When I'm with You (Hope Town #3)

by Harper Sloan

  “Coming from me as a man and not a father, know I speak from firsthand knowledge that women don’t take kindly to being pressed against a wall unless you actually remember doing it to her too.”

  Fuck me. He did not just say that.

  “And,” he continues, looking down at his monitor. “My daughter deserves better than being pushed up against a dirty wall. Don’t do that shit.”

  Without knowing what in the fucking hell I’m supposed to say to that shit, I give him a gruff sound of acknowledgment before turning and walking with just a little more speed than normal out of the dungeon.

  Nate: I’m on the way.

  I LOOK DOWN AT MY phone but decide to finish my task before responding.

  I pull the latex glove down onto my hand and grimace when I reach out to pick up one of the two dead birds right outside my back door. I had already cleaned up the broken bird feeder that had been hanging on the overhang leading into my house. My heart broke thinking that I had been responsible for two little birds dying because I hadn’t secured their feeder well enough.

  This week has been full of me cleaning crap up, it seems.

  Five days ago, a branch had fallen off one of the oak trees outside my bedroom window, shattering the window above my bed before landing in the middle of my mattress with enough force to puncture the damn thing. That, fortunately, had happened when I had been up late finishing my last piece for my show, trying to make up for the two days I missed after my birthday and subsequent hangover. Still, I made a point to have the men delivering my new mattress help me move my bed to the other side of the room—the one without a window near it.

  Three days ago, in what would appear to be one hell of a night for some bored kids, my house and two surrounding it had met the sun with a yard full of toilet paper. Enough toilet paper it almost looked as if we had a snow day.

  Not wanting to even deal with that for a second, I hired someone to come clean up the mess. I had enough going on with getting my painting done in half the time I would normally spend on a piece.

  Yesterday, my mailman had apparently decided to try his hand at crash test dummies. I got home from the grocery store to find my mailbox trampled in a vibrant display of shattered wood and crushed metal.

  And now, the damn bird feeder is murdering my feathered friends.

  I swear nothing is going my way this week. I can only hope that with Nate coming over now, I’m not about to have another wave of bad luck.

  After grabbing the second bird and carrying it to the trashcan with my arm completely outstretched, I snap off my glove and throw that in as well. Bam trails behind me the whole time, his thick head looking all over the yard as his tongue hangs lazily out of the side of his mouth. The big beast has been attached to my side since Levi almost took my head off last week. I’ve almost broken my neck more times than I can count because he decided to move his bed in the corner of my studio and drag it directly behind where I stand. I’ve even woken up to him in my bed four times this week, which is something the big pup had never done before. You would think that when a two-hundred-pound dog clambers up to your bed at night, you would wake up, but not me.

  “Ember?” I hear called from the front yard, and I look down when Bam takes off with a bark around the side of the house.

  So much for being my big shadow, I guess.

  I follow his path, going around the house instead of inside. When I find Nate crouched down, Bam is happily soaking up the attention as he scratches him from head to tail.

  “Bam, here,” I call sharply, but just roll my eyes when he flops his huge mass down on the grass and sticks all four legs up waiting for Nate to give his belly the same attention.

  Nate laughs but gives Bam what he wants for a minute before standing and brushing his hands against his jeans. Jeans that I should note are molded to his thighs and highlight the bulge in his crotch. I watch, my eyes almost crossing, when the bulge in question visibly twitches beneath the denim.

  “Em, please don’t. I can’t handle another reminder that my cock doesn’t know how to behave.”

  I snap my eyes to his, wide with shock at his words. “Uh … I’m sorry?” Really, what else could I say right now?

  “Long story, but please don’t be offended if I end up walking funny soon.”

  I can feel my cheeks heat the second I visualize him having to walk funny because of an erection.

  “Did you want to go get a bite to eat?” he asks, making me stop thinking about his dick and try to form big girl sentences.

  “I cocked. I mean I’m cocking. Fuck.” I bet my face is bright red now. How embarrassing.

