I hadn't been able to breathe anyway, so I didn't much mind the weight as my arms and legs wrapped him up, held him closer as my heartbeat slowly returned to normal, as my mind cleared of the after-effects of the orgasm.
Rush's head turned slightly, pressing a kiss to the side of my neck before planting his arms, taking his weight back, pushing up enough to look down on me.
"That was worth the wait," he told me, a satisfied little smirk toying at his lips. I couldn't fault him for it, either. He'd earned it. "I'll be right back," he added, sliding out of me, off of me, then the bed entirely, walking toward the door, then moving off into the hall.
Alone, with the lack of his body heat on me, a shiver coursed through me as goosebumps prickled up all over my skin, making me scramble up the bed, sliding under the blankets up to my shoulders.
"Don't hide," Rush said, walking back into the room, naked and completely unbothered by that fact, his head tipped to the side a bit.
"Not hiding," I insisted, shifting to the side so he could climb in with me, feeling a delicious ache in my inner thighs. "Just cold," I told him.
"Let's see what I can do about that," he offered, hooking an arm around me, yanking me up onto his chest, his warmth sending a shiver through me. "Better?" he asked when I settled, his warmth on my front, the heavy comforter on my back. It was pure heaven, truth be told.
"Perfect," I told him, because it was, because I didn't care if he knew I felt that way.
"Good," he said, pressing a kiss to the top of my head. "How's your head?" he asked, tone light, teasing, even. "Might have knocked it around more than I intended to," he added.
"Well, I owe the author of that book a debt of gratitude for the headboard idea. I'd probably have a concussion if not for her," I said back, teasing, happy. God, yes, happy. That was the warm sensation blooming across my chest. It had been so long since I felt it that I almost didn't recognize it when it showed back up. But there it was. Strong. Undeniable.
A chuckle moved through Rush and into me as his fingers started to absentmindedly touch me—one stroking up and down my spine, the other my arm. "I meant for that to be nice and sweet," he admitted. "It's not my fault you like my dick too much for that," he added, hand landing a weak slap to my ass.
I didn't like being teased. It had always been a triggering point for my anxiety. Especially with men.
But, somehow, I felt myself smiling at Rush's words.
Because he was safe. Because I knew he would never be cruel, would never use my fears or insecurities against me.
"I should get going," I said a few moments later, feeling a swirling sadness inside at the very idea of untangling myself from him, getting dressed, walking away.
"You're not going anywhere," he told me, arm going around my hips, imprisoning me.
"I have to work tomorrow," I reminded him.
"Fuck work."
"Fiona might not agree with that mindset."
"Fiona set all this in motion. She will have to deal with the consequences of me needing to take you to bed for a week straight until neither of us have any fluids or strength left."
A giggle moved through me at the absurdity of that statement, but it made that warm sensation feel even hotter.
"You have work too."
"Stop making valid points," he demanded, tugging my hair. "We're staying just like this tonight," he added, shrugging. "Maybe we both ended up with food poisoning from dinner," he suggested.
"I just got back from being sick," I reminded him.
"Fiona can't be mad at your terrible immune system," he declared, making another laugh escape me.
"She will know why I called out."
"So what. She'll be busy collecting her money from Mark. She won't be too pissed about it."
"You make some interesting points," I relented. "Not good ones," I added, getting a chuckle out of him, "but I'm too tired to rebut them."
"Good," he declared, giving me a squeeze. "You can use your brain tomorrow," he suggested.
"Sounds like a plan," I agreed.
Normally, the longer I lay there, the more the worries would set in, the to-do list that would keep racking up, but right then, in that moment, my mind miraculously left me alone, allowed me to enjoy the feel of this man, the sensations flooding my body, the possibilities in front of us, with none of the usual fears.
I drifted off to sleep feeling warm and safe, and hopeful.
I'd never felt anything like it with a man before.
And I hoped to be able to hold onto it.
