Love is timeless…Nash Nation loves zeroes and ones, over-sized monitors and late office hours.
He’s too busy taking over the world to make time for relationships—that is,
until his new neighbor Willow O’Bryant barges into his life, and now Nash can’t
shake the feeling that this isn’t the first time she’s interrupted his world.
Then, the dreams start. And in the dreams—memories.
Memories of a girl named Sookie who couldn’t count on love or friendship, never
mind forever. Memories of a library and a boy called Isaac and secrets made in
private that destroyed his world.
The memories seem real, but who do they belong to?
When Nash and Willow discover the truth, life as they know it unravels.
The bridge between this life and the next is shored up by blood and bone and
memory. Sometimes, that bridge leads to the place we’ve always wanted to be.
Author note: This is a re-release of Eden’s 2017
paranormal romance with major updates and new edits published by City Owl
Press. Even if you have read the previous version of this story, it is advised
that you check out this new incarnation.
Excerpt
©EDEN BUTLER 2020
She was winter. The cold, cool stretch of emptiness that you think will
consume you. The frigid bite you think won’t ever leave your bones, the one you
try to pretend isn’t there, but can’t keep out of your head.
She was fall and the scent of a fire, the crackle of heat, the coming of
change you try to pretend won’t come, but does anyway, that you wait for the
whole year, that you wish away when it finally comes.
She was summer and the scorching warmth of sun and sin, the slick feel of
lotion and the spray of ocean water, the salt of that taste on your tongue and
the cool, crisp relief that comes over you when you dip inside the bottomless
water.
She was spring, the fresh sweet smell of jasmine and the honeysuckle
temptation of light and love and beautiful rebirth that cannot be ignored.
Willow was the phantom spark of all those things I loved and hated. The things
that tested me. The things that healed, all wrapped up in that tempting
silhouette, in the sweet surrender of her body pressed against mine and the
whisper of a tease in every syllable that formed my name from her full, thick
lips.
“Nash.” It was a song sweeter than Coltrane. Hurt worse, too, my name,
the hidden tone of promises and pleasure I’d stopped telling myself I didn’t
want.
Four seasons laid out before me. Willow’s wild hair fanned against my
pillow and her waiting body—pale skin and a trail of freckles that crossed her
chest and dipped with the curves along her stomach.
“Nash,” she said again, reaching for me when I came to my knees, looking
down at her, wanting her with an ache nothing had ever worked up in me.
There were two small lines along her hips, lightning on her skin and the
round bends of her breasts, the sweet arches along her thighs when I touched
her there. That look, though, went deeper, settled closer than the scent of her
skin or rise in my body when I watched her shimmy out of her clothes and crawl
on my bed, waiting, ready for me to react.
Now I was and I had to breathe deep, separate the want someone else held
in my dream and the urge to take what was mine and mine alone; what I wanted
for myself because of the sensation only Willow moved in me.
“Take off your shirt,” she said and I did, working one shoulder at a time
out of that cotton, discarding it because it kept me from her. She touched me,
nails against the lines and letters over my body, her mouth, her tongue warm
and soft on my neck, over my chest, traveling like a wanderer, searching,
seeking.
We came together like colors, moving into a gradient of light, of motion
that reminded me of the sea, waves and water, sand and shore. We were sweeter
than those Coltrane chords, went deeper than each note.
“Will… I could never get my fill of you…” I told her, moving closer, lips
and tongue on her flesh, in the dips of her body. The invitation open, ready as
she pulled me close. I took another bite, moving her apart with my knee,
holding her tight until there were small marks from my fingers against her pale
skin and she shuddered, gripping, clawing at me like she couldn’t get close
enough. “I’m… I’m so sorry about that day at my building…”
“I don’t… Nash… it doesn’t matter.” She pulled me closer, like she didn’t
want the words between us keeping our lips apart. “Nash… please…” And that
melody spurred me on, had me forgetting control and patience and all the
swagger I thought made me smooth. I was nothing but feeling, touch, and taste,
and desperate, desperate want with her under me, with me slipping inside, deep,
sweet.
Free.
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