Page 82 of For Better or Hearse

Framing his face in her hands, she kisses him fiercely.

In response, he wraps his fist in all that black hair. A fire erupts within him. Fuck. It’s just as good as he expected. She kisses like a monster. Hungry and electric and savage.

Ash dips a finger into the waistband of his board shorts, pulling an unholy moan from deep within him. Her fingers skim thelength of his cock. The heavy erection he’s sporting begs for relief. Begs for—

“Nathaniel!” Claire calls from the beach, voice panicked.

Ash tears away from him.

“Nathaniel, we need some help here!”

Wide-eyed, Ash jumps out of his arms. “Shit. Augustus.”

Heart racing, he tries to get his bearings, calm his erection.

They both splash through the water, swimming fast through the cove.

“Your dick,” Ash hisses as they come into sight of his family. His eyes drop to the bulge in his shorts. She smirks. “Your dick, asshole.”

Fuck. As they rush onto shore, Nathaniel snags a towel and wraps it around his waist.

He scans the scene waiting for him. Tate sits on a towel, his foot bloodied and cut up. Delaney, Augustus and his mother stand over him.

“What happened?” he barks.

Delaney rolls her eyes. “Tate tried to jump off the waterfall. Instead, he slipped and cut his foot.”

“It’s called doing a sweet jackknife,” Tate says with a scowl at Delaney. “But apparently, we all have our limitations.”

“You idiot,” Nathaniel rasps, winded from the swim. From the absolute sucker punch of Ash’s kiss. Dropping into a crouch, he glares at his little brother. Then he turns his attention to the cut on Tate’s foot. It’s shallow, but it could get infected if he doesn’t handle it.

“Bright side,” Ash says to Tate as she sinks into a squat beside Nathaniel. “It won’t affect your podcast.”

Tate laughs, but when Nathaniel twists his foot, the sound morphs into a groan.

“No,” Nathaniel says dryly. “Just your ability to walk for the rest of the trip.”

“Here,” Ash says, handing him the first-aid kit she must have fished out of his pack.

Gratefulness rises inside him. That she’s here. That she’s helping.

“Thanks,” he says.

Ash looks up at him from beneath thick, fringed lashes. Barefaced, beautiful. Goose bumps dot her bare skin. She’s shivering.

Frowning, he removes the towel from around his waist.

“Get warm,” he tells her. He drapes the towel around her shoulders, making sure she’s covered, and then unzips his kit. “I got this.”

He turns to the task at hand. All traces of earlier levity, of him and Ash, gone.

Already, he wants her back.

Stupid, dumb reptilian brain. Stupid kissing Nathaniel Whitford. Stupid she’s still thinking about it even though it’s been approximately five hours since then. And in the meantime, they’ve had dinner and participated in a sunset water aerobics class so militant that her entire body feels like a rubber band.

She wants to be back in that lagoon. Pressed against Nathaniel’s hard stomach, held like she mattered. His frantic fingers inside her, his lush, warm mouth devouring.

I notice everything about you.