Crash Lights and Sirens, Book 1

by Unknown

  Taryn raises her eyebrows, tipping her head back against the brick. It started right here in the alley in the winter, how she panicked and grabbed him without thinking about what might come after. It’s not lost on her that it did. “So then,” she echoes.

  She knows he’s going to kiss her a full three seconds before he does it, this wry, half-helpless look and the way his chin drops down an inch. Taryn straightens up and meets him halfway. It’s tentative at first, not like any of their other kisses—a sigh or an apology, their mouths hardly even open at all. Taryn keeps his elbows cupped in her palms. Their lips stick as it’s ending, the chap-block she put on in the bathroom earlier. Then she looks at him and whimpers and it’s like all bets are off.

  “Shit.” Nick’s all over her everywhere in no time, tongue and teeth and her arms around his neck ungraceful and demanding. He presses her up against the wall so tight she can barely even breathe. Taryn doesn’t care, wants him to push and push until they’re touching everywhere, every last square inch of her skin rubbing up against every last square inch of his. She bites his lip so hard she tastes blood.

  “Sorry,” she gasps, embarrassed, sucking where she hurt him. “Sorry sorry sorry, I’m so—” She’s still crying without meaning to, slow tears slipping down along her cheekbones and into the corners of her mouth. Nick nudges her face up and licks them away.

  “Shh.” He slides his hands underneath the hem of her shirt then, rubbing at her stomach and her hips and her rib cage. His fingertips trace the underwire of her bra and she gasps. “Missed you,” he tells her, thumbing her nipple through the fabric. It stands up right away, swollen and stiff and aching. Taryn tilts her head back so he’ll put his mouth on her neck.

  “Missed you,” she whispers back. It’s a bad angle, him nearly bending in half to get at the skin behind her ear. Taryn squirms anyway, wordlessly begging for more of it. “Missed you awful. God, Nick, it was so bad—”

  “I know.” His hands have left her breasts, running down and around to palm her ass roughly, then down again to cup her thighs. He tugs, and Taryn jumps obediently before she knows she’s going to do it. Her feet leave the ground in a rush.

  “So bad,” she repeats, curving her arms around his neck to help. Her entire back gets dragged up the wall with the lift, hard enough for bruises. The sidewalk is only a few feet away, streetlights and the possibility of foot traffic, of someone turning their head and seeing. Taryn doesn’t care at all.

  “For me too,” Nick is telling her as he winds her ankles around his waist, as easily as if he were moving a rag doll. “It was terrible.” Which is nice to hear, but Taryn can barely process the words. He’s so hard against her, between her legs and everywhere, his burning-warm stomach and chest. Already she’s almost comically wound up.

  “Please,” she gasps, trying to rock her hips. He’s got her pinned, her tailbone to the brick. “I need—”

  Nick takes over the movement, pressing into her even harder, this quick, dirty grind that feels equal parts amazing and obscene. Taryn nearly sobs in relief, dragging both hands through his hair. When she uses her nails, Nick growls. For a long, long minute they stay at each other like that, desperate and clumsy as teenagers, open mouths and saliva and the jarring clank of teeth. Finally Nick gets a hand on the scruff of her neck to stop her. There’s a twitch there too, his lower body jumping in a way that makes Taryn suspect that he almost—

  “Fuck,” he pants, breaking away. His lip is still bleeding sluggishly, smudged all over his mouth and probably her skin too. It’s vivid enough that Taryn can see the color in the dark. “We need to get out of here.”

  They do. Taryn doesn’t want to though. She doesn’t want to go anywhere that will involve him moving, even for a second. She wants him to come in his jeans. “Where’s your truck?” she asks instead, rubbing a thumb across his lip. If she looks closely enough she can see the bite marks, two neat punctures where her teeth sliced in. Her thumb comes away red, and she sucks it clean.

  “We’re not making up in my truck, Falvey,” Nick says, watching her mouth like he’s hypnotized. He lets her down far enough that the toes of her left foot touch, freeing up one hand to slide between their bodies. His fingers find her clit easily, even through the denim.

  Taryn whines, rolling her hips. “We’ve done it in your truck plenty of times,” she points out, panting herself.

  Nick huffs a laugh against her cheekbone. “Not now.” His lips are warm on her damp skin, hot breath and the rough scrape of beard. “Not this time.”

