Chapter Sixteen
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
H aisley hoped like hell she wasn’t making a mistake.
“Say something,” she breathed.
Even in the shadows, she saw him swallow hard. His breathing turned rough. “You don’t know what you’re inviting.”
“I do.” She bit her lip, wishing he would just step closer, take over, give her some indication that she hadn’t totally embarrassed herself. “And I want it.”
“Baby, if you don’t put some clothes on in the next five seconds, I will fuck you hard until you cry for mercy. Spoiler alert: I won’t have any. You will wake up tomorrow sore, covered in bite marks and bruises from my fingers, marked in every way possible. You’ll be dripping of me. You’ll be smelling like me. You’ll be pushing at me to get off you. I won’t budge.” Fists clenched like he was fighting his baser instincts, he stepped back. “Last chance.”
His words only made her heart flip and her womb clench. “I don’t need it. I’m saying yes.”
“Feel how fucking hard I am for you.” He grabbed her wrist and pressed her palm to his cock.
She gasped at the pure steel under her fingers, thick and long, engorged and enflamed. She curled her fingers around his stiff length and roughly stroked him through his jeans, relishing the feel of him in her palm again after two long years. Haisley drank him in, nearly going weak in the knees. “Nash…”
He tossed his head back with a groan. “Jesus, I want you. You’re a fucking fever I never recovered from.”
Nash staggered closer, pressing her against the wall with his big body, giving off a heat so overwhelming, she felt faint. Instinctively, she looked up at him, watching him with wide eyes and shallow breaths until he gripped her hips and bent, pressing his forehead to hers. His harsh exhalations bathed her face.
“I’m burning for you, too.” Now wasn’t the time to divulge secrets between them, but in that moment, she needed him. “I never stopped.”
He looked down into her eyes, a furrow settling between his dark brows as he silently asked why the hell she’d left. His breathing picked up. Against her pussy, his cock got impossibly harder. “Baby…”
Haisley didn’t want to talk. “Kiss me.”
Nash tangled his fingers in her hair and pulled with a growl. “Give me your goddamn mouth.”
“Yes, Sir.” The words slipped out before she rose on her toes and offered him her lips, curling her fingers into his shirt and holding her breath as her heart threatened to burst from her chest.
He was on her in an instant, rough hands pulling her body against his stiff denim and stiffer cock while he covered her mouth and sank in with his plunging tongue, dominating her with one sweep.
She whimpered against him. God, she’d missed him. So many times in the last two years she’d tried to convince herself that the desire between them hadn’t been that hot, that their connection hadn’t been that deep. The second his lips seized hers, Haisley knew she’d been lying to herself. The desire was stronger, eviscerating what little self-control she had.
A wave of dizziness assailed her. Her knees wobbled, threatening to give out, as she lost herself in him, because she believed that he—and he alone—would keep her sated and safe.
He tasted like testosterone, danger, ruthless hunger…and the sweetest memories. She’d grown up hating fairy tales because even as a child, she’d been too cynical to believe in everlasting love. Her father had skipped out on her as a newborn. Her mother had been devoted to her…but she’d ultimately chosen the danger of speeding a hundred miles an hour in her boyfriend’s sports car over her young daughter. And her aunt had never done more than seen to her food, clothing, and shelter. By high school, guys had seen her as a challenge, a conquest to brag about to the other like-minded douches. In college, she’d taken control and slept with hot frat boys and football players, having zero expectations beyond her own gratification. She’d resigned herself to believing that’s all “love” was…
Until Nash.
Touching him again was like basking in golden sunlight after two years in freezing rain. Haisley clung to him, wanting the moment to last forever. They couldn’t go back in time and fix the rough patches and half-truths between them. She was too afraid to zip forward, to the moment when their passion was spent and Nash would, no doubt, want to talk. But now was sublime. Now was everything. She intended to lose herself here, where she felt safe, happy, adored, and protected in a way no man had ever made her feel.
Suddenly, he wrenched from her. Haisley opened her mouth to protest. He couldn’t leave her. She’d burn alive.
But instead of retreating or putting professional distance between them, he cradled her breast and dipped his head, panting as he plucked her nipple in his inferno of a mouth. He pulled hard on the tip, sucking until she hissed in pleasure. God, she could feel his tongue tugging on every nerve ending between there and her clit, now throbbing for his attention.
As if he could read her mind, he shoved his hand between her legs, roughly covering her mound and delving his fingers between her folds where she needed his touch most. “You’re so fucking wet, baby. So juicy. I swear I’ve thought of nothing but you since New Year’s Eve. I can’t stop.”
He poured his words, sweet like melted sugar, all over her. She craved more. “Don’t stop.”
“Never,” he vowed against her skin, his lips burning a trail up to her ear. “Do you hear me? I’m feeling this sweet pussy because it’s mine. It’s always been mine.”
