Page 3 of Nash

I glance down at my new look. I like it. It’s intentional. It says, “Fuck me,” but “Fuck you,” too, because that’s how I feel—complicated.

“I think it’s cute,” Alena defends me. She might as well be our sister, too. “It’s hot and innocent at the same time. The double entendre is totally you.”

“Thank you.” I peck her cheek. “Now, murder my twin for me, please.”

“Never. I’m an only child, and you two are my ride-or-dies.”

Blair shakes her head at Alena, sighing, “Girl, I’m sorry because I don’t understand.”

Alena twists her face, confused.

“I don’t understand,” Blair huffs, “how you don’t have a kitten litter of siblings because any pussy would kill to breed with your hot-ass father and his sexy seed.”

“Jeez, Blair,” I scoff, eyes wide.

“What?”

“That’s Alena’s dad! That’s ick-factor level ten.”

Blair shrugs. “That’s me just saying what everyone else knows—Nash Allen is a god amongst DILFs. He’s so zaddy with all that alpha sperm.” She nudges Alena. “Didn’t he like spawn you at fourteen?”

Yep, my twin’s allergic to verbal filters.

Unfortunately, we share that DNA.

“My parents were sixteen when I was a whoops,” Alena corrects her before she warns, “and I know how sex positivity runs inyourfamily, how you’re both sex gurus and all, but I’m positively begging you to never fuck my father. I’d die. I need best friends, not a new mom.”

Blair rests her head on Alena’s shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she assures. “I’m too busy fucking people my age first. It’ll be years before I work my way into the forties, andthenyou can lock your daddy away from my prowling kitty.”

They laugh as guilt stabs my heart.

A forbidden image by a pool. A taboo memory of a night years ago with Alena’s dad. It floods my core with sudden heat.

I love Alena like she’s my twin, too, but my secret feelings for her father run deep. I hate him, and I think I’m in love with him. It confuses me. It scares me.

Worse, it tempts me.

Nash Allen introduced me to desire, but I’ll never act on it. Heck, I’ve never even touched the man because I’d never hurt Alena, but Blair is right.

Mr. Allen is a nuclear sex bomb. One touch from him would destroy my lonely world, andyes, please.

Break my cage open.

Wetting my thirst for everything I don’t have, I sip my beer, searching the crowded bar with bodies pressed against bodies. In the sea of cold strangers … I feel heat. Under the bright outdoor lights, I’m drawn to the shadows. Like someone’s there for me, waiting, watching, andloving me.

But who am I kidding?

Love took a permanent vacation from my life years ago, and all that’s left is sex, so I’m getting a PhD in it. I figure if I don’t have one, I can at least be an expert in the other.

Besides, the only one watchingmeis a man I loathe, a criminal and a perv. The asshole.

I know he’s behind me.

He’s always watching me.

Claws: that’s what they are. The people and memories that ambush you, piercing your skin and dragging your soul to its darkest depths. They leave you ripped open and praying you heal.

And I have. Mostly.

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