Chapter Forty-One
H e thrust into me .
One single movement, and I was in bliss.
When he was inside me, when he was touching me, nothing else existed.
God, I wanted him to take me again.
But Nash.
Sucking in a breath, I grabbed his hips. “Nash could be up any moment.”
His mouth found my neck, but his hips stilled. “I’ll make you come hard and fast.”
Oh God , I wanted to come again, but Nash. I pushed at Preston’s impossibly muscular chest. “Later, baby, I have to shower.”
Still inside me, he pulled back to look down at me. His eyes a blue-green like the water and palm trees outside, he stared at me for a heartbeat, then, “Baby.”
His deep voice was so quiet, I felt him say it more than I heard it. But like he said a lot of things, there was no intonation. And I didn’t know what that meant.
“Is that okay?”
“Yes,” he said in the same quiet voice.
His eyes, his full lips, the hard angles to his face, he was so beautiful. He wasn’t the young Marine I first met. He was a war- hardened warrior, but he was more striking for it. I could stare at him every day of my life. And that made me think about it. His offer.
I traced his bottom lip. “Would it always be like this?”
He sucked my finger into his mouth, swirled his tongue, then bit. “Yes.”
Giggling like a schoolgirl instead of a woman who’d just had the best sex of her life, I took my finger back.
Not smiling, serious like he usually was, he studied me.
“What?”
Visibly inhaling, not answering, he thrust one more time. Then, torturously slow, he pulled out of me.
I immediately felt empty. Too empty. And sad. And seeing his impenetrable expression, I wondered if I’d just made a mistake. Before I could ask again what he was thinking, he snaked an arm under my back.
Effortlessly, he lifted me. Holding me to his chest with only one arm, he leveraged us off the bed and stood me up.
My feet hit the soft carpet around the bed, and my legs quivered.
But then his releases started to drip down my leg. And not just drip, but, oh my God, gush . “Shit.” I laughed nervously. “I’m about to make a mess.” I turned for the bathroom.
A tattooed arm wrapped around my waist, and a hard body met my back. “Don’t wash me off yet.”
The sexy, sexy sentiment of his request, the heat of our bodies, the scent of our lovemaking everywhere, his unreal house, his tall-as-fuck alpha dominance holding me with all of his muscled glory— fuuuuuuuck . Reality bent, and I didn’t know if I was living my best life or waiting for shit to come crashing down around me.
Either way, I was still a mom. “Nash will be up any minute, and I can’t walk around naked, dripping sex.”
His lips touched my shoulder in the sweetest of kisses, and he brushed his mouth across my ear. “Later?”
“Later,” I agreed, shivering from his touch.
He took my hand. “Come. Shower.”
I hesitated. Despite everything we’d done and despite the fact that he’d seen every inch of my body naked, I needed to pee, and I wasn’t about to do that in front of him. And if I was being really fucking honest with myself, which I wasn’t, I needed a moment alone to just… take a breath.
And think.
Because with everything he’d said, everything he’d done for me, for us, I’d been carefully stuffing down the one thing he hadn’t done. And that was tell me how he felt about me. He wouldn’t date me, but he wanted me to move in. He needed control in the bedroom. He wanted me knocked up and metaphorically barefoot. He thought I was beautiful.
But in all of that, he never said how he felt about me, and I’d never imagined moving in with a man who wasn’t my husband, or my husband-to-be, let alone someone who’d never told me they loved me. And I got it, it was too soon for that. Way too soon. But if it was too soon to tell someone you loved them, then it was definitely too soon to move in together. And add a child in to that mix?
It was a lot to process.
He was a lot.
And I would not put my son through something I didn’t believe with one hundred percent certainty could go the distance.
“I don’t want both of us in the shower together if Nash wakes up. You go first.” I made up an excuse. “I’m thirsty anyway. I’m going to get something to drink. I’ll be right back.”
“I’ll get it. What would you like?” He grabbed his board shorts off the bench.
I grasped his hand. “No. Really. Go shower first. I can get my own water. I want to check on Nash anyway,” I added.
For a moment, as he looked down at me, I wasn’t sure what he was going to do.
Then he nodded and kissed my forehead. “I won’t be long.” He strode toward the bathroom.
Grabbing my bikini and my clothes from earlier, I opened the bedroom door a crack. When I saw Nash’s door still almost all the way closed, I found a bathroom in the hall. Quickly using the facilities, I groaned when I wiped between my legs. I was all at once deliciously sore and turned the hell on from not getting that last orgasm. Throwing my clothes on and putting my hair up, I dared to look in the mirror.
Damn.
Damn .
Not only did I look freshly fucked, my neck had two distinctive red marks. The worst part? It only made me think of exactly how I’d gotten them, and the ghost sensation of his mouth on my neck was enough to make my empty pussy pulse with need.
Jesus. I needed to get it together. I headed for the stairs. But as I walked down them, instead of a sense of contentment, I started to question everything again. What if everything today was the extent of what Preston was offering me? What if I moved in and did exactly as he said, switched Nash’s school, got knocked up, quit my job and played house with him? What if that was all I ever got from him? What if he never told me he loved me or asked me to marry him?
Could I live with that?
Would I be cheating Nash if I passed all of this up?
My head a jumbled mess, I walked into the kitchen and heard Preston’s phone vibrating on the counter.
I didn’t even debate not looking at it. I picked it up, turned it over and saw he had a few texts from an unprogrammed number.
Testing my luck, I swept my finger across the phone. No lock screen, the text app came up.
I read the first text.
Hey, it’s Summer again. I need to talk to u. Call me.
Preston said he didn’t know her. Why the fuck did she need to talk to him? Both Preston and Ty said everything was handled. I read the next text.
Pres, call me .
Pres? Really? I read the next text.
Come on. It’s not like I’m tryin to suck your cock. Ok, maybe, LOL. JK. Unless, u know… ur up for that? Haha, just call me. XO
My stomach dropped. I read the next one.
Alright, u have to call me. U kno what this is about. We need to talk about it. I can’t stop thinking about it.
Bile rose in my throat as another text came in.
Pls answer me. Need u bad Pres. Call if u don’t wanna text. Would rather hear your voice anyway.
Hear his voice? Can’t stop thinking about it ? I dropped the phone on the counter.
Sick to my stomach, I raced up the stairs and rushed into the bedroom just as I heard the shower shut off.
“ Shit, shit, shit .” Grabbing my purse, I slung it over one shoulder and raced to Nash’s room. Out of time, needing to get the hell out of there, I didn’t think. I just picked up my son and rushed back downstairs, holding him to me.
His sleepy eyes looked up at me as I grabbed my keys off the kitchen counter and flew out the front door.
“It’s okay.” I tried to smile. “Just going home, sweet boy. Close your eyes. Go back to sleep.” Preston’s come dripped out of me, and I wanted to cry.
Nash’s face fell, and he shook his head.
“Not now,” I warned, opening the driver door and setting him in the front passenger seat. “Not now.”
I shoved the key in the ignition, cranked the engine and threw it in reverse. Not bothering to buckle up either of us, praying the gate would open without a remote, I backed up. When my old Jeep got close, the gate began to open.
Almost in tears, panicked and so fucking sick to my stomach, I glanced up at the house as I waited for the gate.
Standing in just a towel at the window, Preston stared down at me.