  Taryn makes a frustrated sound, arching herself into his touch—she could get off just like this, she’s pretty sure, his strong fingers still working down in between her thighs just how he knows she likes it. “Take me home then.” She looks up at him and shakes her head, worried he won’t understand her. “I mean, like. To your house.”

  Nick raises his eyebrows at that, ghost of a smile across his good, good face. “Okay,” he agrees quietly. And making up, that’s what they’re doing, they’re finally finally— “Let’s go home.”

  He’s parked in the lot on the far side of Old Court. Taryn texts Doc a super-quick don’t worry as they spill into the bucket seats and speed out in the direction of his neighborhood. Nick runs every yellow light on the way across town. The one red they get caught at Taryn all but climbs across the seat with impatience, licking her way into his mouth as gently as she can manage. They’re still kissing thirty seconds later when it flicks over to green, both of them startled by the honk from the car idling behind them.

  “Whoops,” Taryn mutters, giggling, sitting back and sliding one hand down to chart the length of him through his jeans as he hits the gas in the Tahoe. Nick groans low and deep in his throat. She feels wound up and giddy, relief and anticipation battling it out in her chest. She scrapes one fingernail along his zipper and wonders idly if she could finish him before they make it to his house. She wants to watch his face when he comes.

  It’s five or six miles, maybe. It feels like it takes all night.

  He holds her hand on the way up to the porch, keys jingling, the sound of Atlas skittering down the hallway as the tumblers fall in the lock. Nick nudges her inside the door. Taryn feels shy all of a sudden, like now that this is happening she doesn’t know what to say to him, like she wants to tell him he’s already her family and she doesn’t know how to start. She bends down to scratch the dog behind the ears. “Hey, Atlas,” she tells him, grateful for the furry distraction as she was the first day she ever came here, when she was so new and so nervous and trying like hell to convince them both she wasn’t either one. “Hey, buddy.”

  “Taryn.” Nick kisses her again then, his durable body sturdy against hers, fingers threaded. Just like that, Taryn feels herself steady out. “Come upstairs with me.”

  “Yeah, okay,” she says, pressing her face into his neck. “That sounds good.”

  Here’s how Nick finally lets himself believe this is happening: together in the master bedroom, both of them stumbling on the IKEA area rug as they kiss their way to the four-poster, Taryn pulls back and says, “So, like. Just to clarify, I’m really sorry.”

  The whole trek up here, she hasn’t let go of him once. Even on the stairs, which were too narrow for both of them, she twisted her arm around to keep holding his hand.

  “I’m sorry too,” Nick tells her, smoothing back that pretty red hair. It’s already mussed, a leftover work braid not quite surviving the transition to night. He reaches around for the elastic, tugging the whole mess free and running his hands through the tangles. “We’re fixing it. We’re gonna fix it.”

  Taryn nods wordlessly, stopping at the edge of the bed and holding up both arms so he’ll pull her shirt off. Nick takes care of her bra too, a plain, familiar black, feeling something close to relief at the sight of her peachy nipples. He missed her. It’s all hitting him at once, how badly he did.

  At least he’s not alone. “Come here,” Taryn murmurs, even though he’s standing r
ight in front of her. She yanks off his thermal and presses their bare chests together, going up on tiptoes to get the contact she wants. Underneath the softness of her breasts, her rib cage expands and contracts violently. “Fuck,” she says, curving shaking hands around his shoulders. “Fuck, Nick, I can’t—”

  “Shhh.” He nudges her to the bed and sets to work on her jeans, peeling them down her freckled legs. She’s wearing those flat, slip-on shoes that mean it’s finally spring. “Me too.”

  Taryn wiggles, breathing hard. “Hurry,” she commands. Her underwear is a heathered gray, so completely wet through it’s startling. Nick cups her through the sticky fabric, dropping down on top so they’re face-to-face again. “Please,” Taryn says, butting her head at his. Her fingers scrabble for his belt as soon as it’s in range. “Please, I just need—”

  Nick has an idea what she’s after, this all-consuming impatience to fit them together. He wants it too, needs the contact like icing a bruise. He lets Taryn tug his cock free and yank her panties down her legs, bent on skipping all and any preliminaries.

