Nash Prescott.
Reed’s older brother.
His nearly thirty-year-old brother.
“You’re soaking my brother’s bed,” Nash remarked as he leaned back against his pillow and took in the sight of me. He looked annoyed, liked I was a pest who had royally fucked up his weekend plans.
“You—I—What—” I floundered, my mouth opening and closing like a fish.
You slept with Nash Prescott.
Nash Fucking Prescott.
And it felt amazing.
Don’t freak out.
Don’t freak out.
Don’t freak out.
I was totally freaking out.
Nash raked his fingers through his hair, leaned over to snatch my robe, and tossed it to me. “Just fucking relax, would you? You’d think the goddamn orgasm would loosen you up.”
For a split second, all I could think was, you weren’t always like this.
Perhaps to other girls, but never to me.
Nash was a fierce protector, the guy who would stop by my table with his brown paper lunch bag when my mom ‘forgot’ to give me lunch money. And while we’d rarely talked, even when he would share his lunch, I always took comfort in knowing I had two protectors—Reed and Nash.
Something flipped the night of the cotillion. And after cops almost arrested Reed, the rift between him and Nash became unnavigable. They barely spoke. If they did, it was with a cordiality that reminded me of my relationship with Mother.
My heart wept for Betty, who tried desperately to mend things. Surprise parties. Homemade dinners. Family outings they couldn’t afford with a son going off to college and one fresh out of grad school.
Reed placed all his focus on Basil, football, and school. And Nash? He became a different Nash around us. One who lived up to his reputation. Gorgeous. Arrogant. Insufferable. Whenever he visited, he’d spend the weekend fucking every bored twenty-something housewife in Eastridge.
I don’t recognize you anymore.
The words sat at the tip of my tongue. I would never release them. That was Reed’s hill to die on. I cared because I hated the way Nash stared at me sometimes, accusations stabbing me from his eyes.
Snide comments I would never ask him about because I was loyal to Reed, and even talking to Nash felt like picking the wrong side.
“Such a Winthrop, Emery,” Nash once said when I stole capers from Reed’s plate after Betty made Chicken Piccata.
“So good at hiding things.” He caught me sliding extra money into Reed’s stocking. I lied about it being from Dad. “Gideon has you sneaking around for him often?”
“Betrayal. Taste it often?” I’d spit out a rotten peach from the garden. It landed by his foot, a few inches past my target.
I wanted to take a few seconds to study Nash, to process my mortification, to enjoy the aftershocks of my first orgasm, yet all I could feel was Nash’s overwhelming gravitational pull, one more dangerous than that of any other boy I’d ever met.
But Nash Prescott wasn’t a boy.
He was a man.
One who made me feel like the little girl I’d convinced myself I wasn’t.
My arms slipped through the robe. The second the tie wrapped around my waist, my body solidified. My underwear remained lost somewhere, but at least I was covered.
I ignored the sting of his derision, shook my head, and pushed aside the embarrassment. “Did you know?”
The sharp accusation unfazed him. He stretched his arms, drawing my attention to the deep V of his body. I clenched around him. A reflex. My mortified eyes flicked up in time to catch his cocked brow.
“I figured it out when you moaned my brother’s name while coming around my cock.” His eyes dipped down as if to remind me I was still on him.
I scrambled off the bed, pushing the blanket over with the rushed movement. Horrified didn’t even begin to describe how I felt, but it was the plain irritation on his face that almost undid me.
Couldn’t he at least pretend he enjoyed it?
Because I did.
I’d come.
I never came.
I’d spent the past two years filling out my body, my full chest the one thing about me that didn’t scream runway model. Riding Nash made me feel like a goddess. As if my body possessed magic, I controlled my pleasure, and something that had always worried me didn’t need to be anything but bliss.
Yet, I obviously did nothing for Nash. He stared at me like he wanted nothing more than to forget this had ever happened. Like he disgusted himself for screwing somebody so young.
It wasn’t as if either of us intended this to happen, and I didn’t have the guts to ask him why he looked slightly sickened and a hundred percent scornful.
Pulling the sheets had left him bare, but Nash didn’t bother covering himself as he ran a hand through his hair again. Maybe if I were a guy and I was as big as Nash, I wouldn’t cover up either. Still, you’d think he’d at least have the decency.
Then, I remembered there was nothing decent inside this man.
Reed had warned me.
“Careful, Em.” Reed glowered at his brother’s retreating Honda the weekend after the cotillion. “Nash does unforgivable things without bothering to ask for forgiveness.”
I dug my nails into my thigh, hating this cycle of hurt. “Can’t you two talk it out?”
“What would be the point in that? He’s a devious liar. I can’t trust anything he says.”
I’d never been able to reconcile Reed’s version of Nash with the one who saved me too many times to count. Even if three years passed since he flipped a switch, I’d still hoped Nash hadn’t become as bad as Reed accused him of being.
Until tonight.
That hope died a painful death.
Rocking back on my heels, I faltered for something to say before settling on, “Who did you think I was?”
“Katrina.” The words were blunt, like it wasn’t a big deal that he’d been waiting for a married woman to have sex with him.
Worse—he’d mentioned a boyfriend, which meant she was cheating on Basil’s dad and another man with Nash.
What happened to you, Nash?
He had gone from Knight in Shining Armor to a version of Maleficent that was so indifferent toward me, he didn’t even bother extending a poisoned apple.
Until now.
Only the apple was a rock-hard penis, and I imagined it felt much better than a poisoned apple tasted.
I whisper-shouted, conscious of Betty and Hank one door down, “You fucked me thinking I was someone else?!”
My hypocrisy wasn’t lost on me. So what if I thought he was his brother? It was different. I was in love. He thought I was a married woman. Okay, we both mistook one another for other people, but for my sanity’s sake, I needed to believe we were different.
You are not as bad as Nash Prescott, Emery. This is his fault.
Nope.
Even I didn’t believe my bullshit.
I’d been the one to climb onto him, not bothering to confirm his identity.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
“Fuck,” he toyed with the word, looking genuinely surprised. “Dirty word for a goodie two shoes…”
Good.
Like being nice and biting my tongue every time Mother spoke somehow made me less than him.
It pissed me off. I raised my arm stupidly. I wouldn’t hit him. I didn’t know what I would do, but it was a reflex, and it amused him.