42. Nash
Chapter 42
Nash
R osie doesn’t hear me come in, bobbing along to whatever she’s got playing on her headphones as she follows the edge of a seam through her sewing machine. Her craft room is even more colorful than her bedroom and filled with clothing racks, vintage mirrors, bundles of fabric, and an overflowing paint section.
When I got home, she was nowhere to be found, so I figured she was next door. Since she decided to design the float for the shop, she’s been working in beast mode. She spends mornings with her grandma, then she’s busy drawing or sewing until we entice her back to the packhouse for dinner before making her the dessert.
She’s insatiable and so damn strong, and every time I think of the years I missed with her, I want to break something. Quinn keeps reminding me that she’s been thriving here, and I’m trying to listen. He’s good at making the world make sense and explaining it to me in ways I understand. Without him and Dane, I wouldn’t have made it.
When Quinn discovered my big secret—that I couldn’t read for shit—he helped me get tested and get accommodations at school. We found audiobooks and the power of speech-to-text to help me better function with dyslexia. Dane spent hours with me, reviewing the notes Quinn recorded while we passed a ball back and forth. They helped me realize that I could learn, but how I learn doesn’t look the same as how most folks do it. Next month, I take my contractor’s license exam, and I know I’m gonna pass that shit because of them and the chance they took on me.
So, it’s not as though I think Quinn is wrong about Rosie. She’s got a full life with people who love and support her. Maybe it’s more that I’m sad I didn’t get to be a part of it, even though I’m grateful Rosie had Quinn. I’m hoping we won’t ever have to be separated like that again, and it feels like the possibility of achieving that is getting closer each day she spends with us.
I watch her working for a moment longer, wait until the machine has stopped so she can inspect a stitch, then pounce on her shoulders.
The jump scare is fucking classic. She shoots from the chair, shrieking.
“Easy, killer.”
She glares at me, her hand over her heart, but I can’t help laughing.
“You’re evil!” she shouts, no doubt competing with the noise blaring in her headphones.
I tug them off her ears and steal a kiss from my biting kitten.
She hits me halfheartedly. “You scared the shit out of me!”
“It was a solid three-point-five on the scream-meter.”
“I was listening to a creepy podcast, and it was the wrong moment,” she huffs.
“Mmmhhmm. I’ll test your theory and see if we can’t get a good five or six scale jump scare. Don’t you worry.”
“Like I said, evil.” She laughs before wrapping her arms around me and rubbing her cheek along my chest. In response to her scent marking, my alpha purrs for her. “What time is it?”
Yawning, she takes a step back and stretches. The red-and-black striped sweater under her black overalls lifts, exposing the skin of her sides. It gives me a teasing glance of the black lace of her bra, and I can’t stop thinking about getting my hands on her.
“Early. I’m stuck waiting on a part. I drove all over town looking before giving in and ordering it. What are you working on?” I ask, nodding toward the sewing machine.
She grabs her tablet and passes it to me, letting me flip through a series of designs. “I’ve finished all the decade collections except the ones for the store’s float. I’m working on altering those now.” Rosie swipes before pointing at a drawing of dresses that sort of look like flowers.
I’ve seen the designs for the float so I can get the materials we need, but I haven’t seen everything together.
“I told you the idea is a field of spring wildflowers… It’s because the seventies used so many pastels. I’m going to turn it into a meadow, and all the people on the float will make a blooming garden,” she explains excitedly, dancing around to show me the finished collections on the rack.
I look back at her float design combined with the costumes, really seeing her vision. Her enthusiasm is contagious. “Now that I think about it, I can build these flowers to turn. Can you send me this? I’ll see what Dane and I can cook up from what we’ve already got.”
Rosie is practically vibrating with excitement, and it makes my heart squeeze. I do that thing again that happens with her where I blurt out things I shouldn’t. “You’re like that woman in your painting. All this rain comes, and you turn into flowers.”
She stops dancing, her head tilting in confusion. “What?”
“I’m not making any sense.” I take off my hat and run my fingers through my hair. “I was too busy gloating the other day at the shop, but I wanted to tell you I’m in awe of how much you’ve accomplished. You make the world more beautiful.”
Rosie smiles at me. It’s soft, so soft it almost hurts. “You’re quite the love poet, Nash Wells.”
I scoff at the idea that I could ever be good with words.
She keeps going though, and her words wipe the smile from my face. “I have a feeling you’ve been imagining me in the worst ways and blaming yourself for something you had no part in. Stop blaming yourself for things we couldn’t control. I learned long ago that wishing it was different only makes it keep hurting. I mean that, Nash. My life is not as grey and sad as you thought, and you don’t need to atone for anything…”
Her words sting, but maybe only because there’s a kernel of truth there. But one part she absolutely got wrong. “No, Rosie-girl, I’ve always known you were made of sunshine.”
