Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NAT
“If this is an attempted kidnappin’, your methods need a little work. I’m not even tied up,” I said from the passenger’s seat as Asher drove us to a destination unknown.
That morning, he’d greeted me with a kiss, an orgasm, and the news that we were playing hooky from all our responsibilities today. Which meant, thanks to Rory, we were child-free for the first time in weeks. Maybe I owed my sister something a little more than a verbal beatdown…
Responsibilities were something altogether new to me. Of course, I paid my bills, and when I had a scheduled shoot, I made sure my ass was there on time. But that was pretty much the extent of them. Or had been since I’d run from this town.
While my little taste of Havenbrook showed that it may not have been as bad as I remembered, my hometown was still suffocating. Mostly because being here came with certain expectations. Ones my daddy had etched in stone for me from the time I was born.
Havens don’t behave that way. Havens can’t be seen doing that. Dammit, Nat, why can’t you be more like your sisters?
I’d fled, not just for adventure, but to escape the expectations of being born into the family I hadn’t had a choice about. Probably why I’d made my own family with Asher and Nash. Had made my own way, too. I’d never fit in a box, and certainly not the one my daddy had made for me. I’d always been a rule breaker. Always marched to the beat of my own drum. And Richard Haven had never accepted it. Though that wasn’t exactly a surprise, since he was as pigheaded as they came.
What was surprising was that he’d come to accept my sisters just fine. Even despite Will marrying a man he’d always hated, Rory bucking all convention and rejecting his money and assistance while forging her own way with a man seven years her junior, and Mac taking his job from him. Though that hadn’t been my sister’s intent, it certainly had to sting all the same.
But still, my sisters went and had Sunday supper every week with the family, and my daddy supported them, even if it was in the twisted way he had. But me? I didn’t even get the twisted version, though I did get the promise of a more respectable job, thanks to the family connections.
“Believe me,” Asher said, “if I were gonna tie you up, we wouldn’t be leavin’ the bedroom.”
My brows flew up toward my hairline as I stared at him. Images of him doing just that bombarded me, and I shifted in my seat, my pussy tingling at the mere thought. “Sounds like a fun, childless day to me. So, why aren’t we doin’ that again?”
“Damn, wifey, are you always this insatiable?” He glanced over at me with a smile. “I think we’ve proven we don’t need Rory to take the kids for me to fuck you. I didn’t wanna waste our free day wrapped up in bed.”
“Wow,” I said, dragging out the word. “I must be doin’ something wrong, if that’s the case.”
He huffed out a humorless laugh and shook his head. “Believe me, if you do anything any more right, you wouldn’t be able to drag me out of bed in the first place.”
I bit my bottom lip and glanced down, hiding the grin that had crept across my mouth. A grin that shouldn’t even be there in the first place. I didn’t smile at sweet words from a man, and I certainly didn’t get giddy from them. Who was I? And what the hell was this thing that was happening between us?
It was something I’d been asking myself since the wedding, but I hadn’t come up with anything yet. And though it was scary wading through whatever this was without answers, that was how I did everything in life. Leaped without looking, consequences be damned.
“What’d Will want this mornin’ when she called?” I asked.
He reached over, interlacing our fingers, and rested our joined hands on my leg. “She was hopin’ I’d play at her wedding next weekend.”
“Yeah? You gonna do it?”
“Of course.” He glanced over at me before returning his attention back to the road, the trees whipping past on either side as he drove us to our destination. “Might play this new song I’ve been workin’ on.”
“That why you’ve been scribbling in your notebook so much and hummin’ under your breath?”
“Maybe.”
“Yeah?” I asked. “You plannin’ on lettin’ your wife hear that anytime soon?”
He flashed me a grin—one that shot straight through my insides. “If you’re lucky.”
I hummed and leaned over, scraping my teeth against the sharp cut of his jaw. “Maybe I’ll get lucky a couple times tonight, then.”
Pressing my lips to his neck, I trailed kisses along his skin, my body on fire for him even though it’d only been hours since he’d been inside me. Hours since he’d groaned my name against my ear as he’d fucked me from behind. Hours since the sound of it had sent shock waves through me.
I was half a second away from telling him to pull over, destination be damned, when recognition dawned as I registered our whereabouts.
“Wait a minute.” I sat back in my seat. “We goin’ where I think we are?”
Asher slid me a glance out of the corner of his eyes, a smile tipping his lips. “Well, I couldn’t exactly get us tickets to Bora Bora. But I figured you deserved a little adventure, even if we couldn’t leave Havenbrook to find it.”
I grinned as the car came to a stop, my stomach flip-flopping over…everything. That he would set this up for me. For us. Plan a day that I’d love just because. One he knew, without question, I’d enjoy.
But more than that, it filled up my heart that he knew I needed this day even before I knew it myself.
