But it was still early, and she wasn’t ready to see him go. She didn’t feel like being alone. Figuring she had nothing to lose, she opened the door and turned to look up at him.
“You want to come in?”
He seemed taken aback. “You’re not mad at me?”
“What? Of course I’m not mad at you.”
“I mean, back at the Café—if you’re gonna catch a lot of shit because of what I said, I wouldn’t blame you for—”
“No, I won’t. Or maybe I will, but I don’t care. Come on, I don’t wanna stand out here. There’s Shiner in the fridge.”
He settled in the living room while she went to the kitchen. As she popped the caps and carried the beers to the couch, she remembered how, not two hours ago, she’d been planning to jump his bones. This wasn’t really the mood she’d been going for, and she didn’t know how to fix it.
She kicked off her shoes and sat down next to him. He fiddled with the label on his bottle before asking, “So…you’re really not mad at me? Because you sure look like you’re mad. I mean, I can feel it.”
She took a big swig of the cold beer and sighed. “I’m mad. But not at you—at myself.”
“Why? You didn’t do anything.”
“That’s just it. I didn’t do anything!” She collapsed back against the cushions and stared at the ceiling as she relived her mortification, not only at Susan’s awful behavior but at her own cowardice as well. “I didn’t do anything, I didn’t say anything, I…I just sat there while she went on and on about werewolves and evil.”
“What was all that stuff about suffering evil on the earth?”
Sara snorted in disgust. “That’s standard Apocalyptic preacher talk. The Bible says thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, and Apocalyptics figure the same must be true of sentients.” Did she hesitate as she said the word? She’d often read it on web sites and chat rooms, but to actually use it in conversation was weird. She hoped she sounded natural, not like some hick trying to act sophisticated. “I don’t know why they added the part about going upon the earth unchallenged—maybe because if they said you had to actually hunt the sentients down and kill ’em, it would mean going out in the big, bad world, and they don’t have the guts to do that. Plus, you know, there’s sentients out in the big bad world, and they fight back. So instead, everyone hunkers down in their nasty little Apocalyptic towns, and if some poor fae or shifter happens to show up once in a while, by God they don’t go unchallenged. ’Cause there’s nothing braver than a crowd of pissed off bigots after the sun goes down.”
He’d been laughing softly as she explained one of the finer points of Apocalyptic theology, but at the oblique reference to mob violence, he sighed and shook his head.
“That shit’s so wrong,” she added, “but I—”
“It is?”
“Huh?” She turned her head to look at him. “It is what?”
“It’s wrong? I mean, you think Susan’s attitude towards sentients is wrong?” He sounded perfectly natural using the word. But then, he was from Houston—he hadn’t grown up being taught that all non-humans were evil.
She took a deep breath. “Yes. I know it’s wrong. I know the Devil didn’t make them, and God doesn’t hate them, and they’re not out to destroy humanity.”
“Wow,” he said softly, with a crooked grin. The way he was staring at her made her feel hot on the outside and gooey on the inside. “You’re really not like everybody else around here, are you?”
She never could seem to look him in the eye. There was something about him that intimidated her, but in a very “God, I hope he backs me up against a wall” way, not a “God, I hope he doesn’t kill me” way. So she stared at his mouth instead, and the gooey feeling got worse. “No, I’m not.” It gave her a huge, dangerous thrill to sit here and admit something like that. “You’d be surprised how different I really am.”
His eyes searched her face for a long moment. They were sitting there, next to each other but not touching, and just before she became unbearably itchy (and gooey) beneath his scrutiny, he said gently, “I think I have a pretty good idea. And I’m glad you didn’t say anything, angel.”
“You are?”
“Yeah. I’m not from around here, and I’m not going to be here for much longer. I don’t have to care what people think. This is your home. You’re gonna have to see these folks for the rest of your life, so—”
“The hell I am.” Her throat constricted at his casual mention of leaving town soon. Well, she would be leaving town soon too. If she hadn’t already been so good at hiding her feelings, the urge to cry, or maybe throw up, would’ve been hard to resist. But a long-term relationship with Nash had never been in her future.
