Crash Lights and Sirens, Book 1 (32 page)

“Oh, thank fuck.” Taryn giggles a little hysterically. Then, like she’s worried she said something wrong, “I mean. It would have been fine if you did. It would have been totally reasonable if you did, I’m the one who broke up with you, I know, I just—”

“Sweetheart, I didn’t.” He pushes her onto her back then, crawls on top of her and notches himself inside her slippery body, sliding so deep and so fast that both of them gasp. Taryn’s thighs grip tight tight tight around his waist. She feels so good, Jesus, so close and slick and hot around him. Nick swears before he can stop himself, forehead dropping forward onto her smooth, freckly shoulder. He presses a kiss there while he’s in the neighborhood, nips at the salty-sweet skin of her neck.

Taryn laughs again at that, low and breathless. “Yeah,” she gasps. “Yeah, I—” She breaks off as he starts to move, feet planted on the comforter and her pale knees opening wide to accommodate him. She’s so insanely, heartbreakingly soft. Nick balances his weight on one arm and gets his free hand on her, petting up her rib cage and down across the cliff of her hip bone, turning his wrist and reaching low in between them to work two fingers over her clit. Taryn tilts her head back and whines. He’s not going to last long like this, not this time, but he’s sure as shit going to get her off before he loses it. He wants to touch her everywhere at once.

They’re fixing it, he reminds himself shakily, glancing a kiss off the side of her mouth as he rocks inside her. He can calm down now, they’re fixing it, it’s fixed. Still, Nick thinks he might open his eyes and look at her and find his heart beating inside her hand.

“Okay,” he says after a minute, long steady thrusts and her riding from underneath, her nails in his hair sending prickles down his neck and spine. “Okay, just let me—” He flips them then, fast and violent and the warm weight of her body as she gets situated on top of him, all that hair spilling over her shoulders. Taryn tucks herself flush against his chest and hangs on. “Didn’t want anybody but you,” he tells her, mouth pressed against the curve of her small, pretty ear. He trails his knuckles down her backbone, cups her ass and traces one curious, slippery finger down lower. Taryn’s head comes flying up in desire and shock. “Never want to do this with anybody but you.”

“Oh my God,” she whimpers, knees bearing down into the mattress, and that—that is a sound Nick’s really missed hearing. She isn’t moving on him hardly at all. He hasn’t touched her here before, not seriously, and doing it now feels almost unbearably private. The vulnerable pucker of skin is enough to make him think no, no one else. Not ever again.

“Easy,” he says, rubbing gently. When he tries pressing the tip of his finger inside Taryn’s entire body jolts skittishly, one muscular surge from her ass to her cunt and those gray, gray eyes glued to his in astonishment. Nick pauses again, letting her get used to it.

Still, the look on her face—it isn’t a bad jolt.

Her reaction confirms it. “Oh my God,” she repeats, warm breath fanning across his face. “That feels…” She trails off helplessly. Both her hands are on his shoulders now, fingers as rigid as claws. She tosses her head, starting to rock. “Keep it there, okay?”

Nick swallows. “Okay,” he agrees. His voice has dropped to an unrecognizable register. She is so goddamn tight, everywhere he’s touching and some places he isn’t, those skinny biceps corded; feeling her work herself onto his cock and finger both is nearly too much. Nick pulls one of her hands free of his shoulder and slides it down between their bodies as insurance, pressing it into place over her clit. He wants to make it good, so good she never forgets. He wants to ask if he’s the first one touch her like this, knuckle-deep in the hard ring of muscle.

“You mine?” he says instead, gritting his teeth against the hot clutch of her body. Taryn nods, wide eyed and distracted—a yes, definitely, but Nick still feels like his heart is sitting on her open palm. He wants to hear her say it. “Hey,” he mutters, boosting her so they’re face-to-face. It sinks his finger deeper, and Taryn makes an inhuman sound. He has her attention now, no question. “You mine for real?”

This nod is double time, hard enough to shake her whole body. “Yes,” she gasps. “I didn’t want anyone else either—I don’t, I mean. I love you. Nick Nick Nick, I love you so much it’s stupid.” She leans forward to say it, flexing and bearing down on him everywhere, and just like that Nick’s arching.

It’s the words, more than anything else. Even Nick has to admit it’s the words.

