Chapter 38
Nash
I just know I’m going to get my ass kicked by either Donavan or Cerberus, but then I feel her arms go around my fucking neck, and the problem I was having in my jeans, just from watching her walk in my direction, increases.
It’s instinct to lift her off her feet, and I’m wondering if it’s just as natural for her when she wraps her legs around my waist.
Jesus fuck. I swear to God I’m not going to be able to stop myself.
There’s a whole fucking list of people watching—Cerberus, Donavan, and whatever college students just happen to be walking by.
These barely of-age adults are about to get a fucking lesson because everything that’s happened to us has been building up to this.
I’m not one to believe in fate. I think our lives, including our futures, are by choice not design. That was until Ayla.
With her lips pressed to mine, her warm tongue stroking inside my mouth, it feels like it was meant to be. Everything we went through is because we were supposed to be right here. The pain, the fear, the heartache… all of it led us to each other.
I kiss her harder, turning us as I pin her to the side of my truck. I can’t resist rolling my hips against her, showing her how much I’m enjoying this. I squeeze her harder when she groans into my mouth, her own need evident in the sound.
I swallow as she pulls away, her eyes filled with tears. Before Mexico, I would make a joke right now. I’d try to get people to laugh while I got my emotions under control, but this woman fucking changes everything.
“Need you,” I whisper as if we don’t have an audience standing around and judging us.
She bites her lip. “I can feel that you do.”
I shake my head. “Not just that, Ayla. I need you.”
A tangle of sadness and relief fills her eyes. “I need you too.”
A throat clears behind us before I can seal that confession with a kiss, making her eyes dart over my shoulder.
I bite my lip to keep from saying what I really want to say when the apples of her cheeks start to turn red. She’s embarrassed, having gotten completely lost in our kiss, and I fucking love the sight of it.
She untangles her legs from around my waist, but I don’t give her any room, a heady moan erupting from my throat when she slides down the front of me.
“College students are recording us on their phones,” she whispers before burying her face in my chest.
I look over my shoulder, past the Cerberus guy who just shakes his head and walks back to his SUV.
Sure enough, there are several people standing on the sidewalk with their phones pointed in our direction.
What does it say about this newest generation that they don’t even stop once I make it clear I know what they’re doing?
“Let’s go,” I say, nodding at Donavan.
I have no doubt he was going to jump in to help me, but I also see the relief on his face that he didn’t have to. He was already pissed that he ended up in a situation that tangled with Cerberus.
Instead of going around to the passenger side, Ayla climbs into the truck on my side, her perfect ass damn near in my face before she settles on the other side of the truck.
“Nope,” I say when I climb in and flip up the middle console.
I pat the bench seat beside me, waiting for her to settle there and buckle her seatbelt.
“Still want to head toward Plano?”
“Might as well,” she says, making my chest cave just a little.
Doubt begins to settle back inside of me. It was a kiss. It may be attraction. It may be addiction borne of the trauma we’ve both suffered.
She said she needs me too. She knows I wasn’t talking about just sex.
“Stop,” she whispers, pressing her palm to my thigh. “I can practically smell your brain working.”
My erection won’t go away. Even forty-five minutes later when we merge onto Interstate 35, it’s a steel pipe in my pants.
I think she’s purposely torturing me because she’ll brush the side of it every couple of minutes, as if checking to see if it’s still there, but she doesn’t make any further demands.
I don’t think she’s unaffected with the way she keeps redistributing her weight on the seat, as if she’s uncomfortable, but she hasn’t made much of an advance either.
The torture continues in silence all the way down the fucking interstate. By the time we make it right to the southern part of Waco, I’m done with the wait.
She doesn’t say a word when I take an exit, but a quick glance at the soft smile she’s trying to hide by looking out the passenger window is the only thing I need to tell me that I’m making the right choice.
The shoulder of the road is the best I can do. Waiting a second longer to feel her body against mine just isn’t possible.
There’s an urgency in my blood. It’s simmering, threatening to boil over. If I ever doubted she felt the same way, I don’t any longer as she unclips her seatbelt the second I place the truck in park.
We reach for each other at the same time, her leg lifting to straddle me right here in the damn truck.
“Fuck,” I groan when she rolls her hips.
I reach up, pulling her hair and forcing her head back so I can suck at the sensitive skin on her neck, feeling more than a little pleased with the mark I leave behind.
I have to take controlled breaths when she reaches between us, her fingers struggling to unzip my jeans.
We both jerk at the tap on the window.
I feel like a fool. I’ve vowed to protect this woman, and I’ve let my fucking dick put her in danger. I don’t reach for the gun under the seat because I’d have every cop in the state of Texas after my ass if I hurt the state trooper standing outside the window.
“Shit,” Ayla grumbles as she climbs off my lap.
I hate that she moves all the way to the passenger seat.
I roll down the window, putting that good ‘ol boy look I perfected long ago on my face.
The guy looks from me to my girl before settling his eyes back on me.
There’s a soft smile on his face as if he understands my inability to control myself.
“This isn’t the place for that,” he says, his voice sterner than the look in his eyes.
“No, sir. It isn’t,” I agree.
“License and insurance?”
“Of course,” I say, reaching across the truck to pull the documentation from the glove box.
The insurance is fake, but unless I’m in an accident, the cop would never know. The ID is fake also, but unless he digs really deep, he’ll never know that I’m not actually Nash Cutler. I’ve spent the last decade building that name, and I’m pretty positive it’ll pass as real.
I hand the two pieces of documentation over to him, looking back at Ayla.
Her eyes are glued out of the front windshield, but she doesn’t seem scared.
“I’m going to—”
A group of loud cars roar past on the interstate, grabbing the trooper’s attention.
“There are several choices of hotels to choose from two exits up,” he says as he shoves the driver’s license and insurance card back at me. “Be safe.”
“You too,” I say, but he’s already rushing back to his car.
I roll my window up, waiting for him to pull out from behind us before I look back over at Ayla.
Her eyes are on mine this time, and I can tell she’s biting the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling.
“That’s so embarrassing,” she says, her voice barely a whisper.
I nod in agreement, but I don’t say anything else as I pull off the shoulder. I stay on the frontage road, getting no argument from her as I pull into the closest hotel parking lot.
She climbs out when I do, following behind me as I enter the front of the building.
The clerk looks from me to her, and I see what he sees. But her mussed hair and the way her clothes aren’t hanging just right has a different definition for me than it does for him.
“Miss, are you okay?” he asks. As fucking annoying as it is, good for him.
Ayla presses closer, and fuck if I don’t love the way she runs her hand up my back as she speaks.
“We’d like a room, please. One bed.”
The clerk doesn’t seem impressed with either of us but he doesn’t argue as he takes my fake ID and enters my information into the computer. Normally, I’d have a problem with it. I’d take the time to search out a place that takes cash and doesn’t ask questions, but my patience is fucking over.
He hands us the keys, quickly going back to sit on the stool behind the desk and turns his attention back to the small television on the table.
The air between us feels alive as we climb into the elevator, and it only thickens as we approach and enter the room we’ve been assigned.
“I’m not a gentle lover,” I confess once we’re closed into the room, the scent of it welcoming, a far cry from the one we were in in Mexico.
“I don’t need you to be gentle,” she says without hesitation.
There’s no regret in her tone. She doesn’t look around the room as she closes the distance between us. She doesn’t seem to regret her decision as she lifts onto her toes before pressing her mouth to mine.