  But then, just as soon as she has him there, she stops. “Is this okay?” she asks, sitting up and peering through the dim. “I mean.” She pushes her hair out of her face impatiently. “I didn’t, with anyone else. Did you—”

  Nick feels the air whoosh out of him in a rush. “No,” he promises, right away and fervent. “No, of course not, I didn’t—”

  “Oh, thank fuck.” Taryn giggles a little hysterically. Then, like she’s worried she said something wrong, “I mean. It would have been fine if you did. It would have been totally reasonable if you did, I’m the one who broke up with you, I know, I just—”

  “Sweetheart, I didn’t.” He pushes her onto her back then, crawls on top of her and notches himself inside her slippery body, sliding so deep and so fast that both of them gasp. Taryn’s thighs grip tight tight tight around his waist. She feels so good, Jesus, so close and slick and hot around him. Nick swears before he can stop himself, forehead dropping forward onto her smooth, freckly shoulder. He presses a kiss there while he’s in the neighborhood, nips at the salty-sweet skin of her neck.

  Taryn laughs again at that, low and breathless. “Yeah,” she gasps. “Yeah, I—” She breaks off as he starts to move, feet planted on the comforter and her pale knees opening wide to accommodate him. She’s so insanely, heartbreakingly soft. Nick balances his weight on one arm and gets his free hand on her, petting up her rib cage and down across the cliff of her hip bone, turning his wrist and reaching low in between them to work two fingers over her clit. Taryn tilts her head back and whines. He’s not going to last long like this, not this time, but he’s sure as shit going to get her off before he loses it. He wants to touch her everywhere at once.

  They’re fixing it, he reminds himself shakily, glancing a kiss off the side of her mouth as he rocks inside her. He can calm down now, they’re fixing it, it’s fixed. Still, Nick thinks he might open his eyes and look at her and find his heart beating inside her hand.

  “Okay,” he says after a minute, long steady thrusts and her riding from underneath, her nails in his hair sending prickles down his neck and spine. “Okay, just let me—” He flips them then, fast and violent and the warm weight of her body as she gets situated on top of him, all that hair spilling over her shoulders. Taryn tucks herself flush against his chest and hangs on. “Didn’t want anybody but you,” he tells her, mouth pressed against the curve of her small, pretty ear. He trails his knuckles down her backbone, cups her ass and traces one curious, slippery finger down lower. Taryn’s head comes flying up in desire and shock. “Never want to do this with anybody but you.”

  “Oh my God,” she whimpers, knees bearing down into the mattress, and that—that is a sound Nick’s really missed hearing. She isn’t moving on him hardly at all. He hasn’t touched her here before, not seriously, and doing it now feels almost unbearably private. The vulnerable pucker of skin is enough to make him think no, no one else. Not ever again.

  “Easy,” he says, rubbing gently. When he tries pressing the tip of his finger inside Taryn’s entire body jolts skittishly, one muscular surge from her ass to her cunt and those gray, gray eyes glued to his in astonishment. Nick pauses again, letting her get used to it.

  Still, the look on her face—it isn’t a bad jolt.

  Her reaction confirms it. “Oh my God,” she repeats, warm breath fanning across his face. “That feels…” She trails off helplessly. Both her hands are on his shoulders now, fingers as rigid as claws. She tosses her head, starting to rock. “Keep it there, okay?”

  Nick swallows. “Okay,” he agrees. His voice has dropped to an unrecognizable register. She is so goddamn tight, everywhere he’s touching and some places he isn’t, those skinny biceps corded; feeling her work herself onto his cock and finger both is nearly too much. Nick pulls one of her hands free of his shoulder and slides it down between their bodies as insurance, pressing it into place over her clit. He wants to make it good, so good she never forgets. He wants to ask if he’s the first one touch her like this, knuckle-deep in the hard ring of muscle.

  “You mine?” he says instead, gritting his teeth against the hot clutch of her body. Taryn nods, wide eyed and distracted—a yes, definitely, but Nick still feels like his heart is sitting on her open palm. He wants to hear her say it. “Hey,” he mutters, boosting her so they’re face-to-face. It sinks his finger deeper, and Taryn makes an inhuman sound. He has her attention now, no question. “You mine for real?”

