Anyone But Nick

by Bloom, Penelope

  I sucked in a surprised breath and felt my neck arch back all on its own. Nick was always so deliberate and measured that seeing him this animalistic was unbelievably hot. I threaded my fingers through his hair, gripping hard and pressing his mouth against me. When he groaned, I could feel the vibrations run through my chest, spreading a wave of intoxicating heat all the way to my core.

  “I think you got hot faster than the water,” he said, grinning up at me, almost boyishly.

  I knew I was blushing, but I didn’t care. “You too.” I half breathed the words because it was all I could manage. I felt like I was in the middle of a marathon—like my brain was starved for oxygen and running at only a tenth of normal speed. In reality, I suspected every available ounce of processing power was getting sent to recording and enjoying as much of Nick’s touch as I could. I was savoring it like it might be the last time his hands were on me, because for all I knew, it would be.

  He backed me into the shower, helping me balance as I stepped over the ridge of the small tub.

  “I’m still—” I started.

  “Fuck the clothes,” he said.

  “I think that’s actually the opposite of how this works,” I said.

  “Smart-ass.”

  The water made a pattering sound against Nick’s pants and soaked straight through my thong. He didn’t even bother with our remaining clothes before hiking my legs up around his waist and pressing my back into the wall.

  I put my hands on his cheeks and stared at his face, mesmerized by the rivulets of water tracing his carved features and running off his parted lips. “Tell me one thing,” I said.

  “Anything.”

  “What would you have done if my name was on that poem seven years ago?”

  “I always wanted you, but I wanted you so badly I was too afraid of screwing it up. Seeing your name on that poem would’ve been too much to ignore.”

  I ran my thumb across his lips, marveling at how soft they were. “It’s a little ironic, isn’t it? We both wanted to be together so badly that we had to convince ourselves it was hatred instead of—” I cleared my throat. The awkwardness I felt broke the spell of his presence. I realized what I was about to say. Hatred instead of love. I hadn’t been back in Nick’s life long enough to throw around a word like that.

  I couldn’t read his expression, but Nick saved me the embarrassment by pretending he hadn’t noticed. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess we’re both just cowards hiding behind false confidence, aren’t we?”

  “Something like that,” I agreed.

  His eyes started to get heavier again, almost like I could see the thoughtful, rational part of him retreating deeper inside. “Now,” he said deeply. “If you’re all out of questions, I need to fuck you before I explode.”

  “Is there an option where you don’t explode? I’ve kind of started to like you.”

  “We’ll have to work on the ‘kind of’ part,” he said.

  I let out a small surprised moan when he emphasized his words with his hips, driving the hardness of his erection into me in just the right place.

  “These need to go,” he said. With what seemed like no effort at all, he pulled my thong free, snapping the material in the process.

  “Are you planning to replace those, Mr. King?” I asked.

  “I’ll buy you an entire lingerie company, if that’s what it takes.”

  I smirked. “No. I don’t want your money. I just want you.”

  Nick’s eyes met mine for a moment, almost searchingly. He kissed me then, grinding himself into me until I could barely contain my need.

  I couldn’t reach to help him with his pants because he still had me pinned with my legs wrapped around him, but with one hand he managed to strip them and his underwear in seconds. They flopped to the floor of the tub, and he kicked them out of our way.

  “I’ve been dying to taste you,” he said. “All of you.”

  I put my hands on the wall to steady myself as he raised me up and positioned my thighs over his shoulders. Wow. I had only a moment to marvel at how high I’d been lifted before the sensation of his hot tongue between my legs snapped me into focus.

  Nick King was eating me out. The thought felt so bizarre that I had to replay it a few times before it stuck. I gasped and tightened my legs around his head. Before Nick, my experience of having a man’s head between my legs had been largely unpleasant. One guy acted like he was trying to dial a long distance number on an old-school rotary phone with his tongue. Another used his tongue like an exploratory probe, and he wasn’t sure which button turned the thing on, so he just slung it around without any form of plan or strategy. In both cases, I’d been left staring at the ceiling with a confused, slightly disturbed look.

  Nick knew exactly what he was doing.

  It was almost as if he could feel what I was feeling—like every time he found a rhythm or spot that drove me over the edge, he knew exactly how long to keep it up. Hottest of all was just the ferocity of his movements. I could feel the pent-up sexual frustration he must’ve had for years and years, and it was all getting channeled into me like an intravenous shot of bliss.

  As much as I wanted to stay there all night while he explored me with his tongue, I couldn’t wait any longer. “I want you inside me,” I gasped.

  Nick didn’t wait for me to ask twice. He slid me down to his hips and let me guide his length into myself. It was big, and I had a moment of panic at the idea of trying to make that fit inside me. But he took it slowly, easing himself in inch by inch.

  I threaded my fingers behind his neck and reveled in the sensations of our slick bodies sliding together—of him filling me more deeply than anything I’d ever experienced.

  I caught glimpses of him as the steam rose from behind his head, and it was like something out of a dream. He was too perfect to be real. This was too perfect to be real. Maybe that was why a finger of dread snaked its way into my head, even as I was gasping and moaning his name.

