Something I Need (xoxo Nashville Book 1) (15 page)

“All in good time.” He moved on to her other nipple, paying it just as much attention.

Jonte’s head drooped backwards and she hazily watched the clouds. At some point, she tried to grab for his pants, but he was having none of that.

“I need you now,” she said. But he just rocked back onto his knees and trailed kisses down her stomach. “It hurts. I
need
you.”

“Says the woman who jerked me off on a bike with no release in sight earlier this morning.” Cash looked up at her through hooded eyes, just as horny as she was.

“So this is payback?”

“Call it what you will.” The cocky bugger chuckled and bit down on her hip. Mere seconds later, her shorts were unzipped and gone, along with her panties. He held her right leg up and he licked along the inside of her ankle, all the way up her thigh.

“I’m so fucking horny. Put something in me now!” she demanded, all flustered and aching for him.

“Oh, I like this sexy, dirty-talking version of you.” Cash lifted and then licked her left leg.

“I hate you.” She huffed, not really hating him but so over his teasing.

“No, you don’t.”

Stupid, smug bastard!

“Yes, I…oh…Cash…”

Mouth.

Lips.

Right there.

His skilled tongue pushed deeply into her and she lifted her hips, trying to get closer to his mouth. Round and round and round. He traced tiny circles with his tongue. So, so good. Better than good. Amazing. No, stupendous. No…

Bright light. Stars. Explosions.

After all that foreplay, she came quickly, wriggling uncontrollably and screaming out his name. Her body was a boneless blob of crème brulee when he was finally done.

“Better now, sweetheart?” He planted a soft kiss on her belly button.

She bit down on her lip and nodded.

“You right there?”

She nodded again, unable to form words or coherent thoughts.

Cash lay down next to her and gently stroked the side of her face, his finger moving all the way down to her bare hip.

Jonte fluttered her eyes shut.
The man was good. Oh so good
. It was embarrassing how long it was taking her to recover her ability to do anything.

“Don’t fall asleep on me,” Cash whispered.

“Not sleeping,” she mumbled and reached for his jeans, her hands still slightly shaky. It didn’t take much to get him out of them now. This time she let him roll on the condom.

“I want you on top. Straddle me like you did at the lookout.”

“Maybe we’ll have to change that name to Mr. Bossy-Pants.”

But she straddled him as requested and sank down onto him.
Oh, God. Oh, yes
. He gripped her face and kissed her deeply, still without any rush, as if they could spend forever on the banks of the river making love and kissing. Needing to feel more, she adjusted her legs, wrapping them around him and tilting herself slightly backwards.

“Oh, fuck. That’s better.” Cash held her hips while thrusting up.

It didn’t take long. And afterwards, they held each other for the longest time.

C
ash didn’t rush
to get Jonte back home. Pete would already be at the bar prepping vegetables and marinating meats for this afternoon, and Jerry had agreed to come in early.

The ranch was his favorite place in the world. It had been his safe haven for so long, practically his whole life. He loved how he could come home from a hard day and escape the rest of the world. Go chill out and fish or grab Casper and disappear for a few hours. When they were teens, he and Tanner had spent countless hours throwing around a pigskin in front of the house, even smashing Nannie’s window once. Tanner went on to play ball at college and could have gone pro. God only knew why Tanner hadn't followed that through, why he’d gone and come back to Nashville.

Cash was happy he’d gotten to share even just a little bit of this place with Jonte today. While she wasn’t a natural on Casper by any means, she’d tried, and that counted for everything. And their sex by the river had been even more mind blowing than their early morning shower sex.

Their connection was crazy.

Truly insane.

Maybe even a little scary.

He wanted more of her, more time, but didn’t want to think too much.

Late afternoon, with just enough time for her to get ready for her own shift, Cash dropped Jonte off at Dolly’s apartment and headed into work.

Pete was busy in the kitchen, and Jerry, Cash’s backup bartender, was run off his feet filling orders. It was a warm afternoon, and Jerry had opened up the accordion windows, allowing the sun to stream in. This meant nearly all their customers were sitting along the windows, enjoying the slight breeze, eating, drinking, and happily chatting away.

Jerry was definitely one of the best employees Cash had had over the past few years. He was always polite, and the ladies loved his long Michael Hutchence-like curls. An engineering grad student with student loans to pay, he was happy and eager to pick up as many shifts as Cash could throw his way.

