Nash Brothers Box Set

by Carrie Aarons

  “I don’t open up about that much.” My voice has a warning tone.

  Presley’s eyes weigh my change in demeanor, and she moves toward me across the exam room.

  “I understand that. There are things I don’t talk about much.”

  Chance snorts where he lies on the table, and we both chuckle at how much we’re boring him. Presley’s on the same side of the room as I am now, and my fingertips spark with the need to reach out and touch her. We’re alone, the only two people in this whole building, and it’s too tempting.

  She may have shot me down more times than I’d like to count, but that mysterious pull is still there.

  “And there are things I do. Stupid things.” Presley inches closer.

  Her perfume, a sweet vanilla with a zing of citrus, tickles my nose. Her steps are silent as she tiptoes toward me, and all I can do is stand here uselessly. The nerdy high school boy takes over my body, and I just can’t believe that this beautiful creature is looking at me the way she’s looking at me.

  “Are you going to kiss me, Keaton?” She blinks up, her expression vulnerable.

  I have to lick my lips to get the words out, my throat is so dry. “I don’t know. Last time, you didn’t want me to.”

  Presley is so close now that the soft fabric of her T-shirt brushes against mine. The tiny bit of friction shoots straight to my loins.

  “But now, I’m ready.”

  Those two words are all I have to hear to step into her space, slide my hands into her hair, and gently tilt her head up and to the side so that I have the best angle on those full, peachy lips.

  Presley lets out a soft sigh right before I lower my mouth and kiss her.

  Slow and searching, I press my lips to hers, leading this dance of ours. Her eyes flutter shut a moment before mine do, and then my four other senses are left to their own devices. She presses up against me, the fabric between us suddenly suffocating. Our mouths move in tandem, a caress here, a nip there, a lick to explore.

  One hand strokes her silky locks and the other moves down to her jaw, tipping it up to give me better access. I push my tongue in, lapping at hers. The intimacy is seductive and I’m so turned on that I don’t even think before removing my hand from her hair and bringing it to her hip. I grind against her, holding her steady so she can feel how hard she’s making me. It’s painful, this arousal, and the need to touch more, see more of her, is sharp in the air.

  We kiss like time has stood still, deep and longing as if this is the air we’ve always been meant to breathe but haven’t swallowed it until right this moment. And I know now that I’ve never really a kissed a woman, not until Presley. All of those years, I thought I’d been happy.

  How could I have ever settled for that?

  There is that saying, “where have you been all my life?” Right now, it had never been truer.

  Our kiss comes to an abrupt halt when Chance rouses from his slumber and makes a truly horrific gagging noise.

  My forehead sinks into Presley’s shoulder as we both chuckle at our cockblock culprit.

  “Do you want to … go somewhere?” She’s all breathy and her lashes kiss her cheeks as her eyes stay closed.

  As much as I’d like to take her back to my place and remedy the dry spell my brothers keep making fun of me for … those things I can’t talk about are holding me back. I’ve never been the type to move fast, and with how my interactions with Presley have gone so far, I want to test the waters more.

  “Well, I’m officially off the clock. So how about a drink?”

  Green jewels under hooded eyelids assess me. “The bar across the street?”

  Fuck. I’d forgotten for a second. That Fawn Hill had only one bar, and that said bar was owned by my ex-girlfriend’s father. Not only did I not want to see him, but no way did I want him to know I was seeing someone. Even if his daughter cared nothing about me anymore.

  Walking out of the exam room and to my office, I open the bottom drawer of my desk. Presley comes in a minute later, confusion written all over her face.

  I hold up a bottle of Maker’s Mark. “I have a better idea.”

  17

  Presley

  “Well, Dr. Nash, how adventurous of you.”

  I look up at the water tower in front of us, and the butterflies that have taken up residence in my gut flutter madly. When he said he had something else in mind, I didn’t imagine it would be so …

  Cool.

