The Vow (Manhattan Nights Book 1)

by Natalie Wrye

  I push the need I feel as far down as it will go. I turn to her.

  “Elsie, I…” But the sound of a shuffle inside the apartment makes me stop. I listen closer… and the shuffle happens again. Muffled. Muted. Just a few doors down. Deeper inside the apartment.

  My heart stops cold.

  I instantly spring into action, swinging Elsie behind me. The wide look in her eyes tells me she hears the noise too, and suddenly a rage I never knew I had springs forth making every bit of my body clench. I slide one finger over my lips, silencing Elsie’s small gasp. With one step to the side I reach for the commemorative baseball bat on the wall, a relic of my old athlete days, and squeeze my fists around it. My pulse leaps into my throat. Motioning for Elsie to stay behind, I creep farther into the suite, my arms raised, my stare centered on the center hallway as the shuffle comes closer to the corner, the quiet ruffle of clothes adding to the soft sounds from a person walking in my home.

  No, not a person. A stranger.

  Someone I’m ready to fucking bash into oblivion. I settle into a stance, hiking the bat higher as I crouch at the knee, preparing to swing. When suddenly a light cuts on. And my shop manager, Heath Sparrow, emerges from it.

  “Fuck on a biscuit,” he calls out, nearly stumbling backwards as he finds me around the corner. He squints. “Brett?”

  I lower the bat, breathing hard. “No. It’s the fucking Dalai Lama. Yes, Heath… Of course it’s me. It’s my fucking house. What are you doing here?”

  He places his hands on his hips, lowering the hood of an expensive jacket. He shrugs. “I came here to talk to you about the second shop. The one we wanted in Manhattan.” His brown eyes barely blink, his smile widening. “We got it.”

  I let the bat drop to the floor. “No shit?”

  “Yes, shit,” he answers, holding up a piece of paper I hadn’t seen until now. “We’re in. I came here to get you the sign the contract…” He lifts his shoulders before letting them fall. “But then Erika called. Said she’s in town.” His grin grows wicked. “And I went to your bedroom because I knew I needed condoms. Man, this chick… She’s got this trick she does that makes me…”

  I hear a clear and distinct “Ahem” behind me as Heath trails off. A slightly amused Elsie steps forward, and she gazes at the man in front of us as if she’s known him all her life. That’s the thing about Elsie.

  She makes you feel at home. With a wicked humor and a smile that could melt an ice cream cone, she’s always been able to disable even the strongest of men and my business partner is no different. The second Heath Sparrow looks into her eyes, I know he is a goner. Just as I was. And a spark of jealousy somehow ignites like a small flame under my skin.

  I turn to offer up space to them both. “Elsie Carpenter,” I wave a hand towards the blonde, taking the contract and signing it. I hand it back. “Meet Heath Sparrow. My business partner. Friend. And the most intrusive bastard on the planet.” I glance at the smirking guy on my left. “Heath, this is Elsie.”

  He extends one hand, smiling way too damned hard. He grabs her palm, shaking it. “Pleasure.”

  “Likewise.” She smiles back, grimacing. “I think. Depends on where that Erika sentence was going.” Her eyebrows lift.

  Heath shakes his head. “Nowhere I’d like to revisit right now. I didn’t know we had company…” His head tilts. “Beautiful, uh, female company.”

  “So to join in on this conversation, you can’t have tits?” Elsie tilts her head right back, and Heath’s mouth drops.

  “Alright, you two.” I step between them as they start to laugh. “That’s enough. Heath…” I look back at my business partner who’s ruffling his own brown hair, his eyes curious as they flit from Elsie to me. His biceps bunch under his jacket as he crosses his arms over his broad chest. Hell, he’s been beefing up.

  If he had been an intruder, it would have required more than a bat to take the smart-mouth out. And right now his stare is too intense at Elsie and me. Last thing I need is the ball-breaking New York native sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. Not him. Or anyone.

  What Elsie and I have is unfinished, and I can’t risk other people getting involved unless I know how it’s going to end. I start to escort Heath out.

  “As always, Heath… Nice to fucking see ya. Please don’t come again. Take your consolation prize and go, ya fucker.”

  He begins to head out as I follow. He turns. “Does that mean I get to keep the condoms?”