It sure was going to be interesting to see how they coped tonight if they were already busy. Now probably wasn’t the best time for Jonte to have finally found a gig. He could really use the extra pair of hands.

Cash spent what was left of the afternoon pulling beers and wiping down tables. He’d wondered if Jonte would stop by before her shift, but she never did. Neither did Dolly, and that in itself was a blessing. If she was onto them, she wouldn’t have wasted a single second in coming down to gloat about how she’d been right all along. Decorum definitely wasn’t Dolly’s specialty.

The evening wore on and Cash realized how much he missed Jonte’s presence around the bar. Her genuinely friendly personality added some cheer to the place. She had a way with the regulars and loved to harmlessly flirt with them, joking about how she’d marry one of them if her singing career didn’t take off and she found herself in need of a green card. When things were quiet, she and Jerry would play “what do you call this,” a game they’d made up one day when Jonte had referred to her flip-flops as thongs and Jerry’d had no idea what she was talking about. Remembering the scene from the movie Love Actually where the English guy was picking up all those American hotties at the bar, Jonte had insisted they always play the game with accents. And having seemingly exhausted the Australian-American name variations, the objective had changed so they had to come up with variations from other countries and then say the word with an accent from that country.

“Where’s my future wife?” Billy hollered, taking a seat on one of the metal stools.

“She finally got a gig.” Cash poured him a pint.

“Good for her.” Billy chuckled, gratefully grabbing the beer. “So now we have to go back to looking at your ugly mug,” he said and took a drink of his beer.

Cash humored Billy and laughed along with him. Billy ran a cattle ranch not far from Nannie and Pop’s place, and was harmless enough. He was easily sixty years old and a widower. Except, unlike Tommy, who drank to get away from his wife and kids, Billy drank to forget the pain of losing his wife to cancer a few years back.

“Where’s she at?” Billy sat his half-empty drink back down on the bar.

“At that dueling piano bar up on Broadway.”

“That so? Might have to mosey on down there sometime to see her. She any good?”

Was she any good?
Huh. He honestly didn’t know. Dolly and Dean had sung her praises, but he still hadn’t heard her sing. And until three days ago, he’d had no idea she could play the piano. It made him feel like a right dick for carrying on about her and a guitar.

It was probably a good thing he hadn’t dragged her off to the open mic night like he’d planned. While he thought he’d be able to handle being in a room with all that boot scooting crap, he wasn’t entirely sure. And it would have been shitty to fall apart in front of all those people, especially Jonte.

“I hear good things,” Cash replied, deciding that was a nice, safe answer.

He checked his watch. It was just after 11:30 p.m. and the bar was still hectic. There was no way he was getting out of here early to pick up Jonte. He hadn’t said he would, but he’d hoped he could. He fished his cell out of his front pocket and sent her a quick message.

Cash:
Busy at the bar. Won’t be able to pick you up tonight.

Pete had agreed to stay back and keep the kitchen open as there seemed to be a steady stream of orders coming through, even now. The share-a-platter nachos and cheesy-bacon wedges seemed to be the flavor of the night. Jerry was kept occupied running around the dozen tables and the counter top that sat under the windowsill, leaving Cash to man the bar.

His cell finally chimed a little after midnight.

Jonte:
No probs, it’s crazy here too. It’s gonna be a late one. Will catch a cab or grab a ride.

He was relieved she’d messaged back, and although he tried to ignore it, a smidgeon of jealousy also crept in with the relief. Would that hipster from last night offer her a ride again? Was it too early to feel jealous? Should they talk about defining what they were? Was it too early for that?

Oh, for fuck’s sake. There were way too many questions swirling around in his head. Relationships made life complicated, and he liked his life simple. Always had, always would.

Cash poured more beers and shots, handed orders to Jerry, and seemed to continually wipe down the bar, but his mind was definitely not in the bar. No. Nannie’s words were replaying on a loop –
you’ll marry Cash.
He never planned on marrying anyone. That was his plan.

There was no getting around Nannie’s uncanny ability to see things. Cash did genuinely believe much of what Nannie said to people merely planted a seed that the person allowed to grow and take shape. He suspected she liked to tell people what she thought they needed to hear. Had that been her intention earlier, or had she really seen them married?