  This is exactly the kind of spontaneous that speaks to my soul, and the fact that the man who just kissed the pants off me has brought us here is exciting.

  I’m tempted to stay down here just to kiss him more. Climbing will delay us, and, my lord, I’ve delayed too much with this man for too long. If I’d known Keaton Nash could kiss that way, that it would be so toe-curlingly amazing … I would have done it sooner.

  My fingers itch to touch my lips or to dive back into his hair. Ever since we left his office, I’ve had to physically restrain myself from jumping him. The only thing that stopped me from asking him to come up to my bedroom when we dropped Chance off at home was my grandmother sleeping in the next room.

  But he’d been the one to suggest this mystery rendezvous, instead of going to the town bar. Or a mattress. I had to appreciate that. He’s taking things slow, which was great because lord knew I was weak enough to have sex with him right there in his exam room. At least one of us was trying to control ourselves. And I also kind of preferred not to air our connection yet. Since we’d gone to dinner, random people would stop me on the street and ask how Keaton and I were doing.

  The residents of Fawn Hill were nosy as shit, and I wanted to stay in the bliss bubble for a while.

  “Always wanted to do this … but was too chickenshit. Being with you makes me feel like I can be a badass even if I’m home before midnight.” He chuckles.

  I bring out the crazy in him … I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. “Let’s go up.”

  Keaton follows me up the rickety, long ladder. It didn’t look like much of a climb from the bottom, but as I reach the top and shimmy onto the platform, I gulp as my eyes search the darkness for the ground.

  “Didn’t think it would be such a long fall.” The railing suddenly seems very unsafe.

  “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of heights. You come from the city with the tallest buildings in the country.”

  Keaton finds my hand and when his fingers lace through mine, I feel marginally better. “Those buildings also have air-conditioning and Starbucks on the middle level cafe floor. This is completely different.”

  “But beautiful.” Keaton points up.

  And I’m met with the biggest tapestry of stars I’ve ever seen. It’s like they all got together and knitted a quilt of bursting light in the sky.

  “And if you still don’t feel steady, how about a drink?” I can make out his grin in the dark.

  He unscrews the bottle and holds it to his lips, his head tipping back to invite the liquor. I think he’s going to swallow and hand me the bottle, but he bypasses that completely and goes straight for my mouth.

  This kiss is more insistent, spicy with the liquor burning between our tongues. I’m intoxicated, and it has nothing to do with the alcohol sliding down my throat. Keaton goes to pull back, but I keep a tight hold to his face, the scruff of his well past five-o’clock shadow scraping against my palms. He chuckles into my mouth, a hoarse, manly sound that has me feasting on his lips.

  Arousal sneaks over me slowly, like an all-consuming fog, wrapping its luscious tendrils around my arms, legs, belly, and down to my core. I have to lean against Keaton for support, my legs are threatening to liquefy. The spark that has started inside me, where that hot nub of sensation burns, is begging to be satisfied.

  “I feel like a teenager, sneaking out to meet a boy.” I break off our make-out session and giggle.

  I’m too wound up already … and the humid summer night air is doing nothing to help. If I don’t put the br
akes on, we’re going to be doing a lot racier things than I was doing as a seventeen-year-old.

  “Well, I have already seen your underwear, and bra might I add, so I think we’re a little more advanced than teenagers.”

  “I don’t know what you were doing as a teenager, but nowadays, I’m pretty sure second base is akin to being prude. Get with it, old man.”

  Keaton squeezes my hip, tickling me until I squirm away. “I might be thirty, but my old ass just climbed all the way up here and I didn’t even break a sweat. Plus, I was a total prude back then. The typical nerdy, advanced math kind of teenager.”

  “I find that hard to believe.” I roll my eyes. “Look at you. You’ve got popular jock written all over you, even if you did like math.”

  “I was better at science.” He shrugs with a teasing smirk. “But I did play baseball.”

  My finger stabs gently at his firm chest. “See? I knew it.”

  “What were you like in high school?” He takes another sip out of the bottle.

