Page 162 of Nash
The house is ten minutes from the clubhouse. A two-bedroom off the county road, set back in the trees, with a porch that wraps around the front. We moved in three months ago. Ruby painted the front door red the first weekend. The second weekend, she hung string lights on the porch. By the third weekend, she rearranged every piece of furniture twice before putting it all back where it started and said, "I was testing the energy flow."
I pull into the driveway and kill the engine. The quiet settles. Crickets fill the silence. The trees shift. Ruby's arms are still around me.
She climbs off the bike. I follow. She takes my hand and walks backward toward the porch, pulling me, her eyes on mine, with a grin on her face. The one that means she started planning something three miles ago and the planning involves me being naked.
"Ruby."
"Nash."
"What are you doing?"
"Taking you inside. To our bed. Where I intend to do things to you that would make East blush and Darla take notes."
"Darla doesn't need notes."
"Darla always needs notes. That woman is a student of the craft."
She pulls me through the front door, through the living room where her shoes are piled by the couch and my jacket hangs on the hook, through the hallway where she's hung three of her designs in frames I built, into our bedroom.
Our bed. The one we picked together. The one where she sleeps on my chest, steals the blankets, talks in her sleep about things that make no sense, and occasionally wakes me up at three in the morning to tell me something she forgot to say before she fell asleep.
She turns in the bedroom doorway and puts her hands on my chest.
"Hi," she says.
"Hi."
She pushes my cut off my shoulders. I let it fall. She pulls my shirt over my head, her hands running down my chest, over the ink, over the heartbeat she tattooed on my forearm. Her fingers trace it every time she undresses me, a ritual she doesn't know she's made.
I reach for the hem of her crop top. Pull it over her head. She's not wearing a bra. Her breasts bare, her nipples already hard. I cup both in my hands, squeezing, rolling the nipples between my fingers.
"You've been walking around all day in this outfit," I say. "No bra. Those shorts. That lipstick."
"You noticed."
"I noticed six hours ago." Dragging my thumb across her nipple, I watch her shiver. "I've been thinking about getting you out of those shorts since you put them on this morning."
"Yet you waited. Such restraint."
"The restraint is over."
I walk her backward until her knees hit the mattress. She sits. I kneel in front of her and pull her boots off. Then hook my fingers in the waistband of her shorts and panties together anddrag them both down her thighs in one pull. She lifts her hips to help. When I toss them aside, she's naked on our bed with her legs parted, her pussy already glistening.
"Fuck." The word comes out rough. "You're already wet."
"I've been wet since you grabbed my thigh on the bike."
I press my mouth to the inside of her knee. Kiss higher. Her thigh. Higher. The crease where her leg meets her hip. Her fingers find my hair.
"Nash. Please."
"Please what?"
"Please put your mouth on me."
I press my mouth against her pussy and lick from her entrance to her clit in one slow, flat stroke. She cries out, her back arching off the mattress, her hips lifting into my face. I grip her thighs, push them wider apart, and lick her again. Slow. My tongue parts her folds, tasting her, the salt and heat of her filling my mouth.
"You taste so fucking good," I say against her pussy. The words vibrate against her clit, and she whimpers. "Every time. You taste better every time."