“Yes.”
“It’s always going to be mine. Is that clear?”
“Yes.”
“Haisley…” he growled in warning. “You know what I am to you.”
“Sir. Yes.” She nodded helplessly. “Sir.”
“Good.” He nipped at her lobe as his fingers swirled insistently over her swollen clit. “You’re close, aren’t you?”
Close? She was on the edge, ready to come out of her skin, scream his name, and surrender everything in her heart to him again.
So, so dangerous…and in that moment she couldn’t care that they were on a collision course and the truth might ruin them forever. This—his possession, their passion, her devotion—might also save them, right?
“Baby?” he prodded.
“I need to come,” she whined. That was beyond honest.
“On my cock. I want to feel exactly how hard you come for me, so you’re only going to do it on my cock tonight.”
Haisley couldn’t think of anything she wanted more. “Yes, Sir.”
“Good girl.” Nash rewarded her by shoving a pair of wide fingers inside her and filling her pussy that felt so very empty without him. “Where’s your bedroom?”
“Upstairs, on the right,” she gasped. “I don’t know if I can hold out.”
With his free hand, he pinched her nipple as he twisted his fingers deeper inside her, rubbing her G-spot. “I’m not inside you yet. So you’ll wait.”
As if to enforce his will, he withdrew his digits and swept her into his arms, then began taking the stairs two at a time.
“Nash…” She wanted to weep at the loss of his touch.
He said nothing, just dashed single-mindedly for her bed, kicking the door open to her room, then tossing her onto the mattress. As she bounced, he pinned her down with one hand and ripped his fly open with the other. “Is there any reason I should stop? That I can’t fuck you bare?”
“No.” She was on the Pill.
He grunted like that pleased him…but the implications of her still being on birth control didn’t. Wouldn’t he be shocked to know that she hadn’t been interested enough in anyone since him to bother having sex? It was no surprise to her that he still didn’t want kids. He never had.
“You haven’t let anyone else…without a condom?” he asked, then finished his question with a curse.
“No. No one.”
“I always glove up, but you…” He cupped her face in his hands. “I don’t want anything between us, baby. Not ever again.”
Haisley knew he hadn’t been a monk in her absence. Of course not. She’d left him with almost no explanation and only the barest of goodbyes. When she’d first returned to Lafayette, Madison and Charli had both warned her that he fucked around a lot. She’d be lying if she said that knowing he’d wanted other women enough to take them to bed and share his body hadn’t hurt. But even that pain wasn’t so cutting that she could find the will to refuse him. “I don’t, either.”
“Thank fuck.” He tore his shirt off and flung it across the room, then shoved his pants to his knees before kicking them away. “Spread your legs and look at me.”
Breathless, she obeyed.
God, this was happening. Really happening.
Haisley lost herself in the dark possession gleaming from his eyes as he gripped her hips so tight it almost hurt. Almost…but his fingers digging into her flesh were like a drug. They would leave bruises; he knew her body well enough to know that. Just like she knew he’d always enjoyed leaving his mark somewhere on her, as if he’d been compelled to show the world that she belonged to him.
Thank god nothing had changed.
She raised her hips to him. “Fuck me.”
Poised on top of her, Nash shook his head. “Just fucking won’t satisfy me with you. I’ve waited too long, and I’ve wanted you too much. You, I’m going to own. By the time I’m done, there won’t be a part of you that doesn’t feel melded to me. Still saying yes?”
His words arced thrill through her body. Anticipation suspended her in breathless limbo, leaving her weightless and desperate and anticipating every exquisite moment they shared. “Yes, Sir.”
She’d barely whispered her reply before he slammed his lips over hers and began pushing his way inside—his tongue into her mouth, his cock inside her pussy—his very being fusing her heart to his. Sensations swelled. Euphoria and dizzying need swept through her while he pushed his fat crest into her swollen cunt—rhythmic, insistent, demanding. He pierced her clenched tightness and slid down, deeper, filling her more and more until she stretched to accommodate every inch of him with a burn and sting that drove her pleasure sky-high.
Moaning in delicious torment, Haisley gripped the hard steel of his broad shoulders as he slammed into her, flattening her to the mattress.
“Take the rest of me,” he growled. “Bend your knees. Tilt up. Surrender.”
Accommodating all of him was always a challenge. Still, Haisley complied without hesitation. He rewarded her with more inches and more pleasure.
God, yes. This was everything she’d missed. His insistence. His intensity. His command of her body and soul.
Finally, Nash bottomed out inside her. He stilled for a moment, his forehead pressed to hers, their ragged breaths mingling in the space between them.
“You’re real. This is real.”
She knew exactly how he felt. “Yes. Yes…”
“And it’s so fucking good.” The pained moan tore from his throat.
