Chapter Sixteen
Cassie surfaced slowly, sensations coming first. One leg was hooked over Nash’s hip and the other had gone numb under his weight. They were lying on their sides, facing each other, breath mingling. His heavy arm was locked tight around her waist and—
He was still inside her—just barely, slipping a little more with every heavy breath.
Afternoon light slanted through the window, dense and gold, striping shadows across his cheekbones. He still slept the same, with his mouth parted and that small furrow between his brows like he was working on an engine even in his dreams.
The last time she’d looked this closely, he’d been twenty-three. Young and beautiful and full of promise.
That boy was long gone.
He was just as devastating—maybe more so—the time carving lines around his eyes and leaving scars she didn’t recognize. Tattoos covering where bare skin used to be. He was heavier now, more solid. All man and muscle, hardened by years—but somehow, impossibly, exactly the same.
Caught in that old, familiar pull, Cassie found herself tracing a finger softly along his collarbone, just as she used to. When she too had fewer scars.
God…how many times had they gone at each other before passing out from exhaustion?
Three…three and a half…and all of it without a condom, no less.
She was on birth control, thank god, but pregnancy was the bare minimum of her concerns, because lord only knew who—and how many—Nash had taken to bed over the years.
She should be furious—at him, and at herself.
She should be shoving him off, untangling her damn leg, rolling away, putting as much distance as possible between them before he opened his eyes and saw her lying here like some starry-eyed fool…
like he wasn’t the same damn man who’d broken her clean in two and walked away without a backward glance.
Only…she couldn’t seem to find the will to move. Worse, she was loath to stop touching him. Her fingertips kept wandering, tiptoeing from his collarbone to his neck. From his neck to his lips—the bottom one still swollen from where she’d bitten him.
The memory tore through her—her straddling his thighs earlier, furiously riding him; his hand at her throat, hers fisted in his hair, the metallic tang of his blood on her tongue, and how he’d only laughed, gripped her hips, and driven into her harder.
Well, she thought, that tight, breathless flutter climbing her throat. She was already fucked—and once more wasn’t going to kill her.
The emotional fallout might, but she could spiral about that later—preferably from another state. Because right now—
Biting down on her bottom lip, she rolled her hips, the shift pulling him deeper.
Feeling him swell and harden, her body responded, clenching around him.
Nash groaned in his sleep, his arm loosening at her waist, his hand sliding down over the curve of her ass.
Gripping a handful of her, his hips suddenly punched forward.
Cassie gasped—just as Nash’s eyes flipped open.
For a suspended moment they only stared—his eyes dark, his expression sharp, like maybe he’d been awake this entire time.
“Still like it first thing,” he murmured, lips curling.
Cassie, who absolutely did not want to hear any of his arrogance right now, narrowed her eyes, grabbed his beard, and yanked him into a kiss.
As their tongues tangled, Nash shifted his weight, rolling her onto her back beneath him with a slow, deliberate grind that had her clutching his shoulders, trying to urge him faster. Only instead, his hand clamped on her hip, the other fisted in her hair, gripping tight and holding her still.
“You are so…fucking wet,” he growled against her mouth, licking her tongue with his, kissing her the way he was fucking her—long, claiming slides, retreating slow through the wet, hot drag of her body before driving back in again.
Then harder. Clapping their bodies together with bottomed-out thrusts that made her vision splinter.
And harder still, until Cassie couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe—could only hold on while her world narrowed to the press of his chest, the heat of his mouth, and the ruthless, unrelenting way he was very quickly taking her apart.
Nash collapsed beside her, chest heaving, while Cassie stared at the ceiling, body trembling with the pulsating remnants of her waning orgasm.
“Still come when I tell ya.”
Cassie’s head snapped to him, the haze in her brain disappearing in an instant. Lying on his side, one arm tucked under his head, he was half smirking, half looking at her like he was about to pounce.
“You didn’t tell me anything,” she snapped.
“Didn’t I?”
She glared at him. “Don’t start with me.”
Nash’s smirk deepened. “Just keep on finishin’ you?”
Cassie’s pulse kicked. His goddamn tone, the lazy dare in it—a look that sent her thighs softening, and a rush of warmth rushing straight to her core.
Before Nash could get another smug breath past those dangerous lips, she rolled over top of him, planting her palms on his chest and settled back on his hips. His hands flew to her waist, eyes darkening as his gaze raked over her naked body.
