Guarded: An Everyday Heroes World Novel (The Everyday Heroes World)

by Rachel Leigh

  I stick one finger inside of her, watching as I slide it in and out. When her ass comes back, I know she wants more. So I stick another finger in, digging it deeper. Twisting and flicking as I reach her clit. Riding my fingers, her hips sway up and down. Her mouth sucking harder and faster as she sloshes her hand in the saliva she’s leaving behind.

  Taking her hips into my hands, I pull her down closer to my face, tasting every inch of her. The full stretch of my tongue licks vigorously. Like she’s a meal I need to devour. No part of her left unattended to.

  Stretching one hand down in between us, I stick it under her bra that’s still on. Squeezing her breast as my cock begins to fill up. I resume to finger fucking her with more tenacity. In and out, over and over again as she cries out. Her pleasure pools around my fingers, sliding down to my hand. I lift my head and lick up the evidence of her orgasm. “I’m gonna come.” I moan. But, she doesn’t stop. She keeps sucking, taking every inch of me until I can feel the back of her throat. My cum slides down, as my body jerks in reaction. Slowly sliding my dick out of her mouth, she sweeps her tongue around my head, taking every last drop.

  Dropping my head to the pillow, I wipe my hand across my satisfied smile. Rowan turns around to face me and holds an expression of uncertainty. I take her hands and pull her down next to me, killing the question in her head of whether or not she should get off the bed. I know that’s what she was thinking. It’s crazy how in just a few short weeks, I’ve grown accustomed to her little quirks. I’m learning to read her expressions. The way her forehead wrinkles when she’s confused. The way she bites her cheek when she’s nervous. The shade of pink in her cheeks when she’s embarrassed. And the light in her eyes when she thinks I’m being sweet. It’s both crazy and terrifying.

  Tucking her head into the crease of my armpit, she wraps an arm around my chest. “What are we doing, Nash?”

  I sigh. “I have no fucking idea, but when you figure it out, let me know.”

  “What if I told you that I don’t want to leave Sunnyville? That I want to stay here with you and explore this?” My body tenses up and I know she can feel it. I wasn’t expecting that. Her hand moves over my heart. “I think I got my answer.” She pushes herself up and attempts to get off the bed.

  Grabbing her by the arm, I pull her naked body on top of mine. “Do you realize how complicated this is?” The sadness in her eyes has returned, only this time a tear slides down her cheek. My heart drops. “Don’t cry,” I tell her as I swipe my thumb on her cheek, brushing away the tear.

  “I know it’s complicated and I know that it’s probably a mistake. But I can’t help the way I feel. It hurts so bad knowing that I’ll be leaving soon. How am I supposed to just walk away from this? How can you just walk away from this?” More tears fall, and I don’t bother trying to catch them as they drip drop on the skin of my chest.

  Pulling her closer, I wrap both arms around her and rest my chin on the top of her head. “How can we do anything but walk away from this? You’re Gemma’s sister. How do you think she would feel if she knew what we were doing?”

  Feeling her heart rate pick up against me, she begins breathing heavier. In a flash, she’s jumping off from me. Glaring at me with daggers in her eyes as she scoops her clothes off the floor. “Maybe you should have thought about that before you fucked me. Or is that all I was to you? A piece of ass?”

  “No, Rowan. It’s not like that,” I say, but it’s too late. The bedroom door slams shut. Once again, I should go after her, but I don’t. I know how this looks. I know how she feels. Dammit, I feel it, too. I’m trying like hell to fight it.

  Reaching over to my nightstand, I grab the first thing I can reach. “Fuck!” I shout as I chuck the glass full force at the wall in front of me. I stare at the small chip in the white paint for what feels like hours. I have no idea what to do. I really care about this girl, but how can I ever look at her like she’s someone other than Gemma’s little sister? She’s right, I should have thought about all of this before I let things go this far. I’m an asshole. I screwed around with her body and her heart knowing all along that I would never be able to give her anything more than a couple weeks of fun and a hell of an orgasm—twice.