  My stare sears into his face. “Sure. All you’ll have to do is extract them from your throat once I’ve finished ramming them down your mouth.”

  He takes the Trojan box out of his pocket, sitting it gingerly on the kitchen counter. “I’ll just… leave these here then.”

  I nod. “Good idea.”

  Heath keeps walking. Suddenly he pivots. “Hey,” he calls out to me.

  “Yeah?”

  “We did it. It’s all fucking happening. Our second shop out of the million more to come. On the best block in the borough. There’s nothing like our shop in Greenwich and we’re going to teach those moneyed asswipes how we do things in Brooklyn.” He salutes, raising his hand to his hairline. “See ya, partner.”

  “As long as it’s not in my house,” I shout after him. But he’s gone.

  And when I lock the front door behind him, I turn and discover the most gorgeous woman I know I will ever fucking see, staring at me, her brown eyes fixated softly on my face. She leans against the kitchen counter, her gaze roving me up and down.

  “So…” she starts, a small smile stretching over her face. “Here I was, worrying about thieves, and you’ve got some in-house ones of your own. You’re certainly a man of mystery, Brett Jackson.”

  I stroll towards her. “There’s no mystery about it. Heath is my business partner.” I sigh, sliding my hands into my pants pockets. I think back on the man who just left my apartment, one of two people I trust in this fucking city. I sit on the edge of one of my leather kitchen stools, expelling a long breath. “He backed me with my tattoo shop when no one else would. He was a customer…” I shake my head laughing. “When I didn’t have a pot to piss in. Just working at some obscure shop on the other side of Brooklyn.” My eyes narrow. “The owner didn’t know his asshole from a hole in the ground. I was basically the only reason the bastard was receiving business and he tried to fire me when I asked for more of the money I was bringing in.” I scoff. “Prick was skimming a huge percentage out of every single session we had. A fucking nightmare.”

  “And the guy I just met…” she points towards the closed front door, “backed you?”

  I grin. “Don’t look so surprised. Heath isn’t as dumb as the grinning bastard looks. He’s a trust fund kid, coming from a family who’s made of old New York money. Blue blood bred and raised, he was the bread and butter of his family until his father found out he dropped out of Harvard law.” I inhale. “All to use his inheritance to do what he really wanted: Revolutionize the tattooing industry.”

  “Wow.” Elsie’s eyes go wide. “That sounds intense.”

  I stare at her unblinkingly. “It was. He sacrificed a lot to get here. There’s no thief in the kid. Truth be told… he doesn’t need anything from anyone. He’s still sitting on millions.”

  “And it’s made him so humble, I see.” Elsie smiles. “So, a second shop is in the works, then?”

  I clench a fist on top of the marble counter, thinking of Reed Hutton and his arrangement. Thinking… of the deal concerning Sophie. My chest starts to tighten. “Yeah. It’s been in the making for a long time. It’s a dream I’ve always had. I just wish my family could be behind it.”

  Elsie stands straighter, her brown eyes blinking fast. “Your family…? Wait, I thought that…”

  I rise to my feet, heading for the fridge. I open it before Elsie can say anything further, grabbing a beer bottle, which I twist towards her, my head buried between the chrome double doors. I clear my throat. “Hey, you want a beer? I think
I’m through talking about Heath.”

  She shrugs sadly as I rotate towards her, her shoulders slumping as she stares at my face. She reaches a hand out grabbing the bottle in my hand, and she clutches it towards her, the words she started to say still hanging on her mouth. Elsie nods with a forced smile. “I guess… I mean, sure.”

  Her eyes shift around the room, her stance slouching. I can see the questions in her eyes, but I’m not ready to answer them. Not about my family. Not about Sophie. Or my “Reed arrangement.”

  In fact, I’m not ready to do anything but to chase the encroaching nightmare away with Elsie, who looks so soft, so warm. So sad for the man in front of her who refuses to say anything more about the family who doesn’t give a fuck. The father who’s disowned him. And the sister who sits and ignores it.

  Vows be damned. The weight of the world suddenly feels like it’s on my chest. The second shop. Heath. The new TV show. A brutal Manhattan.

  All my worries comes barreling over me, and with the cold beer bottle in my hand, I set the brown glass and all of these fucking fears aside, reaching for the only piece of reality that gives me any peace.