“Fuck,” he gasps, caught off guard. He tries to pull out, stop himself, but he has nowhere to go underneath her and he’s already coming anyway, sloppy and helpless. Taryn twists her hips as soon as she realizes what’s happening, clenching on him to draw it out, not letting him back off an inch. Nick closes his eyes, breathing against her downy shoulder.

“There you go,” she murmurs as he finishes, biting at his jaw. She doesn’t sound especially upset, all told. “God, love seeing you do that. Thought about it for forever.” Her voice in his ear is a croon, shifting movements like she’s too turned on to sit still. Nick gets the feeling she held back her orgasm on purpose.

“Sorry.” He winces anyway, rocking his twitching cock up into her. “Wanted to wait.” It hurts, too sensitive now, but he can hold himself inside and he’ll live. His finger is still buried in her too, nearly to the second knuckle. Nick can’t tell if the squirming means she’s angling for more or trying to ease the pressure. “Is this okay?” he asks, curling it.

Taryn gasps sharply. “Jesus Christ,” she huffs out, that same giggle from earlier, like her feelings are getting away from her. “Yes, it’s okay, it’s way better than okay, just—” She squirms again, and yeah, more is what she’s after here. Nick gives it to her slow and easy, watches as the smile leaves her face in favor of a different expression entirely. “Shit,” she murmurs, strawberry-blonde lashes dropping closed so she can concentrate. “Don’t stop.”

Nick knows that look, how close it means she is, skating right along the edges of it. “Not stopping,” he promises, pulling her even closer so her hand’s trapped down in between them, as much friction as he can possibly give her. “Not gonna stop.”

It doesn’t take more than a few seconds like that, shallow thrusts and the crook of his finger deep inside her like, come here. Taryn tumbles over on a loud, ragged groan. “You’re perfect,” Nick tells her again and again as it’s happening, fucking her all the way through it. She doesn’t need the encouragement by now but he wants to tell her anyway, wants to make sure she hears him and believes. It’s not like it isn’t true. He can feel her orgasm absolutely everywhere, how tight and desperate she’s holding on.

Taryn goes near-boneless on top of him once she’s finished, heat radiating off her in satisfied waves. Nick eases himself out as carefully as he can, squeezing her warm ass before he wraps both arms around her and plants a kiss in her tangled hair. “So, um,” she says, nudging her head up underneath his chin like a cat, offering her salty fingers up for him to suck clean. Nick only thought to kick his jeans off halfway through. “That was new.”

Nick hums his agreement, scraping his teeth over the pad of her index finger. The first one, he thinks again, liking it probably more than he should. Fuck if he’s not going to do his damndest to be the last. “Good new?” he asks, grinning in spite of himself as she bites at his jaw.

“Full new,” she replies right away. Then, ducking her face shyly, “Really good.”

She settles in like she’s looking to cuddle but Nick’s not finished with her yet, not even close to done. He eases her onto her back and kisses her sweaty thigh, slow and gentle. The coppery hair between her legs is totally soaked. At the beginning she was keeping it shaved but Nick likes it like this too, likes that she’ll let him see it. “Whatcha doin’?” she asks, popping up on her elbows to watch.

Nick smirks. “What’s it look like I’m doing?” he says, using two thumbs to open her up. She’s swollen now, violent pink and the salty-bleach smell that comes from him and her combined. Nick likes her like this best.

Taryn
hmms
agreeably, bending her knees up and away to give him some room. Still, “This breakup was my fault,” she points out, voice sing-songy and breathless. “Don’t work too hard.”

Nick laughs, he can’t help it, her fucking ridiculous fixation with debts. “Right,” he says, bending her legs up even farther and sliding a pillow underneath her hips. “Because that’s why I’m down here.” He nips her to prove his point, teeth marks on the sensitive inner curve of her ass. She tastes familiar, sharper than Maddie ever did, like her body is hell-bent on announcing itself. Nick rubs at her sticky pubic hair, fitting his tongue along where she’s the wettest. “Now shush.”

He hardly ever thinks about it anymore, the differences.

“You shush,” Taryn shoots back, but she does what he says. In the end Nick gets her off twice more like that, messy licking everywhere until she’s groaning, two layers of sheet getting yanked up in her hands. Then, when she’s so slippery his tongue has started skating right off, he pulls back and makes her touch herself instead, her fingers more precise and knowing than his can ever be. She works herself way, way harder than he would have dared. Afterwards Taryn drags her shaky self off the bed and goes down on her knees, the moonlight highlighting her concave cheeks. Nick makes a fist in her hair and hangs on. His legs nearly give out when he comes.

