Chapter 8 Asher Nash

She Doesn’t Know Who I Am

The tension between us is palpable. Can I wait until the auction winners are announced to invite her upstairs?

I’m not sure.

I’m not sure I’ve ever felt this strong of a need to tear off someone’s clothes before.

She pulls her face back from my palm, her eyes opening as if she just had the same thought. Her eyes are hooded when they move to mine, and she flexes her hands where they land on my biceps as the song comes to an end and Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance with Somebody” starts playing.

She clears her throat, but neither of us moves out of the grasp we have on one another.

And then Grayson walks by and flicks my ear, clearly misreading the tension between Desiree and myself.

That fucker.

I turn around, letting go of her as those around us did once the slow song ended and the faster one began, and I offer him a glare.

I know better than to retaliate. He’s the tallest and heaviest of the four Nash brothers, perfect for his position as a defensive back, and he’s got about three inches and thirty pounds on me.

He grins at me, and he and his wife start to dance.

This woman dancing with me is here at the Vegas Aces annual charity ball, but I can’t tell if she knows who I am—or who my brother is. So who the hell is she, and why is she here if she doesn’t know the two of us? We’re related to the head coach. We hail from the infamous Nash family. Everyone in this room knows who we are.

The reason why doesn’t matter. The truth of the matter is that I kind of like that maybe she doesn’t know who I am.

I’ve never looked for something meaningful, but I’ve also never been with a woman who wasn’t vying for my attention because of who I am.

Do I use that status to my advantage? I suppose the answer to that would be yes—in the past, anyway.

And I’m not saying I’m looking for something meaningful now, but everyone around me has changed over the last year or so, and it feels like I’m next in line. I’m due. And maybe this is it. This is the moment of change for me.

I’m not interested in commitment.

Neither was Lincoln, and now he’s here with his wife while his stepson and daughter are at home with his in-laws.

Neither was Grayson, who’s dancing with his wife as if this is their foreplay.

Neither was Spencer, who managed to find himself drunkenly married in Vegas, and now, well, I’m not really sure what the hell is going on with him now. He’s not here tonight, so I assume he’s in San Diego training with the Storm, the team that picked him up when he was released from his contract with the Vikings at the end of last season.

I guess that means I’m next.

Settling down isn’t for everyone, and maybe it isn’t for me.

But as the woman with the green eyes and red hair looks at me with all that need in her eyes, I’m tempted to do things I never would dream of doing.

Fuck it. If I win one of the auctions, someone will let me know.

I grab her hand. “One more drink?”

She nods, and I tug her over toward the bar. I get my whiskey, she gets her extra dirty martini, and we take our drinks outside to the gardens. It’s quiet out here, and the night is a beautiful seventy degrees while the dance floor was starting to get a little overheated—not from all the dancing or from the crush of people around us, but from the sizzling undercurrent passing between Desiree and myself.

I blow out a breath as I find an empty bench, and we sit. She raises her drink to me, the third toast we’ve shared tonight, and I wonder what she’ll say this time.

To my surprise, she nods at me to give the toast.

To finding a quiet place to fuck seems inappropriate even though that’s the current thought in my mind. Maybe whiskey drives me to drunksville faster than beer does.

My eyes flick down to her dress. “To seeing what those leaves are hiding.”

Her jaw drops a little in surprise at my words, but she dishes it right back. “To showing you all the wonders hidden beneath.”

Fuck.

I chug the rest of my whiskey and slam the glass on the bench beside me, and then I move to take her glass from her hand. She raises an eyebrow and shakes her head, and then she tips her head back and smoothly finishes down what’s left in the glass. She sets her glass beside me and stands, and she reaches to pull me up with her. She doesn’t take a step back to allow for more space as I stand. I tower a bit over her since she’s maybe four or five inches shorter than me even in her heels, and I reach in to wrap an arm around her waist. I wrap the other one, too, and I haul her in closer to me. A quiet, intimate moment passes between us as she links her arms around my neck.

We might be alone out here, or maybe we’re not—but either way, it feels like it’s just her and me in this moment as our eyes meet, and the heat that’s been smoldering between us since she slid into the chair beside me ignites into something I’m not sure we’ll ever fully extinguish.

I lean down closer to her and run my nose along hers, and I hear the soft hitch of her breath at my proximity. I pull back a bit, and her eyes are closed. Her lips are parted, and I’ve never felt a stronger urge to kiss a woman in my life.

I lean in and softly brush my lips to hers.

I’m rewarded with a quiet moan, and I tighten my arms around her, hauling her as close as I possibly can as I press at the seam of her lips with my tongue. Her lips part, and I feel her tongue as it meets mine, slow and luxurious. There’s nothing tentative as her confidence seems to kick in, and Jesus, who the hell is this woman?

Her name is Desiree.

Her dad is allergic to scallops.

She doesn’t eat anything that swims, she prefers her martinis filthy, and she isn’t local.

She’s hot as fuck, her red hair and green eyes are full of temptation, our bodies seem like they were made for each other based on the way we danced before, and she wants to show me what’s hidden beneath her leaves.

Oh, and she can fucking kiss . Her lips are soft and firm as her tongue moves against mine in a way that makes me want to know how that tongue would feel as it moves along my shaft. She sucks on my tongue for a second, and she bites down softy on my bottom lip—all things I want her to do to my cock.

Fuck.

And that’s it. That’s all I’ve learned about her tonight. I don’t know what she does for a living, who her family is, who her friends are, where she lives, or anything important about her. And still, there’s this inexplicable understanding that makes me feel like there’s an unbreakable connection between us—a deep one that’s been there for years even though we only met a few hours ago.

Maybe it doesn’t matter, and maybe I’m going to take her upstairs and treat her the way I’ve treated the last string of encounters that ended up meaningless.

But something tells me this one won’t be meaningless. Something tells me my life is about to change in ways I haven’t begun to even think about yet.

And it all starts with my next words.

I pull back slowly, lazily, as a haze seems to fall over both of us.

“I have a room here tonight, and I’d love to take you upstairs.”

She doesn’t miss a beat. “Let’s go.”