Calla’s heart constricted in her chest that he’d remembered. They’d been stargazing in the bed of his truck on his vast acreage one night after a picnic dinner. Nash had forgotten to buy some wine to go along with their meal, so she’d grabbed what Ezra had in the fridge, not realizing it was cheap strawberry wine until Nash opened it.
As they talked and laughed and became reacquainted with the lives they led now, ironically, Strawberry Wine came on the radio and he’d asked her to dance—right there in the middle of one of his pastures under a batch of twinkling stars the size of saucers.
It was the moment she knew she wanted Nash. It was the moment he’d confessed that, long ago, he’d wanted to ask her to the End of Summer Fling, but he’d stopped himself from divulging how he felt in order to let her go off to college.
But tonight, as the words to the chorus began their melancholy tune—Like strawberry wine and seventeen; a hot July moon—he repeated the very words he’d spoken that night in the pasture. “Would you do me the honor of dancing that dance I was damn stupid not to ask for eleven years ago?”
Her eyes filled with tears when she held out her hand and he drew her close. The subtle shudder of his chest against hers, the heat of their bodies when their hands connected and he swept her off into a slow waltz, made her stomach flutter with anticipation.
She didn’t hold her head in typical waltz pose. Instead she let it rest on his shoulder and closed her eyes, inhaling his scent, woodsy and fresh, absorbing his strength.
This thing between she and Nash was real—rich in texture; deeper, layered--more than any relationship she’d ever had to date.
This was the moment Winnie had described to Calla when she talked about her husband Ben.
This was knowing exactly what you wanted. This was accepting someone else without reservation, faults and all.
This was unconditional, passionate, mature.
This was love.
Chapter Five
Nash filled her wine glass, the clear liquid illuminated by the candles he’d lit by the dozen all over his house, their flickering glow turning his great room into a soft haze of muted colors.
They’d left the dance shortly after their song was over, sneaking out, if one could sneak in Paris, to hop in his truck and make the drive back to Nash’s ranch.
The ride was softly quiet, a cooler breeze blowing in from the windows he’d left cracked, pushing her hair about her face. The dashboard lights had highlighted his strong jaw and wide hands, one of which he’d entwined with hers as she sat beside him on the bench seat.
They’d slid from the truck without words, both lost in the magic they’d discovered with one another. What she loved most about Nash was, words weren’t always necessary. He knew her by her expressions, by her body language.
She knew his, too—knew how frustrating this wait had been for both of them. Tonight his body said a million things, one of which was, “Be my lover. Finally. After all this time.”
She took the wine from him and smiled, still waiting for her nerves to kick into overdrive. Yet, she was calm, ready as she settled onto his couch.
She loved this room, a room he called the great room, chock full of black-and-white pictures of his parents, now retired in Florida, and his brothers, one still in college and the other a financial advisor in Dallas. An entire wall above the stone fireplace was dedicated to his parents and siblings—a family that supported him always, through Skype, phone calls and Facebook posts.
It was one of the things she loved most about him—his sense of family. Their imprint was everywhere in this room, one that had once been his parents’ home.
He’d updated it, added touches that were all Nash, like a weathered saddle, the one his father had used when he was growing up, now mounted on the wall over the hall entryway. Warm hardwood threaded throughout the adjoining kitchen, where shiny appliances and copper pots hung above a reclaimed-wood island.
Sinking down beside her on his overstuffed couch, Nash said, “So, I guess ‘let’s get naked now’ would be totally unromantic?”
Calla ran her finger over the rim of the glass and giggled. “Nah. You’ve been a good egg about this, Cowboy.”
Nash ran his thumb along her lower lip before pushing her hair back over her shoulder. “It was my choice, too, Calla. I’ve waited a long time for this. I wanted it to be right.”
“Me, too…” she whispered without a single hitch in her voice, smoothing a hand over the dress.
“So, you wanna talk about what you mentioned earlier today? You know, before we see each other’s stuff?” he asked with a grin, removing his Stetson and dropping it on the long buffet table just behind the sofa.
