Falter: The Nash Brothers, Book Four

by Aarons, Carrie

  Jeez, I wasn’t looking for a therapy session when I came in here, but Hattie is taking me to church.

  When I don’t reply, she goes on. “The need for comfort and security constantly battles your desire to see the world. You can have both, you know. A hometown and adventures abroad. You’ve done it before, but maybe it’s time to establish a new place to store your clothes. The same goes for love. You’ve done it before, but this time, with that strapping youngest Nash boy, it’s different. We all see it. I don’t even have to know your dating history to know that the way you look at each other, it’s the real deal.”

  How the hell could she possibly know all of this? It’s like she’s reading my mind, and I can’t stop her. In a very short amount of time, I’ve come to care deeply for Fletcher. Not just on a romantic level, but I respect his drive and his values. I don’t think I can say that for any of my past relationships … those were all just fluff compared with the things I see in Fletcher.

  “And last, your biological mother. I’m not even going to sugar-coat this one. It is far past time to cut her out of your life. She’s toxic, she’s cancer, and she’s eating up the confidence and good self-worth you have with each time she dials your num—”

  This one, I can give her an answer to, so I cut her off.

  “I’ve stopped taking her phone calls, and … I just blocked her number.” I breathe, because just saying it feels like a huge weight off of me.

  Hattie’s expression turns from one of sternness, to surprise. “Well … good. No one like that deserves your love or attention. And if you ever need an ear to listen, I’m here. We’re your family, have been since the day Presley told me about her wacky new roommate in New York.”

  “Aren’t you just supposed to say some mumbo jumbo about following my destiny, or seeing the light? From what I hear, you never give Presley the answers, you just guide her in the right direction. Why spell it all out for me?”

  Hattie’s smile is small. “Because you already know the answers. You’re just sitting on your ass, pretending that you don’t. With Presley, she really didn’t know what she wanted out of life. You, Ryan, have all the options listed in front of you, but you simply won’t choose. That’s why. It’s time to make your choice.”

  “Just because you say so?” Her words mildly annoy me, but the beat of my heart tells me she’s dangerously close to having my number.

  Hattie rises, patting me on the shoulder. “I’m an old woman, close to death. I don’t mince words anymore, and you should take my advice before I’m gone.”

  I yell after her, “You can’t play that card! It won’t work with me, Presley has warned me!”

  The chuckle I hear down the hall tells me she doesn’t believe me. And to be honest, I don’t believe myself either.

  27

  Ryan

  “You do know that camping is literally the worst thing you could force me to do, right?”

  Inspecting the nature around us, I screw up my face and stick out my tongue.

  “Oh, come on, it’s not so bad. You’ve hiked in Hawaii before, and you liked those hot springs in Iceland.” Presley tries to point these adventures out as if they’re anything like sleeping in a sweat cocoon on a floor of dirt.

  “Those were beautiful, enchanting vacation experiences. I’d rather stick a fork in my eyeball than pee in a bucket and roast trout over a fire we started ourselves.”

  Okay, I know I sound like a brat … but I’m a city girl. Fawn Hill is about as country as it gets for me, and then the Nash family decided to take me even further past my limits.

  “I know whose sleeping bag I’m leaving a dead spider in,” Travis whispers loudly behind his hand to his little brothers, and I shoot him a death glare.

  The whole crew decided to come along on this jaunt into the forest, with Penelope and Forrest bringing the kids. The only person not here is Lily, who opted to stay home with the baby. But since Bowen is the most rugged of all the brothers, and the one who knows the most about camping, he’s here to make sure we don’t kill ourselves.

  Now that Fletcher and I have spent the last week and a half sleeping in each other’s beds, it seems the cat’s out of the bag. The group already assumes we’ll be sharing a tent, so when shelter setup starts, Presley just throws me a nod and tells me to get to work on my love shack.