Why did she have to keep reminding herself about that?
He looked surprised. “You’re not going to come home for holidays or anything?”
“Hell, no. When I’m gone, I’m gone. There’s no one here for me but Wendy, and she can visit me in Marshall, or wherever I end up.”
In fact, she planned on dragging Wendy out of Luxor at some point. But she had to rescue herself first.
“Staying away might be harder than you think, Sara. No matter how much you don’t like this place, it’s your home.”
“It won’t be, not once I’m out of here. I hate this town! I swear to God, I do. I hate every person in it except for Wendy and maybe three other people.”
“What about the rest of your family?”
“Especially the rest of my family.”
The force of it overwhelmed her, leaving her shaking all over. “I hate this backwards-ass, narrow-minded, locked-in-a-fucking-time-warp piece-of-crap dump.”
“Hey. Hey, come here. It’s all right.” Nash took the beer from her hand, setting both hers and his on the coffee table. Then he wrapped one strong, warm arm around her shoulders and pulled her in tight against him. She inhaled deeply, savoring the scent of him, shivering as he gathered her hair at the back of her neck and laid a kiss atop her head. “You’re getting out.”
“December isn’t soon enough,” she said against his chest. “Tomorrow wouldn’t be soon enough.”
He laughed into her hair. “Well, I’m glad it’s not tomorrow. I need more time.”
“What for?”
“To get to know you better. Every time I turn around, you’re surprising me. I keep thinking I’ve got you figured out and then it’s like, hey, here’s something new.”
She shrugged, even as his words set her heart to pounding inside her rib cage. “There’s a lot of stuff I don’t know about you too.”
Her face was still pressed against his chest, and she liked it there, but he’d stopped stroking her hair. Something in his body, some subtle tensing, made her look up.
He wasn’t smiling. His brows knit together as he stared at her with an unreadable gaze. She got a sudden, sick feeling in the pit of her stomach—a feeling nothing like the excitement and arousal of two hours earlier, or the warm comfort of one second ago.
“What? Please don’t tell me you’ve got a wife stashed away somewhere. Or a girlfriend or a murder conviction or something like that.”
He mouth quirked in an embarrassed kind of smile. “No. No wife, no girlfriend, no felony convictions. Come here.”
“What? I—whoa!”
He put his free hand under her knees and scooped her into his lap. Now both his arms, with those chiseled, bronzed biceps, were wrapped around her. One hand rested on her thigh—between her legs, scorching her right through her blue jeans—while the other one warmed her back through her cotton shirt. Lord, he smelled good. Whatever cologne he was wearing, she wished she could spray it on her sheets and roll around naked.
“What’d you do that for?” she asked in a shaky voice.
“Trying to get comfortable, so we could talk.” His smile said he knew he was turning her on. Somehow the hand on her back had slipped inside her shirt, where it now traced tiny patterns of fire across her skin.
&nbs
p; She twisted a little, trying to get comfortable on his legs.
“Hmm. That’s good,” he said. “I like that.”
“Like what?”
“The way you’re wriggling in my lap.” He ran his hand up to her stomach. She gasped as heat flared through her body, her legs going limp and tingly. Instinctively she covered his hand with hers, pressing it harder against her. If he moved it the teeniest bit downward, she’d start ripping her clothes off. It had been so long since—
“I didn’t know you didn’t like your family.”
“Huh?” Hadn’t he been about to kiss her?
“Your family. I didn’t know you didn’t like them.”
“Oh. Um, yeah. We’re not close.”
“Your grandmother raised you, right?”
Why were they talking about this? Why didn’t he kiss her?
“Yes. But I moved out when I seventeen.”
“Why? Why didn’t you stay there ’til you graduated and then go to college?”
