Chapter Five
Kissing Bailey was akin to licking a live wire. The shock of it rocked through him, shooting though his body in a lightning strike. Parts of him seemed to go numb, while others lit up like Christmas, leaving Nash dizzy and breathless and wanting more.
Her lips were soft, warm and damp where they’d parted in shock, and he could taste the beer and the chicken on her breath.
Not exactly an aphrodisiac, but right now he couldn’t think of a sexier combination.
Moving slow, giving her a chance to object, he swept his tongue out to dip between those parted lips, and through the rush of blood in his ears came her hitching moan.
He hadn’t heard that sound in over eight years, and it hit him like another lightning strike.
Fighting to keep his mouth soft and his pace languid, he angled his head, rubbing his mouth against hers with the slightest of pressure, and wanted to crow in triumph when she parted her lips further in response.
The urge to take the kiss deeper was a physical thing, a desperate need.
But he had a plan, a strategy, and he knew sticking with it would get him more than the temporary satisfaction of giving in to that baser urge.
So he reined himself in, leashed the wild craving to plunge and plunder, and stroked his tongue into her mouth in a smooth, silky—and restrained—caress.
She sighed, her hands coming up to slide through his hair, and the sharp sting when she tried to tug him closer almost snapped his control. Plan, he reminded himself, strategy—and eased back.
Her fingers tightened, the slight pain in his scalp sharpening before her fingers loosened, and she blinked up at him.
She wasn’t wearing the contacts she’d had in earlier, so it was her own hazel eyes he was looking at, hazy and blurred now with need.
It was a familiar sight, achingly so, as was the twinge of regret.
“You stopped,” she said, a throaty accusation, and dropped her hands to her lap.
“I know,” he said and shoved regret aside. She looked befuddled and aroused and charmingly pouty—also a familiar sight when she didn’t get something she wanted.
She licked her lips, a light of challenge coming into her eyes when she saw him track the movement. “Why’d you kiss me?”
“I wanted to see something.”
“What?”
“If you could let someone else make the moves.”
She blinked. “Huh?”
“That’s a big part of this fantasy, right?
” Shifting, he rose to his feet, pulling her up with him.
She swayed slightly, so he kept a steadying hand on her elbow and lifted the other to her face.
Moving slowly, carefully, he trailed his fingers down her flushed cheek, then pressed his thumb against her damp bottom lip.
“And as I recall, you like to make the moves. Aggressive ones.”
Her eyes flashed, and she parted her lips to scrape her teeth against his thumb. “You liked me aggressive.”
He absorbed the jolt of arousal, the spasm of need, then dropped his hand. “Didn’t say otherwise.” He’d loved her aggressive.
“And I’m not going to lie there like some dead fish,” she began.
“Who asked you to?” he asked mildly.
Her mouth closed, opened, then closed again. Kind of, he thought with amusement, like a fish.
“But there’s a lot of room between aggressive moves and dead fish.”
She huffed out a breath. “I know that, Nash.”
“And though you say you want someone—me—to take control,” he continued, unfazed, “I’m not sure you’ve thought through exactly what that means.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I don’t think you can do it,” he said bluntly.
“Excuse me?”
“I don’t think you can let someone else take control,” he said. “Call the shots, take the reins, be in charge. Make the moves. We were together a long time, Bailey, and I know you.”
Defiance shone in her eyes, in the stubborn line of her mouth, the angle of her chin. “We haven’t been together for eight years, Nash, and you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
He leaned forward, brought his mouth within a hair’s breadth of hers, and whispered, “Prove it.”
For a moment, she just stared at him. He kept his gaze on hers, watching the emotions run across her eyes. Insult, irritation, that bright light of challenge. A hint of humor, because she knew he was fucking with her, at least a little. And with all of that, there was heat.
So much heat—her eyes all but glowed with it, the pink on her cheeks had deepened with it. Her breathing had quickened, and her breasts brushed against his chest as they rose with each inhale, fell with each exhale.
He waited, heart hammering, fingers metaphorically crossed, for her to either tell him yes or go to hell.
“You’re such a dick,” she finally said, and he figured it said something about him that the snipe in her tone made his dick hard.
Well. Harder.
“Is that a yes or a no?” he asked.
“You think I can’t give you control?” she challenged, stepping forward. The hem of her dress fluttered against his knees, her breasts pressed firmly into his chest, and her belly bumped, oh, so softly, into the hard ridge of his dick. “Well, I think you can’t take it.”
