My mind flew to Tristan. To another widow unable to move on. And Nash’s need to take care of her took on a whole new dimension. It wasn’t just because of Darren and the culpability he felt. It was because he was trying to save Tristan when he hadn’t saved his mom.
“By the time I was thirteen, I’d gotten to the point where I couldn’t quite sleep when I knew she was having a bad day. There were times when I’d find her sobbing, sitting on the top of the steps like she couldn’t even gather the energy to go down the stairs. That night, I heard the steps, the squeak on the third one down. The moan as the wood awoke. The house whispering to me. But I’d been out in the fields all day, learning. That was what Carson called it when, really, it was just working like every other laborer. I was exhausted and fell back asleep. Then, something woke me up with a stab to my gut. It had me sitting straight up. To this day, I don’t know what it was.”
Nash pulled my fingers into his. Intimate. Personal. Connected in a way I’d never been with another human being. Feeling his pain as if it were my own.
“I checked the house. I checked the conservatory. I checked the pool, and then I just kept moving. By the time I got to the pond, her body was partly on the shore, glowing in the moonlight in a pale nightgown. I ran over to her, and I didn’t know what to do after I’d pulled her out. I didn’t know CPR, and I didn’t have a cell phone. I started screaming for help and screaming at her.”
My fingers tightened on his, letting him finish on his own terms.
“By the time Carson found me, she’d already been there awhile. He pulled me away from her, back to the house so he could call 9-1-1. I kept wanting to go back, and he kept telling me she was already gone. But he hadn’t even tried to save her.”
He’d replaced his swim goggles with sunglasses when he’d gotten out, and when he bent his head down to look at me, I couldn’t see what was going on in his eyes. He slid back into the pool, facing me and the wall, pushing between my legs. Another intimate move that wasn’t the norm for us but one my body welcomed.
“You asked about my parents. That’s their story. It’s also why, this morning…” He trailed off.
I lifted the sunglasses from his face so I could see his deep-green eyes and the emotions swirling there. The wide-open pain in them made my breath stop. Made my heart twist and turn into a new shape that he marked with his name.
And it hit me. I was fucking in love with Nash Wellsley. I was in love with a man who would never be mine because he was tied to regrets and despair that went way beyond anything I could imagine. A loss he’d grown up with.
I didn’t know what he read in my look. I was hoping it wasn’t the love. But whatever he saw, it was enough to have him groaning and pulling my face to his. It was enough that he put his lips on mine and kissed me with a meaning I didn’t understand. Pushing and tugging on my lips and tongue. Searing himself into my being. Demanding a return I easily gave. My hands trailing from his neck to the sharp bristle of his hair before trailing back to his shoulders and the muscles that covered him even more than the tattoos.
His hands went to my rear, barely covered in a bikini bottom, and pulled me to the edge so that my core ran up against his body. Heat combined with the cool of the water and air, driving sensations I’d never felt before as our hands and tongues explored, demanding and retreating in a beautiful rhythm. The longer the earth-shattering kiss continued, the more the ache of heartbreak turned into the simple ache of desire.
The passion behind the slow lap of his tongue in my mouth had me moaning. Had me tightening my legs around him as a foreign idea filled me. Knowledge that this was the one place I was meant to be—next to this man who drove me crazy, and drove me to drink, and drove me to pleasure.
A door slammed, bringing us back to where we were, but when he pulled his lips away, there wasn’t regret in his eyes. There wasn’t self-hatred; there was only longing. It was more than lust. It was a sensual craving mixed with emotions I’d never received from a man. My body beat out a return answer.
I ran a finger along his lips, and he nipped at it, causing me to smile. It was a new reaction from either of us after any of our intimate moments. There was no remorse, only a yearning for more.
“Are you two going to be done in time for dinner?” Maribelle’s voice reached us from the veranda.
Nash ran a hand along my side all the way from my hip to the curve of my breast before backing away. He grabbed his sunglasses from where I’d placed them next to me, slid them on, and then grinned up at her, the Nash I’d very first encountered coming back. Charming. Teasing. But now I knew it for what it was. It was a Nash who was hiding behind a front.
“Depends on what you’ve made me,” he said.
She tutted. “What do I always make you on the second night you’re here?”
“Red beans and rice followed by beignets.” He grinned.
“It was your daddy’s favorite. But then, that’s what comes from being raised in New Orleans,” she said with a small tease, as if being from New Orleans was the worst offense in the world.
I saw the small tick on Nash’s jaw at the mention