“Because…it’s a long story. It just— It wasn’t a good place for me. I needed to get out.”
“Okay.” He reached up to pull a strand of hair out of her face. “What about your uncles? Are you close to them?”
“I don’t—no. No, not at all.”
“Why?”
“That’s a long story too. Why are you—wait.” She froze as she realized where this was heading. “Wait. Did someone tell you about my family? Is that why you’re asking?”
“Huh? No, I— Wait a minute, where you going?” She was wiggling again, only this time it was to get off his lap. He tightened his arms around her. “Wait. Wait a minute, stop. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to— Okay, yeah, I was prying. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to figure you out.”
“Figure me out how? What’s there to figure out? I don’t like my family. I didn’t have a happy childhood, and now I avoid them, even though it’s kind of hard to do in a town this size.”
“So that’s why you’re moving to Marshall?”
“It’s one reason, okay? If you want to know about my family, ask the guys at JP’s, but it’s not really something people talk about around here.” He’d either understand what she meant or he wouldn’t.
“No, that’s okay. I’m interested in you, not them. What about the werewolves?”
“What?”
“The werewolves. You knew something about them. I don’t think most people around here know about werewolf culture, and if they do, they sure as hell don’t talk about it.”
“I wasn’t really thinking. It slipped out.”
“But it means you’ve read about werewolves, right? You’re interested in them?”
He still wouldn’t let her off his lap, but she put her hands on his chest to push him back. “Nash, why are you asking me these questions? Why do you—?”
“Look, I’m sorry, I—damn. I sound like a freak, don’t I?”
“No. Well, yeah, kind of.”
“Okay. Let’s start over.” He finally loosened his hold and she scooted back, her legs still in his lap. She tried to smother her moan when he started rubbing her foot, but she couldn’t help it. So, smiling, he went to work with both hands while he talked.
“It’s just that you’re nothing like I thought you’d be, you know?”
“No. What are you talking about?”
He let out a frustrated sigh, as if having trouble finding the words. She didn’t mind waiting, because what he was doing to her feet was almost—almost—as good as sex.
“All those times I sat in your section and talked to you, I had no idea, and even after I first asked you out, I assumed you were like everyone else around here.”
“Oh. And I’m not?”
That made him laugh out loud. “No! And don’t act like you don’t know that! I figured you were some sweet, backwards Apocalyptic babe who was working in the diner ’til you found someone to marry and have babies with. And then you’d spend the rest of your life in Luxor, hiding from the big bad world.”
That was exactly how she thought of everyone else in this town, even Wendy, and exactly what she didn’t want to be. But for a second, she was tempted to defend Luxor. Even if she hated it, even if she wanted out more than anything, it stung to hear an outsider talk that way about the people she’d grown up with.
“Well, if you thought I was so backwards and everything, what the hell did you ask me out for?”
That grin again. “Because you were so hot. And I was lonely.” His strong, supple fingers were massaging the balls and arches of her feet, and she decided that this was, in fact, better than sex. “And then I find out you’re taking college classes and you don’t want to birth a bunch of babies and grow old in Luxor. And that was cool, that was interesting. Then, tonight, I find out you don’t like your family—” now his grin turned evil “—and you have a thing for werewolves!”
“Hey!” Embarrassed, she slapped feebly at his arm, but she was too blissed out and enervated by the foot rub to sit up and really hit him. “I do not have a thing for werewolves.”
He reached under her to pinch her butt. “Maybe you do and you just don’t know it.”
“I don’t!” God, it was like he read her mind sometimes. Was he hacking her Internet account? How could he know about her fascination with shifters, or her desperate dream to meet someone, anyone, with fae blood? “I think they’re interesting, all right? I don’t think they’re evil. Just because they’re not human doesn’t mean they’re not, like, you know…”
“People,” he said quietly.
“Yeah! People.”
“You see? You’re amazing. How many people like you are there in Luxor?”
