Then He Kissed Me: A Cottonbloom Novel (30 page)

His father had always seemed larger than life and intimidating as hell. Now, they stood eye to eye, and Nash had at least thirty pounds on him. They walked into a damp inferno and stopped on the sidewalk. Nash took a deep breath of salty air. He preferred the loamy, swampy air of Cottonbloom to the salt. Always had.

“I should probably give Aunt Leora some warning else she might pass out on the front stoop. When do you want to head up?”

His father looked in the direction of the ocean, even though it wasn’t visible from where they stood. “Nothing keeping me here. How about I come up tomorrow? That too soon?”

A frisson of shock rocked through Nash. His father had no one. “Not at all.”

His father rocked on his feet. “I guess I’ll see you tomorrow, then? Hope I’ll be seeing more of you, Tally.”

“I’m sure you will, Mr. Hawthorne.” Tally offered her hand, but his father pulled her in for a half hug.

“Your parents were good people. I was too lost in my own grieving to offer you much back then, and I’m sorry for it. Call me Jack, please.”

“Thanks, Jack.”

His father stuck his hands into the front pockets of his jeans and smiled, backing away a few steps before turning and walking down the street. Nash stood there until his father disappeared around a corner.

“Wow, that was interesting.” Tally’s ironically given understatement made him chuckle.

“Not at all what I expected.”

“It’s good though, isn’t it?” She weaved their fingers together as they walked to his truck.

“You think?”

“It’s a second chance, Nash.”

They climbed into the truck and he cranked the engine, but didn’t shift immediately into drive. The air conditioning barely made headway through the scorching heat inside. Strangers walked past them, each one with their own stories of heartache to tell or secrets to keep.

“When your mother died, you lost both your parents, didn’t you? Just like me. I didn’t realize…” She shifted toward him and traced her fingertips over the tattoo on his biceps.

He caught her hand in his. “He was alive. Out there. I teetered between wanting to make him proud and wanting to give him the finger.”

“It was nice to offer him a place to stay.”

“Even if it was with Aunt Leora?”

Her lips quirked. “Even so. Seems to me she’s softening with the years.”

“Thanks for coming with me.”

“It’s what a girlfriend does, right?”

Something flared between them, something he wasn’t sure he could define, something that instilled fear and joy. He jerked the shifter into drive and got them headed toward home.

They didn’t talk much on the trip back to Cottonbloom. He didn’t ask, and she didn’t protest when he drove them to his place. They were finally on the same page of the same book.

She took his hand and pulled him up the stairs to his loft bedroom. She slipped his glasses off and set them aside. He pulled his shirt off and tossed it to the floor like a white flag of surrender.

He went for her shirt, but she batted his hands away while she leaned in to press her face into the hollow of his neck. Her lips tickled the soft skin under his ear. She was being sweet, too sweet.

He unwound her braid, tangled his hands in her hair, and tugged her head back. The kiss he gave her was a command and a plea. After the tumultuous meeting with his father, he craved simple and uncomplicated. He would make it up to her later.

He went after her shirt again, but she dislodged his hands. Her kiss-reddened lips were parted, and she looked as if she wanted to say something. Instead, she dropped nips and kisses along his jaw and neck, trekking slowly south to his chest. Only when her hands tugged the front of his pants as she fell to her knees did he comprehend her intent.

“You don’t have to—”

She palmed him over his pants, his half-hearted protest forgotten. The shorts dropped to his ankles. He toed his shoes off and kicked the shorts aside, leaving him only in underwear.

Like the morning that had burned itself into his memory, his erection was pressing and prominent. Too lightly, she skimmed her fingers down the length.

“I’ve dreamed of you like this … on your knees in front of me, but I always wake up feeling like an insensitive jerk.” Even as he said the words, he was wrapping her long, dark hair around his hands.

Her gaze shot up, a spark of humor in her eyes. “Don’t you get it?
I’ve
dreamed of doing this ever since that morning.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I want to make you happy.”

She didn’t give him a chance to respond. She pulled his underwear down and wrapped a hand around him, nuzzling her lips around the tip. Closing her eyes, she opened her mouth.

