Fletcher, now I remember his name, has the decency to look guilty. “Sorry, Presley. I just get excited that Keat is finally dating someone. He’s just the best, my brother, you know?”
He’s like one of those drunk college girls praising everyone when they’re hammered. I should know, I was one.
But I’ll take it. “He is. Nice to see you again.”
“But tonight, he’s lame. Didn’t want to come out with us … said he didn’t want to intrude on your girl’s night. You should call him up, tell him to get his ass down here.”
As soon as he suggests it, the other two Nash brothers make their way over. I recognize Bowen, Lily’s ex, the brooding one with ghosts always in his eyes. He takes one look at her and falters. Then there is Forrest, Fletcher’s twin, who came to my yoga class and talked the whole way through it.
“Good to see you both again.” I smile at them, feeling weird because I’m technically dating their brother but we’ve never spent time together.
Especially without said brother.
“Hey, good to see you, Presley.” Forrest nods. “I’m sore as hell, by the way. I have a feeling yoga isn’t my thing.”
“Yeah, considering you talked the entire time.” Penelope smirks.
Laughter bubbles in my throat. “Yeah, maybe it isn’t exactly your thing, but I appreciate you attending with Keaton.”
“Got him wrapped around your finger already, huh?” Fletcher grins.
“He is pretty smitten.” Forrest chuckles.
“Way to make me blush, guys.” I take a sip of my wine to disguise my awkwardness.
It’s the last in my glass, I’m surprised to find, and I flag down the bartender for another.
“They’re just letting you know that he’s happy, and we’re happy for him.” Bowen’s gruff voice holds no happiness, but I know he means it.
His eyes keep straying to Lily, who looks like she is trying to melt into her barstool. You can cut the tension between these two with a spoon, and I feel so bad for them that my heart actually aches.
“I’m going to uh … I’ll be right back.” Lily bolts, her strappy, summer sandals clacking as she hightails it across the bar and away from the man who broke her heart.
A stream of anxious breath whooshes out of Bowen, and Forrest claps him on the back.
“So, your brother didn’t want to crash my party?” The thought is a little funny.
Keaton is starting to understand me. If he’d shown up here with his brothers, the place I’d told him I was going for a girls night, I probably would have been pissed. But while I’m glad he’s given me my space, I also kind of want him here. We haven’t done the group hang thing, and with all of the Nash men here, who look so much alike, it makes me want to see his face.
So I whip out my phone to text him. After I shoot off the message, I see Bowen’s phone ding.
“Damn, you really did summon his ass. He told me he’ll be here in two. Asshole was probably waiting around to be invited.”
Forrest and Fletcher laugh at Bowen’s mocking of their brother, but I’m too busy trying to calm my fluttering heart.
It seems to happen every time I know I am about to see Keaton. My whole system goes haywire, and I can’t keep my hands still. Even now, the anticipatory tremor that moves through me feels like an electric current that could only be channeled when he walked into this bar.
“So much for girl’s night,” Penelope mumbles.
Forrest sidles up to her. “Fuck girl’s night. I can do you one better.”
She almost spits her drink out. “Forrest Nash, you’re a boy. I’m a grown woman with children and a mortgage. In your dreams. Plus, I saw you get pantsed in elementary school, or did you forget that?”
The group cracks up at her scathing rejection, and Forrest pretends to have been shot.
But all the air leaves the room, at least for me, when he walks in. Maybe it’s the two glasses of wine I’ve had, or that we’ve been talking about him for the last fifteen minutes and it’s made me antsy. But as soon as Keaton’s eyes meet mine, I don’t want to be here at all.
I want to be alone with him, undressed, learning all of the things he can do with those capable hands.
“Hey,” he breathes, coming directly toward me.
His hands go around my waist as he presses his lips to mine, in front of everyone. The worry about PDA goes right out the window though, when my mouth registers his warm one bearing down on it. I’m lost, my brain fuzzing over with desire.