It was now or never. Still, she didn’t experience even a shred of panic as she took his glass and set it on the end table nearest Nash and rose, pulling him up along with her and making the walk down the long hall to his bedroom, a thrill of anticipation racing along her spine.
To her surprise, it was dark, but the moment they entered, Nash snapped his fingers, creating a warm, tropical breeze and a beachfront scene in the wide set of windows. Waves lapped at the white, sandy shore, gentle and soothing, a palm tree swayed beneath a buttery moon.
It was one of the illusions Nash was so good at creating, and her heart skipped a beat that he’d remembered how much she missed the ocean.
“Ohhhh!” She murmured her pleasure, smiling up at him. He didn’t use his magic often. It was technically reserved for extreme circumstances, making his efforts even more special. “Warlocks have their advantages.”
He chuckled, a deep, sexy sound to her ears, filling them with everything Nash. “I know how much you miss water since you left Boston. I thought I’d surprise you,” he whispered against her ear from behind, circling her waist and pulling her against the shelter of his chest.
Calla leaned into him and sighed as his hands roamed over her hips and down along her thighs, humming her pleasure at the instant response he evoked between her legs.
As Nash began to move upward, his hands settled just under her breasts and that was when she turned in his arms and looked up at him. “So that talk…”
Dipping his head, he captured her lips, sliding his tongue between them, sipping at her mouth, sending wave upon wave of heat throughout her limbs. His cock was rigid against her, straining beneath his jeans. “All ears.”
Forcing herself out of his arms, she grabbed his strong hands and gave them a squeeze before she let go and took a couple of steps back, swallowing hard. “I’m just going to show you, but I want you to listen very carefully to me, Nash. If you’re upset at all, even a little, please, please be honest. And if you can’t say anything at all, I’ll take your silence for an answer, and leave, and we don’t ever have to speak again.”
He’d removed his blazer and dropped it on the floor, leaving only the tight stretch of his white T-shirt across his pecs as he crossed his arms over them. His eyes, so deep and blue, grew concerned. “Okay, now you’re worrying me. Never speak again? That’s insane. Are you going to shift? Because I already told you, I don’t care what you look like in shift, Calla. I’ve seen werewolves before.”
Licking her lips, she took a deep breath, her chest expanding. “No…it’s more…it’s something else.”
With that, she pulled the tie on her belt and let the most amazing dress she’d ever worn slip to the floor, leaving only her bra, panties, and heels.
Nash hissed his pleasure, a pleasure so obvious his eyes darkened in response, but he remained quiet as she’d requested.
The moment the dress hit the floor was the moment her confidence followed right behind it. Her shoulders deflated and her stomach rolled.
“Calla?”
Oh God, what had she been thinking? This was a mistake. She should have told him before doing this bizarre version of show-and-tell.
No. She’d done that before and it had exploded in her face. Seeing was so much different than hearing the words.
You must do this,
Calla. You can’t go on denying yourself—and Nash—the level of intimacy you both so desperately want. Sex is part of every healthy relationship, and you need to know if this is something Nash can handle because if it’s not, you’re moving on faster than you can say “yeehaw”.
Kicking off her shoes, Calla unsnapped the front closure on her bra and let it fall open—the soft gel prosthetic in the left cup dropping to the floor.
Instantly, her hands went to protect, to cover the space where she should have a breast, but then Nash was there, gripping her wrists and holding her arms away from her body.
He looked down at her, examining every square inch of her exposed flesh until she thought she would crumble at his feet, until her limbs shook and her heart throbbed hard against her ribs.
And then Nash looked into her eyes, searching them, reading her emotions, letting her hands go in favor of wiping the single tear dripping from the corner.
Calla held her breath as she tried to hold his gaze. She wasn’t ashamed of her deformity, for lack of a better word. She wasn’t even ashamed that her pack considered her inferior.