Then he began moving again, and Haisley lost herself in the rhythm of their bodies coming together. Nash’s hands seemed to be everywhere at once—gripping her thighs, palming her breasts, cupping her face with surprising tenderness.
Haisley met him thrust for thrust, pouring every ounce of her unspoken love into their connection. She traced the strong lines of his back, relishing the flex of his muscles beneath her fingertips. She dug her nails into his shoulders as the pleasure built, marking him.
As if he was determined to return the favor, he bent to her, sinking his teeth into the sensitive flesh between her neck and her shoulder, biting down just hard enough to make her swoon. He sucked, dragging her flesh into his mouth as his tongue laved her like a favorite candy. It would leave a mark, and the fact he couldn’t stop himself, that he wanted the world to know that he’d taken her, sent her tumbling toward a bliss she hadn’t known in way too long.
While he repeated the process on the bare cap of her shoulder, he thrust into her insistently, pounding at her slow and deep as if he couldn’t merge with her enough, as if he wanted their two bodies to become one. Desire made her head swim as she twisted and angled her hips to welcome everything he gave her.
And he knew her so, so well, dragging the head of his cock over her G-spot and reawakening her need with a flurry of tingles until she was biting her lip, clawing his back, and crying out in desperation. “Nash!”
“Yes, baby. My cock is inside you. Anytime I’m filling you tonight, you come. Over and over. Show me how much you want this.”
“Yes!” she warbled mindlessly, spiraling higher.
“Prove this pussy is mine,” he snarled in her ear, banging her with another bed-rattling thrust.
“Yes. Yes…” she panted. “It is. It’s yours.”
He crashed into her again, again, tightening the ache only he could sate. “Tell me that you’re mine.”
Haisley hoped she didn’t regret this, but she couldn’t hold back. “I am. I’m yours. I always have been.”
“That’s fucking right. Come.”
In his arms, she gathered and swelled, then exploded in a crescendo of sensation and need. She clung to him as the world blurred, leaving only Nash as her reality. With every demanding stroke, he drove her up and higher, far beyond a place where things like breaths, time, or the past mattered.
She soared, peaked, and floated, saturated by pure bliss. Other than pleasure, she only knew Nash—his scent, his perspiration, his thrusts deep inside her as he forced her to ride the high of her orgasm while his gritted teeth and harsh fingers told her the effort to hold out cost him dearly.
She coasted the downhill slope of her climax with a replete sigh, but Nash was nowhere near done.
With a low growl that sent shivers down her spine, he pulled free from her clasping pussy. His teeth grazed her collarbone, nipping and soothing in turn. Haisley’s fingers tangled in his hair, holding him close, silently begging him not to leave her.
Nash gripped her hips, the hard planes of his body pressing into her soft curves as he began blazing a trail of kisses down her body, worshiping every inch of her with lips, tongue, and teeth.
Haisley’s heart thrashed and trembled as he shimmied down to cup her breasts and take them, one after the other, into his mouth. She reeled at the pinch of his fingers, the scrape of his teeth, his groans that vibrated through her body.
This was everything she’d dreamed of for the past two years, yet so much more intense than she’d recalled. She probably didn’t deserve this pleasure from him. The weight of her secret pressed at the edges of her consciousness, but she pushed it away. Right now, there was only Nash, only this moment. She needed him in a way she never let herself need anyone.
His mouth encompassed her nipple again, and Haisley cried out, back arching off the bed. Nash’s hand splayed across her ribcage, holding her in place as he alternately lavished attention on her swollen tips. His touch was reverent yet animalistic and possessive, making sure she felt both adored and owned.
“Please,” she whimpered, needing more. Needing what he silently promised as he worked his way down her body, his lips brushing across her abdomen, his tongue flirting with her navel, before his teeth made an impression on her hip bone. She hissed at the sting, reveling in his insistence as he wriggled down her bed. He laved and nipped her inner thighs before he inhaled her, eyes closed as if he’d been anticipating this moment forever.
Then Nash lifted his head, his eyes dark with desire and some emotion that made Haisley’s heart race. Without breaking eye contact, he slowly lowered his head, his intent more than clear.
Haisley’s breath caught at the first swipe of Nash’s tongue against her clit. The jolt of desire jetted tingles to her toes as the ache began pooling between her legs again, as if she hadn’t come mere minutes ago. He did it again, lingering over her most sensitive spot. She keened. Her hands fisted her sheets as he devoured her with single-minded focus, worshipping her pussy and drawing out every gasp and moan.
As the pressure and pleasure built, Haisley tossed her head back, helpless in the face of his overwhelming need. How had she survived two years without this man? Without his touch, his taste, the way he made her feel utterly cherished and desired?
