Chapter 21
Ruby
Nash is hiding something about my father.
I've known since he walked through my door last night and gripped the back of my neck like I was the only solid thing in his world.
His arms tightened around me until I couldn't tell where the leather ended and his skin began.
He sat across from me at dinner, carrying something behind his eyes that he wouldn't put down, and I gave him space because he asked for it without asking.
But I'm Ruby Leighton. I don't let things go. I file them, cross-reference them, and build a case while pretending I'm not paying attention.
The way my father flinched at Naya's name during the cookout.
How Nash watched him across the picnic table, cataloging something I couldn't read.
Nash coming home last night from a war room session looking like a man who had just confirmed something he wished he hadn't, and the way his eyes moved over my face like he was memorizing it before something changed.
The pieces are assembling themselves, and the picture they're forming has my father's face in it.
I shove it down. Not because I don't want to see it. Because Nash said he'd tell me when he was ready, and I trust him enough to hold the file open without sealing the verdict.
Besides, there's something else I plan to focus on this morning.
Nash is in my kitchen making coffee in gray sweatpants and no shirt. The tattoos wrapping his ribs catch the morning light. I've decided this is more important than federal conspiracy theories.
"I've been thinking," I say from the doorway.
"That's dangerous."
"Rude. Accurate, but rude." I cross to the counter and lean against it, close enough that my hip brushes his. "I've been thinking about Vesper."
His hand pauses on the coffee pot. Just for a second. Then he pours.
"What about Vesper?"
"You have a membership, but you've never used it. You said you were waiting." I take the mug he offers and wrap both hands around it. "I want to know what it's like."
"You want to know what Vesper is like."
"I want to know what you're like. At Vesper." I take a sip and watch him over the rim. "The version of you that has a membership at a place like that. The version that knows things I don't know yet."
He leans against the opposite counter and crosses his arms. The sweatpants sit low on his hips. The V of muscle disappears below the waistband. I force my eyes back to his face.
"You're staring at my hips," he says.
"They're in my sightline."
His mouth twitches. "Ask your question, Ruby."
"Have you ever used a vibrator on someone?"
The kitchen goes very quiet. Nash holds my gaze. His expression doesn't change, but something shifts behind his eyes, a heat that wasn't there a second ago.
"Yes," he says.
"During sex?"
"During. Before. As a reward. As a punishment."
"How is a vibrator a punishment?"
He sets his mug on the counter. Uncrosses his arms. Takes one step toward me.
"When someone's been told not to come," he says, his voice dropping into the register that makes my thighs press together, "and the vibrator stays on anyway."
My coffee mug is suddenly very interesting. I stare into it. My face is on fire.
"Oh," I say.
"You asked."
"I did ask. I'm regretting the ask. The ask was a mistake. I wasn't prepared for the answer to be that specific and that hot. I need a moment."
He takes another step. Two feet between us. "You don't need a moment. You need to finish your coffee."
"Why?"
"Because when you're done, I'm going to show you."
I drink the coffee in four swallows. It burns my tongue. I don't care.
Nash takes the empty mug from my hands and sets it on the counter. His fingers close around my wrist, loose, warm, his thumb resting on my pulse point.
"Rules," he says.
"Rules?"
"You wanted to know how this works. It starts with rules." He walks me backward toward the bedroom, his hand on my wrist, his pace unhurried. "First. I set the pace. You don't get to speed things up."
"What if I want to speed things up?"
"Then you use your words, and I decide."
"That's very autocratic."
"That's the point." We reach the bedroom door. He turns me, presses my back against the frame, his body close, his hand moving from my wrist to my jaw. "Second. If something doesn't feel right, you say stop and everything stops. Immediately."
"Okay."
"Third." His thumb traces my bottom lip. "You don't come until I tell you to."
My stomach drops. My whole body flushes, heat spreading from my chest to my throat to my face. "That seems like a rule designed to be broken."
"That's the point."
He kisses me. Slowly, deeply. His hand on my jaw controls the angle, tilting my head where he wants it.
His other hand slides down my side to my hip, fingers pressing into the bone, and holds me against the doorframe.
I reach for the waistband of his sweatpants, and he catches my wrist. Pins it against the wood above my head.
"Did I say you could touch me?" he says against my mouth.