There is a turning point in every relationship, that moment you know you’re going to have sex. It’s not a flowery way of putting it, but you know the minute you want to fuck someone, that the animal attraction is so strong you can’t be satisfied with foreplay and anticipation anymore.
Tonight is that moment.
22
Keaton
“No fucking in the bar!”
Fletcher’s annoying fucking voice interrupts my tongue from entering Presley’s mouth, and when I pull back, I’m mesmerized by the desire-filled green pools swimming before me.
“Nice to see you, big bro.” He claps a hand over my shoulder, hard.
Turning, I watch as he sways in front of me. He’s wasted, and I’m both pissed at my other brothers and surprised Gerry hasn’t thrown him out of here yet.
“You should get him home.” My disdain is made clear to Forrest.
I don’t want to deal with Fletch tonight. For one, I wasn’t even supposed to come out. I’d been watching the game, waiting for texts from Presley, trying to leave her alone. And for two, now that I was here, the only thing I wanted to do was take my girl home and give her exactly what her eyes were signaling to me.
She was going to let me have all of her tonight, I could feel it in the air.
“Don’t come in here and piss on our party. We were all having a great time. That is, until Lily scurried off like a scared mouse. Big bad wolf Bowen sent her running.” He cackles, and everyone else in the group looks uncomfortable.
Forrest slugs an arm around his twin’s shoulder and steers him away from the bar. “Let’s go get some air.”
Fletcher protests as they walk outside but follows anyway.
“Sorry you had to see that.” I turn back to Presley. “I hope he wasn’t too obnoxious.”
She shrugs, smiling. “All is forgotten. I’m just glad you came down here. Thank you for giving me my space, though.”
“Oh, get on with it, already. We got her for two drinks, now you can take her to bone town.” Penelope rolls her eyes. “At least one of us should be getting laid around here.”
Bowen chuckles. “Get out of here, man. Plus, you don’t want Gerry seeing you.”
Presley looks up quizzically at me, but it’s too late.
“Thought I told you not to come back in here.” The gruff harrumph of a voice is directed at me.
“Actually, you told my brother that.” I purposely hug Presley tighter to me, which doesn’t go unnoticed by the old man behind the bar.
“And yet, I’ve seen that drunk in here tonight.” His glare could fry eggs. “And who is this?”
Suddenly, I don’t want to tell him who Presley is. Even if he thinks his daughter did me a favor by leaving, I don’t want the shit that’s going to come with Gerry knowing my business.
“We were just leaving.” I grab Presley’s hand and nearly pull her off the barstool.
“Hey!” She swats at me until we get outside and I release her.
Being forceful with a woman is very unlike me, but the fight-or-flight instinct went off like an alarm bell in my head and I panicked.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” She rubs her hand, which I probably bruised.
“I’m sorry, here let me see …” I take it in mine, gently, and rub the skin there.
“Jeez, Keaton, you looked like you’d seen a ghost back there.” Presley palms my cheek.
I hang my head, disappointed in myself. I’d ruined our night in three sec
onds flat. She’d been having a good time, I was prepared to have a fun night with my brothers and the girls, and I’d turned it all to shit.
“Because I had. That was my ex-girlfriend’s father … Gerry, he owns the bar. It’s why I don’t go there if I can help it.”
She nods, not letting go of my cheek. “We all have baggage, Keaton.”
I don’t want to talk about my ex or her asshole father, so I make it about something else.
“And then there is Fletcher. Jesus, he’s a mess, Presley. And I can’t seem to fix it.”
“You know, you don’t have to be everyone’s hero. Your brother is an adult … his mistakes, his problems, they don’t have to be yours.”
How I wish it were that simple. If I could just ignore the gorilla of responsibility my father left on my back when he passed …
“I can’t.” My eyes bore into hers, pleading with her to understand.
Presley nods slightly. “Which is why you’re such a good man. But, Keaton, sometimes I think you’re too worried about taking care of everyone else that you don’t take care of yourself.”