  One look at the man I’ve been sharing a mattress with, and I know we’ll have to zipper that tent door tight and keep the noise down. Damn, does he look fine. He’s got about three days’ worth of stubble on his jaw, a red flannel shirt open and flapping in the breeze, with nothing beneath it but bare skin, and hiking boots that make me want to drag him into the woods. He’s like a sexy lumberjack on a stick, and that’s usually not my type, but hell, if he isn’t doing it for me today.

  Really, he does it for me every day. We’ve been practically inseparable the last two weeks, and the ways in which we’ve gotten to know each other …

  My cheeks heat wildly just at the thought. It’s more than that, though. Fletcher and I spend hours talking; we discuss his goals, my travels, his family, what we like most in the world and what we hate. The connection is deep, infusing itself in my marrow. In the past, I’ve been swept along the current of lust for the man I’m with. But with him … it’s the complete package.

  That scares me more than I’m ready to admit.

  “Ready to set up our Hotel de Dirt?” I joke to him as I unbuckle some part of the tent material that I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to touch.

  “Sure,” he deadpans, his face blank.

  Fletcher has seemed off all day. He’s cold, aloof, has barely cracked a joke, which is so unlike him … and he was snippy to the kids while unloading the car. I’ve never seen him do that, and that’s how I know something is really wrong.

  “Are you okay?” I ask in a low voice, so no one can hear me.

  “I’m fine.” His voice is a hard clip.

  I’m beginning to get ticked off, because I’m not an idiot. “Clearly, you’re not. Do you want to talk about it?”

  Fletcher shoots an angry huff in my direction. “No. Just drop it.”

  That pisses me off even more. I don’t care about a lot of people, but I care about him. And the way he’s brushing me off when I’m only trying to help? That makes me angry, but I swallow it. He needs compassion more than he needs my ire.

  I go to him, resting a hand on his bicep. “Fletcher, what is it? Let me help you.”

  “I … never mind. You won’t understand.” He wrenches out of my hold, rather harshly, and stomps away.

  Presley looks at me quizzically, but tosses her head in Fletcher’s retreating direction, and I nod, letting her know I’m going after him.

  He’s moving at such a fast pace, I have to jog to keep up. By the time I look up, we’re a distance away from the campsite.

  We’re far enough into the trees now that the others wouldn’t be able to hear us if I yelled for them, not that I’ll need to. Fletcher’s in a bad mood, not dangerous.

  “Fletch, I’m asking you to talk to me. Don’t pull this bullshit. We’ve never done the dramatics with one and other, let’s not start now.” Maybe he’ll listen to reason.

  His forward progress halts, but he still gives me his flannel-clad back. Those big, capable hands come up to rake through his hair, and I can feel the frustration rolling off him in waves.

  When he speaks, his voice is a hoarse, pained thing. “I … have days. It’s been years since I got sober, so they’re few and far between, but they still happen. I’ll go through an entire week, never thinking once about being an alcoholic. And then, it’s like a switch flips. I’ll wake up one morning, like today, and the need to drink burns so badly in my throat that I have to physically hurt myself in order to not ravage the town in search of alcohol.”

  My gaze falls to his bruised, scabbing knuckles, and I’m surprised I didn’t see them before.

  “What can I do to help?” I ask, genuinely trying to ease
his agony.

  The look he gives me is one of utter disdain. “Nothing, Ryan. You can’t do a thing. Isn’t this what you’re afraid of? What everyone’s afraid of? That I’ll drink myself back into oblivion? I don’t even understand why you’re with me. Just … get away from me.”

  He’s angry and deflecting, and I should get away from him. But I understand him too much, in a way he doesn’t even realize.

  “Take it out on me. You have a craving? Use my body to satisfy it.” My words might sound shaky, but I’m puffing out my chest like I’m not scared of a thing he could do to me.

  I’m not scared of him, he’s Fletcher. But right now? He’s looking at me as if he could rip me in two and not bat an eye about it. I haven’t encountered this Fletcher yet, the restless addict in need of a hit.

  That expression that he might tear me down, disappear on me, fail completely in his sobriety … or all three at once. That’s what I’m afraid of when it comes to him. Except I know, just like I do with my mother, that he needs to lean on me. And despite all the warning signs I’ve taught myself, I’m in too deep when it comes to my feelings for Fletcher. I’m half in love with the man.