FOURTEEN
Rush
I woke up to a shrieking sound followed by my name being cried out.
Now, normally, that wasn't a bad way to start a morning.
You know, if I was a participant of those sounds.
But I was alone in my bed, the space beside me still warm, but the occupant missing, lost somewhere in the main area of the house where the sounds had come from.
I shot up off the bed, not bothering to find pants, heartbeat already tripping into overdrive at the idea of something having happened to Katie, or someone being in the apartment.
"Oh, for fuck's sake," a familiar voice called as soon as I broke into the opening of the hallway in to the main area.
Atlas.
Half-sitting up on the couch, a spare blanket pooled at his waist, bare from there up.
"Put some fucking pants on, man. No one wants to be seeing that," he added as my gaze slid over to where Katie was standing in the kitchen wearing my shirt from the night before, her hand still clutched to her heart, her half-awake eyes wide.
"Atlas," I told her, watching as understanding came across her face as her gaze slid to my brother, then back to me. She couldn't seem to keep her eyes from roaming over my body, either, even though we had an audience. When her gaze found its way back to my face, her eyes were already heated.
"Oh," she said, shaking her head, trying to shrug off the desire I already saw building. "Sorry. You just... surprised me," she told him, giving him a wobbly smile. "I, we, there wasn't, you know, anyone there last night when we... um... when we got home."
"Aren't you supposed to be in Italy?" I asked.
"Yeah, funny story. They didn't give a shit that I wasn't actually a writer on the writer retreat. But they weren't a fan of me sleeping with the ones who were. Then having them find out. It was all very dramatic. I figured it was time to come home, check in on King, get some good food at Helen's. Pack for something colder maybe."
"You could have called instead of showing up without a word."
"How was I supposed to know your hermit ass would actually have company?" Atlas shot back, smirking at me. True, I hadn't been getting as many women as I used to in recent months, but Atlas got more than enough for the both of us. "Are you the one Mark sent me a text about?" Atlas went on, looking at Katie who was fidgeting with the sleeve of my shirt.
Knowing her, she was having some anxiety about being "caught" at my house. Even though we were all adults.
"Katie," I supplied.
"Right, well, don't let me get in the way of your fuck-festing," Atlas said, making a blush work its way up Katie's neck and across her cheeks.
"You want the shower first?" I asked Katie instead, giving her an out, some time to pull herself together.
"Yes," she said, giving me a thankful smile.
"I'll grab you a towel," I told her, turning her, leading her down the hall into my room. "I'm sorry about that," I said, moving over toward my closet, finding a sweatshirt for her along with a pair of sweatpants that had a drawstring. They'd probably still hang off of her, but I had nothing else to offer her.
"It's okay. I just... I didn't know who was on the couch. Sorry I woke you up."
"Don't be. But I would have liked it better if you stayed in bed with me," I told her, wrapping an arm around her lower back.
"I was just going to make some coffee. I was planning on bringing it back."
"I'll talk to Atlas," I to
ld her. "Get him to go crash somewhere else. You know, like his own fucking place," I added, shaking my head. "See if we can get some more time," I added, already needing to be back inside her, getting those sounds out of her again.
"It's okay if he stays," she insisted.
"No, the fuck it's not," I shot back, getting a smile out of her. "There's extra towels in the closet," I told her, reaching for a pair of sweatpants for myself, slipping them on, reaching for a tee.
Hearing her close herself into the bathroom, I made my way back out to the kitchen, finding Atlas already up and making a pot of coffee.
"Leave."
"Have a heart, bro. I needed some sleep."
"You have an apartment."
"Funny thing about that."
"Christ, what?" I asked, turning back from grabbing mugs.
"All the traveling around, somehow missed the note about how they weren't renewing my lease. Dragged my jet-lagged ass up the stairs, stuck my key in the lock, and nothing. Went down to the super who wasn't a fan of being woken up at one in the morning, and found out what went down. They stored my shit in the storage unit in the basement. Gonna need to get everyone together to move it to an actual storage facility until I can get a new place. Until then, I'm couch surfing, it seems."
