by Lainey Davis
Nicole squeezes my hand as she walks beside me. I rub her wrist with my thumb and assure her this is going to be great.
“I’ve never run more than ten miles,” she tells me, her voice quiet as we make our way through the throngs of people.
“Ten is the typical big training run before a half marathon,” I assure her. “You’ve trained your ass off, Nicole. Why would this make you nervous, but you can stand on a stage and ask a room full of billionaires to part with their moldy money?”
She shrugs. “It just never occurred to me that I couldn’t convince the billionaires to part with their money.”
I pause and turn, putting my hands on her shoulders and leaning my forehead against hers. “Nicole Kennedy, there is nothing you cannot do,” I tell her. “Except beat my brother Liam at Scrabble. We have established that you are terrible at that.”
She swats at my shoulder. “Dickface.”
“I’m going to put my dick in your face in a few hours.”
I tease and poke at her until the start gun, and then she’s all business. She doesn’t chat for the first few miles as we run along the boardwalk. The course wends its way into the state park and, once we grab a sports drink at the six mile mark, she finally says, “I feel great.”
“You look great,” I tell her, grinning.
“You’re not bored senseless running with me? This slow?”
“Nicole, we’re not going that slow. And I’m not here to compete against you this time.”
“Well, what are you here for, then?”
Easy question. “I’m here to look at your ass in spandex.” That gets a laugh from her and in what feels like no time, my girlfriend is shrieking in delight as she crosses the finish line for her first half marathon.
“We are so doing that again,” she says, cramming a banana into her mouth at the finish line. “That was amazing.”
“Next we do the full distance,” I tell her. And before I can catch myself, I say, “If you’re going to join the Brady family, you’re going to need to work up to the full.”
Her face doesn’t crumple when I say that. She doesn’t slap me or kick me in the shin. She takes a long swig of water and wipes her mouth with her wrist. “Sounds like a good long-term goal,” she says, and stretches up on her tip-toes to plant a kiss on my cheek. “You taste salty,” she says.
“So do you,” I counter, and I lick her forehead, immediately regretting it when I get a mouth full of sunscreen.
Nicole laughs, though, and takes my hand in hers. “Let’s go and shower with our medals on,” she tells me, practically skipping back to the hotel. “Does this get old? This feeling when you finish a race?”
I shake my head. It doesn’t. But that’s not entirely why I feel as giddy as she does today. “Seeing you reach this goal feels amazing, Nicole,” I tell her, a wash of emotion charging through me as the adrenaline from the race subsides.
“Aw, Zacky,” she teases, using my father’s nickname for me as she walks backward, grinning. “Glad to help you feel good.”
But she does make me feel good. Every day I’m lucky enough to spend with her, I feel good. I feel like my same self, but somehow more. I realized that sparring with her electrifies me. Running with her brings new life to the sport I’ve competed in for as long as I have memories. Taking Nicole to breakfast in the mornings with my family, and watching them give each other shit like long-lost siblings makes me feel more content than I ever felt possible.
“I love you,” I blurt out to her, realizing the truth of that statement with a fierce conviction. I bend down to scoop her into my arms and kiss her, spinning around on the sidewalk as people point and cheer.
Nicole, catching her breath, looks into my eyes for a long beat before she says, “I love you, too, Isaac.”
And then, smiling, sweaty, satiated, we rush back into our hotel room and seal our confession with our bodies. We join together, fierce and slick and fast, and I chant, “I love you,” as I drive into her, wanting her cells to hear the words, to know the truth of them.
After, she curls against me like a comma, tapping her race medal against mine. “I’d say you deserve a medal for that performance, but you’re already wearing one,” she teases. I smile, pulling at one of her curls and watching it spring back. “I want to frame these,” she says then, her face serious as she looks up into my eyes. “I never want to forget the day I achieved this fantastic thing.”
“Babe, I always knew you could do this,” I tell her. But she places a finger over my lips and shakes her head.
“Not the race,” she says. “No, Isaac Brady, today I swallowed my fear and told a man I love him.”
“Who is this man? Do I need to have him killed?” I kiss the finger she puts over my lips again.
She closes her eyes. “Nicole?”
“Hm?”
“I’m not ever going to let you forget who said it first.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Nicole: Epilogue
A WHILE LATER…
“Can you repeat that?” Isaac looks at me like I’m bananas, which might be true. I waited until I sucked him off to break the news to him, so he was all calm and post-orgasmic and more likely to listen to me without arguing.
“I need you to move out of your house,” I tell him. “Mine is better, anyway, and I’m sick of you not being around on the daily.”