She was ashamed that anyone considered her body less than—that, for its lack of proportion, it deserved more critical attention than her brain or her heart. She was ashamed that she had once thought those same things, too—that she’d allowed anyone to crawl inside her head and twist her sense of self.
But she wasn’t ashamed anymore, and even the small niggle of fear Nash would reject her, would find her repulsive, didn’t keep her from standing up straighter and wiping those thoughts from her mind.
This was who she was, but it wasn’t all she was.
If Nash turned her away, it was on him. She was more than a missing piece of flesh.
“This? This is what’s been troubling you all this time?”
Her mouth went dry at his astonishment. “I was born this way, and I can’t have a surgical implant because the silicone and my shifts would never mesh,” she blurted.
“And?”
He’d caught her off guard, knocking the wind out of her sails. She’d expected surprise, anticipated disgust, maybe even a bit of fear. But he gave off none of those things.
“A…and what?”
“And so what?”
Relief, in all its knee-melting, limp-limbed glory, washed over her. “You don’t care?”
His eyes flashed brilliant colors under the moon he’d created; his jaw was tight and clenched. “I care about you, Calla. You. Your heart. Your mind, the way you treat the people of this town. The way you baked cupcakes for old man Patterson’s birthday because his son was stuck in Hong Kong on business. I care about your strong ties to your grandfather, your loyalty to your friends, the wall full of pictures you encourage the kids to color for you at the center. The way you patiently tell Gus he absolutely cannot look up your skirt without breaking a sweat. I won’t say your body isn’t a big part of your appeal, and I won’t tell you that part of that is the way you fill out a pair of jeans, because I’d be lying. I’m insanely attracted to you. But that attraction has many, many layers, Calla. Only one of which is your body.”
Calla gulped, speechless. She’d only had a few lovers in her rather long lifetime, and while a couple truly hadn’t cared about her breast, they hadn’t cared about her, either. Not the way Nash did. So it hadn’t mattered if they’d accepted her in her entirety because she hadn’t wanted them for forever.
“Do you hear me, Calla? If this is part of the reason you’ve held off making love with me, then we have no reasons left not to, do we? Because I don’t care,” he repeated, sliding the straps of her bra over her shoulders and down along her arms until she was almost entirely naked.
Another tear slipped from her eye, but Nash wiped it away with his callused thumb. “I love you, Calla Allen. You could have no breasts, two heads, three eyeballs, and I’d still love you.”
“That’s a lot of eyeballs.”
He rolled his eyes and laughed down at her. “And a lot of mascara I’d have to wait for you to put on before we go out to dinner. But not my point. Do you hear me? I. Love. You. Now say it back so we can break out the condoms and the lube and get this party started.”
Letting her head fall back on her shoulders, she laughed, forgetting she was almost naked, forgetting everything but the idea of seeing Nash just as naked.
Rising up on tiptoe, she cupped his hard jaw, her fingertips smoothing over the stubble. “First, we don’t really need birth control. I’ll explain the mating cycle of a werewolf later. But bring on the birth control and KY anyway—because who says no to lube? Oh, and I love you, too, Nash Ryder.”
And that was all either of them needed to say. She pulled him to her then, lifting the edges of his T-shirt and driving it up over his head. Her heart crashed in her breast at the sight of his bare chest—smooth with only a sprinkle of dark hair between his pecs.
He was strong from long days working the ranch, his abs so defined, they almost didn’t look real. Her fingers went to the smooth expanse of skin stretched tight over rippled planes, reveling in the heat under her palms when she skimmed them over his dusky nipples.
Nash groaned his pleasure when her hands surfed down his abdomen to the wide buckle of his belt and tugged it open. Her mouth watered when she popped the button and unzipped the zipper, dragging both his pants and his boxer-briefs over his hips.
Nash kicked off his boots, leaving him with nothing but his black socks. Calla’s breath hitched in her throat when she looked down. His thighs—heavily muscled—flexed and bulged; his cock stood rigid and thick, pushing upward.