  “Right, so you’re making dinner?” he questions, moving his hand to adjust himself. I watch his long fingers work the raised denim with a groan deep in his throat. “Let’s go inside, Em, and please let me go first. I’m not sure I can handle seeing those shorts going up the stairs.”

  I follow mutely, not really sure what just happened.

  Nate walks in and follows Bam as he excitedly rushes through the house and into the kitchen, his nails tinkering across the wooden floors as he leaps and jumps in front of Nate.

  I watch his ass.

  He freely admitted he would have done it to me, so it’s only fair.

  And what an ass it is.

  He moves around my space as if he’s spent every day here. He grabs Bam’s food bowl, filling it up, and then repeating the process with his water. He moves to the stove and lifts the lids, stirring the pasta sauce before grabbing the spaghetti noodles I had been waiting to put in until the water boiled. I just stand there mutely as he makes himself at home.

  He turns after the putting the noodles in and leans against the counter with a sigh. My eyes move from the stove, to Bam, and back to the huge man making my kitchen seem like it had shrunk in size.

  “I’m guessing spaghetti is good with you?” I question.

  “I love spaghetti.”

  And he does. He especially loves my mom’s sauce, something I had spent the whole day cooking at a low simmer.

  “That’s good.”

  My fingers twist together as my nerves get the best of me, and I look down at the floor. I’ve always wanted to see him moving in my space with me, but I never in a million years thought it would actually happen. It’s one thing for us to be together for family dinners or even when the gang got together to go out as a big group but never have we been alone in our own homes.

  “Why are you nervous?” he inquires, pushing off the counter with a shove and walking forward until his booted feet meet my vision.

  “You’re here,” I weakly exhale.

  “I am.”

  “I’m just trying to figure out why. Why now.” And it’s the truth. Even with the knowledge that I would open my heart to whatever was happening between us, I would be an idiot not to have a little bubble of nerves about it.

  I close my eyes when I feel his fingers brush my hair behind my ear. His warm palm slides down from my cheek until he’s cupping my neck with his thumb resting just under my chin. My head is pushed up gently and his fingers tense and flex where they rest at the back of my neck.

  “I’m a smart man, but not always a bright one. I have a lot to prove to you, but I’m here because it’s where you are.”

  I shake my head while he speaks, but he smiles, and without saying another word, he bends down to kiss my lips soft and quick.

  “Dinner first, then we get to the heavy stuff, okay?”

  I nod, not really trusting my voice, and move around him to stir the noodles. We work together as if we’ve been doing it forever, and in no time, everything is done and we’re sitting at the table with huge plates full of spaghetti.

  “God, I forgot how much I loved this sauce,” he moans, with his mouth full of his first big bite.

  “It’s just store sauce,” I lie, twisting my fork in the sauced coated noodles. Inside, I love that he realized, with his first bite, that it wasn’t just any sauce.

  “Stor
e bought, my ass. I would recognize this sauce anywhere. I used to beg your mom to come over and make it for my mom, but she would just smile and give me another huge helping. I think she thought I was joking, but let me tell you, my mom could never get it right.”

  I feel my nerves recede some and smile at him. “It’s a tricky one. You have to cook it for hours, but I loved smelling it all day when I was living there, so it’s nice when I cook it myself and have a little of my childhood memories filling my own home.”

  He drops his fork, his mouth red from the sauce, and just gapes at me. “You made this?”

  I tilt my head, chuckling to myself as I swallow my bite. “Of course, I did. How else would it have gotten here?”

  He mumbles something about a ring before shoving another huge forkful between his lips. I watch him chew, his eyes closed in bliss and his moans deep. I mutely hand him a napkin before the sauce that had been trailing down his chin could fall.

  “I figured you had just heated up some frozen shit you had from your mom.”

  I gasp. “Uh, no. The first thing my mom did when I was old enough to walk was pull a chair to the counter while she cooked to teach me everything she knew. I can make her chicken fried steak and mashed potatoes better than she can.”

  His fork falls on his plate and he looks at me with awe.

  “What?”

  “Good God, woman, don’t tease me.”