  So instead, I’ll sacrifice myself to this side of him in hopes I’ll get the wonderful side back.

  He comes crashing into me, my back hitting hard against a rough tree just behind me. Fletcher’s bruised and bloody knuckles catch my skull before it hits, and then he’s consuming me. Biting at my lips, kissing them so aggressively that I know he’ll leave a mark.

  Rough fingertips pull at my T-shirt and shorts, trying to shove it all aside. I can’t think straight, the rough pleasure he’s delivering in the form of his whiskery mouth to my neck has my knees buckling. My hands go to his open shirt, tracing the muscles of his abdomen in hurried circles.

  “Turn around,” he growls, half moving even though he commanded what I should do.

  Pressed up against the tree, the bark digging into my palms, I’m panting like a wanton animal, exposing myself for Fletcher to do as he pleases.

  Behind me, I hear the pull of his zipper, the ragged breaths that burst from his lungs. And then my shorts are pulled quickly down my legs, coming to rest at my ankles, above my shoes. Fletcher does the same with my thong, pulling it just far enough so that he can enter me unhindered by the scrap of lace.

  My skin crawls with goose bumps as he slides an arm around my waist, holding me flush against him. The other arm comes under my right arm and across my chest. Fletcher has a full hold on me, and I’m not going anywhere.

  “If you have to yell, bite into my arm.” He growls and then slams into me.

  I’m so shocked, my voice doesn’t even work to do that. The sensation of him invading me, the sting of it accompanied by the wetness that started pooling the minute I heard the hiss of his zipper … it’s unlike any other arousal I’ve felt before. Fletcher is possessive in a way that’s not being put on; this isn’t just some role play fantasy or kinky shit.

  This is raw. His need is so heightened, he might leave fingerprint-sized bruises on my hip. Knowing that I can be his cure … it’s intoxicating.

  Fletcher pumps me, never letting up, each of us biting our lips and each other’s arms or necks to stop from howling like wild animals. This is fucking … blind, primal fucking. It’s needing the surrender of someone else’s body for your pleasure.

  My orgasm doesn’t sneak up on me, it isn’t a slow build to a cascading waterfall of release. No, it’s a seven-forty-seven to the gut, slamming into me like a plane crash landing and exploding on impact.

  I start to scream as it crushes my organs in its wake, pleasure radiating from every cell, when Fletcher slaps a hand over my mouth. He fucks me like this, savagely, drawing my hips down onto him with one arm and silencing me with the other.

  “You save me. Only you, Ryan … only … you …”

  Fletcher breaks off in a shuddering groan, burying his face in my hair so that it muffles the dull roar he lets out. His hips jut up into me, his cock pulsing as he releases all the pent up cravings into me.

  “I can’t let you go, now. You’re in me, right here.” He moves my hand to chest, splaying it directly where his heart beats. “Please, don’t make me.”

  For the first time in my life, a man is telling me that it’s my choice whether or not to break us. Fletcher’s declaration is more than love, it’s complete surrender. Of his heart, to me. He’s handing it over, telling me that I’m responsible for keeping us whole, and not the other way around.

  I’ve waited a lifetime for someone to give me a gift like this. But now that he has, I’m not sure I can bear the weight of it.

  28

  Fletcher

  By the time we straighten our clothes and head back for the campsite, the intense craving that had been building in my chest since I woke up has completely left my body.

  In its wake though, it’s left a blackhole-sized wreckage that plagues me with every step.

  What the fuck did I say to Ryan? Why the fuck did I have to go and spill my guts on her like that?

  She’s walking ahead of me, as I instructed her to, because we’re wading through brush and branches in a thicket of forest, and all I want to do is stop her and take it all back. Is she freaked out? Probably, considering I told her when we started this that we were going to take things slow and had no pressure on us.

  What a fucking moron I am. I all but told the woman I loved her after like a month of dating.

