Page 82 of Defending her Heart

I shake my head. “It’s not prying. Danielle is five years younger than me. She was born with Down syndrome and is the sweetest human being on the planet.”

“You’re close with her.”

I nod. “Our dad left us when she was a year old. Too much work and not enough reward. His words. I was only six, but I’ll never forget his words. Probably because he used to complain about her, about us, every day.”

“I’m sorry.” Nash reaches for my hand and interlaces our fingers. “That was a shitty thing for him to say. I can’t evenimagine leaving Paisley, or any child.” He closes his eyes and winces. “Has he had any contact with you or Danielle since?”

“No. He never paid child support either. Mom didn’t want to drag the courts into something that would take her time and attention away from us, so she figured out how to raise two kids on her own.”

“And you stepped in to help her with Danielle,” he says, understanding my role.

“I had no choice.”

“Of course you did. You could have rebelled. Complained about your sister taking up so much of your mother’s time. Been a royal pain in the ass instead of being a second mom to Danielle.”

“How do you know I wasn’t a royal pain in the ass?”

Nash’s lip quirks. “You save that for me.”

My core shakes with laughter. “You make it easy.”

“Yeah?” He lifts our joined hands and kisses them. “Easy to what?”

Easy to fall.Oh, shit. This isn’t supposed to happen. Smooth words, sexy eyes, a kissable mouth. We’re friends with benefits. Heavy on the benefits, light on the friends.

I shake my fingers free from his and slide my hand up his thigh, stopping at the bulge behind his zipper. “Easy to please.”

The groan in his chest vibrates through his body. Nash takes my hand off his cock and lifts it to his shoulder as he scoots closer and captures my bottom lip between his teeth. His kiss is sweet, gentle. I want rough, fast, and hard.

I open wider for him, and tug him closer, but he doesn’t take what I’m so eager to offer. I dart my tongue along his bottom lip and press my boobs into his chest, and still, he keeps our kiss PG.

One of his hands massages the back of my neck while the other rests on my hip. My body remembers what those handsfeel like on naked skin. What they feel like on my nipples, between my legs. Everywhere.

My body wants him. Needs him. Craves him.

“Nash,” I moan into his mouth, begging for something more. Anything more.

Instead of taking what I’m offering, he pulls back, but not before he leaves a trail of light kisses along my jaw. Then, as if he doesn’t have a dick of stone in his jeans—he does; I can feel it—he sits back and picks up the remote.

“Seriously? You’re passing on a sure thing for a movie?”

Without looking at me, Nash drapes an arm over my shoulder and pulls me into his side. “Is it so wrong that I want to hang out with you tonight?”

“We can hang out naked.”

He snorts. “If you’re naked, there’s no way we’ll behanging out.”

“That’s kind of the point.”

“Why don’t you want to hang out?” He flicks through the channels like we’re talking about the weather, instead of doing naked gymnastics.

“Why don’t you want to have sex?”

If I wasn’t pressed into his side and didn’t feel the jolt in his chest, I would have thought him stone. And I’m not talking about his dick.

“I never said I didn’t want to have sex.”

“Hell, Nash. You’re giving me mixed signals.” I push myself off him and start to stand when his big hand wraps around my waist, holding me down.

---