I unbuckled my seat belt and stared out the windshield to the banks of trees lining Havenbrook Creek. A rock ridge we used to jump off soared straight out of the swimming hole that had been practically a second home to us.
Back when we were nothing but troublemaking teens, we’d come out here dozens of times, bringing our dumb asses down to the creek with none of our parents any the wiser. And one time had nearly been my last.
“You ever think about what would’ve changed if we just hadn’t come out here that day?” he asked. “Our lives might’ve turned out completely different. Hell, you might not even be here with me now.”
The mere idea of not having had this man by my side my whole life—as well as this past month—pierced my chest. SOS signal or not, we stood by each other. And no amount of rewriting history would change that.
“You know even without that promise, I’d be here for you. It’s just a word, Ash. And our friendship is held together by a hell of a lot more than that.”
He was quiet for long moments, staring at me in the silence, his gaze tracking all of my features as if he were trying to commit them to memory. “Friendship, huh?”
I cracked a grin. “Still feels weird to call it a marriage.”
“And how about last night? Did it feel weird then?”
Last night, when he’d snuck up on me while I was putting laundry in, bent me over the washing machine, and fucked me right then and there.
“Are you gettin’ fresh with me?”
He hummed low in his throat, his fingers squeezing mine. “Thinkin’ about it.”
“Yeah? What else are you thinkin’ about?”
He tipped his head toward the water. “In the mood to get in a little trouble with me?”
“Always,” I answered without hesitation.
I wondered if the exhilaration of surviving that day here in the flash storm had sparked something in me that caused me to seek the life I’d lived, full of thrilling adventures. I’d rappelled in the Sierras de Tejeda Natural Park. Had skydived a dozen times, gone whitewater rafting, and BASE jumped a couple times, all to feel a little bit more alive.
But the funny thing was, I’d felt more alive these past few weeks with Asher and the kids than I ever had getting an adrenaline rush halfway around the world. And just what the hell did that say about my life choices?
I opened my door, not yet making a move to step out. “You didn’t think this through much ’cause I certainly don’t have a suit with me.”
Asher leaned back against the headrest, his posture lazy and relaxed. He eyed me up and down, and then a small smile curved just one side of his lips. “Who says we need swimsuits?”
I gasped, feigning shock, and rested my elbow on the center console, leaning closer to him. “Asher McCoy. Are you suggesting goin’ skinny-dippin’ with me? Don’t you think that’s a little forward?”
He mirrored my position, his arm brushing against mine, his breath a whisper across my lips. “I’m suggesting my wife get her cute, naked ass in the swimmin’ hole so we can have some fun. Unless you’re chicken.”
I nipped his bottom lip. “You’ve known me a long time, so you know the one surefire way to get me to do anything is to dare me to or call me a chicken. And I don’t think that’s a very fair use of your knowledge.”
“Who said I’m interested in fair? My main goal today is for you to have an adventure. And hopefully, that includes a little bit of naked time.”
“Well, I’ve only got one thing to say about that…”
“Yeah? What’s that?”
I licked a path along his lower lip, smiling as he let out a soft groan and closed his eyes. Perfect. Exactly where I wanted him.
“Beat you up there,” I said before flying out of the car and straight toward the path I remembered.
One minute, it was quiet, the area around me silent except for the thud of my feet on the dirt and my steady breaths in and out. And then, suddenly, Asher was there, directly behind me, his stride catching up far too quickly. But before I could react, before I could speed up or dodge him, I was airborne, hefted over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold as he smacked my ass hard.
“Nice try,” he said, trekking up the hill with me flopping over his shoulder. “Don’t you know your short little legs have no chance of beatin’ me in a race, wifey?”
“I hate you.”
Damn if that shortness he taunted me about wasn’t my downfall now, because all I wanted to do was bite his ass hard for that comment. Since I couldn’t reach, I did the next best thing and smacked it instead. And when he still didn’t respond to that, I pinched both cheeks.
“You mind flappin’ your hands around a little bit back there? Feels like there might be a fly swarmin’ around or something. The little nuisance is buggin’ me.”
I huffed out an incredulous breath. “I know where you sleep, Ash. You really wanna go there with me?”
He finally set me on my feet, his hands cupping my hips to steady me as he rose to his full height before tugging off his shirt. Maintaining eye contact, he gripped the hem of mine, sliding it up and off and tossing it to the side. He traced a finger down my neck, across my collarbone, down the valley between my breasts, his gaze heavy with something I couldn’t quite name. Something that warmed my insides, an ember expanding within.
He kissed my jaw, the space just below my ear, and then lifted me up with two handfuls of my ass. Allowing me to feel exactly how much he wanted me. Reassuring me it most definitely wasn’t one-sided. “You should know by now I’d go anywhere with you.”