While he’d gone and told Jonte that Nannie had a fifty-fifty strike rate, the problem was you could never completely discount what she said. One year she insisted on keeping Cash and Dolly home from some riding summer camp because she’d had an unshakeable feeling something was going to happen. Then, halfway through the camp, a kid they knew drowned in the river while completing a dare early one morning. With that particular instance, she hadn’t seen that the kid would die, she’d just had a feeling. Of course the absolute worst and most accurate feeling she’d ever had was the time she’d called her son, Cash and Dolly’s dad, in a panic, warning him to pay more attention to his wife, Lynette. Their dad brushed off Nannie’s concerns, claiming everything was fine and then two days later, their mom had driven herself into a tree.

* * *

“
M
om
, please slow down,” Cash begged, his grip on Dolly’s hand tightening. It was dark out and he wasn’t sure where their mom was taking them so late at night when they were dressed in their pajamas and ready for bed.

They passed a streetlight and it lit up the car. Their mom smiled at them in the rear view mirror. She turned up Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line
,
”
and sang off key. Oh no. She was definitely having one of her episodes today, and Cash was pretty sure he’d seen her drinking from Dad’s whiskey before they left.

“I’m scared,” Dolly whispered. Cash leaned in and hugged his twin. He was the older one, and he was the man. It was his job to protect the family when their dad was away.

Lately, it seemed like their dad was always away. But Cash understood he had to be. He was important. He kept the country safe and he saved lives.

“It’ll be fine,” Cash whispered back.

Unfortunately, they had more experience than any almost-five-year-olds should have with these kinds of situations, and everything was always fine, eventually.

“I hate the line!” their mom screamed out and began to sob hysterically. The car swerved sharply, scaring Cash. Dolly’s grip on him tightened and she started crying.

“Mom, please slow down,” Cash begged again. He hated it when their mom cried. She didn’t normally cry in the car. Normally she locked herself away in a bedroom or in the bathroom and told them to go play.

His mom hit the gas hard and the car sped up.

“I can’t slow down,” their mom wailed. “The world won’t slow down and I can’t walk the line. I need to be free. We all need to be free,” she said and unbuckled her seatbelt.

“Please put your seatbelt back on, Mom,” Cash said.

He didn’t understand what his mom was saying, but he knew this was bad and didn’t know what else to do. She was their mom and she was an adult. Cash was well aware that adults didn’t really pay much attention to kids, and his dad was always saying you needed to respect your elders.

Did that mean it was okay for their mom to take off her seatbelt? You weren’t supposed to take your seatbelt off.

“Dolly, Cash, take your seatbelts off,” their mom said.

“Don’t do it,” he whispered to Dolly. “It’s not safe.”

“Take them off so we can be free and together.” That was the last thing he heard before the car crashed into something. Metal scraped, crinkling up against whatever they’d hit, while glass splintered and smashed. He threw himself protectively over Dolly and held on to her. The car jerked violently before coming to a standstill.

“Cash?” Dolly cried out.

“I’m here.” He felt tingles all up his arm and on the side of his face, but otherwise, he felt fine. “Are you okay?”

“I think so,” said Dolly.

“Don’t cry. We’re okay. Everything’s fine.”

Fear settled in, and even though he was scared to look up, he did. He couldn’t really see much because it was dark, but the front part of the car seemed to be gone, or maybe it was just crumpled? He stayed tucked into Dolly’s side while the music continued to blast out of the radio.

“Mommy?” Dolly screamed.

There was no reply. Dolly yelled out for their mommy again and again. Cash didn’t think yelling would help, so instead he worked on trying to calm Dolly down.

“Maybe she’s gone for help,” he suggested. Sometimes Dolly wasn’t very smart, and he hoped she wouldn’t realize they should have heard her door open and shut if she’d gone. Plus, she would have told them she was going for help.

Dolly didn’t say anything else about their mom, she just cried softly and repeated how she wanted to get out of the car. Again, he moved around to see if he could free them from the wreck, but they seemed to be trapped in the small pocket of space between the front and the back seats. Unable to do anything else, he hugged Dolly and told her help would be here soon.

* * *

C
ash woke up shaking
, his skin clammy, beads of sweat pooling on his forehead.

Why now? Why that dream? Why after so many years?

Christ, he could practically hear the damn deafening country music and feel the prickles of the glass shards embedded in his skin. He touched the tiny scars hidden by the stubble on the left side of his face and then ran his hand through his hair.

The sun was poking through his navy and cream plaid curtains. What time was it? He checked the alarm clock on the bedside table – it was just after seven. Nannie would no doubt be downstairs baking for the morning tea at church. He didn’t really want to answer questions about why he was up so early but knew there was no way he was getting back to sleep now.