  I slide the drink across the kitchen counter, grabbing her by the arms, and when Elsie releases her bottle back onto the marble surface, I tilt her chin towards mine, staring into her almond-shaped eyes. She doesn’t blink as I lift her face with my fingers, lower my head to hers… and kiss her.

  Chapter 12

  ELSIE

  I never knew I could want a man as much as I want him.

  The tiny glimpse of vulnerability in Brett Jackson is something to behold, and as I watched him talk a little about his life, his losses, his journey, I wanted to reach out to him. To hug him. I wanted to pull him close into my body and share the memory of his misery, one I’ve felt so acutely myself in a strange city with no recourse, no mercy, no roads back home.

  We’re a long way from Kansas, Toto.

  Our Midwestern upbringing was sheltered in the most brutal of ways, and in a way, I know it’s taken Brett to fly far from our coddled Kansas City homes to find himself, to figure out what made his heart beat the hardest.

  I knew what it was long ago. I always knew.

  His absentminded scrawling. The art classes. The sketches he’d drawn of me.

  Brett Jackson was our high school hero, a sports legend and notorious heartbreaker. With blue-green eyes and a bright smile, he waylaid ever person who crossed his path, winning them over with his athletic abilities, his wit, his charm.

  And I’d watched from up close and afar. So close to the action. And yet so far away from a boy who was beginning to grow into a myth more than a man, a living legend with our tiny world’s expectations placed on his broad shoulders.

  It’s always why I believed he fled our little town at eighteen, quitting school and moving to New York. No one knew what became of him until almost six years later on the cusp of becoming twenty-four, he opened up his own tattoo shop to rave reviews and an already waiting fan-base.

  I read those reviews. Every one I could get my hands on.

  While the rumors swirled of Brett Jackson’s descent from hero to zero, I paid attention to his rise on the Manhattan scene, a meteoric climb to becoming the tattoo toast of the town. And right now, that “toast” is taking a detour to my thighs, his lightly-leathered hands rubbing from my side to hip, his rough kiss driving me completely and utterly crazy. Every neuron in my head goes numb. Pressed into the hard kitchen counter in his overpriced penthouse, I let Brett Jackson—boy wonder, man of mystery—crush my body into his, his mouth a caress. Breathless, my body shaking, I pull back just as our kiss begins to deepen, my lips tender to the touch as I lick them. I look up at the brown-haired Adonis holding me close, inhaling as deep as I can. I let go of a shaky breath.

  “What are you doing?”

  Brett blinks. “What you won’t. What I shouldn’t.” He kisses me chastely, pulling back. “What we need.” He grins. “I couldn’t hold back any longer.”

  “You make us sound like dogs on a leash.”

  He snorts on a soft laugh, his stare scanning over my lips. “If anyone’s a dog here, it’s me. But I can’t deny you, Elsie.” He gaze goes back up to mine. “I can’t deny this. I know we made a promise. To never cross this line again. But there’s a reason we’re both here in New York. There’s a reason for right now. To be honest… I don’t know what the hell it really is.” His aqua eyes glow. “But I know I want to explore it.” His voice lowers. “Explore you… If you let me, Elsie. All of this—everything—is up to you.”

  But I can’t think, let alone move or talk while our bodies are so close. He smells like the rain. Clean and crisp. A fresh, lightly smoky scent, the skin that is pressed against me is almost as intoxicating as the stare—the one that intensely searches mine, excavating answers, digging deep enough to find only fucking desire, I’m sure. I’m so turned on I can’t speak. My voice is little more than a sigh. I bite my bottom lip, trying to control my tongue.

  I fail.

  “We can’t throw caution to the wind, Brett. We have Kayla to think about. And even if we didn’t, we have history, too much past. We’ve practically watched each other grow up. Often slept in the same house.” I scoff out loud, a blush hitting my cheeks that I can feel burn. “For God’s sake, you’ve seen everything. You’ve seen me at my worst.”

  He chuckles, a seductive low sound. “My sexy sweet Elsie. You don’t get it, do you? In my eyes… you have no worst.”