  “Promise, even my dad says so. I’ll make it for you tomorrow, er … I mean some other time. If you want, that is.”

  He reaches out his hand, his face going soft and his smile growing big. “Tomorrow sounds good, baby, but you’ll have to bring it by Dirty. I need to get some paperwork done, and Shane won’t be there to cover for the night.”

  Baby?

  Oh.My.God.

  “I can do that,” I squeak.

  “Good, it’s a date.”

  “A d-date,” I stutter.

  He just continues to smile, and even when he picks up his fork and continues to eat, that smile never leaves his lips.

  Of course, the one on my own never left either.

  AFTER THE LAST POT WAS dried, I grab Ember’s hand and pull her into the living room. She stumbles at first, and I hate that she is looking at everything I do and trying to figure out what game I’m playing. I saw it in her eyes earlier when I told her we would make a date out of dinner at Dirty tomorrow. It was written all over her face when I started the pasta, and then again, when she admitted she didn’t understand why I was there.

  She was justified in her thoughts, I muse as I drop down on the couch and pull her down to sit on my lap. I fucked up and I’m just now beginning to see just how much.

  “Ask me,” I stress, shifting her so that she is sitting sideways with her back leaning against the armrest and put one arm over her shoulder to twist one of her long locks of hair around my fingers, while my other hand comes up and rests over her fiddling hands, halting her movements.

  “Ask you what?” Her eyes widen, and I watch as her chest starts to rise and fall faster with each breath.

  “Ask me what I was thinking when you told me that you loved me the first time.”

  She jerks in my arms, and I fight back the groan when her weight rubs against my swollen cock. I tighten my hold on her with a squeeze of the hand that is holding her two captive and pull her closer to my chest.

  “I can just tell you, but I need to know that you actually want to hear it.”

  She sighs, and I know she would rather be saying anything else right now, but she does it. “What were you thinking?” There’s a slight tremor in her soft melodic voice, and I say a silent prayer that she doesn’t start crying. I’m not sure I could handle her tears.

  “I was terrified out of my mind. I had been fighting my feelings for you well before you turned legal. It didn’t matter in my mind that you were finally eighteen; there was still a gap between us that wouldn’t have been easy for us to overcome right then. You were still finding yourself, and we both know that I needed to stop being a punk and grow up. I had been drifting, content in life, even though I had dreams that no one knew about. Dreams that I’ve only now made a reality.”

  She continues to search my face as I speak. I pause to collect my thoughts, pulling her hands apart and clasping one of her tiny hands in my larger one. She sighs and I take a deep breath before continuing.

  “That wasn’t the only reason, Em. I had some stupid fear in my head that pain always comes with love. I watched some fucked-up shit happen to Dani only months before, and seeing how lust, love, and all the feelings in between can turn sour real fast, I let that fear rule me. But I also knew, even if you didn’t see it, that there was no way us being together wouldn’t cause issues within our families.”

  “It wouldn’t have,” she rushes out quietly.

  “Yeah, it would have. I wasn’t the same man I am today three years ago. I needed to wake the hell up and make something of myself. I can tell you, the man I was then wasn’t worthy of you.”

  “You’re so wrong.” She sighs sadly.

  “Yeah, well … I see things differently now, but I still think it would have been a damn hard road for us then, and I’m not sure I would have been strong enough to make sure it was one we traveled with no trouble.”

  “You hurt me, Nate.”

  I take a deep breath and give her the rest of it. “Yeah … I hurt me too.”

  She jerks in my arms, visibly shocked at my admission.

  “Denying what I felt. Hurting you to push you away. Knowing deep down that I would regret that moment for a long time coming. Being without you for the last three years, yeah … that hurt me too.”

  She pulls her hand from my hold and shifts in my lap until she is facing me with her knees on either side of my thighs. “You never acted like it,” she accuses, her hands coming up to rest on my chest as she searches my eyes, running her gaze down my face and over my features.

  “Because it was easier to act like I didn’t have a care in the world than to admit that I was wrong and risk you rejecting me like I did you.”