The air in the room grew still despite the warm breeze he’d created. She’d never seen a man as beautiful as Nash Ryder. Every inch of him, from his gruff, chiseled face to the lean cut of his hipbones, was bronzed, lickable.
He wiggled a finger between them at her lace panties. “Ahem. Those have to go. Take them off before I tear them off, and that would be a shame because they’re pretty dang hot.”
His approving eyes on her, intense and amused at the same time, left her feeling alive, sexy, so she shimmied the pink-lace scrap down over her hips and to her feet in a flirtatious manner.
“So the rumor about Miss Dottie’s is true,” he said, his voice tight and thick, the muscles of his neck working.
Calla smiled, planting her hands on her hips. “I guess it is,” she responded teasingly, her heart crashing against her ribs, heat pooling between her thighs.
Nash wiggled his finger at the spot on the floor directly in front of him, his grin rakish. “Here. Now.”
Calla closed the space between them until they were but an inch apart and then Nash hauled her into his arms, molding her to him, their flesh meeting for the first time, making them both groan into each other’s mouths.
She saw stars when his tongue dipped between her lips, stroking hers as his hands roamed over her back and down along the cheeks of her ass. Strong, callused, skilled, his fingers teased her, avoiding the space between her legs until she wanted to beg him to touch her.
Nash walked her backward toward the bed until the mattress hit the backs of her knees and she was sitting on the cool comforter. Placing himself between her thighs, he knelt before her and slid her bottom to the edge of the bed.
Her hands instantly wove through his thick hair, loving the feel of the silky strands threading through her fingers.
Nuzzling her chin, Nash moved along her jaw to her earlobe and whispered, “I can’t believe how beautiful you are,” before he wrapped his hand around the length of her hair and tilted her head back until her neck and spine arched in unison.
“Spread your legs, Calla,” he ordered husky and low as his tongue wisped over the length of her neck and over her collarbone.
She was vulnerable in this position, her soul as naked as her body. Yet, there was no hesitation—no fear.
He nipped at her skin, setting it on fire with each rasp of his tongue. Nearing her breast, Nash leaned into her,
letting his head rest against her chest.
Her unconscious impulse was to pull him away when she stiffened, but Nash kept a firm grip on her hair. “Don’t. Don’t ever hide from me, Calla.”
Her shoulders sagged and as he let her hair go, and her head lifted, she glanced down at him, his face nestled at her chest. The stark contrast of pale skin and his dark hair made her stomach clench, her heart twist and shudder.
Then he took his first swipe of her tight nipple, making her forget everything but the heat of his tongue, the white-hot need settling between her legs.
Nash cupped her breast, rolling his thumb over her peaked nipple, chasing that thumb with his mouth until her hips bucked upward at the raw, achy pleasure he was evoking.
Calla’s hands went to his head again, keeping him close, savoring the scent of his arousal, the hard press of his body against hers.
Splaying his hand over her belly, he gave her a gentle nudge, pushing her to her back and spreading her legs wide. He hooked her knees over his broad shoulders, dropping kisses along her inner thighs, making her squirm with anticipation.
Her mouth was dry, her senses keen when he spread her wet flesh and took his first stroke to her clit. Her hips bounced upward in response to the wicked feel of his tongue on the most intimate part of her body, her chest went tight as she gripped the comforter with hard fists.
Nash hummed approval against her, stroking, licking, tasting before sliding a finger deeply within her, thrusting, pushing against her body.
Her pulse raced as hot flames licked at her veins, a swirling vortex of desperate need building until Calla thought her eyes would roll to the back of her head.
She almost came, the pleasure was so deep, but he withdrew, sensing the tightening of her body, making her cry out when he removed his finger, soothing her with his hands as he ran them over her thighs.
Her body shuddered, trembled with a need so sharp, she wanted to scream at him to finish her off, make her come until she was wrung dry, but Nash was determined to keep her on that ledge.
Nash began to stoke her throbbing clit again in long, slow swipes, slipping his hand beneath her ass and pressing his mouth flush to her.
Romancing the Paranormal Page 43