“Tell me—why?” She steps closer, her hand resting on my chest as she looks up at me with curious eyes. “I want to understand.”
I sigh. She should know some things, but I hate having to speak them. “The same reason you itch right here when you're uncomfortable.” I swipe my hand just under the strap of her overalls, and she tenses.
“Ouch.” She winces, looking away from me. “I’ll admit I have scars. Inside too. I have a good life now, but getting here wasn’t easy. Marigold and her crew were awful the last two years of high school, and home sucked until I moved in here my senior year. My mom was very unhappy I was a beta?—"
“I didn’t say it for you to explain,” I cut in. “I said it so I could.”
Her eyes snap to mine, that quizzical expression returning. “What do you mean?”
“That night was more than just me meeting my mate.” I rub my neck, already dreading the words.
Rosie keeps studying me for a moment while I try to gather my thoughts, then she reaches out her hand. “Come on. Let’s snuggle for this story, okay?”
My shoulders relax, and I let her tug me to the old armchair in the corner. We move piles of fabric, then she bosses me into the chair, crawling into my lap. I like her like this, when she boldly takes what she wants.Her fingers find my beard, and she curls up, snuggling against my shoulder. It’s long minutes of her petting me before I find the courage again.
“My mother grew up in a not-so-great situation. She didn’t graduate from high school because she got pregnant her senior year, and my dad never stuck around. Growing up, we didn’t have much. When I was little, like six or seven, this guy started hanging around, being nice to my mom. He got her hooked on some shit he gave her, and things were never the same.”
Rosie wraps her arm around my neck, squeezing me tightly. “Damn. I’m so sorry.”
I grunt in acknowledgment but keep going because if I don’t, I won’t be able to finish. “She died two years later of an overdose, and I was too dumb or too scared to do shit to save her.”
“No,” Rosie says, her voice full of fire. She straddles my lap, her hands cupping my face. “That wasn’t your job. You were a kid. She was the one who was supposed to protect you, but she was sick.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say quietly. It took years and years, but I know that the lie I tell myself isn’t true. It wasn’t my fault. Sometimes, though, it feels like it was, and in all my years, I haven’t been able to figure out how to let go of the guilt completely. I trace the strap of her overalls again, holding her gaze. “Just like these aren’t yours.”
Her eyes well up. “But sometimes the bad shit sticks. It carves out little paths in our hearts that funnel us right back to the same spot,” she says, explaining it better than I ever could.
“Yeah,” I say, resting my forehead on hers. “I’m trying to make new roads with you.”
“I guess it’s handy that you’re good at building things.” She tugs her hands through my hair, drawing our mouths inches apart. “I don’t want to worry about the past. I want right now and tomorrow.”
Her mouth seeks mine, and it’s a kiss of understanding. She gets the pain in a way that both hurts and makes it ache less. It’s raw and biting, but somehow that soothes.
The hands in my hair turn desperate, tugging as I suck along her neck, my hands cupping her ass. Her overall shorts ride up, and my fingers dig into smooth skin.She arches away from me, breaking off the kiss as she undoes the straps and wiggles out of her sweater.
I dive for her, taking a nip of her perky nipple before sucking it into my mouth. The bra’s fabric is rough against my tongue, and it makes Rosie cry out as she grinds against the bulge in my jeans. My cock pushes against the zipper, desperate for release.
Rosie takes off her bra and shimmies out of her overalls, moving to scoot onto the floor. I fucking love seeing her sucking me, but I need to feel our connection more.
“Not so fast, baby. It’s my turn.”
I rope her back into my lap and take my time with her. With my hands, I tease her gorgeous tits and rub her soft, round tummy. Her nipples get extra attention, and I keep up the slow torture until she’s restless and begging on my lap.
My dick is leaking when I finally take myself out, and Quinn’s mate bond is pinging with amusement. Our naughty little voyeur loves to peek in, and I don’t think Rosie’s caught on yet to how much he feels when things get hot and heavy.
Ripping her panties, I rub my crown along her wet center.
“Oh, shit!” Rosie whimpers, her scent unfurling.
My hands latch onto her hips, and I guide her down, barely controlling the urge to thrust home.She’s wet for me, and the way she bites her lip at the stretch makes me groan.
“You’re so fucking pretty like this, baby.” I suck on her perfect tits to distract myself while she takes me slowly.
It’s torture how much I want to let go, to stuff her on my knot and plug her sweet pussy. She swivels her hips, grinding down until my knot nudges her clit. The way she squeezes around me ruins my control.
I growl, taking hold of her arms and binding them behind her back, using them to find purchase as I thrust into her, burying myself to the knot. She’s wild for me, taking it and giving it just as good. My knot teases her edges, her wetness dripping and making it slick enough that it wedges a little farther inside. I can’t help but think about all the knotted toys of Rosie’s I found, wondering about all the ways she touches herself.