He closes his eyes and grins. He thinks I’m just being romantic. I sigh. “Seriously, Isaac, I need your house.”
“You need my house?” Isaac cracks one eye open and looks at me, puzzled. “Like, for storage?”
I sigh. This is going to be harder than I thought. Normally, Isaac and I get away with not sharing deep feelings too often. Like once a week we each squeak out something deep and then we fuck after until it feels safe to look at each other again.
I swear I’d been meaning to bring up the idea of us living together. This external crisis just sort of exacerbated the issue. “So,” I say, trailing a fingernail down his chest and loving watching the goosebumps rise on the flat skin of his stomach as I do. “You know my friend Maddie…”
He nods. “That feels good.” I twist my wrist so all four of my fingers are tickling his stomach skin. He groans.
“Well, Maddie needs a place to stay sort of urgently. And I want you to give her your house.”
His groan changes tone and he rolls onto one side, propping his head up on his hand. “I need to talk to you about that, then.”
“What?” He looks serious and grabs my hand, kissing the fingers that had just been tickling his skin.
“Well, you’ve been hinting about moving in together lately.” He looks at me like he’s stalling.
“Out with it, Brady. What did you do?”
He closes his eyes and spits his words out rapidly. “I put my house on the market and got an offer right away and accepted it and I close in a few weeks.”
I sit up, crossing my hands over my chest. “Well, that’s fucking amazing for us. We’re going to fucking live together and it’s going to be amazing.”
“Why does it look like you’re pissed off, then?” He raises one brow.
I roll my eyes. “Because of Maddie, asshole. We need to help her.”
He wraps his long arms around me and I curl my head against his shoulder. He feels safe, like always. Solid. Terrifying. Exhilarating. “Let me think about it. My dad owns a bunch of rental properties,” he murmurs. “Let’s try, like, telling each other about these big things and brainstorming together.”
I shake my head against his skin. “That sounds like a terrible idea.”
“Just awful,” he says, biting my ear lobe. I feel him getting hard again, his length rising up against my side as he cradles me in his lap. “This is going to be our bed,” he says. I nod. “I want to fuck you in it.”
“Yes, please,” I tell him, trying to wriggle out of his arms. He pulls them tighter around me, holding me still and using his nose to nudge my face up toward his. He p
lants a kiss on my lips and we just sit there for what feels like an eternity, kissing and holding each other. I feel vulnerable this way, but also supported.
Neither of us has a strong foundation in healthy relationships or communication. Neither of is good at emotions. But ever since we took the leap and committed to sticking by each other, we’ve been learning. Together. And my god, there are benefits to learning to love with Isaac Brady.
He slowly lowers me back toward the sheets, his lips dancing kisses down my skin, his hands skating toward my thighs, where I’m slick with need. “I owe you some pleasure,” he growls, “after you blew my mind just now.”
Feeling good is new to me. But I’m getting used to it. Every day with Isaac is a new opportunity to figure out what I want, what I need, and to plan out how I’ll get there. He’s always supportive, offering snarky comments for the good ideas and serious-yet-constructive responses when I suggest something harebrained.
I settle back on the sheets, my hands tracing his ears, his hair as he crawls down my body. “That blowie was just to lull you into agreeing to give up your house,” I tell him. I suck in a breath as his lips press against my clit and he starts working his fingers inside me. “But that backfired.”
“Poor Nicole,” he whispers, lapping at me with his tongue. “Always thinking of others, always getting shafted.”
He licks and sucks while his fingers pump in and out of me, my hips jerking up to meet him. “I want to get shafted, Isaac,” I yell, tugging at his hair. “Right now, please.”
He pulls back from me with a grin on his face. “Whatever you say, boss,” he says, and buries himself inside me in a single thrust that sends my eyes rolling back in my head.
“Oh god, yes, Isaac. Yes.” He drives into me, the angle of his pelvis providing the perfect friction I need. After his tongue primed me for liftoff, it takes only a few thrusts before I’m tumbling over the edge. “I love you I love you I love you,” I shriek, coming hard around his cock. I feel my muscles pulsing around him.
He meets my eyes, breathing heavy, and pants, “I get so turned on watching you come, babe. Fuck, you feel so good.”
“You, too, Isaac,” I moan. “Come with me,” I plead. And he does. His eyes boring into mine, I feel his body stiffen as he chases his own pleasure and tumbles over the edge with me. Together.
###
Thank you for reading!
Liam’s story, Suspension, is coming Summer 2020.
Curious about Tim and Emma and the other Stags?
Why not check out The Stag Brothers series!
Tim and Alice start things off in
Sweet Distraction