I don’t want to talk about this. She just doesn’t see that if I don’t do these things for my family, for my community, no one else will. I’ve always carried this burden.
So I cease the talk. “You could take care of me.”
Stepping into her space, I don’t give her the chance to respond. I’m done being the hero tonight. I want to take instead of give. I want to feel only pleasure, and I want so desperately to watch those green eyes as she feels hers.
Darkness surrounds us as the languid, hot summer air kisses our skin. My tongue invades her mouth, nothing cautious or searching like our other encounters have been. I’m tired of being the gentleman, of giving her patience and soft romance. I want her in the primal way a man wants a woman, splayed across my bed as I stroke in and out of her body.
“I want to take you home. I want you naked, under me. Please, get in the car.” My voice is gruff, and Presley’s knees wobble as she hightails it to the passenger seat.
Good thing we live in a town with very few traffic lights, and very few people on the roads after nine p.m., because I would have run them all and could have possibly gotten us killed. With one hand on the steering wheel, I’ve been caressing Presley’s cleavage the entire ride while she suctioned her lips to my neck and her hands snuck into my lap.
By the time we make it back to my house, I am so hard that my dick can probably cut Captain America’s shield in half.
Presley rounds the car and almost tackles me before I catch her around the waist. We stand in my driveway in the dark; her straddling my tented jeans, while our mouths take out every last frustration weighing us both down.
I kiss her with the fervor of a man starved and thirsty, like I’ve gotten my first taste of water in years and I won’t stop until I’ve drunk so much, I’m sick. Presley gives me just as much passion back, rubbing herself against my groin as her hands tangle in my hair.
“I want you. Now.” I breathe into her mouth.
This woman makes me crazy. I carry her up the steps to my porch and back us into the front door, pressing her into it as we kiss softly, slowing down while I fish my keys out of my pocket.
“A little hard, huh?” She half-moans, half-teases.
She’s talking about how difficult it is to get my keys out of my jean pocket, but just to make her swallow her joke, I press my pelvis into hers. The movement elicits a pained groan, and I know I’ve served her that spoonful of snark right back.
Finally, after what feels like hours, I jimmy the damn door open, slamming it shut with my foot as I mount the stairs up to the top level of my house. Once I’m on the main living floor, I head straight for my bedroom, only halting when Presley’s hands begin to pull at my T-shirt, begging it off.
“You want this off, huh?” I smirk, holding her around the waist with one arm while using the other to grab the material at the back of my neck and pull it over my head.
Presley deflates into me like a lust-drunk balloon. “Dr. Nash, did you just pull a porn move?”
“Maybe. Did it turn you on?” I can already see the answer in the dim lamplight of my bedroom as I set her down on wobbling legs.
Those green eyes spark as they take in my bare chest. “More than you know.”
We’re only inches apart, but in the time I’d set her down and turned the light on … my body missed hers like we’d been separated by a continent. And while I wanted to do this fast, good God did my cock want to release into her right this second, I also wanted to take my time. This would be the first of many nights with Presley, of that I was sure. I was about to have this woman in the most intimate way possible, and now that she was giving me all of her, I was not going to let her go anywhere.
Christ, I was half in love with this woman and she’d only just come into my life. I was the epitome of that saying, “we plan and the universe laughs.”
Going to her, I take her waist in my hands, massaging the cloth there until she begins to lift her arms, signaling that I should take off her gauzy white tank top. I oblige, slipping the whisper of material up, up, up her body and over her head. I have to clench my ass cheeks together inside my jeans when my eyes rake over the woman in front of me.
I’ve seen Presley naked before … hell, she’s been in my house naked. But this is more charged … the air is thick with sex and impending orgasms. I can taste it on my tongue, and I want to take the charged tip of it and lick right up her seam.
She reaches behind her back and unclasps the tan, lacy bra holding her perky breasts. The undergarment falls away, and my fingers trace her skin, racing to see which can cup each perfect handful first. The color of her here is paler than the rest of her, outlined from the sun and free of those adorable sun freckles she gets. Her breasts are like pure cream, sweet vanilla ice cream topped with the ripest cherries.