“Have you been training for my knot all along, baby? Using your toys to tease your sweet cunt while you think about taking your alpha’s knot?”
“Fuck.” Rosie makes a keening moan. “Knot me. Make it hurt—make it hurt good, Nash.”
The hungry rumble that comes from my chest should scare us both. I surge into her. My knot is so drenched I slip through the tight squeeze almost all the way inside. While she’s stretched around my knot, I strum her pretty clit until her cunt squeezes me tightly.
She fucking squirts . Her honey shoots out all over, drenching the two of us.
“Aww, fuck. Rosie-baby, you just squirted for me.” I rub my fingers through the slick mess where my knot is almost completely locked inside. “Such a sexy little mate, getting so soaked for me.”
She trembles, moaning with half-lidded eyes as she says my name over and over until I can’t hold back. I withdraw to the tip and drive back in, grinding my knot at her slick entrance until her tight heat swallows me.
She feels so fucking good, the way I’m in her so deep, that I erupt, filling her with cum.
The silent scream of her next orgasm freezes her in pleasure. She’s a brilliant, beautiful, wild mess of dark curls, parted pink lips, and sweet curves.
She shakes, her body racked with shudders. My name is a slurred sound she repeats over and over like a spell.
“I’ve got you, baby. Look at you taking my knot,” I say in wonder.
I trace a fingertip where we’re connected, circling her edges and feeling how my knot stretches her wide. She shivers, her pussy going off again and her eyes closing.
“What a perfect mate you are. You’re so fucking sexy. I want to keep you here forever, exhausted from pleasure.”
She pulls me into a breathless kiss as she rocks on my knot. We’re lost to the pheromone haze and the stretch, holding and kissing one another until our breathing slows.
Rosie brushes a curious swirl over a scar on my forearm with her fingertip. Still, she doesn’t ask any of the questions I see hovering in her eyes.
“That was a fishing hook. I think I was eleven, maybe twelve. The hook blew back in a gust of wind and landed in my arm. My grandpa plied it out, and we kept fishing, but it got infected.”
She shivers atop me. “Yikes.”
“How about this one?” she asks, tracing the edge of a feathered wing on the tattoo that spans most of my right arm.
“Icarus and his reminder not to fly too close to the sun.” I got that one to cover up a bunch of stick-and-poke tattoos I did as a kid. “My grandpa believed the world taught hard lessons. His job was to toughen me up so I could survive them. I’ve never been able to decide if it was cruel or kind.”
“Life is strange that way, twisting up the good and the bad until it doesn’t always make sense. But if I had to guess, I would say you deserved more kindness.”
I didn’t think I deserved to have sunshine for a long time, but she and Quinn are proof that I was wrong.
Her finger brushes farther, following the lines of his wing until Icarus tumbles into the sea. The tip of her nail scrapes along the crashing waves down farther to the compass tattoo near my wrist. Her eyes flick to mine.
“Pack,” I explain. Quinn, certainly, but Dane, too.
“Your anchors?” she guesses.
“More like co-pilots.”
She hums as she thinks that over, her soft touch sending little shocks through my body. I can’t help but lean in and kiss her again. The movement jostles her, and my knot aches when she shifts on my lap, sending a zip of pleasure down my spine. I could stay like this all afternoon, locked inside her.
The doorbell rings, and Rosie pulls away from my lips to look around in panicked shock.
She wiggles atop me, but my knot is still too swollen. “Shit! Someone’s at the door!”
To emphasize her point, the bell rings again.
I lose it then, my laughter spilling out at the way she’s so serious. Her movements do nothing to help the situation. “Stop wiggling, or it will never go down.”
Rosie sighs. “What do we do? I can’t believe I’m stuck. Or that I sq—you know what, we’re never talking about this again!”
“Oh, we’re definitely talking about it and doing it again.”
Whoever it is is persistent, because the chime of the bell sounds again—this time longer.
The pinch I deliver to my knot hurts like a bitch, but it works to unlock the two of us.
Rosie winces in sympathy. “Oh gods, I’m so sorry!”
“Let me go,” I offer, reaching for my jeans. Whoever the fuck it is needs to take a hint.
Hopping into my jeans and tugging on my flannel, I thunder down the stairs, a half-dressed Rosie behind me. The buzzer is still going, and what was comical at first has pissed me off.
I throw open the door to find an older woman wearing a suit.
“Nice of you to finally answer.” The woman gives me a dismissive once-over.
Rosie tumbles into me from behind, ducking under my shoulder. “Hello.”
“Are you Bella Rose Braxton?” the woman asks cooly.
Rosie hesitates.“Yes.”
“You’ve been served.” The woman hands Rosie an envelope, waiting for her to sign before she walks away without another glance.