Nash. Jay Crownover
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and somehow lured me even closer so that I could feel the rapid rate his heart was pounding out against the flattened palm of my hand where it rested on the burning surface of one of his impressive pecs. I could taste all his vices as his talented tongue danced across my own and glanced against the sensitive curve of my upper lip. There was the tang of tequila, the acrid hint of cigarette smoke, a tinge of sorrow, and the unmistakable residue of injury caused by wounds self-inflicted by his stubbornness and fear.
One of us groaned and the other sighed heavily, and just as I was about to forget myself, forget why I was here and who this tattooed and inconsolable boy was to me and do something idiotic and unforgivable, there was a pounding knock at the door that had both of us jerking apart. His gaze was wild and hazy with a mixture of passion and confusion. I pulled back and jumped to my feet like that fire that was inked all over him was alive and could actually singe me.
I was breathing hard and felt like I wanted to maybe kick him or fall back on top of him and kiss him all over again. The banging on the door increased in intensity and I cleared my throat and shoved my now messy, tangled column of hair over my shoulder.
“Your pizza is here.”
He just looked up at me like I had landed from another planet. He ran his tongue across the damp curve of his lower lip and lifted an eyebrow at me, like he was daring me to say something, like he was savoring the taste I had left on him.
I glowered down at him and turned on my heel to head toward the door. I should’ve listened to my instinct that had yelled at me as loudly as it could that I should just leave well enough alone. The past belonged buried in the Pandora’s box of hurtful memories and savage misconceptions I left it in. Nash had no place in my here and now. No matter how gorgeous I thought he was, no matter that he was the best kisser ever or how desperately my libido was screeching at me that I needed to know exactly where those wings on his stomach and hips disappeared to … I knew there was more under the surface of him, and it wasn’t very pretty.
“You taste like a bar floor that hasn’t been scrubbed clean in a month.”
I snagged the half-full carton cigarettes he had sitting on the breakfast bar that divided the kitchen from the living room and waved the box at him over my shoulder.
“I told you that you needed to quit. Stop acting like a spoiled brat. Yes, people you love being dishonest sucks, but you’re an adult now, so deal with it accordingly. You said your uncle took you in, believed in you, taught you a craft you clearly love, so focus on all that he did do and not what he didn’t do because you don’t know how much longer you might have with him. Man up, Nash. It’s how we deal with the things that hurt us most that defines us.”
I pulled the door open just as the pizza guy was getting ready to pound again and slipped around him. I heard a shuffle of bodies, male voices muttering to each other, and I was almost out the security door when I heard the neighbor’s sultry voice float across the hall.
“Honey, if you’re gonna have this much traffic on a daily basis, you need to invest in a doorbell.”
I paused just long enough to look over my shoulder. Both Nash and the pizza guy were staring at her in all her toned and glorious beauty. I rolled my eyes at the obvious display. Nash flicked his gaze in my direction and then back at the beauty queen.
“Who are you, exactly?” He sounded less discombobulated, less scattered.
“I’m your new neighbor.”
I heard him chuckle and it made me grind my teeth together as I pushed through the door.
“Welcome to the neighborhood.” I didn’t need to see him to know he was grinning at her, and that she was probably spellbound by all that dusky skin and ink barely concealed by his boxers.
It shouldn’t twist my guts up. It shouldn’t make me want to pull all of her fabulous auburn hair from her head and knee Nash in the balls so hard his future grandchildren would walk with a limp, but it did and that was something I absolutely didn’t want to think about. Not now, not ever.
It took me another full day and a half to pull my head out of my ass and stop acting like a lunatic. I was a mess. Torn up about kissing Saint, mostly because I didn’t regret it for a second but also because I knew better. In the haze of tequila and sorrow, I could still taste her, feel her pressed up against me, and it was the only good thing I could seem to recall in the last few weeks.
I would love to be able to say that Saint’s surprise visit had smacked me across the face with some much-needed clarity, but that wasn’t the case. After her hasty departure because I mauled her like a uncouth jackass, I finished off the bottle of tequila I’d been steadily working my way through before she interrupted me and passed out on the living room floor. The next day was more of the same, only at some point I had made my way to the couch and had managed to doze off using the pizza box as a pillow. Oh yeah, I was totally behaving like a responsible adult.
I cracked open an eye when the front door to the apartment swung open and heavy footfalls made their way over to where I was straight up wallowing in my own piss-poor choices and inconsolability. The only person who still had a key to the apartment was Rule. Obviously he was done letting me have a pity party for one and was tired of me ignoring all his phone calls. My head felt like it was stuffed with cotton and it took more than a minute for my hazy gaze to clear enough to meet his angry, pale blue eyes.
Rule knew me better than anyone. We were best friends for a reason. There was no judgment, no censure, and no disappointment from either of us, even when the situation sometimes called for it, like right now. We were a team no matter what, and the role we played in each other’s life was that of rock-solid support and more often than not official ass kicker of the other one when they needed it, which was clearly what he was thinking as he crossed his arms over his chest and lifted his pierced eyebrow at me.
“You look like crap.”
“Well, that’s accurate since I feel like crap.”
“It’s been a week. That’s as long as I’m putting up with this shit from you. Take a shower, go brush your goddamn teeth, put some fucking pants on, and we’re going to see Phil. Enough, dude. Yeah, that was a pretty nasty bomb you got dropped on you, but it doesn’t change the fact we all owe Phil more than we’re ever going to be able to repay in one lifetime. So get over yourself and let’s go.”
I grunted up at him and peeled myself up off the greasy cardboard. Yeah, I was a winner. I rubbed my hands over the shorn surface of my hair and waited for the room to stop tilting sideways. I didn’t know what to say to the man who had raised me. I had walked into his hospital room that night, taken one look into eyes that were the exact same color as mine, listened to him call me son in a voice that had no strength behind it, and turned around and walked right back out. It was a cowardly move, not to mention insensitive and shallow, but my head was spinning all around and I couldn’t find any solid ground to balance on. Phil did deserve more than that from me no matter who exactly he was in my life now; he had always been there for me, supported me when no one else would.
I shoved to my feet and promptly fell back on my ass. Rule reached out and put the hand that had the cobra head and his name inked across the knuckles on my shoulder to steady me. He shook his head, his spiky blue hair, making it sort of hard to take his look of reproach seriously.
“Just give me twenty.”
I would need that long to scrub the disgusting taste of stale booze and cigarette after cigarette out of my mouth.
Saint wasn’t lying, I did taste like a barroom floor. That was an entirely different mess I needed to try and clean up. I knew she only stopped by out of some kind of professional obligation, because she was