He tried to hold still, but instinct took over and he pumped his hips, his hands tightening in her hair. A small amount of awareness lurking under his primal need kept him from pressing too hard or deep. She opened her eyes and cast them upward. Their gazes met and held. His hips stilled.

It was if a picture had been taken, freezing them in the intimacy. Her eyes huge, her face flushed, her hair wild. His needs shifted. He pulled out of her mouth and scooped her to her feet, bringing her body into his. His underwear slipped down and he kicked it off, completely nude while she was dressed. But not for long.

He kissed her, long and deep, wrestling with her shorts. They fell away. Her shirt followed his across the room, the purple landing on top of the white. He undid her bra with one hand and peeled it off. With every piece of clothing he removed, the more impatient he became.

The raw emotions clawing to escape required pacification. He pushed her backward until her knees hit the mattress, and she plopped down. He continued to maneuver her body across the bed until he was between her legs.

He was poised to take her when he noticed the tear trailing along her temple. He swooped to kiss it away, the salt muting his single-minded intent. “What’s wrong?”

“What if I don’t know how to do this?”

Instinctively, he knew she wasn’t talking about sex. He settled his forearms on either side of her head, his brain having difficulty locating words that were more than one syllable. “We’ll figure it out.”

The tip of his erection brushed the center of her and his hips jerked.

“But what if I’m not as good at it as you are?”

A laugh of surprise and desperation spurted out. “It’s not a competition. It’s … an exploration. Like we used to explore the river together.”

“We’re not kids anymore.”

“Trust me, I know.” He circled his hips against her, his erection finally pushing inside of her an inch. He captured her gasp with a kiss. One firm stroke buried him deep. She tore her mouth away, her back arching.

Each stroke stole another sliver of rational thought until words were lost in the fog of his building orgasm. Yet, it was indefinably different this time.

He wanted to close his eyes, lose himself in the physical, but he didn’t. When she climaxed, his name fell from her lips. He kissed her silent, his pelvis grinding into hers one last time as he followed her.

He wasn’t sure how much time passed before the kisses she peppered over his shoulder and neck revived him. He rolled off her to stare up through the skylights at the clear night. She scooted away, and he raised his head enough to see her cute backside disappear into the bathroom.

Not good at it
, she’d said. He almost laughed again. Not only was she the most amazing lover he’d ever had, but now that her walls were crumbling, her sweetness flavored everything.

When the water turned off in the bathroom, he repositioned himself in bed, propped up on the pillows. He half-expected her to ask for one of his T-shirts, but she slipped under the covers naked and fused herself to his side, her head on his shoulder.

It was early yet, and he wasn’t ready for sleep to end their day together. The revelations and drama had him keyed up and only one thing would calm him.

“Can I read to you?”

Her hand stilled where it had been tracing patterns on his chest. The grenade he’d launched sat between them. “There’s something I want to read to you. May I?”

She turned to her back and scooched up the pillows, pulling the sheet to her neck. “It’s okay. You can read while I…” Her gaze swept the room.

“Lie here and enjoy it? Look, this is not to make you feel uncomfortable or whatever. This is something I want to share with you. Will you let me?”

She shrugged, her reluctance palpable. He trotted down the stairs to retrieve the book he had in mind. It had been years since he’d read it, and it took a few minutes to locate it in the bookcase.

He walked back into his bedroom, flipping through the book like they were old friends kept apart too long.

“Do you always walk around naked?”

He glanced up. Her eyes were huge and focused below his waist. She clutched the sheet to her chin like some horrified maiden. This reaction from the woman who’d gone down on him not a half hour earlier made laughter pour out of him.

He slipped back in bed but didn’t bother to cover himself. Affecting a thick Southern accent, he said, “Why Miss Fournette, you have already been well and truly compromised.”

“If you do not cover yourself with a sheet, sir, I shan’t be able to control my unladylike urges.” Her Scarlett O’Hara voice was threaded with enough husky promise to make his blood run faster.