“No?” he managed while his head spun in a slow, dizzying circle.
“Nope.” The smirk he loved so much had twisted her full mouth, the battle light brightened her eyes. “So how about you prove it?”
He paused a moment to send his heartfelt thanks into the universe, chirped out a cheerful, “Okay,” and grabbed her ponytail.
She squealed, lurching in his grip. “Nash!”
“Shut up,” he said, steering her toward the front door. “I’m in charge.”
She was making a choking noise that he recognized as laughter, but he ignored it, reached past her to shove open the door, and pushed her inside.
She stumbled over the threshold, let out a squeak when he jerked her upright by the hair, and gasped, “Chicken.”
“The hell I am,” he countered and, resisting the urge to ask her if she was okay—she was still laughing, so he figured it was safe to assume she was—nudged her toward his bedroom.
“No, I meant the bucket,” she managed between giggles. “It’s still on the front porch.”
Shit. Frowning, he stopped short just outside his bedroom. “What happens if we leave it out there?”
“Racoons,” she said succinctly. “And also cats.”
Fuck. Scowling, he dragged her head back to peer into her face. “Stay here.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it. You don’t move from this spot. If you do, I’ll…”
“Spank me?” she suggested, eyes alive with laughter.
The idea was not without merit, but she’d probably like it. “Not let you come.”
“Rude,” she gasped.
“Are you going to stay put?” he demanded.
She bit her lip, but it did nothing to quiet the mirth in her eyes. “Is this where I say ‘yes, Sir’?”
“Just stay,” he ordered, and stomped back to the front door with her laughter echoing after him. He scooped up the bucket, blanket, roll of paper towels and beer bottles in his arms, dumped the whole lot on the kitchen table, and had her ponytail back in hand within fifteen seconds.
“You should put it in the refrigerator,” she told him as he walked her into the bedroom.
“Fuck the chicken.” Drawing to a halt beside the bed, he reached past her to snag the duvet and drag it off the mattress—he’d done enough laundry today—then grasped the hem of her dress and whipped it over her head.
Flushed and sparkly eyed, she turned to face him, hands on her hips, and struck a pose in her pretty purple lace bra and panties. “No, fuck me.”
He wanted to take a moment to savor the view.
Eight years hadn’t diminished her beauty or her sex appeal—if anything, the years had only added to both.
She was soft and round, breasts and belly, hips and ass thick and curvy, not an angle or edge to be found.
He could sink into all that softness, those bountiful curves, and find both comfort and passion, a combination he’d always found unfailingly appealing.
And she knew it.
Giving himself a mental shake, he noted the gleam in her eyes, the smirk on her lips. Realizing he needed to regain the upper hand, he planted a hand on her sternum, between those magnificent breasts, and shoved. “I told you to shut up.”
She fell back on the mattress laughing, bounced once, then propped herself up on her elbows to aim that smirk at him.
But since she kept quiet, he let it go.
“Stay,” he warned, pointing a finger for emphasis, and crossed the room to let down the blinds on the windows. Since his bedroom faced the street, he thought it best, and he liked the dim cast they lent to the room. Light enough to see, but more intimate.
Turning back to the bed, pleased to see she was where he’d left her, he peeled his T-shirt over his head and frantically tried to come up with a plan.
He’d thought as far ahead as getting her into bed—and had figured he had a fifty-fifty shot of making that happen—but now that he had her here, he wasn’t one hundred percent clear on what to do.
They’d played around with BDSM a bit in college, but neither of them had been particularly suited to it.
He was no Dom, at least not a natural one, and the times he’d tried to act the part, they’d both ended up laughing instead of coming—which, if he wasn’t careful, was how this was going to end.
But he’d learned a few things since he was twenty-three, including patience and restraint, which was good because looking at her now, he was going to need every drop of both he could muster.
Tossing the T-shirt aside, he reached for the fastening on his shorts. Her eyes tracked the movement, and he noted with satisfaction that the flush on her face had spread to her chest. She was just as in the moment as he was, thank God and, with his ego swelling, he popped the snap.
It made a tiny sound, barely noticed under normal circumstances, but in the quiet room it was like a hammer strike on a nail head.
She blinked at it, gave a little humming sound of delight or anticipation, and when he drew the zipper down and dropped the shorts to the floor, her breath caught in her throat.