8. Nate
Chapter 8
I slowly ease back the covers, place my feet flat on the floor, and glance over my shoulder at Dex. Her red hair is fanned out over my pillow, both her hands clasped beneath her head in mock prayer. Despite my aching body and sore cock from so much fucking, the damn thing jerks to life just from watching her sleep.
I can’t remember the last time I fucked a woman through the night. How many times had I plunged inside her? Four? Five? They all blended into one another, because no sooner had I come than my cock stood at attention once more, like a starving dog begging for scraps.
A few strands of her hair have caught in the corner of her mouth, wafting in the air each time she breathes out. I carefully disentangle and tuck them behind her ear. She murmurs something in her sleep.
Quietly, I move away. Not that I would mind if she woke and then reached for me, but she needs to sleep. I’m not being benevolent. I want Dex well rested because I plan to keep her right where she is for at least the next few hours. I haven’t drunk my fill of her yet.
Once I’ve tugged on my discarded boxers, I pad into the kitchen, fill a glass from the faucet, and drink it down in one go, then refill it. Wandering over to the window, I gaze out into the street. The breeze has picked up, confirming the weather reports of an incoming storm—another reason to stay in bed and wait for the bad weather to pass. I can’t think of a better way to spend a Sunday than buried inside Dex, with her warm, pliant body moving against mine while she makes those delicious sounds as I drive into her.
Dex… what a fucking surprise she’s turned out to be. For a second last night, I thought she was going to bail. And if she had, I’d have had no choice but to stop her. There’s something different about this pint-sized little fireball. She makes me feel, and I’m not about to let someone go who can do that. I stopped feeling much of anything seven years ago. Some things are too painful to keep poking at with a blade coated in poison.
I’m about to go back to bed when my phone buzzes. Irritated, I snatch it off the kitchen counter, but when I see the sender of the text, my heart makes a dash for my feet. I don’t need to swipe the screen to know what the message will say.
Four weeks, Nate. And don’t even think about bailing. I know you got the invite.
Yep. As suspected, it’s from Declan. I thought he might have stopped texting me after he sent the official invite by special delivery, but no. Every week, another text comes, like a fucking countdown clock.
It’s my own fault. I should have shown more enthusiasm when he called a few months ago with the news that he and Indie are finally getting hitched. But because I’d been ambivalent about making the trip out east, he’d started texting me weekly.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for my brother. Fucking ecstatic, actually. Declan is one of the good guys. He deserves all the joy in the fucking world, especially after what he gave up for us. But I hate returning to New York. Everything that had been good about my childhood, despite the gruesome death of my parents when I was twelve, turned to shit with the discovery of that letter.
But that cross is mine to bear. I have a lot of faults, but I refuse to destroy my brothers the way I’ve been destroyed.
As I’m standing there wondering how the hell I can get out of this fucking trip, another text arrives.
It wouldn’t be the same without you.
Goddamn Declan and his emotional blackmail. He’s the one brother I find it impossible to say no to. It had been Declan who’d stayed up with me through the night when I mourned our parents. Declan who’d brushed away my tears and tenderly kissed my forehead. Declan who’d climbed into bed beside me, gently rocking me until I’d fallen asleep, my cheeks still wet with grief. There’s no good time to lose a parent. All my brothers suffered immeasurably, but to lose my anchors at the tender age of twelve gave rise to scars I still carry with me today.
With a resigned sigh, I toss my phone onto the counter. Five days. I can survive that long in New York without wanting to rip my heart out, along with everyone else’s. That’s the problem with betrayal… once it’s gotten its claws buried deep, it’s virtually impossible to disentangle without causing serious damage to some vital organs.
I take my glass of water back into the bedroom. Dawn has broken now, the yellow light from the sun lancing through the gaps in the blinds. Dex has turned over and buried herself inside the comforter so the only thing visible is the top of her head. I sit beside her, the mattress moving under my weight. She gives a soft sigh and burrows farther into the bed.
An idea pricks at the back of my mind, inching forward as I watch her sleep. Maybe New York won’t be so bad if I have a companion—someone who can distract me with her captivating body and sharp wit.
Though if I mention it too early, Dex will refuse, I’m sure of it, and my instincts aren’t usually far off the mark. I need to prove that I want to get to know her, which isn’t a lie, and let her see a little of me, too. Not enough that I risk letting the wrong thing slip when doped up on her sweet pussy, though.
She stirs, drowsily lifts her head, and blinks a couple of times, then rubs her eyes.