“Right,” Taryn says once she’s swallowed, climbing back on top and applying her hot mouth to his neck. “I think we’re made up now, huh?” It’s been hours, well over two. Nick half-feels like he should go grab them some Gatorade.

He wraps both arms around Falvey’s flushed body instead, making a halfhearted attempt to roll them in the direction of the pillow. “I mean,” he starts, playing with her hair. “It was a pretty good effort.” Taryn laughs.

They’re mostly asleep when someone’s cell phone rings, a muffled, vibrating chime from underneath the pile of clothing. It’s quiet, but both of them startle awake right away, that eerie power of a phone call after midnight. Taryn gets to the source of the noise first.

“Hello?” It’s her crappy prepaid no-brand, the white plastic casing all scratched up along the back. Nick watches as she stands naked at the edge of the bed, plugging one ear like she’s at the stock exchange. “Jess,” she says after listening in silence for a full thirty seconds, “Jess, come on, slow down, I can’t understand you.” Nick scoots closer, reaching for her hand. To his surprise, her fingers close around his like a vise.

The house
, she mouths at him. It’s something about the house. Nick nods, but whatever’s being said on the phone has already redirected her attention: “They what?” she hisses, straightening up. All of a sudden her voice goes on-the-job authoritative. “Okay, where are you now? No, Jesse, shut up, listen to me. Right now, where are you? Where are the kids?”

She listens for another second, then, “And everybody’s okay?” She’s squeezing Nick’s hand so hard it’s painful, her palm gone clammy in the dark. “Jesse, say the fucking words to me, say everybody is okay.” Another beat before Taryn—and then Nick—exhales. “Okay,” Taryn says, that same assertive, grown-up voice. “I’m with Nick. We’re coming now.”

She hangs up and stares at him, Nick wanting like all hell to bombard her with eleven thousand questions and forcing himself to keep his mouth shut. It’s a moment before Taryn says anything at all. “Um,” is how she starts when she does. “This is going to sound crazy, but…” Her eyes fill up with tears for the second time tonight, phone still clutched in one rigid fist. Nick’s never seen her look more vulnerable. “Somebody set my house on fire.”

Chapter Twenty-One

Jesse’s been selling, obviously. Taryn has known that since a long time ago, way before he unravels the whole story for her in the ER at Berkshire as they wait to get the kids double-checked for smoke inhalation, Mikey wriggling in Nick’s lap next to the vending machines across the room. She figured it out the very first time those guys showed up at the front door looking for him and maybe even before that, the money and how it appeared with such ragged irregularity, the way he turned into a completely different person with no warning and started disappearing all the time. “Pills?” she asks, pulling her legs up in the uncomfortable plastic chair and resting her chin on one knee. She’s so wrung out, like this night’s gone on for decades. She can’t even muster up any real anger, which is surprising. She’s just…numb.

Jesse nods. “Yeah,” he says, picking at his own shoelaces like Connor when he thinks he’s in trouble. “E, Mostly. Landon knew a guy.”

He got the kids out, Taryn reminds herself. He saved every single one of the kids. “And you what, used them instead of unloading?”

Another nod. “Some of them,” he tells her. “Some of them Sheena’s brother was supposed to sell, which was a disaster. There was this bad batch, laced or whatever. Hot-shots. No would buy from us after. We’d have to test the stuff right in front of customers.” He shrugs. “And then all of a sudden I owed these guys three grand in pills.”

Three grand, Taryn thinks dully. Three thousand dollars. They’re small-time, the guys Jesse was involved with—the police picked them up before the firefighters were even finished—but small-time doesn’t change the fact that they threw a gas-filled Bud Light bottle through the living room window in some colossally fucked up, deadly echo of the brick incident from a few weeks back. The whole downstairs of the house is completely and totally destroyed.

“Will you still have to pay it off now?” she asks after a long pause, tucking her hands into the crook of her bent knee. Hospitals are always so fucking cold. On the other side of the room, Connor comes trudging through the doors with an orderly, apparently having been given the all clear. “Are there other guys who are gonna come looking, or—”