  This was the last time. It cannot happen again. Gemma is probably throat punching angels right now as she watches me fuck up over and over again.

  I miss her so damn much.

  I’m not sure how I’ll ever be able to move on with another woman.

  One thing is for certain, I can never move on with her sister.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Rowan

  I’ve been pacing the small room for the last twenty minutes, trying to decide what I should do. I could just leave. Say screw it all. Someone can mail me the damn journal. I could give it until Monday, go with Nash to get the journal, then say adios and never see him again.

  I could also stick around a little bit longer and try and tear down his walls and allow him to give into his feelings for me. I know they are there. I can feel it in the way he touches me. See it in the way he looks at me. He feels what I do. I know he does. I look down at my middle finger and realize I’ve been chewing my nail so hard that it’s bleeding.

  Nash knocks on the door. “Rowan, can we talk?”

  I grab the clean clothes I’ve dug out and open the door, pushing past him. I’m not ready to talk yet because I don’t even know what I want to say.

  His shoulders drop down. “Come on. Just talk to me.”

  Slamming the bathroom door shut, I press my back against it and take a deep breath. I can hear him on the other side. I turn around, placing my hand on the wooden door.

  “Please, Rowan,” he speaks gently, and for a moment I think I feel him through the door. Like his hand is touching mine.

  Another tear falls, but I wipe it away aggressively and step away from the door.

  The hot shower feels so nice against my aching body. Allowing any thoughts of Nash to flow down the drain, I think about my plan. My real plan. The one that involves me leaving Sunnyville and never coming back. It’s inevitable. Thinking that a life here would ever happen is just me having my head in the clouds again. That’s the way I’ve lived my life, chasing impossible dreams and catching nothing but heartache.

  Why did the only person I had left in this world leave me behind? Sometimes I feel guilty for being so angry with her. How dare she leave me like this? Other times, I feel guilty because I was going to do the same to her. How ironic is that. Yet, she died, I lived, and here I am playing house with her husband. Maybe I am as fucked up as people have always told me I am. Or maybe I just want someone to love me. Is it really that far-fetched to think someone could?

  After I’m all washed up and feeling even more down on myself than before I got in the shower, I turn the shower off and step out into the steamed up bathroom. With the towel wrapped around me, I wipe off the mirror, seeing a distorted and fogged up reflection of myself looking back at me.

  Who are you? And what are you doing?

  I close my eyes and take a step back. Letting the towel drop to the floor, I grab some lotion from my bag and rub it all over my body then get dressed into a pair of black cotton shorts and a pink crop top T-shirt. Grabbing a brush, I crack open the door to let some of the steam out as I run it through my hair a few times.

  “Rowan,” I hear Nash holler. “Can you come in here for a minute.”

  Letting out a sigh, I continue brushing my hair.

  “Now, please,” he hollers again.

  This time, I realize his voice is coming from directly across the hall, in the room I’ve been sleeping in. I drop the brush onto the bathroom counter and walk across the hall into the room and find him sitting on the bed.

  He holds up a paper. “What the hell is this?”

  My heart begins pounding at the walls of my chest. Or maybe it’s my breathing. I can’t tell because both are happening at rapid speed. All the blood drains from my head and I feel like I’m going to p
ass out. “Where did you get that?” It’s all I can say.

  “It doesn’t matter where I got it. What I wanna know is how long you’ve had it.” His voice is stern and forthright. Those eyes aren’t the same ones I was looking into minutes ago. These ones are darker, blacker, angrier.

  “It came in the mail yesterday. I was going to tell you. I just forgot.” I take a step closer, but he holds up a hand, stopping me.

  His eyes level on mine. “It came in the mail. Addressed to me. Yet you opened it and just forgot to tell me?”

  Walking over to my duffel bag on the floor next to the bed, I begin fidgeting with the contents inside in an attempt to hide my downplay of the situation. “It’s no big deal, Nash. It’s the weekend. Dr. Harris isn’t even in her office.”

