Merry with a Ranger (Love Beach Holiday Collection)

Chapter 6

CHAPTER 6

B ONNIE

Nash’s room looked as utilitarian as mine, though he’d likely occupied it for a far shorter time. Both our rooms appeared the same way: like no one lived here beyond the outward shell of us. My fingers trailed the basic bench bolted to the side of the wall, the matching TV that sat in my room.

A mirror image in all things, except for the box he kicked back under his bed the moment he flicked on the lights.

“Your father isn’t gonna come in here and bitch slap me for stealing you away?” Nash muttered.

His back turned to me as he tidied the few personal belongings scattered across one small coffee table, reshuffling a laptop, a spare belt, some chargers.

Nothing I could use to work out who he’d become other than what I’d seen of the man himself.

He turned back to me, his fingers working the next button on his shirt, though he stalled when his gaze coasted along my body to reach my face. “Bonnie?”

I didn’t realize I’d started to retreat until my butt bumped the opposite wall of the suddenly cramped room. “I haven’t?—”

He was across the room, standing in front of me, his hands flexing on my waist before I managed to expel my next breath.

“We don’t have to do anything,” he promised me, his words at odds with the need that strained his voice, reflecting in the darkest corners of his eyes as he tried to shut the emotion away, and failed.

“I said I would,” I started, but he cut me off a second time.

“No. No way am I pushing a girl who says she wants something and then changes her mind. No chance. Especially not you.” Nash’s touch softened as he pulled me a little closer, still caging me in with his body, though his hold became less threatening. “Nothing you don’t wanna do, Bonnie. Everything is your choice.” His voice roughened, but he held my gaze with that same formidable, inner strength he’d had even as a wayward teen.

Not that Nash Mercer ever had a rebellious streak, exactly, more the exact opposite. Nothing ever got past him, much as right now.

“I understand,” I whispered.

He nodded and lowered his mouth to brush mine in the lightest of kisses, giving me plenty of time to back away. “You want me to take you back to your room now?” His gaze stayed fixed steady on mine.

Whatever he felt inside, he showed nothing on the outside. Maybe that was part of whatever job he took on. At least we’d stopped lying to each other, if only for now.

“Not yet.” My fingers twitched at my sides. Before I could question my own motives I buried them in his shirt, digging my fingers into his stomach in a way I was certain couldn’t be comfortable. “I just froze up.”

“Freezing up is fine.” His thumbs skated over my ribs, through the thin material of my dress, beneath my borrowed jacket that still smelled like him. Whiskey and sea salt and Texas sunshine all at once. A terrible and beautiful dichotomy of all the things I loved and hated that left me homesick for a place I could barely remember. “Wanna watch something old? I have no idea what the resort has on streaming services.” He backed off a step, or tried to, but my hands tangled in his shirt, stopping him. The corners of his mouth hooked up when I said nothing, and I didn’t move an inch. “Gotta let go, Bonnie, or I’m gonna get the wrong idea.”

I tugged at his shirt that loosened from his jeans, and found skin beneath. “So get the wrong idea.” I had no idea where the daring words came from, but with Nash, even with that layer of hardness beneath that hadn’t ever been there before, he was safe .

Safe, in a dangerous kind of way. The sort of man my father kept me away from for all these years under the guise of protecting me when really he just made a cage for a girl who wasn’t seventeen wearing ripped jeans and getting a cop to drive her past the prom she couldn’t attend any more, but wishing she was still intact like everyone else there that night.

His hands rose along my ribs, traced my upper arms and cupped my jaw. “Be sure, Bonnie. I’ll stop any time, but you gotta tell me, okay?” he checked, staring straight through me, into me.

I nodded, licking my lips. “Okay.” He said nothing, waited. “Okay, I’ll tell you if I need you to stop or I feel…anything.”

That mouth I needed on mine moved again. “Good girl.”

Then he finally kissed me, his lips crashing sweetly into mine, and no matter what I promised there was no chance I’d be able to tell him anything at all because I never wanted that kiss to end.

So maybe I was still that seventeen year old girl at heart after all, at least a fragment of her, but only in this room, tonight, and only with this man.

No one else, not ever.

Just tonight.

Nash groaned softly as his arms folded tight around me, tucking me into his body. He fit perfectly against me, still . Even as a gangly teen he’d been the right size. Never too big, never so overpowering or overprotective that I felt like I’d disappear and never be seen again, overwhelmed by the sheer mass of him.

Even when he kissed me on the beach and engulfed me before, I knew it was only temporary. Nash never stole my identity, took any part of me away from myself. That’s what our trust was based on. That, and we fit together. Just enough that I knew he could wrap himself around me, hold me up if he wanted.

