Page 11 of Carry On (Love Doesn’t Cure All #4)
LINCOLN
Finding an unhoused person in Seattle was harder than it looked.
Impossible really. Ever since the quick glimpse of Nash at the precinct, I couldn’t get him out of my head.
It was borderline obsessive, and it was irrefutably unhealthy and unexplainable.
A bribe of expensive coffee had a cop named Bellingham spilling all of Nash’s locations.
He must’ve known Nash well because the list was detailed and broken down by the potential frequency of him being in any given location.
“Sad circumstances, good guy,” Bellingham had said.
It felt like an understatement. I wanted to stay and ask him to elaborate, but I didn’t. I was too focused on trying to find Nash. Something about the look on his face at the precinct didn’t sit right with me. I just couldn’t shake it.
Which was how I ended up walking half the city in the middle of the night, rushing from spot to spot in hopes of finding him.
I saw more of Seattle than I knew existed.
The places people lived out of necessity were awful.
I wasn’t blind to the fact that unhoused people existed, but I hadn’t paid attention.
Not this much. And certainly not enough to actually know.
I wandered down another alley, this one behind a series of older shops. The lack of lighting was a hazard, a lawsuit waiting to happen. But I could understand why he came back here. It was quiet and dark, so much so that I could barely see where I was going.
Hands grabbed me by the back of my suit and tossed me into a wall. The yelp I let out would’ve been embarrassing if I wasn’t left grappling to keep an arm off my throat. A heavy weight pinned me to the wall, and hot breath fanned across my face.
“Why are you following me?”
“Nash?” I pushed back without much luck. For such a lean guy, he was deceptively strong. Fuck, I needed to work out more. “Jesus fuck. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Why the fuck are you following me?” Nash growled one more time, the gravel in his voice sending an involuntary shiver down my spine.
I opened and shut my mouth as I tried to come up with a logical answer for why I was stalking him at this point. You looked sad when I saw you at the precinct didn’t seem like the right answer. Nor was it an appropriate one.
“I asked you a question.”
“Regrettably, I don’t have a good answer for that,” I replied tightly. I tried to sound casual about it—a feat hard to accomplish with his arm pressing against my windpipe. “I’d say I wanted to see you, but under the circumstances, I don’t—”
His mouth crashed into mine, demanding and unrelenting. For a fraction of time, I froze as my brain shut down. Glitched. Broke a little at the contact. But in its absence, my nerves lit up with a blazing hot sensation that radiated from every place his body touched mine.
My fight response faded in a flash as I gave in to his inexplicable urgency.
I groaned against his mouth, unable to help it.
He pushed me harder into the wall, his body completely covering mine.
His fingers drifted along my jaw to the back of my head, and his fist anchored in my hair.
Tipping my head back, he deepened the kiss.
His tongue stroked mine, hot and hungry.
Why I let him take control was beyond me, but I did. I was pliable in his rough hands.
The taste of toothpaste washed over me, mingling with that intoxicatingly earthy musk of his. It consumed me. My heart hammered wildly in my chest as I dragged him closer, needing more. Wanting more.
Fuck, I couldn’t get enough of him.
I met his hunger in stride, kissing him in a clash of teeth, tongues, and gasping breaths.
My dick ached as it strained against my dress pants.
It didn’t help that he was just as hard behind his jeans, something I felt as his hips rolled into mine.
The friction was torturous. Using his belt loops, I urged him into doing it all over again.
He moaned, the sound deeply guttural and needy. It shot straight to my core and practically set me on fire from the inside out. The way I wanted him was wild and uncontrolled, foreign and insane. I’d never wanted anyone so badly in my life.
Without warning, he ripped away from me and retreated to the other side of the alley. The darkness swallowed him up. I immediately missed the heat and hard edges of his body on mine as I sagged against the wall, gasping to catch my breath.
“Go home, Linc,” Nash snarled, breathing heavily. Before I could say anything, he stormed away and disappeared. I could’ve followed him—and I almost did—but I was too stunned to move as I tried to wrap my head around what had just happened.