  Not that it isn’t true, but she didn’t need to hear all that. The whole point of convincing Ryan to date me was to prove to her I’m not like the guys of her past; I wanted to get to know her and not move hot and heavy until we burned out like a shooting star. Now I’ve ruined it, because post-coital feelings grabbed me by my emptied balls and had me confessing true love.

  “I’m, uh, going to grab a shower down at the bathhouse.” Ryan’s eyes don’t even come close to holding mine as we walk back into camp.

  “Where have you two been?” My twin brother waggles his eyebrows at me.

  We ignore him as I head to set up our discarded tent, and Ryan grabs her bag to head for the bathrooms.

  “You okay?” I hear Presley ask when her friend passes, and I look to see Ryan nod and then walk off.

  I should have distanced myself … I thought as much before asking her to come on this camping trip with my family. We’ve been attached at the hip for two weeks, and if I’m not working or in my shop on the farm, I’m with Ryan. We eat almost every meal together, spend hours in each other’s beds, and she’s gotten into the habit of walking to the grocery store to meet me and walk home after my shift.

  I realized I was in love with her about five days ago when she laid two slices of almost burned bacon on my plate. Not because she was a bad cook—she claimed to be, but I found out she just didn’t like it—or because she liked them that way, but because I did. She’d cooked, an activity she despised, for me and made my breakfast food exactly how I liked it. It was so simple … but to me, it was a grand gesture.

  At that moment, I’d looked up into her sleepy morning smile, smelling that fruity Chapstick she was always wearing … and I knew. I am in love with Ryan Shea.

  I probably had been on the cusp of it for a while before that … maybe even from the moment I met her. I didn’t put much stock into love at first sight, but knowing how I felt about her now, I should have.

  After I set up our tent, I move the rest of our bags inside, unroll the sleeping bags and throw a pillow at the top of each one. We’re ready to sleep on the ground for the night, although I know Ryan is less than pleased about the arrangements.

  It’s about half an hour before she comes back into the campsite, and she’s changed from jean shorts and a T-shirt into black yoga pants and a long black tank top. The ensemble matches her hair, and when she ducks inside the tent and comes back out, there is a big wool sweater engulfing her body.

  I didn’t realize how chilly it would get out here,
it’s been a while since I’ve gone camping. Apparently, the city girl is more prepared than I am.

  Over the course of the next two hours, we all help cook dinner, eat, clean up, and then start a fire in the common area we’ve made with our tents. My nephews are sword fighting with large sticks they found in the woods, Presley and Keaton are uncharacteristically showing a lot of PDA, and Bowen is FaceTiming with Lily and the baby. Penelope is busy setting up s’mores supplies, and my twin brother is probably taking a rest in his tent.

  But Ryan is right here next to me, and I know we need to talk.

  “Hey, do you want to—” I begin, but my sister-in-law cuts me off.

  “S’mores, y’all! Come and gather round!” Penelope claps her hands cheerfully, and I think she might be more excited about the bonding than the sugar we’re about to consume.

  Me? I could use some chocolate therapy. Sugar to an addict is the next best thing to getting drunk or high. That and cigarettes, but I never much got the taste for them.

  Everyone jokes around at first, seeing who can light their marshmallow on fire or toast it perfectly. Ames accidentally drops his entire stick in the fire, and we all rag on him for his burned treat smoldering in the fire.

  “What is the thing you fear most?” Presley starts in a spooky growl, like she’s a camp counselor trying to start a scary story circle.

  The campfire flickers and illuminates everyone’s faces, and Bowen, who she turns to first since he’s sitting right next to her, ignores the question to make his fourth s’more.

  “Snakes! I really hate snakes.” Matthew nods gravely, and Forrest shoots his stepson a fist bump, as if to say he, too, is scared of snakes.

  “Laundry. I fear laundry. Especially stinky, smelly, little boy laundry.” Penelope bends her arms at the elbows and presses her palms to her cheeks, as if she’s quaking in her boots.

  The boys crack up, booing their mom for making fun of them.