"Surf somewhere the fuck else," I suggested.
"You think anyone in this family aren't fucking like bunnies?" he asked, reaching for the creamer. "What's the big deal?"
"The big deal is Katie isn't comfortable with it."
"She's got a place, right? Why don't you guys shack up there for a few days? Weeks?"
"Why don't you shack up at a hotel for a couple days or weeks?" I shot back.
"Crushed, I'm crushed," he declared, pressing a hand to his chest. "She's cute," he said, nodding toward the bathroom.
"Yeah, she is," I agreed.
"Works for Fee, right? I think I've seen her at the office. With big glasses on, covering up that pretty face of hers."
"Yeah," I agreed.
"Going somewhere?" he asked.
"I want it to," I admitted.
"Hm."
"What?" I asked, shooting him a look as she took his cup of coffee and made his way back to his makeshift bed.
"Nothing. Just didn't see you settling down, baby brother," he teased.
"What? Making you feel old and unsettled?" I shot back.
"Please, if anyone was going to make me think wonders never cease, it was going to be Nixon finding someone to love his grumpy ass. You? I get you. She's cool with you doing the phone sex thing?"
"I quit. Before Katie and I started things up," I clarified. "It was time for a change. I'm working with King."
"I'm probably going to be joining you all for a few weeks. Maybe months," he added.
"You never stay any place that long."
"I don't usually fuck up my living situation either. Think I've had more wings than roots lately. I need to get my shit in order again before I head back out. What?"
"Did those writer women fuck some sense into you on that tour?" I asked, getting a wicked smile from him.
"Something like that, I guess," he admitted. "Just need to crash for a while. Get a place. Get some money back in the coffers. Boring-ass grown-up shit," he said, putting his coffee down on the table, reaching for his sketchbook instead, flipping through.
I saw a rickety old bus.
And the faces of four women who were just enough his type that I was finally getting a full picture of how messy that whole situation might have gotten.
Running off from that to come home to find he didn't have one anymore, yeah, I could see how that was making him see he needed to get things in order for a while.
Atlas might have been afflicted with incurable wanderlust, but he'd always had a decent head on his shoulders.
And, let's face it, he wasn't getting any younger. Watching all of us start to get serious around him had to make him think, start contemplating what kind of future he wanted for himself.
And while that future would always include traveling, that couldn't be all he had either.
He was finally starting to see that.
"Oh, hey, sweetheart," he said, giving Katie the kind of smile that likely explained all those women on the bus falling for his bullshit.
My hand reached out, smacking the back of his neck, getting a chuckle out of him,
"I have something for you," he went on, ignoring me.
"You have something for me?" Katie asked, bringing her coffee over toward the living room, sitting on the other side of me, spine straight, but not as tense as she had been before the shower.
I wished I could have taken it with her, could have pushed her up against the wall and gotten another taste of her pussy, slid inside her, bodies slipping against each other, her moans echoing off the shower enclosure.
Fucking cockblock Atlas.
"Yep," he said, flipping back a couple pages in his sketchbook. "Here you go," he went on, turning it to face her. "Your toothless cannibal mountain men," he explained, beaming at her as her eyes went round, a surprised smile toying with her lips.
"That is exactly how I pictured them," she admitted. "You're so talented. I was telling Rush that last night," she said, waving to the canvases.
"Oh, those. All trash. I told him not to hang them."
"You don't, ah, strike me as someone who is afflicted with false modesty," Katie said, brows furrowing as she looked at the —objectively really good—canvases, and back to the man who created them, and thought they were crap.