“How would I know? We’d never talk to each other about it.”
“Exactly! Jesus, you’re adorable. Come here.”
He grabbed both legs to pull her back onto his lap. And before she could say anything, he finally—finally—kissed her.
It wasn’t their first kiss, but it was the hottest, the longest, the deepest they’d ever shared. His tongue was cold and sweet from the beer, and she shivered as he slipped a hand back inside her shirt—the front, this time, where it rested hot against her stomach. His other hand gripped the back of her neck, holding her head still as he plundered her mouth. He was warm—oh, he was so warm—a big, hard-muscled blanket she wanted to wrap around herself and never take off.
He ran a knuckle under the wire of her bra. She moaned at the friction of the calloused skin against the tender underside of her breast.
He started to withdraw his tongue, so she put both hands to his face, reveling in the scratch of his stubble against her palms, hoping to stop him from breaking the kiss. But his mouth slid down the front of her neck, his tongue delving into the hollow of her throat. She threw her head back as every stroke sent shivers of fire coursing through her limbs. The hand beneath her shirt slid down to her waist, his big fingers deftly unzipping her jeans before slipping inside, over her panties. Her legs parted completely of their own volition, and then he was cupping her mound, his skin rough and hot through the thin, damp cotton.
His mouth moved lower as she arched against him. Her hand shook as she tore at the buttons of her shirt. All she could think about was his hot mouth on her taut and aching breasts. The second she pushed the lacy cotton aside, Nash groaned and took one hard nipple in his mouth. She cried out at the tremors racking her to the core. Her body was on fire, burning from the inside out, and she exulted in it.
She buried her hands in that tangle of blond curls and pressed his head against her breasts, writhing against him. He wanted her to wriggle? She’d wriggle. She couldn’t stop.
But apparently he could.
He broke the kiss with a gasp. “Sara—wait.”
A loud cry of disappointment escaped her.
Resting his forehead against hers, he wrapped his arms around her while he struggled to calm down. He had a raging erection—she felt it digging into the underside of her thigh—so why the hel
l had he stopped?
“Nash?” she said weakly. “What’s going on?”
“We can’t—we can’t do this.” He sounded as if he couldn’t catch his breath, as if he were in pain. “We just…not tonight. Not like this. Not…not tonight.”
“Why not?”
“You—” He stopped, swallowed, took a deep breath. “You have to get up early and work a double, and if I keep you up all night—which I would—you’ll be exh—”
“That’s crap.” She grabbed his face again, forcing his head up. She wanted him to look her in the eye, but for some reason, she couldn’t meet his gaze. That only pissed her off. “I’m a big girl—I’ve worked plenty of doubles on too little sleep. Now why did you come in here and get me all worked up and then stop?”
He hugged her harder. “There’s something we need to talk about,” he mumbled into her neck.
“Fine. Let’s talk.”
“Not tonight.”
“Why?”
“Because— Because it will take a long time, and it’s complicated, and—we should do it tomorrow night.”
“I’ll be tired tomorrow night.”
He laughed hollowly. “Good. Then maybe you won’t freak out as much.”
“Why would I freak out at all? What the hell’s going on?” She put a hand to his chin and tilted his head back so he’d have to look at her. “Did you lie about the wife or girlfriend?”
“No. Sara, I swear, I don’t have anyone else. I didn’t kill anyone, I’m not a fugitive or anything. I just have some things I need to tell you, something I need to ask you, and I’d rather do it tomorrow night. Can you wait? Please?”
He looked so sincere, so concerned. She’d never seen him so serious, and while it scared her, she still wanted to hear what it was.
After a long pause, she sighed. “Fine. Tomorrow. You want to come over here?”
“Yes. I’ll be here at seven.”
“Okay. I’ll cook dinner.”
Finally, he smiled again. “That sounds great.”
He stood up with her still in his arms and walked to the door.
Ready to Run: Werewolves in Love, Book 3 Page 2