I bend, using my teeth to pluck her right nipple, relishing her groan of pleasure and pain right before I suck it whole into my mouth.
“Keaton …” She sighs, her body sagging against me.
We’re chest to chest, our skin creating more friction than an electric current, as I move us to the bed. Before I climb on top, I help her out of her jean shorts, smoothing my hands down those long legs until Presley is writhing on the bed, reaching for me. She’s an offering, lying atop my comforter and sheets in nothing but a white lace thong. From here, I can see the wet, bare flesh of her core, and I bite my lip as my cock jerks once more in need of attention.
Only when I strip myself, Presley watching with such heat in her eyes that I nearly come when I tug myself free of the zipper, do I go to her.
Muscle over flesh, pure male molding to the delicate flower, we mesh. After a few kisses that threaten to burn up the atmosphere, I lick and taste down her body. The elegant crook where her neck meets her shoulder, the dip of her navel, the lace hem of her thong.
“I’ve been dreaming about tasting you for what feels like a lifetime.” I breathe into the fabric, inhaling her scent.
She squirms, looking down at me with half-mast lids. My cock brushes the cool material of the comforter, and I almost jerk with the need to seat it deep inside her.
My fingers trace the flesh above the lace, listening as each brush has a moan bursting from Presley’s throat. And then in one fluid motion, I pull them down, away, and bury my tongue in her dripping core.
She rears up, a guttural sound filling my bedroom as the sheets bunch in her hands. “Ahhh!”
Her taste is musky, it makes me dizzy as I fuck her with my tongue. My hand moves to my cock, just holding the wanton member on primal urge. Eating a woman always gets me to the peak of arousal … something about having their thighs hold my head like a vice as they shamelessly ride my face is the biggest fucking turn on imaginable.
My tip is leaking by the time I insert a finger into Presley, my teeth scraping her clit.
Unintelligible words and sounds mi
x with the heartbeat thrumming at the center of her body, and I keep my rhythm, winding her up to pop.
No more than a second later, her body arches with the grace of a jungle cat, chasing her orgasm through time and space as it wrecks her. As it makes her it’s prey. She is ethereal, all of that red hair splaying across my pillows like a heart bleeding its feelings.
I can’t wait any longer. As she’s coming down, I grab a condom out of my bedside drawer and roll it on, hissing at the contact. My body covers hers, the need to make us one so thick that I’m choking on it.
And the moment I slide into her, my tongue loosens, the words that have been stowed away deep in my heart making it to the surface.
“How did I go through life not knowing that you were meant for me?” I breathe, looking down into her eyes with wonder.
My cock twitches inside of her wet, tight, hot folds, and when I slowly pull out and push back in, Presley whimpers.
“Completely.”
She whispers the word, and at first, it doesn’t make sense. But as I stroke her, gently at first, it clicks in my hazy brain. We fill each other, completely. The others before, they only half fulfilled us. We were only living half existences.
Removing the hand that’s been roaming my abs, I pin it back, holding it to the bed. The move has Presley arching her back, thrusting her core up into me. I’m so deep that I’m hitting the back of her wall, and I know we are on the verge of explosion.
My hips shake as I pound into her, letting all logical thought fly out the window. I’m chasing the high, the release, and Presley goes off with a shout and scratch of her nails down my spine. The pain vibrates down my flesh and sparks a reaction in my aching balls.
And then I’m obliterated. I lose myself, collapsing on top of this angelic creature as I give all five senses to my climax.
In the end, all I see is red. She’s hypnotized me, and now, I am hers.
23
Keaton
“Why does this town celebrate the Fourth of July … well, after the Fourth of July?” Presley shakes her head at the stage, food and game booths, and local business tents set up on the high school athletic fields.
Fleeting (Nash Brothers Book 1) Page 10