That sort of strength, along with every other part of him, was sexy as hell. His stomach contracted beneath my fingers as I rediscovered the flat planes of muscle there as well as some scars that hadn’t been present before. The landscape of him might have changed over the years, but the way he kissed me, hesitant in hurting me or pushing too hard, too fast, but wanting to go that step further, both of us—that had always been the same.

The difference was that after all this time, I was ready. Truth be told, I’d been ready then. It just took a catastrophic life event for the child in me to be stripped away to recognize that.

But that same girl had a chance to reclaim something tonight.

Nash’s kisses grew rougher as he pushed his tongue between my lips, searching for a deeper touch. I arched against him, desperate for the same intimacy, fumbling his buttons with an unsteady hand. My breath shattered against his lips as he laughed softly, a dangerous sound as he scooped me off my feet and lifted me over his bed, yanking back the covers with one arm.

The lights flicked off, leaving us half lit by the giant Christmas tree’s ambient glow outside his window. It was plenty enough to see by, and the warm light left me able to hide, better than the bright down lights.

“Is this okay?” Nash slid his hands under my jacket, pushing both it and the straps of my dress off my shoulders.

My throat worked on nothing at all, and I managed a nod.

“Words, Bonnie.” His voice whipped out at me like a slap. I recoiled on the bed, scooting back but he arced over me, boxing me in with his forearms planted beside my head, spreading my legs with his knees. Suddenly, the bed seemed like a threat of its own. “Give me those words you promised, Little Bonnie, or we’re going to have a problem.” His mouth dipped to trace a line along my collar bone, removing the possibility of speech.

I fell back to the pillows beneath my head, collapsing into a nest made of the scent of him and his scrunched jacket as his weight settled over me. His body pressed into all the right places as I hooked a heel behind his knee, kicking off my shoes.

“I like that,” I whispered as he licked and kissed along the hollow of my throat that seemed intent on creating noses of its own.

“I remember.” Nash ran a hand down my body to settle at my hip, tugging my dress to my waist. “You know the one fantasy I’ve had for years that we never played out? Taking you out to the bleachers at the sports field on a sunny afternoon when no one was there, laying you back all bare—” He brushed his palm beneath my dress to discover my silky thong and made a growling sound in his chest, “—take these off, and lick you until you creamed all over my tongue. Then fill you and love you in the sunlight with no one around. Just us. Find out what it felt like to sink into you while you moaned for me, all hot and wet and dirty.” He stared down at me, his eyes black and fathomless.

My traitorous body throbbed and clenched on nothing as he cupped my pussy over my panties. “That’s a good fantasy,” I managed.

His fingertips pressed right over my entrance, no doubt feeling the heat emanating from me at his filthy words that were beyond a turn on because I could imagine him doing exactly what he described just fine. It was the place we shared our first kiss, and even that turned a little X-rated by accident. He’d been a gentleman then, but then heat in his eyes both scared me in all the right ways and turned me on then, too.

So long ago.

But not so long, after all.

“You like that, huh?” Nash pressed in, rubbing my satin panties over my wet pussy.

Swallowing hard, I met the challenge in his eyes. “Show me what you’d do if we were there now,” I begged. “Please, Nash. Take me back there tonight.”

“Fuck, I love that mouth on you.” He bent down and kissed me hard until my lips throbbed, his tongue invading my mouth until I couldn’t breathe for the scent of him overflowing my senses.

Even if this was a one night thing, he was imprinted into my brain, my body—and a whole lot deeper—forever.

Nash ran his fingers along my dress and paused. “I wanna rip this right off you, but getting you back to your room and explaining might be tough,” he said in a low, strained voice. “If you want me to show you my party trick, I want you to strip for me, love.”

I shivered under his lustful gaze. “I—what?”

His lips curled up sinfully. “Tell me you’ve never watched a dirty movie before, Bonnie.”

My cheeks flamed. “Stop that.”

“Right. So.” He rolled to one side, rubbing his fingers along my stomach. “I want to see you,” he whispered, grazing his mouth against my cheek. “You’re so fucking beautiful. Show me every part of you.”

This was so far outside my wheelhouse that we’d left the realm of amusing behind long, long ago. But if this was what he wanted, then the people pleaser in me needed to try. Hell, the Nash pleaser in me wanted to try, as well. But my cheeks still flamed as I pushed myself up into a pretzel, his jacket hanging off one shoulder, my legs tucked beneath me.

“I have no idea how to start,” I admitted.

His gaze coasted over me as he hooked one finger into the back of my stolen jacket and tugged gently, forcing my shoulders to roll backward, pushing my breasts forward. My head tipped to one side as I watched him, and his mouth brushed over mine.

“That’s a damn good start,” he breathed.