  I watch his feet as he stands up, stepping directly in front of me. “It was my mail,” he shouts. “Was this your attempt at dragging this whole thing out? So you could stay longer? Maybe seduce me into loving you?”

  It’s as if his bare foot just kicked me right in the chest. The pain that radiates through me from his words is debilitating. “How dare you?” I push myself off from the floor, choking back my tears. “Seduce you? Are you kidding me right now?” My words come out louder than I had planned, but it sounds better than it did in my head. “Yes, I opened it. Yes, I stuck it in my bag. I had every intention of telling you, but maybe I just wanted to wrap my head around us before focusing on her.” I push past him. My feet keep moving while my brain has no idea where they are taking me.

  Little good it does, because his feet are hammering on the floor behind me. “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know.” I swipe my keys off the counter. “Anywhere away from you. Don’t worry, I won’t be seducing you again.”

  Tears well in my eyes as I make my escape out the front door. I don’t know if I was expecting him to come after me, but my heart aches even more when he doesn’t.

  I climb into the driver’s seat of my car, start the engine, and go.

  Fifteen minutes later I’m pulling into the cemetery. It wasn’t my plan to come here, but subconsciously, this is where I ended up. I’ve visited Gemma a couple of times since arriving in Sunnyville, but each time I held back. There’s so much I want to say to her, so much I wish she had known. Maybe it’s time I have that one-sided conversation.

  It’s a short two-minute walk down the paved path to her gravesite. Just being here offers a feeling of dread. So many lives, some cut short far too soon.

  Gemma’s stone is beautiful and I know it’s the exact one she would have picked out given the opportunity. Maybe she did pick it out. After all, she planned her death, why not plan her funeral and burial.

  It’s about three feet high and has a picture of her smiling face on it. Gemma Whitmore is written in a cursive font and beneath it reads, Beloved wife and sister. Then the dates, March 13, 1992 to July 23, 2019. Twenty-seven years old.

  I would question why a twenty-seven-year-old girl with a bright future would take her life before giving life a chance, but I already know the answer. I felt it at the age of twenty-two. That hole in your heart that you think will never be filled. The feeling of having nothing to look forward to because your mind doesn’t allow you to look past that moment.

  A sadness so deep that you beg God to just let you drown in your tears and take away the pain all on his own. When he doesn’t, you wonder why. Why can’t I be happy? The happy that doesn’t involve a shopping trip, a new boyfriend, or a new job. The real happy. The kind that can’t be bought and can’t be given to you but one that you have to find and feel for yourself.

  “You gave up before you found it. Maybe you never thought you would.” I run my fingers across her beautiful face. “When you left me, I knew I had to keep searching. You saved my life, Gemma.” A tear trickles down my cheek, falling onto my lip, and I brush it away as another one follows. “I think I found what was missing and I’m so sorry, Gemma. I’m so damn sorry. I never wanted to take him from you. I don’t even think that he wants to be taken, but I feel it. I feel that happiness that I’ve searched for my entire life. How am I supposed to just let it go?”

  Dropping to my knees, I press my head against the cold stone. “I don’t know what to do. Please, tell me what you want from me.”

  “Come on,” I hear a stern voice behind me. I turn my head quickly, knowing exactly who it is.

  “Nash, what are you doing here?” I push myself up and sweep my fingers beneath my swollen eyes.

  “Dr. Harris is meeting us at her office in ten minutes. Let’s get this over with.”

  Part of me wondered how much he heard. Now I can only assume it wasn’t much. Or he heard everything I said and it didn’t mean anything to him. Maybe I was wrong, maybe Nash doesn’t feel that pull between us. Maybe I’m as crazy as I thought and it was all in my head. “I’ll meet you there,” I tell him as I turn back to Gemma.

  The crunching of his footsteps on the fallen leaves leads me to believe he’s leaving. I don’t even turn around when I hear them fade into the distance.

