Page 107 of For Better or Hearse
“I finally get to throw you off the balcony with no witnesses.”
His chuckle is a husky, deep rumble that shakes her frame. “No.” Sobering, he regards her, gaze hopeful. Tentative. “Stay the night with me.”
“That’s dangerously close to feelings.”
Frowning, he runs his big hands up her arms. Her body heats at the contact. At the way he keeps her close, connected at all times.
“I don’t care. I want some time with you.” He says it so quietly that it’s nearly drowned out by the sound of the ocean.
A weak laugh pops out of her. “I’m sure you have better things to do than watch me sleep.”
He sweeps his thumb over her bottom lip. “On the contrary. I’m pretty sure it’s my ideal hobby.”
Ash draws a breath. He’s softer with her. All his barbs and taunts and evil eyes now come coated in a sheen of affection. He’s shown her a different side of him she never expected. So why can’t she do that with him? Let him in? Sleep over? Because it’s all too close. Too many feelings.
She wants the German shepherd back. Because the golden retriever she sees in his eyes frightens her.
She rests against him flush and lays her head on his chest. That’s when she realizes her hands are wrapped in the fabric of his shirt, like all she wants to do is become one with his body.
Shit. Maybe she hasn’t been as good at keeping her walls upas she thought. Keeping Nathaniel out. For once in a long time, it feels like someone sees her. Knows her for who she is.
Because he’s more than the fling from a few days ago.
After only a few days, Nathaniel’s a comfort. A need. That person who can get her through anything, especially Maui. Already, he’s holding her together, igniting dopamine levels so high they edge out her anxiety.
On a heavy sigh, Nathaniel adjusts her in his arms. They stay like that, taking in the tropical scenery. The lush mountains. The thunderous beach.
She can’t explain her many rioting feelings for him. So she doesn’t try. She just enjoys. For as long as she has him.
The bed frame creaks as Ash tiptoes out of bed. She pads, feet bare, across the cool marble floor. With a second look at Nathaniel, who sleeps face down, arms curled around his pillow, she slips into the bathroom and locks the door behind her.
She sits on the edge of the tub and dials.
“Hi,” she says into the phone. She cups her hand against the mouthpiece. “It’s me again. Third time calling, third time no answer. I promise I’m not stalking you…” She frowns. “Which I realize is something a stalker would say. Would you just…call me back?”
She hangs up and clutches the phone to her body as her guilty heart ricochets in her chest. Squeezing her eyes shut, she pushes to standing. Tiptoes back to Nathaniel. The room smells of sex and salt and sea.
“Ash,” he murmurs in his sleep. His muscular back rises and falls with the steady rhythm of his breath. He’s the most beautiful man she’s ever seen.
In the dark, she smiles. He could eat her name, swallow itdown into that warm, chiseled, tender heart of his and hold it there. Keep her.
She kisses his back. His freckled shoulder blade.
After she gathers her things, she studies his handsome face, boyish in the moonlight. Touches his lips with trembling fingers. Touches her own.
You, me,she thinks.
If only it were that easy.
As Nathaniel expected, Ash is fifteen minutes late. His heartbeat becomes irregular when she appears, slicing through the restaurant. She sits beside him at the round table, amid the clatter of the brunch buffet and his siblings’ chatter.
“You look more pale and tired than usual,” he remarks, lifting his coffee cup to his lips. She must have snuck out of his room at an ungodly hour. When he woke around three a.m., she was gone.
It’s like a vise around his heart. It pisses him off.
She gives him a dirty look while reaching for a croissant. “At least I’m not dressed like a leprechaun.”
The sharp tone in her voice makes him want to take her back to his room and bury his cock between her soft, wet thighs. Christ, he craves her banter. Can’t get enough of those under-the-breath asides that carve him up.