Authors: Jay Crownover
Nash (33 page)
and down, the pull and push of that hoop plus his PA all along the inside of me, was so good. I curled my
hands on his chest and watched him watch me. If it was possible, his eyes got darker and darker the closer I
got. I shifted, clamped down on him, listening to his breath come faster and faster and reveling in the way
his chest moved up and down more rapidly. I was close, so close, and knew if I asked him to touch me just
a little bit more or just reached between my legs to touch myself, it would be done. I opened my mouth to
plead with him, to ask him to finish it, but before I got the words out, he suddenly jackknifed up into a
sitting position and rolled us over.
He was looming over me, his hand clasping either side of my face. His expression turned a little wild,
and when I went to ask what was going on, he attacked my mouth and started moving in and out of me,
thrusting against me, pounding inside of my body like a person possessed. All I could do was hold on for
the ride because I was already too close to the edge. My nails dug hard enough into his shoulders that I felt
the skin break. At the first stroke of his tongue against mine, the bite of his teeth against my lip, I broke
apart under him in an orgasm that felt like it turned me inside out. I just clung to him, let him surge and
heave inside of me until he buried his nose in the crook of my neck and groaned his own completion. That
wasn’t just sex; that was Nash giving part of himself over to me to keep forever.
His hand fell away from my face but he didn’t move. His breath was ragged in my ear and I could feel
his heart thundering rapidly against my own. I stroked a soothing hand down the spine of that dragon, felt
Nash’s body shake a little at the touch.
“You undo me, Saint.”
“I’m sorry.”
He sighed and rolled over so that he could pull me on top of his chest.
“Just try and put me back together when you’re done with me, all right?”
I didn’t know what to say to that or if that was a promise I could make to him. I curled my hands under
his arms and rubbed my cheek against his pectoral muscle. It was way too hard to make any kind of
comfortable pillow, but I didn’t want to move.
“Can I stay the night with you, Nash?” I couldn’t give him all of the things he wanted from me, but that
I could do.
He sighed and it ruffled the hair on the top of my head. “At some point I really want us in a place that
isn’t even a question you think you need to ask.”
I didn’t know that a place like that existed for us, but it felt like if it did, it would be right here in this
moment with the two of us still entwined and a part of one another.
The next morning Nash was running late, which might have had something to do with the fact that I
woke up before him and couldn’t resist putting my mouth around that circle of stainless steel. I’m sure he
enjoyed the wake-up call, but he ran out of the door muttering something about calling a girl Phil thought
could help him out at the shop and having to swing by the new shop and check in with the contractor. He
was juggling so many balls I had no idea how he kept it all straight or found the time to deal with me and
all my issues on top of it.
He gave me a hard kiss, told me to make breakfast or whatever I wanted, and blew out the door like a
tattooed tornado. He had spent many a morning in my place when I had to go to work, it was strange being
on the opposite side of that. I was making coffee, wearing one of his T-shirts that was way too big and way
too long, when there was a knock at the door. I was going to ignore it because I didn’t feel it was my place
to answer the door at Nash’s apartment when I heard my name called through the wood.
“Saint? It’s Royal. Can I talk to you for a minute? I know you’re here because your Jetta is still outside.”
Ugh. I didn’t want to face her after last night. Didn’t want her to see how jealous I was that she had
spent a normal evening with Nash, but I wandered over to open the door anyway.
I had to do a double take and felt my jaw drop when I caught sight of her. Her fabulous auburn hair
was coiled up on her head, she had no makeup on, and she was dressed in the basic bluish-black police
uniform all the street cops in Denver wore. She had a hat under her arm and a gun on a belt at her waist. I
couldn’t believe this was the same girl who had on pink heels and skinny jeans last night.
“You’re a cop?”
She pushed past me and walked into the kitchen, where the coffee was done brewing. She made herself
right at home going through Nash’s cabinets until she found a mug. I should have protested her
forwardness but I was still in shock over the fact that she was armed.
“Yep.” She let the
p
pop and poured me a mug as well. “Listen, I want to try and explain something to
you about your guy.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to deny he was my anything, but she scowled at me. “I’m cranky and
armed. Don’t start with me, girlie. Last night I locked myself out of my place. My phone was in the car, so I
was screwed. Nash helped me out, fed me, and talked to me about you. Do you know how many asshole
guys would’ve used that as an excuse to put a move on me? Or how many would’ve tried something shady
because I had no way to communicate or anyplace to go?”
She had a very valid point, so I nodded at her in agreement.
“Most guys are assholes. Seriously, Saint, Nash is not one of them. I know there is some history there
between the two of you or whatever, but open your eyes, honey. That boy is sprung on you and he is a nice
guy. A superhot, supersexy nice guy. Do you know how rare that is? He’s like a goddamn unicorn.”
I picked up my mug of coffee and continued to watch her like she was some kind of wild exhibit at the
zoo.
“Besides, my mom was the other woman. I was the milkman’s kid … well, the stockbroker’s really, but
that doesn’t matter. I would never do that to another person, insert myself in their relationship, because I
saw how hard it was on my mom waiting for that asshole to leave his wife. I can’t help it that I have an
awesome rack and was blessed with fabulous hair. I’m not some femme fatale out to steal anyone’s man.”
It actually sounded like that was a sore spot with her, so I cleared my throat and tried to give her a semi-
explanation.