  How do you tell the man you have a huge crush on that you were the loner in high school? The party girl who was more likely to be Ally Sheedy than Molly Ringwald.

  “I had purple hair in high school. Cut class a lot to weave dream catchers and smoke. You think I’m a hippie now, you should have seen me back then. Lord, I thought I was so cool.”

  Even I have to laugh at the moronic way I used to act.

  “Purple hair, huh? I like the red better.” Keaton leans back in, resuming our kiss.

  He’s pressed against me, so I feel it when his phone vibrates.

  “Ah, hold on one second, I’m sorry.” He smiles apologetically and digs his phone out. “Shit …”

  Keaton looks down at his phone and runs a shaky hand through his hair. With his face lit up by the screen, I watch as anger slowly replaces the lust I just put there.

  I wonder what he just read, and if it’s something he is going to try to hide.

  “It’s my brother, the youngest one, Fletcher. He’s … he has some problems. My brother Bowen, the one you met, needs my help. I’m so sorry, but I have to go.”

  My heart believes him and stops itself in its tracks from jumping to too many conclusions. “Do you want me to come with you?”

  He doesn’t even look at me as he makes his way over to the ladder. “No, sorry. This family stuff … it’s complicated. I’ll drop you at home, it’s on my way.”

  Welp, guess that’s the end of our night. Responsibility and adulthood call, and Keaton is the first to jump to attention.

  And even though I’m not going to be able to sleep thinking of the kissing, the burn of his refusal to let me into his life stings more than I thought it would.

  18

  Keaton

  A flash of pain radiates down my spine, but I’m semi-conscious and want to turn it off.

  Sleep. I need more sleep.

  Except, a second later, more pain news at my back, and I’m forced to open my eyes and sit up. I look around to find that I passed out on Bowen’s couch, so it’s no wonder my back feels like it’s got about three hundred Charlie horses cramping it up. Thirty-year-old bodies cannot sleep on unsupported sectionals or climb water tower ladders without consequences the next day.

  Christ, last night was a clusterfuck. After making out with Presley on the town water tower, which was definitely the highlight of the night, I’d rushed off to help Bowen drag Fletcher out of a shady-ass house on the outskirts of town. The guys he’d been with … they were dangerous. How my youngest brother even got involved with them, I have no idea. But it had taken brute force and a ton of paper towels to Bowen’s truck after Fletcher passed out on his floor and we’d had to scrub the puke from the floor mats of the cab.

  “What time is it?” When I talk, it feels like my voice is treading over broken glass.

  “Six a.m.,” Bowen says as he pours himself a mug of steaming hot coffee.

  “Can I get a cup of that? Or an IV, preferably.” I rub the sleep dirt out of my eyes and shake my head as if that will solve the conundrum of my family.

  Bowen walks across his open-concept first floor, past his kitchen island and into the living room I slept in. Where my house looks like it’s just missing the wife, two point five kids, and white picket fence, Bowen’s is all bachelor pad. Male furniture, simple design, little personal effects adorning the walls.

  I take the mug with a nod of gratitude. The hot, magic power of the brown liquid sliding down my throat somehow brings me half back to life. To the point where I can finally come to terms with what this day will bring.

  “Where is he?”

  Bowen stares straight ahead. “In the shower. I told him to wash the vomit off.”

  My head drops into my hands as soon as I place my coffee on the end table. “How the fuck did we get here, Bow?”

  He just keeps looking at the wall. “I don’t know, man. He needs help. We’ve tried before … but this time, it’s worse. These people, Keat, I know some of them from … before. They’re dangerous.”

  I don’t need to ask what he means. Upstairs, the pipes shut off, and whether or not we’re ready to confront Fletcher, here he comes.

  “Gentlemen.” He has the balls to smirk at us as he comes downstairs dewy-eyed as a schoolgirl.