"I'm not," he said, smile devilish. "I made them like that because this schmuck is afraid of color. But those lose all the character of those places," he told her, waving at one in particular. "I mean... Santorini without the bright blue ocean? Ireland without the lush green? Loses all the character. What's your favorite place to visit?" he asked, always interested in where people had been, what they had loved about it, believing it gave them some kind of insight into who they were as a person.
"I, ah, you know... I don't really like traveling," Katie admitted. "I like being home. Reading books. Baking."
Atlas's brows furrowed at that, his eyes lacking understanding, truly unable to imagine not wanting to put a travel pin into every place in the world.
"I did really love the cabin, though," she admitted, smile wistful. "I would like to go back someday, maybe a little more prepared for the bad weather. Or not," she added, shooting me a smile, likely remembering having to share a bed to keep each other warm. "And Rush's idea of a road trip sounds nice too. I don't like crowds," she added, shrugging.
I was going to take her on the road trip someday. I wanted to bring her back to those woods too.
On the one hand, it felt soon to be thinking that far ahead. That said, though, it wasn't like we'd just met. We'd known each other almost as long as I have been in Navesink Bank. Then I knew her more deeply on the phone. Being locked in the woods with her had given me several weeks or months worth of "getting to know you" dates. On top of all of that, the sex was top fucking tier.
I mean, how much more did you need to know before you decided it was going somewhere? I didn't think anyone had the exact answer to that. Some people met and married within a week and were together for forty years, blissfully happy. Others dated for six years before settling down, and ended up divorced and bitter six months after that.
There was no standard.
I think, sometimes, you just had a good feeling, something inside clicked.
I'd never felt that click before.
But if I looked back, I could see little hints of it over months with Katie, only I didn't always know it was her. And a part of me was struggling with the insecurities regarding my past.
It had been different with Kingston and Savea since Savvy had been a part of the family's inner circle for a while thanks to Peyton. And I guess it had been different, too, with Nixon and Reagan since Nixon met Reagan while she was doing less-than-legal things in the name o
f revenge, so she understood where we were all coming from.
Katie was just a normal woman from a good upbringing with a normal moral compass.
She'd taken it like a champ.
And I guess she was right. It was a part of my past. It had been years. I'd been young and stupid at the time, clinging to my grief and anger instead of dealing with it.
Settling down, building a stronger family unit with the Mallicks had done a lot to ease the pain, to quell the anger.
It wasn't like I was at risk of becoming a wheel guy again, that I would get the itch for it. It had always been a mission. There had been a motivating factor. It had never been about the thrill or the money. Though, let's face it, sometimes the thrill was fun. But I was getting old for that shit now.
My idea of a thrill was learning we were getting a new Indian take-out place in a couple months.
Shit changed.
So did people.
And, I guess, Atlas was changing too.
"Atlas wants to know if you and I can crash at your place tonight," I told Katie back in my room a couple minutes later. "He's having an issue with his apartment. Needs a place to crash for a while. Knowing him, he'll surf over to someone else's couch soon enough, but for a night or two."
"It's okay if you need to spend time with your brother," she told me, gaze sliding away. "You don't have to spend tonight with me if—"
"I'm going to go ahead and cut you off right there," I said, watching as her head lifted. "I want to spend the night with you," I clarified. "And if you want to be here, that's fine. But I thought you might be more comfortable without Atlas hanging around."
"He seems nice."
"He is. But he is also a pain in the ass who doesn't mind his own business. Besides," I added, lips curving up. "I figured if we are at your place, you might have all the ingredients and the utensils and shit you would need to make me some crêpes."
"I should have known there were ulterior motives," she said, eyes bright. "What if I told you I didn't have any of the ingredients?"
"Well, then," I said, stalking toward her, backing her up against the wall. "I guess I'd have to eat you for breakfast. Either way, I'm a happy man," I told her, watching the heat flicker in her eyes. "Atlas is in the other room," she insisted when my hand moved down, slipping under the loose waste of my pants on her hips.
Pull You In (Rivers Brothers Book 3) Page 17