  People thought my life was perfect, but things like this didn’t actually happen to me. There was going to be some kind of catch, and I needed to prepare myself for it.

  But I couldn’t think of that now. He was burying his face in my neck and breathing hard with each thrust. His hands were like iron around my waist, pulling me onto him so that he was completely buried inside me.

  “I’m on the pill,” I breathed into his ear.

  He stopped just long enough to catch my eye and wait for me to nod.

  He increased his pace until my world became a white blur. My skin felt like it was on fire, and it had nothing to do with the water pouring over us. Nick pumped himself into me deeper and harder until he finally tensed up. I could feel him pulsing inside me, and it made me feel like I’d just slept with a man for the first time. I’d never let anyone finish inside me before, and I’d never felt anything close to that much passion and emotion get tangled up in the act.

  I put my hand on his face again, maybe just to reassure myself that he was really there. “It’s going to be hard to beat that,” I said.

  “I look forward to trying. Night after night,” he said. “And in the morning.”

  I grinned, but that little nagging fear came back to me. He must only be saying that. Now that he had what he came for, he was probably going to start distancing himself. “I’m not sure how you shower, but for me, I usually use more soap and less penis. I also clean more than my mouth, nipples, and pussy.”

  He smirked. “So you’re still feeling dirty?”

  “You could say that.”

  Chapter 24

  NICK

  I was already up and sipping my coffee when Miranda woke. She wasn’t the woman everybody thought she was. Maybe that would’ve made some people feel deceived, but I liked it. Knowing more about the real Miranda Collins than everybody else just made her feel more like she was mine. I’d also come to see how she and I battled some of the same demons, even if we faced them in different ways.

  She rubb
ed her eyes and sat up. We’d gone to sleep together when our hair was still wet, and hers had dried in a wild nest on top of her head.

  “Morning,” I said, not bothering to hide my amusement.

  Miranda didn’t appear to notice. She was staring at me with a strange look.

  I frowned, then ventured a guess at what was going through her head. “Did you think I would run off once I slept with you?”

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  I got up and went to sit beside her on the bed. I tried and failed to get her hair to lie back down on her head, but I enjoyed running my fingers through it either way. “Like it or not, I think you’re going to have a hard time getting rid of me now. Almost as hard a time as you’ll have getting your hair to lay back down.”

  “If you can look at me like this and not run, then maybe you really aren’t planning to.”

  I chuckled. “The only way I’m running is if I have to chase after you. Kind of like last night.”

  “Fair point.” Miranda smiled, then closed her eyes and rested her head on my thigh. “Where do you think snails are going?”

  “What?” I asked, laughing in surprise. “Have you been talking to Cade?”

  “Not recently, no. It was just something he asked, and I was thinking about it. I think they’re looking for love.”

  I tried not to grin. She sounded so damn serious that it made me want to laugh out loud, but something told me what she was saying was important. “If snails are looking for love, what does that mean?”

  “I don’t know, exactly. But what gets me curious is that it probably takes almost their whole lives to get where they’re going. So what happens if they finally make it to this lady snail and it turns out she’s not everything they imagined? Would they really just say, ‘Oh jeez, I know I spent seven years slowly inching my way toward you, but now that I see you up close, I don’t think this is actually going to work out.’”

  I finally let some of my smile show. “Seven years is an oddly coincidental number.”

  She opened her eyes and looked up at me. “I’m just worried that I could be convincing myself this all feels right because it took so long to happen. I mean, admit it. It’s got kind of a romantic feel to it, doesn’t it? Seven years apart because of a stupid poem with the wrong name on the bottom. Then we reunite, and it turns out we both secretly wanted this the whole time? It just seems too perfect.”

  “And perfect things don’t really happen to you,” I said slowly. “People just think they do.”

  She nodded. “Yeah. Something like that.”

  “Maybe the trick is that you can either look happy, or be happy. I’d say breaking up with Robbie and going after this Bark Bites job were your first steps toward being happy. Neither of those lined up with everyone’s idea of you being Miss Perfect.”

  “But I still tried to keep it all secret for as long as I could. I’m not sure it counts.”

  “Because it’s new. You’re not used to following your own heart, but look at everything you’ve done recently. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve been giving a big-ass middle finger to living by anybody else’s rules. And I’m proud as hell of you for it.”

  She smiled, biting her lip. “Assuming you’re right, which I’m not ready to admit you are, by the way . . . what would this new-and-improved Miranda do right now? About Max and Robbie and this whole mess?”

  I thought for a long time before I spoke again. “I came here to talk you out of taking this job from Robbie. I didn’t care what it took. All I knew was that I couldn’t stand the idea of you going back to him, even if it was just figuratively. But that’s not my choice to make. I just want you to know I’m here to back you up, however you decide to handle this. And I think the new-and-improved Miranda should do what’s right for her.”

  Miranda sat up. “You mean that?”

  “Yes. I’ll even help you tame your hair before you go meet with Robbie, if that’s what you want. Or we can go back to West Valley together and turn Bark Bites into what you imagined, shitty news story or not.”

  “Would you still help me tame my hair if we went back to West Valley?”

