Page 50 of Love Me, I Dare You

Shame comes barreling down, regret mocking me for what I’ve done.

“Nash, please,” I beg, only he doesn’t understand my plea. I’m not begging him to keep kissing me, to continue caressing my body with his rough hands. To bring me to another climax with his tongue. I’m pleading with him to stop, because I don’t think I’ll survive another moment with him. “I can’t. Please stop.”

Nash freezes, releasing my lips, and he takes a step back, dumbfounded. He sets me down on my feet, one hand remains on my lower back, the other on my stomach right under my breast, his thumb slightly grazing my heated skin. I open my eyes to look at him and find a look of complete bewilderment flash in his eyes.

“Bailey, I…” he stutters, but I can’t let him say whatever he’s about to say. Because I know whatever it is will surely make me fall right back under his spell.

“Ten years, Nash. I gave you everything, every part of me. I trusted you, and I know I didn’t ask for anything in return. I know you didn’t owe me anything, but you left the next day without so much as a goodbye. Ten years…” My voice cracks as all the memories, all the pain, the grief, everything threatens to once again swallow me into the endless darkness I lived in foralmost a decade. “You can’t waltz back into my life and pretend like nothing ever happened.”

“Angel, I can’t…” He looks defeated, like I’ve just sucker punched him in the gut and kicked him while he was down just for shits and giggles.

“This won't mean anything. I may not hate you anymore. I might move on one day, but I can never forget how much it hurt.”

“I didn’t…”

“Nash, please. Just go.” He shakes his head and refuses to walk away, further caging me in against the wall as his lips yet again crash into mine. This time, the kiss is once again urgent, like he can’t kiss me fast enough. As if he’s relying on my mouth to breathe. His hands continue to ascend, caressing every inch of my torso with his warmth. The water continues to trickle down on us, the waterfall nearly sizzling as it hits our heated flesh.

His movements grow more desperate as he groans, heady and wanting. “This is what you’re trying to say, means nothing.”

“Fuck you, Bishop.” His hot tongue sweeps in my mouth, surely to shut me up, as he nudges my legs open further.

“Not a second after coming on my tongue and we’re back to Bishop?” I can hear the sheer sarcasm in his tone, the mocking nature of his question like he knows how desperate I was for him.

It’s infuriating that he’s right. I was desperate. Pathetically desperate for his touch, mouth, and tongue. But I’m not desperate enough to allow myself to be humiliated a second longer. But he continues his torture.

“Tell me, pretty girl, is that what you thought about for ten years? The way my tongue slipped inside of you, licked every inch of this gorgeous, pink pussy, and drank in every last drop of cum as you screamed my name. Because the way you taste hasn’t left my mind. It’s all I thought about for a decade.”

I let out a sharp cry as my palm slams against his cheek. His hand rubs against the raw, heated skin of his face, turning red from the force of my hand, and I gasp in horror, realizing what I just did. I just slapped Nash.

“Nash, get out,” my voice breaks as tears threaten to fall as quickly as the water that rains down on us.

How dare he lie so blatantly and pretend he thought about me at all?

If he had, he wouldn’t have stayed gone for so long. He would have come back to me, called me, wrote me a goddamn letter, anything. But he didn’t. Nash stayed away and went on with his life like I didn’t exist.

His arrogant smirk fades as his lips form a straight line. “Angel, please.”

I’m overcome with so many emotions all at once—rage, sorrow, regret. But I’m only angry with myself for becoming such a fool whenever Nash Bishop is around.

The room suddenly feels too small for the both of us, walls closing in and suffocating me. All I see, feel, and smell is him. He’s everywhere, his presence swallowing me up and enveloping me in a blanket of flames that threaten to consume me. It’s all too much, my past and present clashing together as the high of how incredible it felt to be with him again, to have his hands on my body, his lips on mine, combined with the pain and sorrow I felt crying myself to sleep after he left.

It’s all too much and I feel as if I’m going to explode if I don’t get some distance from him so I push him away. “Get out.”

This time my voice doesn’t quaver in the slightest. Nash surprises me when he doesn't argue or try to cut the tension with humor. Lowering his head in defeat, he steps out of the shower, right into the puddle of water that’s formed outside the door we left open. He doesn’t give me a second glance or says a damnthing as he turns and strides out of the bathroom, slamming the door shut as he disappears into my bedroom.

With a sharp inhale, I fall to the floor, sliding down the tiled wall until my bare ass is flat on the cold marble. A heavy knot forms in the pit of my stomach, though I can barely register the pain throbbing in my ankle. My entire body is tense, mirroring the struggle inside me, my limbs heavy with the weight of embarrassment that burdens my thoughts.

Though as the pain medication wears off, the ache serves as a reminder of the consequences of my actions, and what awaits recklessly falling into Nash’s arms last night.

Crouching forward, I’m in a near fetal position, cradling my face in trembling hands, weeping until my tears run dry. Until the powerful category five hurricane that ravaged through me settles into a dry desert storm. I sit in silence when there’s nothing left in me, enduring the physical effects of my emotions, an aching reminder of the vulnerability I just showed him and what awaits me if I fall into his trap again.

My heart aches, but not for his departure. It hurts because I’ve yet again put it in peril by falling for the devil’s charm. Because my mama was right all along. Nash Bishop is the devil and I tremble at the thought that I have fallen too deep into his clutches and am far beyond saving.

Chapter Twenty

Nash

The decadent scent of freshly baked pastries and coffee meets me as I enter the now vacant kitchen of my childhood home. Chipped paint and grease stains cover the dull mustard yellow walls we discovered under the old sunflower patterned wallpaper, which covered it just a week ago. The tacky design has probably been glued to the walls since my family first moved in thirty-some years ago, or even before then when my Grandfather Bishop built the place in the early nineteen thirties.

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