“Actually,” she said, reaching between them, gripping him hard. “I wasn’t finished.”
The TV cast blue light across the living room, some action movie playing low in the background.
Cassie was seated cross-legged on the couch in nothing but Nash’s T-shirt.
Beside her, Nash lounged bare-chested, the sharp cut of his hips framed by low-slung gym shorts, both of them picking at leftover fried chicken from the fridge.
They’d spent the entire day tangled up in each other, unable to keep their hands to themselves.
On the kitchen counter while the coffee brewed, on the hallway floor, even on his back porch, her cries mixing with cricket song as the sun slid behind the mountains.
And now her body felt liquid, beyond sore, used up in the best ways imaginable.
Everything in her had gone soft and unstrung while she drifted along in some hazy space outside reality—nothing but sensation and taste and the deep, throbbing ache between her legs—
Nash’s phone buzzed on the coffee table.
“Yeah,” he answered. “Tell him the parts are in the warehouse…Tuesday delivery, no delays…through Kentucky, same route as before.”
He hung up, tossed the phone aside, and pulled her legs into his lap; taking her foot he pressed his thumbs into the arch.
“Oh my god,” she muttered, sinking back with a sigh. “Don’t stop.”
Almost immediately the phone buzzed again.
“What?” A pause. “No, I don’t give a damn what price they’re cuttin’. We don’t undercut on quality.”
He kept kneading her calves as he talked, Cassie’s gaze drifting lazily across the dark room.
Maverick’s house had been nice—one of the better places in Clifton—but this…
this was something else. Clean lines and open space, glass stretching wide to pull the mountains right into the room, the dark wood and stone keeping it from feeling cold.
Everything about it felt deliberate and thought out.
“Just fuckin’ handle it,” he finished, and hung up again, shifting his grip higher on her leg, thumb tracing slow up her shin. “Territory’s been keepin’ us busy.”
She hummed, noncommittal. She didn’t care about the club. She was merely a tourist in this world now—and this thing with Nash was nothing more than another reckless indulgence with a stranger.
But this wasn’t a stranger. This was Nash Walker and—
She shoved the thought down, focusing instead on his hand working up her calf.
“We run three counties,” he continued. “Workin’ with the Demons we finally forced the Vultures back across state lines last year.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Maybe. But anything worth doin’ always comes with a warning label.” His fingers found a knot behind her knee. “’Sides. The club’s stronger than ever. My old man never thought past these hills.”
“I always knew you’d end up running things,” she said softly, before she could stop herself.
His gaze cut to hers—sharp, surprised. Then he hooked a hand behind her thigh and pulled her into his lap, settling her astride him.
“That so?” he murmured, low and rough.
“Mmhmm.” Her hands slid up his chest and over his shoulders.
“You always saw me different than everyone else,” he said, voice gone quiet.
One hand tangled in her hair, tilting her head back as his mouth hit her neck, his beard scraping a shiver straight down her spine.
He kissed a path along her throat, licking and nipping hard enough to bruise.
By the time his mouth reached hers, she was already chasing him, her body falling into its own rhythm against his.
“Shit, Strawberry,” he breathed, half-laughing, half-wrecked. “I ain’t got a drop left in me.”
Cassie didn’t slow. “You started it,” she shot back, panting.
“That dress started it.” His hands shoved the shirt higher, palms gliding over her ribs before cupping her breasts. She arched, and his grin sharpened.
“You and dresses,” she murmured.
“You in dresses,” he corrected, leaning in to suck her nipple, his hands sliding down to grip her ass. “Can’t nobody think straight when you’re wearin’ one.”
She was reaching between them—finding him semi-erect—when his phone buzzed again.
“Leave it,” she whispered, stroking him.
But Nash was already glancing at the screen, his body tightening. “Gotta take this one,” he muttered, lifting her off his lap. He rose, raking a hand through his hair as he disappeared toward the kitchen. His voice drifted back, rough with irritation.
“What? Hell no, she can’t have a phone—she’s ten years old…I don’t give a shit what her friends have…That’s not what we agreed…”
Cassie sat up slowly, tugging the shirt down. The warm mountain air spilling through the open windows suddenly felt twice as thick.
“…because I said so, that’s why. She’s your kid, Addy, not your goddamn friend—”