  “Unless a bird mistakes it for a nest before then. I think it’d be a nature conservation issue at that point.”

  She swatted at me, then her expression grew serious. “I want to talk to Kira, Iris, Rich, and Cade before I make my final decision. But if they’re okay with it, I think I want to give Robbie one of those big fat middle fingers.”

  “As long as that’s not as dirty as it sounded, then I’m in.”

  Chapter 25

  MIRANDA

  We sat at Bradley’s biggest table, which was a ten-seater in a corner booth. Between Julian Ridge and my brief-but-interesting trip out to LA, it felt like I’d been gone from West Valley for ages. It was fitting that today was Watermelon Day in West Valley, because there were few town events that embodied our collective weirdness better than Watermelon Day.

  Even though almost everyone was already outside at the hill by the river for the main event, we all sat around the big table, waiting for Cade to finish his story so I could explain why I’d asked everyone to come. Bear was half-asleep in Cade’s lap but occasionally cracked his eyes open long enough to take a bite of Cade’s ice cream.

  Cade was leaning forward with both elbows on the table. He was in the middle of a story about some “dick nozzle” he’d met at Bear’s day care the other day. “Seriously,” he said, “it was perfect. Like you know when you read something and just hope you’ll have a chance to use it someday? Well, this guy tried to sound smart quoting some Bukowski line. I think he said people are dumb because we run from the rain, yet we sit in bathtubs. It just so happened that I saw that exact quote on the internet a couple years ago, and my favorite comment was somebody who asked if it’s also strange that we’ll eat when we’re hungry but duck if you throw an apple at their face. But guess what I happened to be holding?”

  Rich sighed. “Did you throw your apple at his face?”

  “No,” Cade said. “But I was holding a zucchini that Bear and I cut up to look like George Washington for a school project. And, yeah, a zucchini should hardly be classified as food, since it’s basically just a phallic-shaped bag of water, but I did throw it at him.”

  “It also looked nothing like George Washington,” Iris added.

  “Yeah, well,” Cade said, “the joke went over his head anyway.” He drummed his fingers on the table and grinned like an idiot. “Actually he had really bad reflexes, and it kind of hit him right in the forehead, but, figuratively, he just didn’t get it.”

  Iris was shaking her head slowly.

  Kira was frowning. “Is that a true story?” she asked.

  “Unfortunately,” Iris said. “The worst part is that I’m friends with the guy’s wife. The man was just trying to make an interesting comment about the rain.”

  “Interesting,” Cade said. “Or pretentious. You be the judge.”

  “So,” I said. “Speaking of interesting, I didn’t actually ask you all to meet us here so we could hear about Cade throwing things at people. Robbie actually sent a friend of his to gather dirt on me and Nick while we were at Julian Ridge.”

  “Okay, wait,” Cade said. “Can we pause here and just get a solid confirmation for the curious listening audience? Did you two bone yet, because she’s kinda got this glow thing going on, and Nick looks a couple inches shorter when he’s sitting down, which I can only assume to mean he’s no longer sitting on his catastrophically swollen blue balls.”

  Iris elbowed him. “Don’t talk like that in front of Bear.”

  “What?” Cade asked. “I used code words. Did you understand what I was talking about, bud?”

  “Something about dog toys?” Bear asked.

  “See?” Cade said, and then he turned his eyes expectantly back on me. “Dogs love blue balls. Just ask the innocent mind of our child.”

  “That’s beside the point,” I said. “Anyway—�
��

  “No,” Cade said. “The point we’re concerned with right now is between Nick’s legs. Inquiring minds want to know if you got the point, if you catch my meaning.”

  Iris elbowed him but didn’t take her eyes from me.

  “Let her finish,” Nick said.

  “No, it’s fine.” I looked at Bear and tried to think of an appropriate way to say what I wanted to say. “I got Nick’s point. Loud and clear.” I felt an unexpected grin spread across my face as soon as I said it. The old me would’ve held that in as long as I could. I would’ve been too worried they’d think I was easy or desperate. Today, I was happy to realize I didn’t really care much what they thought—at least not more than I cared about the fact that I was happy, and I wasn’t going to apologize for that or try to hide it. “And it was great,” I added.

  Nick stifled a laugh from beside me.

  Cade and Rich shared a look with their lips pursed, then gave Nick a brotherly nod of approval.

  “As much as it’s slightly disturbing to casually talk about this,” Rich said, “I am happy you two are working things out. It’s kind of like we completed a circle here.”

  “Not entirely,” Cade said. He held up his hand and tapped the ring on his finger.

  “Can you just let her finish, please?” Nick asked.

  I cleared my throat. “This friend of Robbie’s, Max Frost, is—”

  Cade burst out laughing. “Wait a second. Seriously? The guy’s name is Max Frost? Does he work as a character in a video game on the side? Maybe a bad guy in a cheesy straight-to-DVD movie?”

  Iris pulled out her Taser and aimed it at Cade. “I know you’ve been up to no good, Max Frost. Drop the freeze ray and come quietly, or I’ll aim for your nipples.”

  “Do that and you’ll regret it,” Cade said in a deep, goofy voice. “Because Max Frost loves a little Taser action on the—”