Page 76 of Nash
I turn my head and kiss her palm. Her breath catches. Her eyes go soft, tender, unguarded.My girl.
I pull her tighter against my chest. Her hand finds mine and laces our fingers together.
The spare room fills with morning light. Downstairs, the clubhouse is waking up. East's voice. Darla's laugh. The coffee maker starting a new pot.
Ruby is quiet for a moment. Her thumb traces circles on my knuckle, the same circles she used to trace on my stomach during the bike rides. The ones I missed every day she stopped.
"You know what's embarrassing?" she says.
"Tell me."
"I used to watch the other girls get pulled away. Candace and Malachi disappearing into the bike shop. Knox dragging Sloane into the supply closet. Darla and East just... gone. And I was so happy for them, Nash. I was. But I'd be sitting on that couch with my drink thinking, must be nice." She laughs quietly. "I wanted to be one of the girls who gets whisked off to have sex in the clubhouse. That's pathetic, right?"
"No."
"It's a little pathetic."
"It's not." I press my lips against the back of her neck. She shivers. "And Ruby."
"Yeah?"
"Now that I've had you, I won't be able to stop." My arm tightens around her waist, pulling her flush against me. "The spare room. The bike shop. The supply closet. Every surface in this clubhouse."
Her breath catches. Her hips press back against mine.
"Promise?" she whispers.
"Promise. My girl," I say against her skin.
Her fingers tighten around mine.
Chapter 19
Nash
Themorninglighthasshifted from gray to gold across the spare room ceiling. Ruby is tucked against my side, her leg thrown over mine, her fingers tracing lazy patterns on my chest.
"I need coffee," she says. "Need some immediately. I need coffee intravenously. Is there a medical procedure for that? There should be. Someone should invent it. I would invest. I would be the sole investor." She tips her chin up to look at me, her copper hair a disaster, the sheet pulled up to her collarbone, one bare shoulder visible. "Nash. Coffee. This is urgent."
"We could go downstairs."
"Not yet. I'm not ready for downstairs." She settles back against my chest. "Although I will say, what just happened was almost as good as coffee."
My hand stills on her back. "Almost."
"I said what I said."
"Almost as good as coffee."
"It's very good coffee, Nash. I take my coffee seriously. You should be flattered by the comparison." She peeks up at me. The grin is forming. "I mean, it's close. It's a tight race. If you'd gone a little longer I might have bumped you above the coffee, but—"
I roll her onto her back and pin her wrists above her head. She yelps, laughing, her body arching under mine.
"Still almost?" I say.
Her breath catches. Her eyes go dark. The laugh dies into something hotter.
"I might need a reminder before I finalize my ranking." She rolls her hips under my hands. "Show me, Nasty."