  This nod is double time, hard enough to shake her whole body. “Yes,” she gasps. “I didn’t want anyone else either—I don’t, I mean. I love you. Nick Nick Nick, I love you so much it’s stupid.” She leans forward to say it, flexing and bearing down on him everywhere, and just like that Nick’s arching.

  It’s the words, more than anything else. Even Nick has to admit it’s the words.

  “Fuck,” he gasps, caught off guard. He tries to pull out, stop himself, but he has nowhere to go underneath her and he’s already coming anyway, sloppy and helpless. Taryn twists her hips as soon as she realizes what’s happening, clenching on him to draw it out, not letting him back off an inch. Nick closes his eyes, breathing against her downy shoulder.

  “There you go,” she murmurs as he finishes, biting at his jaw. She doesn’t sound especially upset, all told. “God, love seeing you do that. Thought about it for forever.” Her voice in his ear is a croon, shifting movements like she’s too turned on to sit still. Nick gets the feeling she held back her orgasm on purpose.

  “Sorry.” He winces anyway, rocking his twitching cock up into her. “Wanted to wait.” It hurts, too sensitive now, but he can hold himself inside and he’ll live. His finger is still buried in her too, nearly to the second knuckle. Nick can’t tell if the squirming means she’s angling for more or trying to ease the pressure. “Is this okay?” he asks, curling it.

  Taryn gasps sharply. “Jesus Christ,” she huffs out, that same giggle from earlier, like her feelings are getting away from her. “Yes, it’s okay, it’s way better than okay, just—” She squirms again, and yeah, more is what she’s after here. Nick gives it to her slow and easy, watches as the smile leaves her face in favor of a different expression entirely. “Shit,” she murmurs, strawberry-blonde lashes dropping closed so she can concentrate. “Don’t stop.”

  Nick knows that look, how close it means she is, skating right along the edges of it. “Not stopping,” he promises, pulling her even closer so her hand’s trapped down in between them, as much friction as he can possibly give her. “Not gonna stop.”

  It doesn’t take more than a few seconds like that, shallow thrusts and the crook of his finger deep inside her like, come here. Taryn tumbles over on a loud, ragged groan. “You’re perfect,” Nick tells her again and again as it’s happening, fucking her all the way through it. She doesn’t need the encouragement by now but he wants to tell her anyway, wants to make sure she hears him and believes. It’s not lik
e it isn’t true. He can feel her orgasm absolutely everywhere, how tight and desperate she’s holding on.

  Taryn goes near-boneless on top of him once she’s finished, heat radiating off her in satisfied waves. Nick eases himself out as carefully as he can, squeezing her warm ass before he wraps both arms around her and plants a kiss in her tangled hair. “So, um,” she says, nudging her head up underneath his chin like a cat, offering her salty fingers up for him to suck clean. Nick only thought to kick his jeans off halfway through. “That was new.”

  Nick hums his agreement, scraping his teeth over the pad of her index finger. The first one, he thinks again, liking it probably more than he should. Fuck if he’s not going to do his damndest to be the last. “Good new?” he asks, grinning in spite of himself as she bites at his jaw.

  “Full new,” she replies right away. Then, ducking her face shyly, “Really good.”

  She settles in like she’s looking to cuddle but Nick’s not finished with her yet, not even close to done. He eases her onto her back and kisses her sweaty thigh, slow and gentle. The coppery hair between her legs is totally soaked. At the beginning she was keeping it shaved but Nick likes it like this too, likes that she’ll let him see it. “Whatcha doin’?” she asks, popping up on her elbows to watch.

  Nick smirks. “What’s it look like I’m doing?” he says, using two thumbs to open her up. She’s swollen now, violent pink and the salty-bleach smell that comes from him and her combined. Nick likes her like this best.

  Taryn hmms agreeably, bending her knees up and away to give him some room. Still, “This breakup was my fault,” she points out, voice sing-songy and breathless. “Don’t work too hard.”

  Nick laughs, he can’t help it, her fucking ridiculous fixation with debts. “Right,” he says, bending her legs up even farther and sliding a pillow underneath her hips. “Because that’s why I’m down here.” He nips her to prove his point, teeth marks on the sensitive inner curve of her ass. She tastes familiar, sharper than Maddie ever did, like her body is hell-bent on announcing itself. Nick rubs at her sticky pubic hair, fitting his tongue along where she’s the wettest. “Now shush.”