It was convoluted and confusing. I probably should have had something brilliant to say to her, some kind of thoughtful insight to put this all in perspective. I maybe should have been able to read into the subtle subtext of her words and her tone, but she quickly sealed her mouth over mine. Then she shoved her hand down the front of my pants, and I lost not only any will to object but also my balance, and we toppled over onto the other side of the couch. It was more than just a free fall onto the cushions … it was a free fall into one another.

Her hair was everywhere. She tasted like oranges and fire. Her hand had a solid grip on my rock-hard cock, and I felt her pause for a second when her palm slid over the head and encountered the different pieces of metal that lived there. I had a Prince Albert through the tip and a little tiny barbell that lived just under the curve of the head that they called a frenum piercing. Normally I warned anyone I was going to get n*ked with that the piercings were there, but she never gave me the chance and she didn’t seem like she had any intention of slowing the pace down.

The way we landed had her on top of me, her legs on either side of my waist. Her hands were all over me, the one inside my boxers making it impossible to have any kind of lucid thought. She was kissing my neck, returning to suck on my mouth, her hair felt like silken tentacles I was never going to escape from. Somehow even though there was limited movement allowed and space was minimal, she got my pants down around my h*ps and moved my boxers out of the way so that I was standing up erect and proud. Her hand looked super pale next to the hard, red flesh, and when she used the tip of one finger to touch the piercing that lived right under the tip, my eyes rolled back in my head and I hissed out a breath through clenched teeth. Holy shit, no simple touch had ever had me ready to come like hers did.

“Of course you would be pierced.” She sounded amused, and I didn’t know what to say to that, not when she bent down and ran her tongue over the flat of my nipple. I was practically pulsating her hand. She had me all turned around and lost. I was trying desperately to figure out what we were doing and where we were going and I wasn’t sure there was a map to show us how to get wherever it was she expected me to be at.

“Saintttt …” The word got garbled and lost when she lifted up off of me just enough so that she could wiggle around and get her black panties off under the hem of her little black dress. It struck me then that she was still fully clothed, even had her shoes on, and I was stripped and exposed while she did what she wanted, took what she needed from me.

Something about that didn’t sit right, and I wanted to tell her so, when she bent down, kissed me again, and asked against my mouth, “Condom?”

All right, I was a decent guy, had a pretty sturdy set of standards and morals, but when a girl was this hot, made my head this fuzzy, had my heart beating so hard I was sure she could hear it, and she pretty much demanded I have sex with her, who was I to argue? I lifted my h*ps up and that made her gasp because now there was nothing between us where she was straddling me and I saw her eyes go from that oh-so-lovely gray to a slate color that hovered close to black. I handed her my wallet, told her to fish one out, wrapped my hand in her wealth of hair, and pulled her down so that I could kiss her like I wanted to. I had to have some say in this after all, even if Saint calling the shots landed me under her, with all her damp heat pressed up close against me.

I kissed her with no lingering anger, no sadness, no desperation or bleakness hovering between us for the first time. I just wanted to savor her tangy flavor, revel in the way she rolled her tongue along mine, marvel at the way she sort of swore and whispered my name at the same time. This was how she should be kissed every time … by me and only me.

I felt her shift her weight and her hand that was sliding up and down my shaft, trying to kill me with gentle pressure and a delicate touch. I couldn’t see what she was doing because the skirt of her dress was in the way. Hell, I couldn’t even tell if she had freckles across those awesome br**sts, because as close as we were right now, she was very obviously still keeping firm mental and physical boundaries in place.

“Saint?”

I could feel the latex slide over me. Good thing she was a nurse, she didn’t have any trip up getting it around the metal decorating my business.

“Nash?”

Her eyes were on mine as she sat up, put both her hands right on the center of my chest, and seated herself down on me, all the way to the hilt. She was tight, suffocatingly so. She was hot and slick, and since she was on top, riding me up and down in a torturous motion, all I wanted to do was watch myself disappear inside of her. Everything about this girl was bound to be shrouded in secrets, even what we looked like when we were joined together. I loved it and hated it at the same time. Kind of how I was starting to feel about Saint Ford.

Whatever I had been about to say to her fled. It was odd. I’d never had sex where my partner was fully clothed while I was on display. I’d also never been intimate with anyone who seemed like they were desperately, furiously trying to get to the end, regardless of what I was or wasn’t doing. Like she was using me to get to completion but wasn’t even in the act with me. I put my hands on her, tried to get the strap of her dress down over her shoulder so I could get access to all that creamy, white skin, and scowled in concern when she flinched away from me.

Her head was tossed back, her hair was pooling in a fiery blanket across the top of my bare thighs, and her hands were curling into clawing talons on my chest. Her eyes were locked on mine, so I saw it brimming, saw the surprise, the wonder crest over the thunderclouds when she came apart. I also saw tears spring into her gaze and the way her chest started to rise and fall like she was going to hyperventilate as soon as the last shuddering crest of the orgasm wafted over her.

I mean I was pretty good in bed, or on the couch, as the case might be, but that was the fastest orgasm I had ever inspired in any woman, and as far as I was concerned, we hadn’t even gotten to the good stuff yet. I was still painfully hard, still dying to get her n*ked and my mouth on any part of her that she would let me, but Saint had other plans.