“Morning,” I say, leaning down and pressing a kiss to her forehead. It’s the kind of intimacy I’ve never shown to any of my other bedmates. But Dex looks so petite, so fragile, so fucking gorgeous lying there with her tousled hair and flushed face, I can’t resist showing her a little tenderness.
“What time is it?” she says, stretching. The covers slip, revealing her pert tits and rose-tipped nipples, the areolae pebbled from the cool air blowing through the AC unit overhead.
I bend over and suck one hard nub into my mouth. Dex groans and clasps the back of my head, her fingernails grazing my scalp. I nibble the tip, not enough to cause too much pain, but enough to make her gasp.
“Jesus, good morning to you, too,” she breathes.
I smile against her skin, then raise my head. “Half past six.”
Another groan, this one not steeped in desire. She turns on to her stomach and pulls the pillow over her head. “It’s Sunday.”
Her voice comes out muffled, and I grin. She’s adorable, funny, sweet, and deliciously different. I rarely allow women to stay the night, but on the odd occasion I have, after a quick—and usually unsatisfactory—morning fuck, I’ve never been able to get them out of here fast enough.
With Dex, I want the exact opposite. Not the morning fuck part, obviously, because that’s non-negotiable. But the part about wanting her to leave? Yeah, not happening. Not for a good few hours, anyway.
I tug at the covers, but she holds on, her fingers curled tightly around them. Guess she isn’t a morning person. Trying again, I yank them, and they come away easily, revealing her nakedness and allowing me to slap her ass.
She squeals and flips over, hitting me with a stern glare. “That stung.”
“But you want more, don’t you, little Dex?” I burrow into her neck, leaving a trail of open-mouthed kisses as I nip along her collarbone, inching farther down, with my fingertips gently brushing her waist as I suck on her tits, left, right, left again. Starved for her, this woman I barely know, I devour her, my cock getting hard when she makes those adorable keening sounds and writhes beneath me.
“Oh, yeah.” She breathes the words in my ear. “I definitely want more.”
My eyes spring open to a room drenched in daylight…and an empty bed. I leap up, not bothering with my boxers this time, and dash into the kitchen. Relief swamps me when I spot Dex dressed in one of my shirts that almost reaches her knees, beating something in a bowl. My guess is eggs. My cock stirs to life yet again at the sight of her ass wiggling beneath the cotton.
“Plenty of salt in mine.”
She jumps and spins around with the bowl tucked into the crook of her arm, the yellow liquid dripping from the fork she holds midair. Yep, eggs.
“Salt is bad for you,” she says, waggling the piece of silverware at me. “And you scared me.”
I wander over to her, my erection jutting forward as if it’s as desperate to reach her as I am. Her gaze drops, and her tongue darts out to dampen her lips. Fuck if that doesn’t make me harder. I take the bowl from her, set it down on the counter, then snake my arms around her waist. When she tips her head back, I bend down for a kiss.
“Morning, again,” I say. “I like the idea of you wearing my clothes and cooking my breakfast.”
“Do you now?” she says, arching an eyebrow at me.
“Mm-hmm.” My lips travel from her mouth to her neck. She owns me. She’s cast a spell on me. I ache every time I’m not touching or close enough to touch her. “My cock is raw from being inside you all night, yet I want you again. What have you done to me, Titch?”
A slight tremor runs through her body, and her hands trail up my spine before she anchors them in my hair.
“Is this a dream?” she murmurs.
I draw back, and as I gaze into her huge, gray eyes, framed with dark, naturally thick lashes, an alien feeling stirs in my chest. I feel something for this woman. Something more. Something… scary.
“More like a nightmare,” I say with a grin.
My teasing breaks the spell. She punches me on the arm, then turns her attention back to beating the eggs.
My phone rings, and I give it a cursory glance, then grimace. Callum. No doubt he’s calling to see why I haven’t responded to Declan’s texts.
“Aren’t you going to get that?” Dex asks.
“No.”
Her eyebrows rise at my curt tone, and she glances at my phone. “Who’s Callum?”
“My brother.”
“Don’t you want to talk to him?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
I close my eyes and pinch the bridge of my nose. Annoyance swirls in my gut, but I hold back from snapping at her. It isn’t Dex’s fault that the closer it gets to Declan’s wedding—and my unavoidable return to New York—the shorter my fuse becomes.
“Nate?”
My eyes spring open. Concern laces her features, shifting something inside me. Something warm, good, and addictive.
She sets the bowl on the countertop and runs her hand down my arm. “Is everything okay?”
I encircle her waist, stealing another kiss. “All good, Titch.”