  And what he says is enough—enough to break down my last barrier. I say nothing as Brett lowers his lips, catching mine again. The kisses start off soft—tentative even. They build with each passing second and soon we are inhaling each other in—twisting, tangling, tangoing our tongues to taste as much of the other as freaking possible. The pressure is perfect, our mouths made to fit. I feel every inch of Brett’s hard, broad chest against mine and as he clutches my body towards him, my nipples standing at attention, the friction between us grows almost frenetic, the pleasure against my sensitive peaks climbing almost to the point of pain. Especially when Brett removes his hand from my hip, slides it up over my stomach and starts to stroke my breast, his fingertips slowly circling my hardened nipple. I can’t stop my head from falling back.

  With one thumb he presses on the pink nub, pulsing his thumb. My heavy breast in his hand, a guttural groan on his mouth, Brett surprises me, trailing his lips to my neck which he bites softly, a laugh echoing from his slightly scruffed throat. He lifts his mouth.

  “Fuck. You taste better than I remember. How do you do that?”

  I open my eyes, staring at the ceiling, my arms still clutched around Brett for dear life. “Do what?” I whisper, desire still pumping through.

  “Be perfect,” Brett mutters against my skin. “Every part of you.” His voice rumbles low. “Every pulsing… wet… inch.” His hands go even lower as his tone takes on a needy pitch, his soft words rumbling. His fingertips reach my waist. But instead of stroking there, they roam gently below my belly button, sinking into the top of my shorts, descending until they reach my panty-line, parting the lips that sit there. I moan as Brett finds my clit and rubs it with his thumb.

  “Oh my God,” I sigh.

  “Oh, I’m ‘God’ now?” Brett chuckles, still kissing my neck. The laughter stops. “The name is Brett, Elsie. And I want to make sure you don’t forget. You forgot me once before… I won’t let it happen again.”

  He slowly trails his lips to my collarbone, brushing the thin straps of my camisole aside, his teeth taking a small bite at the center of my chest. I watch as his mouth shifts it attention to one breast, his lips pressing over one cloth-covered, soaking the cotton there.

  My chest heaves so hard I think it might burst. I want to tell Brett so bad. To mention that I’d never forgotten him. Never could.

  But as his teeth and tongue tease at my stretched nipple, I become wholly unprepared for his next trick as he takes the two lightly stroking
fingers playing between my legs and plunges them into my pussy. I cry out from the pure instant pleasure, my head sinking forward as Brett pumps his fingers inside me, curling their lightly calloused tips. My body starts to build to climax, my voice twisting into a whine that I wish I could stop.

  “Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.”

  Brett removes his mouth from my breast, gazing up at me. “Brett, Elsie. It’s Brett.” He stands straighter, stretching to his full height. His insistent fingers never stop, and I come, my body jerking as he swirls his thumb against my clit, his palm joining the fray to drive me fucking insane. My nails dig into his tight forearms, and he never flinches. Brett gazes down at my face with a smile.

  “So fucking sexy, Elsie. So sweet.” He removes his hand from my shorts, his shoulders lowering as he grips my thighs with his palms, lifting my legs. He sets me on the counter, swallowing. His voice is rough.

  “I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you, Elsie.” He traces the fingers that were inside me at his lower lip—tasting, and I shut my eyes to keep from coming again. I need him so fucking bad. “Everything about you. Your lips. Your taste. And I want more, Elsie.” His aqua eyes drill mine. “And I was hoping you do, too…” His words trail off, turning gruff and guttural—the need inside of him choking each word. I know… because I feel it too. He’s asking my permission. And I’m only too eager to give it to him, my fingers splaying across the counter, ready to reach for the abandoned condoms… when my cell phone suddenly blares.

  I glance down quickly. Fuck. I’d forgotten that it was still in my front pocket. I wriggle my fingers inside, pulling it out to check the screen. My eyes widen when they hit the name splattered across it. I squeeze my eyes shut, swearing. Shit.

  It’s Kayla.

  I surprise Brett and me both when I answer it, a smile plastering itself to my face. “What’s up, Kay?”

  Her voice is unusually breathy, her pitch just a tad too high. She rushes over her words. “Is he there? Did you make it? I talked to Brett about what happened back at your apartment.” She pauses. “I’m sorry, Elles, but I had to. You were being so stubborn. And someone had to help out.”