  And that’s the truth of it, something that I didn’t even realize until recently when I forced myself to really think back to why I pushed her away. The reasons behind denying us what we both wanted.

  “I never—” she starts, but I stop her with a shake of my head.

  “It’s in the past, Em. A wise man once told me that looking back wouldn’t do anything but make the hurt grow a little bigger.”

  “I’m not sure I agree with that,” she tells me.

  I smile. “Yeah, maybe not, but my dad’s got some years on him and he’s been through enough shit that I’m going to take his word for it. If we’re going to make anything of our future, Em, we’re going to have to stop looking in the past. All that’s going to do is stop us from creating our forever.”

  Her face is comical when I finish. Her beautiful brown eyes round and huge in disbelief. Her lips parted slightly and I don’t even need to look down to know that her tits were heaving beneath her tank top. A thought that I should have tried to ignore because, not even a second later, I watched her face flush when my cock jumped against her core.

  She shifts, and it jumps again. I quickly take hold of her thin hips with one hand grasped tightly on each side of her waist. “Don’t you move,” I demand through clenched teeth.

  Her eyes leave mine, and she drops her head. A submissive move that I don’t miss in the least. My cock pulses violently at the thought of taking control of her while I fuck her in this position. Not letting her top from the bottom while I show her who holds the reins.

  “Look at me,” I command in a hard tone, fucking thrilled when she instantly gives me those eyes again. “You need to let that go. For us to move on and forward, we can’t do that successfully if you’re holding that against me. I can’t change it, but I can promise you that I will never willingly hurt you again. Understand?”

  She nods, swallowing audibly, and I kno
w the controlling and dominating side of me that I normally only let out when I’m in the bedroom is turning her the fuck on. I always thought that Ember might be a sexual submissive but to have that confirmed feels damn good.

  “Time to move on?” I probe while looking into her eyes and caressing the soft skin at her hips where her shirt had ridden up. “This next part isn’t going to be better, but we need to clear the whole table, and in order to do that, I need you to fill in a whole bunch of blanks I have right now.”

  She goes wooden in my arms, and I fucking know she understands where I’m going with this.

  “Nate,” she whimpers.

  “I know, Ember, but I need to explain myself and I need you to be honest with not only me but yourself after I do. Got it?”

  She relaxes her body but only marginally.

  “For months and fucking months, I’ve woken up from the same dream. I’m with a soft and willing woman hot for me against a wall. My eyes never open in the dream, but even then, your face and scent filled my senses. I had never pictured anyone but you. I would wake up with the scent of lemon and wildflowers so strong in my nose that I was convinced it was real, but it always ended the same. Me opening my mouth and asking that woman’s name.”

  With every word that leaves my lips, I watch as she struggles, and loses, the fight to control her emotions. When the first tear slips over her lids, I want to kick my own ass. Hell, by the time the second one spills over, I was ready to call her dad myself and tell him I was ready to take what he had to give me.

  “When you,” she starts but has to pause when a giant hiccupping breath steals her words. “You didn’t even see me, Nate.”

  “Baby, I was so drunk, I didn’t even see me. Even in that damn dream, I’m aware of how drunk I am.”

  “When you pulled my arm as I was coming back from the restroom, I was startled at first because I didn’t know who it was. It was so dark on that side of the house, but the shadows you pulled me into made it almost impossible to see. But then you grumbled something about not being able to wait any longer. I thought you knew, Nate. You said you couldn’t wait to have me, and I thought you knew!” she screams and drops her head down on my shoulder. She turns, resting her forehead against my neck before she continues to speak. “The second you said those words and pushed me up against the wall, I didn’t even care that I was about to have sex for the first time with my family and closest friends around me in the middle of the shadows. None of that mattered because it was you, and I knew that I would be safe. Then …” She sucks in a stuttered breath. “Then in the same second I thought I would die of happiness, you pushing your thickness inside me just a bit—a place no man had ever been—you asked me who I was. There I was experiencing the best moment of my life with the man I had loved forever, and he didn’t even know who he was about to fuck. That. Killed. Me.”