’t make sure his woman was satisfied. No idea what kind of man wouldn’t trip over himself just for the opportunity to leave Rory sated and blissed out.
A goddamn idiot, apparently.
And he’d be damned if he allowed himself to be that idiot tonight.
With his throat tight and jeans tighter, he took a deep breath, praying his voice didn’t come out as strangled as he felt. “You’ve never had an orgasm?”
“I—” She closed her eyes and brought her hands up to cover her face. “I cannot believe I’m discussin’ this with you.”
But he knew Rory didn’t do anything she didn’t want to, sure as he knew his own name. She’d offered him the information—twice—without coercion. So instead of filling the silence and pulling the details from her, he waited.
After long moments, she peeked at him through two fingers, then huffed and dropped her hands to her lap. “I didn’t say I’ve never had an orgasm, all right? Just that he never gave me one.”
Nash’s nostrils flared at that, imagining Rory spread out on her bed, her fingers hard at work between her legs. Playing and teasing and taunting herself until she arched off the mattress, tits pointed to the ceiling as she called out her release.
Fuck, if any more blood rushed to his dick, he wasn’t sure he’d have enough brainpower to even speak.
“So, when you said you wouldn’t know anything about a good cock…”
&nbs
p; She lifted a single shoulder as if this were no big deal, but her movements belied her nerves. She ran her hands back and forth over the throw pillow in her lap, her eyes trained anywhere but on him. “I don’t. But it wasn’t all his fault. I…take a long time. To, um, get there.” She darted her eyes over to him and away again. “It can be a lot of work. I can be a lot of work.”
A lot of work? Only an asshole would feed her that bullshit line. An asshole who no doubt couldn’t find a clit with coordinates and a GPS guiding the way. And if Nash were a betting man, he’d place his life savings on Rory’s son-of-a-bitch ex having planted that seed in her head.
What the hell was the right thing to do here? His brain screamed at him to let this go. To walk the fuck away, because nothing good would come from following the will of his dick, not when his future plans and goals were on the line. Not when King Construction was on the line.
But another part of him—a part that was so much bigger than the sexual hunger he felt for her—was desperate to wipe away that look on her face. Show her the lies her ex had fed her for years simply weren’t true.
She might take a long time, but he didn’t care if she took all goddamn night. He’d gladly spend hours playing with her breasts or lapping at her pussy. Doing whatever she needed for as long as she needed it. A real man did whatever necessary to make sure his woman felt just as much pleasure as he did—more than. And he enjoyed himself every second he was giving it to her.
So much for listening to his brain, because it seemed his mind was made up. And, short of Rory telling him to get the fuck out, there wasn’t anything that was going to stop him.
“Is that a challenge?”
Color burst on her cheeks, the flush going down her neck and no doubt spreading over her chest. “What? No, of course not. It’s just a fact.”
“You know a fact has to be proven with sufficient evidence. Have a lot of that, do you?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I’m gonna ignore you not so subtly tryin’ to ask me how many men I’ve slept with. The answer is none of your business.”
Hometown Troublemaker (Havenbrook Book 2) Page 9