  “This isn’t goodbye, Sis. I promise I’ll be back to see you again. It may be a while, but hopefully next time I come I’ll have my life in order. Maybe some nieces and nephews for you to meet.” I chuckle at the thought. Blowing a kiss into the air, I turn and leave.

  “What do you mean you had it this whole time?” Nash snaps as I walk through the open door into Dr. Harris’s office. “How the hell do you get a copy of my wife’s death certificate before I do?”

  Stepping aside, I hug my chest and listen while my presence is apparent. Dr. Harris looks at me. “As I said the last time you both came, Gemma had a plan. Once you read this, you’ll have a better understanding.” She hands me a small black journal with embossed ivy vines on the casing. “Start at the beginning. If you jump ahead you’ll get confused.”

  “Did you read this?” I ask, curious if she helped herself to my sister’s deepest thoughts.

  She shakes her head. “I have not. Your sister left me my own reading material.” She laughs. “She was a very detailed lady.”

  “Let me get this straight,” Nash intervenes. “You sent us on a wild goose chase for a death certificate that you had. For what?”

  “It’s simple really—time.”

  “Time for what?” He throws his hands in the air. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I’m sorry. This is all I can say. Just know that you will have your answers when the time is right. How have things been anyway?” She changes the subject, looking back and forth between Nash and me.

  “Wait a minute.” Nash shakes his finger with a devious smirk. “That’s what this is. This was my late wife’s attempt at trying to build some sort of friendship between Rowan and me, wasn’t it? She always wanted her sister to be a part of our lives. This was her way.”

  It really does make sense. That must have been her plan all along. To get me to come here for this journal, stick around while I wait for it, and get to know her husband. I got to him all right, but not in the way she planned.

  Dr. Harris clicks her tongue against her cheek and shrugs. “Maybe so.”

  Of course it’s so. This is exactly what this was all about.

  Well, it’s over now.

  I have the journal and my time here has come to an end. Gemma allowed me this time to get to know her husband. Unfortunately, nothing lasts forever. Guess she didn’t think of what might happen if we slept together and her plan went to shit.

  “I guess this is goodbye.” I hold up the journal and turn to Nash. “I’ll get my things and you never have to see me again.” I swallow, feeling the lump of regret lodged in my throat.

  Nash doesn’t even lift his head. He makes no attempt to stop me when I walk out of the room.

  He never came back to the house before I left.

  He never even said goodbye.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Nash

  “What the hell was I supposed to
do? Give her a hug and a pat on the back and say see ya later? It’s complicated.” I tip back the brown bottle of beer.

  Grant looks at me like I’m a fucking idiot. Which I am. “You keep saying it’s complicated, but you have yet to tell me why. I think you’re reverting back to your old ways and her being here was good for you.”

  Leaning forward in the old recliner in the garage, I kick an empty box. “She never planned on staying. It was just a trip to get something she needed. Bottom line.” I stand up. “Now, are you gonna help me finish packing up this mess or what?” I look around at the garage that needs to be packed up. The house is pretty much done, aside from the necessities. I still have thirty days, but I’m ready to get out of here and move on from this pipe dream I once had.

  “Just tell me this.” He leans forward, his arms draping over his knees. “Do you miss her?”

  “Gemma? Every damn day.”

  “No. The sister?”

  If that ain’t one hell of a loaded question. Do I miss her? As if that can be answered with just a simple yes or no. I tip back the bottle again, letting the liquid slide down. Do I miss the way she had an opinion about everything? Do I miss her sassy little attitude, or the fact that she never put the toothpaste back in the drawer? Do I miss her clothes scattered all over the house, or how she always takes my T-shirts when she doesn’t feel like washing hers? How she answers my questions with a question? Smiles for absolutely no reason at all? I don’t miss her touch. Her scent. The smell of popcorn and the sound of her laugh. “No.” I shake my head. “I don’t miss her.”