  Bowen is up and across the room, pinning him to the wall in three seconds flat. “That’s how you’re going to approach this, dickwad? You’re a piece of shit, you know that? Not only did you almost get us killed last night, but you also ruined my fucking truck! And you have the nerve to come down here smiling?”

  I can tell that Fletcher is having trouble breathing, and he’s scratching at Bowen’s hands where they pin his neck. Rushing over, I smack at Bow’s arms.

  “Bowen, let him down!”

  He releases Fletcher, and my youngest brother drops to the floor in a heap.

  “You don’t know what it’s like! Neither of you do. I don’t just get loaded, drink two handles of liquor and vomit or piss on myself, for the fun of it. I can’t stop this … this urge. It’s part of me. Booze is like air to me, I need it to function. I can’t just stop.”

  Fletcher buries his face in his hands. A moment later, Bowen looks at me with the most pained look I’ve ever seen on his face. Our youngest brother is sobbing.

  I go to him, kneel down. “Fletch, I know you can’t help it. You’re an addict, you’re sick. I’ll never know what that feels like, but I do know that there are ways you can get help.”

  He throws his hands up, distraught. “I’ve tried before. All of that AA shit, rehab, all of it … it doesn’t work on me. I don’t need Bowen to choke me out to know that I’m killing myself.”

  Bowen joins us on the floor, a move that surprises me. “Fletch, you might not remember what I did, but I’ve been close to where you are. I know it feels like nothing can stop this, that you’re in too deep. But you’re not. As long as you’re breathing, there is a chance for you to turn it around. Come on, brother, do this for us. Do this for Mom.”

  I almost add that he should do this for Dad, but I think that would be laying it on too thick.

  Fletch shrugs and mumbles, “I can try.”

  I’m not convinced, not in the least, and I know we’ll have to stay on him for a long time to come. But right now, I have to get to my office and sort out a few things before I head to my mother’s house to help her with projects.

  After consulting with Bowen on next steps—calling a friend who suggested a rehab center near Lancaster and keeping an eye on Fletcher for the next twenty-four hours—I get my work done by noon and then head for my childhood home.

  The minute I walk in the door, I smell home. That distinct scent my parent’s house always has, that just settles in my bones. But this isn’t home anymore. There aren’t baseball cleats by the door or water guns hidden in between the books on the living room shelves.

  “Why was there a message on the answering machine from Jerica Tenny?”

  Christ. I
knew she’d corner me at some point during this visit, but I didn’t think I’d be in a shit storm this soon.

  Mom was the only person I knew who had a landline answering machine that actually voiced the messages aloud.

  And shit, I should have given Jerica my number. She’s the town’s premier realtor, and I’ve been in contact with her for two months now about possibly listing my parent’s home. Except … I’d never told Mom about it. My brothers and I agreed that she needed to move and that we all couldn’t keep up the maintenance with a house most of us didn’t live in, and none of us wanted to care of.

  “Well … I’ve been talking to her about possibly listing the house.” Why does it feel like I just shot myself in the foot?

  And why the hell do I always have to be the one having the hard conversations? Where is Forrest, who was unreachable last night? Why can’t Bowen give a shit enough to do this? When will Fletcher grow the hell up and help out around here? I’m so damn sick of taking care of everyone … and yet I’ll keep on doing it. Because that’s what I do.

  “Keaton William Nash. How dare you?” Mom looks like I’ve sliced her in two, that’s how much pain shines in her eyes.

  “Mom, please don’t fight me on this. Not today. I already have enough shit going on with Fletcher. Please, just let a realtor come take a look at the house and tell us what it might be worth, or if it needs any fixing.”

  She frowns. “What’s wrong with Fletcher?”

  I roll my eyes, reaching my breaking point. “We’re really going to pretend we don’t know that he’s a major alcoholic and needs to go into rehab? Come on, Mom, like I said, not today.”

  I’m never this harsh with her, but maybe I need to stop treating her with kid gloves. Nothing ever gets done around here in the time it should because I’m always being cautious not to step on any toes.