He was unstoppable as he drove her up again, until she gasped and clawed and begged him for relief. Just one more lash of his tongue, and her world would explode in a bright, white-hot crescendo somehow even stronger than the first.
Nash slipped two fingers inside her, curling them just so, ramping Haisley up mercilessly. She cried out his name, and it sounded more like she was begging. Probably because she was.
But Nash refused her, vaulting his way up her body, claiming her mouth in a searing kiss as he lunged deep inside her again with one rough thrust. Haisley tasted herself on his lips and moaned, wrapping her legs around his waist and losing herself in this dangerous, dizzying sensation.
He stuck his hand between them, bruising fingers digging into her hip, and settled his thumb over her throbbing clit and manipulated her until she was a breathless gasp away from incinerating. “Come, baby. Let me feel you.”
God, there was no holding back, especially when he nipped at the other side of her neck, marking her again and growling with possessive pride. The sound resonated through her, ramping her up even more.
As if her body was no longer her own, her back arched, her thighs trembled, and her pussy grasped him greedily, refusing to let go. The sensations converged into something powerful and breath-stealing before the sensations burst.
Ecstasy crested, crashing over her in relentless waves. Her screams echoed off the walls. Time held no meaning. Nash lavished her with pleasure, manipulating her body as only he could, drawing out her pleasure until she was trembling and oversensitive and gasping at the sheer intensity.
“Haisley… Jesus, fucking… Yes!” Nash groaned out against her lips, his voice rough.
“Do it,” she answered, pulling him closer. “I’m here, Nash. Come inside me.”
No way could she tell him how much she’d missed this feeling of completion. Missed him.
To her shock, he shook his head and pulled from her clasping pussy. Instantly, she felt empty, aching, almost abandoned. “What are you… Don’t go!”
With a snort, Nash flipped her onto her belly and worked his arm under her. He pulled her up onto her hands and knees while he wedged his thigh between hers, spreading her legs wider. She’d barely settled onto the mattress when he aligned his cock with her opening and filled her again with one mighty thrust. Both of them groaned at the exquisite sensation of being joined once more.
“I’m nowhere near done with you,” he vowed in her ear as his teeth found her neck again and marked her once more. The friction of his cock against inflamed nerve endings, coupled with the flare of pain in her shoulder from his primal bite, sparked another wave of need inside her she would have sworn was impossible a mere thirty seconds ago. But when his fingers covered her distended, so-swollen clit while he pummeled her relentlessly, another orgasm—which she’d been certain was impossible—was suddenly imminent.
“Nash!” She clawed the sheets, wishing she could reach him, touch him, share this sharp shove to ecstasy with him.
“That’s fucking it. God, no one feels like you.” He slammed into her again, both of them ignoring her headboard beating into the wall with his every lunge deep inside her. “Hais…baby. Fuck. Yes. Oh, god…”
“I’m here. Yes. Give me everything.”
“Not until you come for me again,” he growled.
Even his words had her tightening around him. Why could this man—and he alone—make her body dance to the tune of his commands? Why couldn’t she stop wanting him?
Nash’s pace increased, his control seemingly fraying. He buried his face in the crook of her neck, breath hot against her skin. “Now!”
His command pushed her over the edge. Haisley cried out as yet another climax crashed over her, more intense than the others combined. White-hot pleasure seized her body, suspending her. She jolted and reeled with a head-swaying, tingle-filled thrill of ecstasy. How could Nash keep undoing her over and over so perfectly?
Moments later, he followed her over the cliff, his hips jerking erratically as he found his release, filling her with a warmth that had her clenching onto him desperately again.
Their harsh breaths synched up. They clung together in the aftermath, bodies slick with sweat and trembling with aftershocks. He gripped her as if she were the most precious thing he’d ever held, tight yet gently as he peppered her shoulder and neck with soft, reverent kisses. Haisley’s heart swelled, threatening to burst.
As their breathing slowly returned to normal, Nash eased free and rolled Haisley to her side, then pulled her against him. She curled into his chest, savoring the solid warmth of him. His arms tightened around her, as if he feared she might slip away.
Haisley pressed a kiss to his chest, right over his heart. The steady thump beneath her lips grounded her, a reminder that this was real. They were here, together, after so long apart.
But even in the quiet hum of her satisfaction, the weight of her secret pressed against her conscience. Haisley pushed it aside once more. The truth would only ruin them—not only this moment, but anything real that might follow. More than likely, they were doomed, but she refused to dwell on that. Just like she refused to let Nash go again until reality forced her. For now, she basked in the feeling of being loved and cherished by the man who held her heart.
As sleep threatened to claim her, Nash held her tighter and settled his finger under her chin, lifting her stare to him. “The last two years without you were some of the worst of my life. Are we finally going to stop fucking around and talk about what happened between us and why you left?”