Chapter 28
PIPER
When I come back home from a long day of work at the bakery, something pulls at my heart when I look at the two bookshelves in the living room, now filled with my books.
Nash will be gone until the day after tomorrow, traveling for a preseason away game. A strange feeling of disappointment hits me from how empty the house feels without him here.
Do I miss my husband?
Nah. That’s ridiculous. I’m just not used to being alone.
I lived with Crew for years, then I stayed with Hallie, and then Nash has been here every night since I moved in. This is my first time spending a night alone in …
Wow, in a long time.
I decide to take advantage of it, appreciate it. Everyone needs some alone time to decompress and just be in their own company.
I take a long, hot shower, text with my sister, check in on some old college friends on Instagram, and then go on a little nostalgia kick and binge-watch some episodes of Criminal Minds.
I find a Mexican restaurant that delivers on the tiny main street stretch about ten minutes away from the ranch and order a giant quesadilla with chips and guac for dinner.
When it starts to get dark, I grab a book from the bookshelf that’s been on my Tbr for a while and lie in bed. It’s a romance about a personal chef who works for a grumpy, closed-off baseball player.
It hooks me from the very beginning, and the chapters fly by.
The first spicy scene comes early, after the FMC spills sauce on her shirt.
She takes it off, thinking the MMC is out of the house—but then they walk smack into each other in the hallway, when he’s shirtless and she’s wearing nothing but her bra.
I haven’t chanced to see Nash without his shirt on while living here yet.
I wouldn’t mind that. A nighttime run-in, both of us up to get a glass of water or something at the same time, getting a glimpse—or maybe more—of his bare torso, the lines and planes of his muscles washed in silvery moonlight.
That’s exactly the kind of thought I’d normally be on guard enough to clamp down on and squash.
But tonight, I’m too relaxed. I don’t want to be on guard. As I let the scenario play out in my mind longer than I should, it starts to become mixed with the scene I’m reading in my book.
The close-cropped, blonde hair of the MMC grows longer, shaggier, and darker like Nash’s. His bright green eyes turn a tawny amber, glossed and glistening in pale moonlight that doesn’t exist in the scene I’m reading.
The spice is hot in this scene, and as I read, Nash now fully replacing the MMC in my mind, a heat that I’ve grown unaccustomed to coils in my core, a sweet ache throbbing through the muscles between my legs.
I’ve felt arousal, especially that night in the bar with Nash when he held me close and kissed me for my ex to see. But it’s been weeks since I’ve felt real desire.
Even for weeks before I saw the first evidence of Crew cheating on me, I’ve felt so …
unsexual. From the stress of the wedding, to the drama of finding out Crew had been unfaithful to me, to the chaos of moving in with Hallie and then moving in with Nash and getting adjusted to that, I’ve just been constantly overwhelmed emotionally.
Sure, I’ve felt turned on by brushes of physical contact with Nash, or the sight of him working with his hands building the bookshelves, or the feel of my tits pressed flush against his chest as we danced together, but it feels like ages since I’ve truly been in the mood.
Weeks since I’ve had an orgasm.
Almost without thinking about it, I realize that my hand is under my shirt, crawling toward my breast. My hand finds my nipple pebbled and tender, and a low purr rumbles in my throat when I curl my fingers over it.
Pleasure skitters through me, tension swirling at the base of my spine.
I haven’t really thought about sex for so long.
I’ve just felt too unsettled, uncomfortable.
But I’m comfortable now; even though I’m in Nash’s bed, I feel settled.
At home. Silly as it is, I’ve felt so much more at home here ever since Nash built those bookshelves and helped me stock them with my books.
I think of how his hand felt in my palm that day, and I start to wonder what those hands would feel like on my tits, if it were his coarse, rough fingers scraping against my peaked nipples as they buzz with sensitivity.
The heat thrumming between my legs turns sharper. The ache tightening the muscles down there starts to throb harder, until I’m squeezing and rolling my thighs together to relieve it.
I keep reading. The MMC just hoisted the FMC onto a kitchen counter and sank to his knees, making her squirm as he plants kisses on her inner thighs, his lips dragging a hot trail to the last scrap of fabric that separates her from his mouth.
I imagine the abrasive scrape of Nash’s stubble against my thighs, the irritation contrasting deliciously with the first burst of pleasure when his tongue finally touches where I want it the most.
Slickness gathers at the juncture of my thighs while a hot wave of lust rolls through my belly.
I wonder what Nash would be like in bed. Is he as generous and giving as I now know he is in his everyday life?
Or maybe not. Maybe the bedroom is the one place Nash lets his selfish side come out, plunging into his lust and satisfying himself with a greed he doesn’t show anywhere else.
Or maybe it’s where Nash fully embraces the cockiness I’ve seen hints of.
Maybe he gets off on turning his partner into a quivering mess, holding back what she wants until she begs for it, indulging in the smug satisfaction of how many times he can make her fall apart while he’s still totally in control.
I’m not sure which of those options I like best. But I have a feeling I’d be satisfied with either outcome, if I found out firsthand.
I miss sex. I miss feeling the appreciative caress of someone’s hand over my body. I miss being wrapped up in another person’s lust, our restraint melting away as we gasp and moan into each other’s hair and against each other’s skin, chasing our release.
I drop my book onto the covers, sliding my hand into my shorts.
A moan pulls from my throat as the first burst of pleasure swells through me.
In an instant, I’m charged up, feeling everything with a heightened intensity because it’s been so long.
Excitement beats in my chest as I dwell on how many times Nash has slept in this bed, maybe naked, as the blissful feeling expands and fills my body.
My eyes flutter closed, and I let my imagination run wild in a way I never would if this bedroom door were closed and Nash were on the couch just feet away.
As I curl my fingers around my tight clit, I imagine his trim hips settling between my legs, his broad, powerful frame towering over me as he lines himself up with my opening.
I slide a finger inside me, moaning with a roll of my lips as I imagine pressing my face against the crook of his neck, or into the corded muscles of his shoulder, while his hips work.
My breaths grow shorter and ragged as the pleasure reaches a new intensity, and my eyes screw shut when my release hits. My hips roll while the climax barrels through me, and all the while I wish I had Nash’s body above me to wrap my legs and arms around and hold onto as I ride it out.
The satisfaction thrumming through my body is tinged with a hint of guilt.
I feel a little pervy getting off to thoughts of my husband in his own bed.
How am I going to face him without looking embarrassed, knowing that the fantasy of us together drove me to the best orgasm I’ve had in ages?
But then another question pops into my mind that makes my pulse stutter. I wonder if he’s faced that same question with me since I moved in?