She looked down at me like she just suddenly realized I was there, a living breathing person and not a vibrator. She jerked her hands off of my chest, scrambled off of me in a way that made my dick scream at both of us, and collected all that glorious hair into her shaking hands. The tears shimmering in her eyes started to fall, and before I could sit up and ask her what in the hell was going on, she was practically running for the door.

“I’m so sorry, Nash.”

While getting left high and dry with a raging hard-on wasn’t my favorite thing that had happened that day, I was more worried about the fact that she looked like she was going to shatter like an icicle hanging off the edge of a steep roof. She was shaking all over, her eyes were too big in her pale face, and her freckles were standing out in stark relief. The trails the tears were leaving made her look like something that was going to shatter.

“Saint, hold on a second.” I had to struggle back into my pants, not easy when my dick was still ready and rearing to go, but she shook her head at me and dashed to the front door.

“No, no … I told you I didn’t know how to do this with you. I have to go.” The door slammed behind her in her haste to exit, and by the time I was semipresentable, tucked away, and had made it to the hallway with only a slight limp, she was long gone.

The other new redhead in my life, however, was coming in through the front door. She was all bundled up and slid her gaze over my rumpled and rough state and blew out a sharp whistle through her teeth.

“Bad date?”

I snorted and leaned against the open doorway, my arms up over my head. Royal had no problem checking out the show. Too bad none of it was for her.

“It started out a little rough, got bad, had a high point, and then ended with a whimper.”

She let her gaze roam unabashedly over my n*ked chest, tattooed arms, and still-open pants. Why couldn’t I be attracted to her? She was adorable, bold, and I liked her unabashed and unapologetic attitude, but there was no doubt about it, she wasn’t going to be a substitute for Saint. The idea of it even took care of the uncomfortable problem in my pants.

“I gotta say, you are better than TV for pure entertainment value.”

I snorted. “Glad you can find humor at the state of my dismal dating life.”

She made her way to her own door and smiled at me over her shoulder.

“You’re a babe, a little rough and dangerous, and she’s shy and quiet. I saw her on my way in. You probably overwhelm her and she feels out of her depth. Give her a minute to realize you wouldn’t be all up on her if you didn’t think she was just as awesome as she clearly thinks you are. That is a pretty girl with a crush for sure. Boys need to be careful with pretty girls that have crushes.”

I lifted my eyebrow at her.

“How do you know all that? You psychic or something?”

She pushed her own door open and laughed at me.

“Not even close. I have really good instincts about people. It serves me well in my line of work.”

She looked like a yoga instructor or a high-end stripper, and with a name like Royal, come on. I couldn’t imagine what her job really was.

“What do you do?”

She lifted one of her own eyebrows back at me. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. Don’t give up on her, neighbor. She looks like she could use a guy like you, someone to shake her up, force her to have some fun. Have a good night.”

She shut the door without giving me a real answer about her job, and I retreated into my own place. I needed a minute to clear my head and, more pressing than that, to work out my frustration in a hot shower. I’d never been so twisted up, so wound up about a girl before. Saint took effort, a gentle touch I wasn’t a hundred percent sure I was equipped with. I mean I was never the kind of guy who just barreled into a girl’s life and turned it upside down. I never cared enough to do that. With Saint I was starting to want to not only turn everything upside down, but put it in a jar, or a box, and shake it all up and around until something completely different came out. A different Nash and Saint who could figure this shit out.

CHAPTER 8

Saint

I paced around my apartment like a neurotic mess the rest of the night. I couldn’t believe what I had done, or the way I had left him like that. I was mortified and stupefied at not only my actions but that I had actually managed to get off with him. That had never happened to me before, and all the foreign goodness and startling knowledge that it was him that could get me there had me nearly blind with panic.

I spent all the next day cleaning and finding anything to keep my whirling mind busy until I had to go in for my shift. I barely pulled it together to go in for my rounds, but considering my phone was blowing up with an equal mix of angry text messages from my mom, and disappointed ones from my dad, I had to get out of my apartment. I called Faith to tell her and the rest of her brood family Merry Christmas, and even though I tried to keep it brief, I think she could tell I was upset and something was really wrong.

There was nothing she could do or say to stop me from feeling like I was a lunatic. I don’t know what happened to me when I was around Nash, but something about him and me in the same room and I turned into an unpredictable mess.

Things had been all right. I didn’t love not having my own car in case I wanted to escape the wedding and my own nerves, but his friends and all of the wedding party had been really nice, and his dad, or Phil, as the older man laughingly told me to call him, was delightful. Had I not known any different, I would have thought he was healthy as a horse. The nurse in me wasn’t certain that being around so many people in his fragile state was a smart idea, but I could tell there was no way he would’ve missed the big event. This group was tighter than any band of friends I had ever encountered.

All of Nash’s friends were gorgeous and covered in defining marks that made them an unforgettable group. It wasn’t the tattoos or the fact that the groom was sporting a purple Mohawk that made me start to hyperventilate—it was the palpable love, the care, the respect and genuine admiration they all had for one another that made my skin feel too tight, made a longing I had never felt before start to stifle everything else inside of me.