I let him tug the jacket free, and raised my hands to the dress straps he started on before, slowly sliding them off my shoulders. His eyes tracked that movement too, hunger edging into them as I reached back and started to undo the back of my dress then stopped. I had no bra beneath, which meant I really had to stand up for this next part.

My mouth dried, but it was a now-or-never type decision. Sliding off the bed, I turned my back to him, barely daring to glance over my shoulder. Nash watched me with lazy but heated eyes, his hands resting on his thighs. I slowly lowered the zip in my dress and let it slide to the floor, leaving me in that white, silky thong.

His sharp inhale told me I didn’t screw it up, and managed to hook my thumbs into the side straps, wiggling my feet hip width apart and bent forward at the waist, tugging the elastic down. I barely got the panties past my ass cheeks and didn’t have to worry about the rest of the mechanics when his hand came down firmly on the small of my back.

“Don’t move,” Nash said softly, leaving his hand there, though his other traced the curve of my buttock, then a little lower, finding the first drips of dampness and spreading them around.

A whimper left my lips. He said don’t move , not don’t make any sounds. I couldn’t help the noises that slipped from out as he played with my wet pussy, discovering the shape of my swollen, slick folds, how I shivered when he traced over them, pressed his long fingers into me.

The moment I cried out when he pushed two fingers deep into me and worked them fast he cursed, his hand on my hip gripped tight, before that touch disappeared. His hand closed lightly around my throat, levering my upward.

“Bonnie, you’re gonna have to tell me if I can fuck you like this or you want to be back on the bed right now because damn, love, you are far too tempting like that.”

He twisted my head back so I had to look at him. My body jostled sideways, and his hand between us rubbed his erection in long, slow strokes that matched his labored breathing.

A sense of power that I’d done this to him, after so long apart, slammed into me.

“However you want, Nash. Just—go slow for a little bit, okay?” Something in my face must have shown through as he cursed again.

A breath later I was on my back with him above me, my thong discarded with the rest of my clothes, alongside his.

“What–?” I swore I wasn’t going to get a full sentence out tonight.

“Love, I promise I’ll show you everything. But for your first time with me I want to stretch you gently, okay?” His hand found mine and closed my fingers around his?—

Girth. Not length. He was worried about actually hurting me.

“Oh, shit.” Not eloquent, but it was all I had right then. “I’m more breakable than I thought.”

He laughed down at me gently. “Not the way we’ll do this, if you’re still okay with it. I promise you’ve gonna like it. But you held up your end. Now it’s my turn to take care of you.”

Nash pressed me back into the pillow again. Breath whooshed out of me as he slid down my body and between my legs. Then his mouth settled over my bare skin below where I waxed for the beach because I liked the idea of wearing white dresses and white bikinis, never thinking someone else might see me bare.

“Christ, love,” he muttered reverently, licking and nibbling on tender flesh. I found his hair and tugged on the short ends, scraping my nails along his scalp as he groaned into my damp skin. “This night is gonna make my top two.”

He latched onto my clit at the same time as his tongue dived into my core and I screamed into my fist.

“Oh, God. What was the first?” I panted.

He paused and looked up at me, his brow furrowed. “You don’t know?” I shook my head. “Naughty Bonnie,” he reproved me in a low voice. “We can deal with that later. The top night is when you got drunk and told me you loved me over a text message back in the day. Best fucking night of my life.”

My eyes filled with tears. I tried to answer him, but nothing at all came out. He didn’t seem to mind, only went back to the task he set himself, licking and eating me until my legs shook, and he hooked my thighs over his shoulders.

I screamed a second time into my hands, clasping them over my mouth, my heels drumming into his back. Tears cascaded from the corners of my eyes as I came hard.

And the whole time, he never took his eyes off me.

His mouth full of the taste of me—I knew because he climbed up my body, kissing me long and sweet afterward as he rolled on a condom one handed—Nash pressed his thick length at my entrance and pushed in. My fear evaporated by then, and I wound myself around him, my body and heart welcoming the man who held me together over an entire decade, showing me pleasure and pain, adoration after emptiness.

He started slow, but Nash never did anything sweet, not all the way. That edge of danger was always present, always there with him. Once he knew I was alright, his hips slammed into mine as he claimed me over and over. I kissed him back between the noises he bred from me, finding how our bodies and souls fit together after all that time.

This time when I screamed, it was his name into his chest as he cradled me tight to him. I licked the salt of him away as I came down, but he wasn’t done. Determination lit his darkened eyes as he marked me inside and out as his. I clung to him and rode the overdose of pleasure out, my mind a splintered mess only holding on enough to hear what he whispered, his lips pressed to my sweat-slicked skin before he roared my name over me, his grip as possessive as his last kisses as the sun rose and the fairytale shattered.

Three words I would cling to no matter what came next for both of us.

“I love you.”

Still.