“He looks like he’s dying … so fucking sick, and he called me son. For twenty-five years I called him Uncle Phil and now that he might not be around much longer, he has the nerve to call me son. I grew up thinking I wasn’t good enough for anyone. Not my mom, not that shithead she married, not my dad who couldn’t even be bothered to see what kind of kid I would turn out to be … only Phil made me feel like I was worth a damn, and now I don’t even know what to do with any of this shit. Why didn’t he just tell me? He was more my dad than my uncle all along anyway.”

I sighed because he was spinning himself in circles and I could see the faster he turned the worse it was making him feel. I put my other hand on his and leaned forward.

“I don’t know, Nash. What I do know is the only person who can answer those questions is sick and hurting just as badly as you are. And I know that the two of you obviously need each other right now. This is wasted time you will never get back. I see it every day and you will live to regret it if you don’t move past it and go see him.”

He was drunk, obviously distraught and not thinking clearly. I doubted he would remember much of this heart-to-heart when he sobered up, but there was just a nagging part of me that wanted to try and make this heartbreaking situation more manageable for him. I thought I still hated him, still held him responsible for all my shattered teenage dreams of love and romance, but right now I just felt sorry for him. It didn’t matter how big and strong he was, or how much of a badass he appeared to be on the outside, not being able to fight back against something as devastating as cancer, especially when it was affecting someone he obviously loved, sucked. I knew it made him feel impotent and ineffectual, and right now it was obviously making him scared enough to think hiding from it was a viable option.

I gasped a little in shock when both of his wide hands suddenly seized my face on either side. His hands were a little rough but his touch was soft as his eyes suddenly flashed from periwinkle to a dark, intense indigo. His eyelids drooped down, and his erratic breathing suddenly slowed, making those flames dancing across his shoulders and pecs look like they were alive.

“You’re really beautiful, Saint.”

I narrowed my eyes at him and lifted my hands to wrap around his wrists. My fingers didn’t reach all the way around and I didn’t want to think about how sexy that was. It was on the tip of my tongue to remind him that he hadn’t always thought that, in fact if my memory was correct he had said it would take a bag over my head for him to be interested in spending any kind of intimate time in my offensive presence. I still felt the burn as the memory flashed behind my eyes.

“I just want to help.”

“You are helping.”

No I wasn’t. I shouldn’t have come here. He wasn’t my problem. What he was struggling with and whatever complicated family dynamic he was working with had nothing to do with me, but it was like I was seventeen again and couldn’t deny that there was just something about him that grabbed at me, pulled at my too-sensitive heartstrings.

I sighed and gave him a tight smile. “No I’m not. You need to let the people who love you, who care about you, in to help you out with this. That’s a heavy load to try and balance alone. Especially on top of everything else with your parents. It’ll be all right, Nash. You’ll see.”

His eyes got even darker, and it was like watching midnight fall over the sky. I was balanced on my toes, and he had a firm grip on my face, so when he suddenly pulled me forward I was both startled and off balance. I had to let go of his wrists to catch myself as I fell forward, and I swore the heat coming off his bare skin when my palms landed on the smoothness of his naked chest was enough to meld me to him forever.

I was going to ask him what in the hell he thought he was doing. I was going to tell him that I had stopped by more for his father’s sake than his. I was going to snap at him that he was the last man on earth I would let put his hands on me after the lasting damage his unnecessarily cruel actions and thoughtless words a lifetime ago had done. I never got the chance.

One of his hands snatched up the end of my long braid and wrapped it around his fingers like a rope. His other slid across the nape of my neck and unceremoniously jerked me forward until we were chest to chest, mouth to mouth, and I was plastered all along the very much undressed front of him. I pushed ineffectually at his rock-hard shoulders, tried to wiggle my way free, but he was too strong, had too good of a grip on my hair—and if I was going to be entirely honest, even drunk and sloppy he was one hell of a good kisser, so my effort to get away may have been halfhearted at best.

I had spent a good portion of my last year in high school wondering what it would be like to kiss Nash Donovan. Granted, in my fantasies it usually involved candles, soft music, and him being madly in love with me while I just laughed at him and told him there wasn’t a chance in hell he ever had a shot at getting with me. Wouldn’t it just be fate to shove it in my face that even though I didn’t particularly care for him, didn’t think there would ever be a situation or set of circumstances in the whole wide world where I would let him put his hands on me … that as soon as I was tested in those beliefs I crumbled like the Berlin Wall coming down.

His lips were a little dry, his skin rough from too many days without a shave, and when he moved his head just a fraction to run his tongue along the seam of my lips, I refused to open, and I felt the slight brush of metal against my upper lip from that hoop in the center of his nose. I thought it would weird me out, but it made me shiver, and when he pulled my hair just hard enough to make me huff out a breath of pain, he got the entrance he wanted and I quickly slipped from indignant and annoyed to something squishy and foreign that made my heart rate pick up and my pulse flutter jerkily under my skin.

Man, could he kiss. He was intent on it, like whatever was happening between my mouth and his was somehow the only thing that mattered to him in the entire world right now. He used his tongue, his teeth, and somehow lured me even closer so that I could feel the rapid rate his heart was pounding out against the flattened palm of my hand where it rested on the burning surface of one of his impressive pecs. I could taste all his vices as his talented tongue danced across my own and glanced against the sensitive curve of my upper lip. There was the tang of tequila, the acrid hint of cigarette smoke, a tinge of sorrow, and the unmistakable residue of injury caused by wounds self-inflicted by his stubbornness and fear.

One of us groaned and the other sighed heavily, and just as I was about to forget myself, forget why I was here and who this tattooed and inconsolable boy was to me and do something idiotic and unforgivable, there was a pounding knock at the door that had both of us jerking apart. His gaze was wild and hazy with a mixture of passion and confusion. I pulled back and jumped to my feet like that fire that was inked all over him was alive and could actually singe me.

I was breathing hard and felt like I wanted to maybe kick him or fall back on top of him and kiss him all over again. The banging on the door increased in intensity and I cleared my throat and shoved my now messy, tangled column of hair over my shoulder.

“Your pizza is here.”

He just looked up at me like I had landed from another planet. He ran his tongue across the damp curve of his lower lip and lifted an eyebrow at me, like he was daring me to say something, like he was savoring the taste I had left on him.

I glowered down at him and turned on my heel to head toward the door. I should’ve listened to my instinct that had yelled at me as loudly as it could that I should just leave well enough alone. The past belonged buried in the Pandora’s box of hurtful memories and savage misconceptions I left it in. Nash had no place in my here and now. No matter how gorgeous I thought he was, no matter that he was the best kisser ever or how desperately my libido was screeching at me that I needed to know exactly where those wings on his stomach and hips disappeared to … I knew there was more under the surface of him, and it wasn’t very pretty.