Returning to the bedroom, I pull on a pair of gray sweats. In the bathroom, I pick up my toothbrush and find the bristles are damp. Dex must have brushed her teeth with it while I’d been asleep. The idea is oddly thrilling.
By the time I return to the kitchen, Dex is plating up. It’s such a domestic scene for a very un-domestic man, but I don’t mind nearly as much as I thought I would.
I sit at the counter and shovel eggs into my mouth. I’m starved. Must be all the sexercise coupled with me eating Dex’s pussy instead of steak last night, but I don’t regret a single one of my choices.
“These are pretty good, Titch,” I say, picking up a piece of crispy bacon and biting it in half. “Same time next Sunday?”
A blush creeps across her cheeks, and she wrinkles her nose. “You’ll have gotten bored of me by then, Nate. In fact, another few hours and I doubt you’ll remember my name.”
Despite the fact her entire speech comes out with a half-smile on her lips, a spear of anger shoots through me, and I tighten my hand around the fork while curling the other one into a fist. My eyes bore into hers, my jaw clenching until my teeth ache.
“Yeah, you’re probably right,” I snarl, wanting to maim and hurt her like she’s hurt me. It doesn’t matter that I deserve it. It doesn’t matter that my reputation as a Playboy precedes me. It doesn’t matter that her comment has validity. I’m different around her. She makes me different, and I want her to notice that on her own, but she hasn’t.
Her smile slides off her face, and her fork clatters to her plate, despite the fact she hasn’t eaten a bite. She shoves the plate to one side and climbs down off the stool.
“Well, don’t worry, Nate. I’ll be out of your hair in thirty seconds. I wouldn’t want to take up any more of your precious time.”
She stomps into the bedroom while I sit like a fucking statue and allow her to think I don’t want her here. That I don’t need her here. How has our morning turned from sweaty sex, stolen kisses, and a breakfast she cooked for me, to a petty argument that means she’s getting ready to walk out?
True to her word, Dex appears within the thirty promised seconds, with her purse slung diagonally across her body, and her hair pulled back into a ponytail. She flashes me a look of complete loathing and marches to the front door, her spine erect and shoulders back as if to say, “You won’t break me, motherfucker.”
But as the door opens an inch, casting a spear of light across the oak flooring of my living room, I launch myself off the chair. My palm hits the door, slamming it shut, and my body encases hers. I grab her waist and press my lips to her ear.
“I’ll remember your name today, tomorrow, next week, next fucking month,” I whisper, tightening my hold with every word. “I’ll remember your name for the rest of my miserable fucking life, because what we had last night doesn’t happen to men like me.”
Her body, so stiff when I first put my arms around her, yields ever so slightly, and I turn her to face me. When I see how bright with unshed tears her eyes are, I want to take my balls in my hand and twist them until I pass out from the pain.
“Please stay.” I cup her trembling chin and caress her face with the tips of my fingers, relishing the softness of her skin and the fullness of her cheeks, so different to the skeletal, haunted-looking women this town is too full of. Her eyes fall shut as I continue to explore, so I do what any other asswipe of a man would do when faced with a woman they’ve hurt. I kiss her, hard and deep, sweeping my tongue inside her mouth, probing, seeking the warmth and comfort she always gives so willingly.
Then she breaks off our kiss. “I have things to do, Nate,” she says softly, crushing my hopes with those few words.
“But you haven’t finished your breakfast.” Yeah, that’ll make her stay. The offer of a cold breakfast—that she cooked. What a catch I am.
Fucking smooth, dickhead.
She offers me a faint smile. “I’ll grab something at home. Can you give me a ride back to my car, or would you rather I call a cab?”
I press my lips together and blow out an irritated breath through my nose. “No, I don’t want you to get a goddamn cab. I’ll take you… on one condition.”
Disappointment flickers across her face, and she gives a slow shake of her head. “What’s the condition?”
“You agree to come to dinner with me tonight.”
Her disappointment vanishes, replaced by surprise. Her forehead creases as she looks up at me, a shy smile tugging at her lips. “I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.”
Triumph rushes through me so fast it makes my head spin. I grab my wallet and keys and usher her outside. The storm has arrived, bringing with it blobs of rain that soak us within seconds, despite sprinting to the car. We drive back to the supermarket in silence, but it isn’t uncomfortable. It feels… right. We don’t need to have constant conversation to be relaxed in one another’s company—yet another thing different about Dex from every other woman I’ve dated.
I pull up next to her car and reach across her to open her door.
“I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty. Drive carefully.”
Once I’ve watched her walk away, I steer the car toward the exit and make a point of not looking back. If I did, I’d never leave her.