Page 24 of Sweet Possession
“You know,”Nash started when another few minutes had passed withno news. I’d now taken to clenching and unclenching my knuckles in a bid to do something with my handsthatwouldn’t result in the dickhead sitting next to me letting off a fart bomb.“I hate to tell you so, but Ididtell you so.”
He was pushing my buttons. Nash knew me better than I knewmyself, and he knew how to rile me when I was already rattled.
“Told me what?”I huffed, unable to resist biting.
A smug grin tugged at the prick’s mouth.“Thatone day you’d meetthe woman who was destined to be yours. The one who changes everything.”
A heavy sigh left me, the tension draining from my body. I scrubbeda hand down my face, before turning to face my best friend. The only person in the world I could be one hundred percent honest with.
“And what if she doesn’t feel the same way?”I said, finally voicing thefearthathad been lingering in the back of my mind since the minute I saw the picture of her.“What if she decides she doesn’t want to see me again, and moves to the other side of the world?”
It would bejustmy fucking luckthatI’d meet the woman who Iactually wanted to have a future with, only for her to not return the feelings.
“Why wouldn’t she feel the same?”Nash said, raising a brow.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because her father gave her away to besold in a sex auction, leaving her traumatized and never able to trust another man? Or maybe the man who bought her is a thirty-two, soon-to-be thirty-three-year-old, with a daddy kink, and she’s an eighteen-year-old virgin?”
I glared at Nash who was smirking at me like I’d told a jokeinstead of pouring my biggest concerns out to him.
But this was how we worked. We didn’t have deep and meaningfulheart-to-hearts, we’d speak our fears andthenendure the other one taking the piss until eventually, wewouldhave a semi-meaningful conversation.
Only this time, to my surprise, Nash held back on the piss-takingbefore giving me his honest answer.
“Firstly, dickhead. Age is nothing but a number. Secondly, you make itsound like having a kink is a bad thing.”I opened my mouth to tell him I wasn’t ashamed I had a kink, but it might not be something Cora was into, but he held his hand up, not yet finished with his argument.“And thirdly, you and I both know what it’s like to live through traumatic shit at the hands of people who are supposed to love us, and neither of us turned outthatbad. We had each other to get us through the shit and learn to cope, Cora now has you.”
He trailed off as I stared at my clenched fists. The image of Corasmiling at me popped into my head, and a feeling I’d never felt before swept through me.
It was a feeling I wanted to pin down and hold onto for the rest of mylife.
“Help her, Fox,”Nash continued.“Show herthather cunt of a fatherdoesn’t define her or her life. Show her what it’s like to have someone in her corner who will protect her, no matter what. Show her what true love means, and I promise you,thatgirl won’t be going anywhere.”
I unclenched my fist, squeezing my eyes closed as I admittedsomething I was sure Nash already knew.“I’ve never felt this way before. It fucking terrifies me.”
Nash clapped me on the shoulder.“It scared the shit out of me too,dude. But look at Sav and me now. Give Cora time. Besides, you’d have to be blind to miss the way she was looking at you tonight.”
My head whipped to the side so I was facing him.“How was shelooking at me?”
I’d seen it myself, or at least I thought I had. Cora looked at me thesame way I looked at her, with lust burning in her eyes, and a desperate need to know how she felt when I ran my hands over her body.
How she tasted.
How she screamed my name when she came.
But I hadn’t wanted to believethatthere was a possibility she wasattracted to me,thatwe could build something together.
I dunno. Maybe it was self-preservation kicking in.
I knew all too well what it was like to have someone you loved andcherished, only for them to be ripped away from you. Maybe my brain was protecting itself from ever feelingthatway again.
“Don’t be obnoxious, it doesn’t suit you,”Nash said, turning to lookout the window again, a smirk playing on his lip.
The two of us fell quiet for a minute as the evening replayed in myhead. Every shy smile Cora had sent my way. Every time our eyes met. Every little breath she let out when I called her baby girl.
“Of course, if all else fails, you can blackmail her,”Nash said,breaking me from my thoughts.“Worked for me.”
I snorted. “I’m not that fucked up.”
Silence once again descended, and I cracked my knuckles to let outsome of the energy bubbling under my skin.