“It doesn’t help that you’re beautiful and live right across the hall, but it could be any pretty girl, Royal.
Men are easily distracted like that.”
She let loose a string of profanity that made me take a step back. She was sure a contradiction. A really
pretty girl with a badge and a really dirty mouth.
“That’s insanity. No other girl is going to come along and distract him. He is absolutely focused on you.
We are not interchangeable objects, LEGO pieces that click together just because the parts fit. If he is telling
you he wants
you,
then no one else is going to do. If you can’t believe what he’s telling you because of
whatever your ordeal in the past is, pay attention to what he’s showing you. Actions always speak louder
than words.”
She took her hat and positioned it over the bun on her head. I cocked my head to the side and
considered her for a long minute.
“What does it matter to you anyway?”
She put her mug in the sink and rinsed it out.
“Nash is nice, you seem nice. There aren’t enough good people out there that find each other. Plus I
want you to be my friend.”
That wasn’t what I expected. “What? Why?”
“Because girls don’t like me. They all think I’m out to steal their man or they get squirrely when they
learn I’m a cop. I’m twenty-three years old, Saint, and I can’t remember the last time I had a friend that
wasn’t a dude. My best friend in the entire world is my partner, Dominic. We went to high school together
and struggled through the academy together. If it wasn’t for him I would be really, really alone, and I don’t
want that.”
I just stared at her, trying to figure out what I wanted to say to her.
“When you have a guy like Nash willing to offer you everything, don’t risk losing it because of what
was or because of what might be. Now I gotta go catch all the bad guys.”
When the front door closed behind her, I took my coffee and went to flop down on the couch. I wanted
to go to the grocery store before I had to go and put some actual food in Nash’s fridge for him. The poor
guy couldn’t live on cold pizza and beer, not with everything else he had going on in his life at the moment.
Really I had a burning need to try and take care of him working under the surface of my skin and I wasn’t
going to question it right now.
It had been an intense few days and my emotions were all over the place. Royal was right: Nash had
been trying to show me all night long the things I wouldn’t listen to and he was making it impossible for me
to keep my head buried in the sand. Not only was the only guy I had ever really truly cared about
demanding something more from me than I ever thought I could give, but I had a brassy, loud, badass
female cop that looked like a movie star telling me she wanted to be my friend. I didn’t know what alternate
universe I had fallen into, whose life this was I was suddenly living, but it sure didn’t feel like mine. Right
now I couldn’t tell if that was the best thing to ever happen to me or the worst.
The shop was coming along way better than I could have imagined. Zeb was a magic man and an
honest-to-God visionary. The final concept he had come up with was an old-school carnival straight off
some boardwalk, and since my life felt like a three-ring circus half the time now, it totally fit. It was old-
timey and a little kitschy, but the idea was awesome and all of us liked how different it was from the rough-
and-tumble way the original shop came across. Each of the six artist’s stations was modeled after a booth
that would be in a 1930s freak show—we had a strongman, a bearded lady, of course a tattooed lady, a
fortune-teller, a lion tamer, a sword swallower, and a freaky-looking wolf man painted on the wall. Zeb
wanted to install a vintage strength machine, a retro photo booth, and one of those old creepy fortune-
telling machines, which I thought would send the concept and the shop over the top. All our portfolios and
pictures of tattoos we had done were on a state-of-the-art LED screen that was constantly changing and
operated on a touch screen so that potential clients could interact with it.
It was a fantastic mix of old and new, and while the actual tattoo shop probably only had three or so
more weeks of work to make it a workable and usable space, Zeb hadn’t gotten around to the top floor yet.
The idea was to keep that space more modern, more boutique feeling. So far the bridge between the shop
and the retail space hadn’t come to fruition, mostly because it was uncharted territory for all of us and I
think we were all worried about screwing it up or making it a joke when we had all worked so hard to
solidify our reputations as the top tattoo artists in the Denver metro area. It was a brave new world and
things were changing fast for all of us who called the Marked home.
I called the girl Phil had insisted I give a shot. It was a weird conversation. She was undeniably sharp
and quick-witted. When I asked her if she had any experience working in a tattoo shop, she had laughed
heartily and told me there was nothing she couldn’t do. She actually didn’t sound that interested in the
opportunity to come out and interview with us until I mentioned the shop was in Denver. I told her what
Phil said about looking the shop up online and letting me know. She hung up laughing and I thought I was
going to end up writing her off as nothing more than a flighty model.
I was headed across town; I wanted to make a stop before going into work for the day. I needed some
advice about getting around the ties and bonds that held a person to the past, and the only person I could
think of that might be able to help me get some real answers, some real clarity, was Asa. He was a man who
had lived a terrible life—a user and abuser—until almost losing not only his life but his sister as well. He
had been forced to reevaluate what he was doing, who he was. Now he was making strides, trying to make
amends, and while his relationship with Ayden was still rocky and often strained, there wasn’t a day that
went by that they didn’t try and move on in their new relationship together. Asa was a man trying not to be
defined by his past.
I was pulling the Charger into the parking lot when my cell went off and showed the Vegas number I
had just dialed. Curious, I answered the call.
“Yeah?”
“Is all your shop info up-to-date on your website?”
Where she had sounded bored and slightly amused earlier, she sounded intrigued and almost breathless