"I was taking initiative."
"Initiative isn't on the list." He pins my other wrist above my head, both held in one hand, his grip firm enough that I feel the headband press against my skin.
His free hand slides under my shirt, up my ribs, his palm flat and warm against my bare skin, moving slowly enough that I feel every callus on his fingers.
"The list is: follow the rules, use your words, and trust me. "
"I trust you."
"Then stop trying to run this."
"I'm not trying to run this."
"Ruby." He pulls back just enough to look at me, his eyes dark, his jaw set. "You're already trying to top from the bottom."
"I don't even know what that means."
"It means you're trying to control the scene by pushing me where you want me to go instead of letting me take you there."
"I push. That's what I do. You said pushing is how I connect."
"It is." He releases my wrists, steps back, and strips my shirt over my head in one smooth motion.
The air hits my bare chest and my nipples tighten.
His eyes drop, taking me in, and the way he looks at me makes my stomach clench.
"I'm going to let you push. But when you push past the boundary I set, there are consequences. "
"What kind of consequences?"
He walks me backward to the bed, his hand on my hip, steering me with a pressure I couldn't resist even if I wanted to. He sits me on the edge and crouches in front of me, his hands resting on my knees, his thumbs tracing slow circles on the inside of my thighs.
"Lie back."
I lie back. My heart is hammering. Nash pulls my shorts down my legs, inch by inch, his knuckles dragging along my skin the entire way. He drops them on the floor.
He stands. Crosses to the dresser. Opens the top drawer.
"Nash. What's in the drawer?"
"Patience."
"Patience is not a thing that's in a drawer."
He comes back with a small vibrator, sleek and curved, the kind that looks like it was designed by someone who actually understands female anatomy. He holds it up so I can see it.
"Oh god," I say. "Oh god. This is happening. You had that in my dresser? When did you put that in my dresser?"
"Yesterday. While you were asleep."
"You planted a sex toy in my furniture while I was napping. That's premeditated. That's first-degree vibrator placement."
"Ruby."
"I'm processing. Let me process."
"You can process later." He sets the vibrator on the mattress beside my hip and kneels between my legs. His hands part my thighs, spreading them open, and the exposure makes me flush from my chest to my hairline. He presses a kiss to my inner knee. "Right now I need you to breathe."
I breathe. Or I try. His mouth trails up my inner thigh, letting his warm breath warm caress my skin. He kisses the soft flesh halfway up, then opens his mouth and sucks hard enough that I'll have a mark tomorrow. My hips jerk.
"Stay still," he says.
"I can't stay still when you're doing that. That's an unreasonable expectation. File a complaint with management."
His mouth moves higher. He reaches the crease where my thigh meets my hip, presses his open lips there, open, then traces a line with his tongue.
It's so close to where I need him that my pussy clenches around nothing.
I can feel how wet I am, slick, swollen.
My body is begging before my mouth does.
His tongue drags through my folds. One long, slow pass from my entrance to my clit, flat, wet, taking his time. My back arches off the bed, and my hands grab the sheets.
"Nash, please, I need—"
"You need what?"
"More. Faster. Something. Anything."
"Not yet."
He keeps the pace torturously slow. Long, flat strokes that build pressure without releasing it.
His tongue circles my clit, light, barely there, the ghost of the contact I need, enough to make my thighs tremble but not enough to push me over.
My heels dig into the mattress. Every muscle in my body is pulled tight, climbing toward something he keeps just out of reach.
He pulls my clit between his lips and sucks, gentle at first, then harder, his tongue flicking against the tip. My hand flies to his hair.
"Oh fuck. Nash. Right there, right—"
He stops. Pulls back. Presses a kiss to the inside of my thigh.
"No. NO. Nash, what the—"
"Consequence," he says. His voice is calm. Perfectly calm. Like he didn't just take the orgasm I was building and yank it away. "You moved your hands."
"I grabbed your hair. That's a natural response. That's biology."
"That's why you don't get to come yet." He presses another kiss to my thigh, his lips soft, his breath warm, and the contrast between the tenderness and the denial makes me want to scream. "Hands on the mattress. Keep them there."
I put my hands on the mattress. My fingers grip the sheets so hard the fitted corner pops off.