He leaned in for a kiss but flipped the sheet over his hips. Her arms circled his shoulders, the sheet falling to her waist. Before her soft, perfect breasts could distract him, he pulled the sheet to her chin and retreated. “Enough of that, you wild, wicked woman.”

He crossed his feet at the ankle and turned to page one, smoothing the paper.

She stopped him before he even got a page in. “Hold up. This is a kid’s book.”

“It’s Harry Potter. It’s for anyone who has ever felt abandoned. For every misfit. I can’t tell you how many times I read it. Afterward.”

“After your mother died?”

“And after I lost you,” he whispered before focusing his attention on the book.

Chapter Sixteen

His voice wove a spell around her. Not in a way that put her to sleep, but in a way that transported her. After a time, she forgot to worry about her dyslexia and the huge leap they’d taken together and relaxed. She closed her eyes, but her brain absorbed the words like a good rain after a long drought.

It took a few heartbeats for the silence to register. She opened her eyes to find him looking down at her. “I thought you’d fallen asleep.”

She popped up on her elbows. It seemed strange to see him and the stacks of books and the moon through the skylights. “No. Not at all. I was … in the story.”

A slow grin warmed his eyes. “You like it?”

“It’s amazing and so is the way you read it. Your British accent is really good.”

“You won’t mind if I read to you again sometime?”

“You kind of have to. I need to find out what happens, don’t I?”

He flipped the lamp off and rolled toward her, tucking her into his body, but making no move to make love to her.

“They’ve made amazing leaps in therapies for dyslexia, you know.”

She stiffened, but he didn’t allow her to pull away. “How would you know?”

“I looked into it. There’s a center—”

“I went there once to ask about their programs, and it was a bunch of eight- and nine-year-olds. It’s humiliating enough already without having to sit next to a kid who eats his boogers.”

The rumble that vibrated her cheek was distantly humorous. “How about a private session, then?”

“I don’t know.”

“I could teach myself the methods behind it and work with you.”

His persistence, even if it was in her best interests, rubbed her like sandpaper. “Leave it. You’re my boyfriend, not my teacher. Anyway, you said you don’t care if I can’t read
War and Peace
with you.”

“It doesn’t affect the way I feel about you, but is it wrong that I want you to experience the joy I’ve found in books?” She hesitated and he pounced. “I’m going to look into options and I want you to keep an open mind. Okay?”

She nodded. She really did want to learn to read better and faster. It wasn’t the work it would take to overcome her dyslexia that had held her back, it was the humiliation of being nearly thirty and having to ask for help with something the average third-grader could do.

The next morning, Tally slipped into the Defender for a ride back to her car. Although it was probably her imagination, her neck heated with the thought of his aunt watching. No matter what Nash had said, she wasn’t convinced of Ms. Leora’s one-eighty turnaround. The woman was probably waiting for her to screw up so she could jump out with an “Aha!”

They spent as much time as they could in each other’s company over the next week. Ms. Leora welcomed Jack Hawthorne with equal amounts of trepidation and optimism. Tally continued to expand her plans for the senior program and to solidify her small part in the festival. Sawyer reviewed her signage and advertisements, making corrections as needed. As many times as she reviewed it, she always misspelled or dropped a word.

She and Nash spent the weekend together except for work, and she even went to church with him and Ms. Leora, although she made Nash sit between them. While it was all-around tense and unenjoyable, she considered church with Ms. Leora a necessary evil if she was going to be with Nash. The looks she received from female members of the congregation varied from incendiary to welcoming, depending on their age and marital status.

Afterward, she sank down in the passenger seat of the Defender and kicked her shoes off. She couldn’t wait to get back in her jeans and T-shirt. “I’m glad that’s over.” They passed the street to his place. “Hey, you missed the turn.”

“Listen, I’ve got some stuff to do this afternoon, okay?”

His voice was distant, distracted. A jumble of rocks slid through her body to congregate in her stomach. Something was wrong. She’d caught him staring off into nothing several times over the weekend, but she’d put it down to Charlemagne. Maybe it wasn’t some dead guy. Maybe it was her. Had she done something wrong?