Chapter Nine
Ash didn’t say a word. He stowed his load in the back of the truck and we drove off as if we’d never detoured to the ranch. There seemed to be an awful lot on his mind. He kneaded his leg as he drove, while Neil grumbled and paced from one window to the other on the backseat, ears shifting like a pair of radar dishes scanning for signals.
I looked out the window, running my fingertips over my lips. My lips hurt, not from the force of his kisses—no way, he’d been way too gentle—but rather from his mouth’s absence. He’d kissed me. And he’d liked it. So had I. Oh, Lord.
Ash’s cell rang. “Hunter,” he answered and then an official “Yes, ma’am.”
“Who is it?” I mouthed.
“Gunny Watkins,” he mouthed back.
“Be nice,” I reminded him.
It was a one-way conversation, with the gunny doing most of the talking. I couldn’t hear what she was saying, but Ash’s contributions were limited to the occasional “yes, ma’am,” a single “thank you, ma’am,” and a final “I’ll tell her ma’am.”
“What did she say?” I asked when he hung up.
“She was checking on us.” Ash kept his eyes on the road. “She said she’d reviewed my chart and was pleased with my progress.”
I gave him a fist bump. “We’ve appeased Godzilla.”
He smiled. “She sent her regards.”
“We should feel mighty accomplished.”
“You should feel accomplished,” Ash said. “The gunny isn’t easy to impress. She reminded me of what a phenomenal asset you are. Now if I could only get you to believe it.”
Me? An asset? No way. He was the asset in my life. He guarded my house, protected my animals, eased my hardships and enriched my life with company and friendship. Whereas I was a huge, walking, talking liability, even if he refused to accept me as such.
When Ash and Neil went out for their evening walk, I slipped on a T-shirt and my old pajama pants and arranged my pillow and blanket on the couch. I was in the process of starting a fire in the living room’s hearth when they came back. Neil made a straight line for me, splayed on the ground and, pawing the air, flashed his belly.
Ash’s stare shifted from the couch to me. He sighed, stepped to the couch and, after bundling my pillow and blankets, threw them over his shoulder and started up the stairs.
“Hello?” I followed him. “That’s my pillow.”
“You’re not sleeping downstairs.”
“Who gave you the power to decide where I sleep?”
“Reason and common sense.” He plodded to his room and, without hesitation, added my blankets to his bed and propped my pillow next to his.
“Ashton Hunter,” I said. “You’re definitively crossing a line here.”
He flashed me a stoic look. “Then can we please cross it quickly?”
I opened my mouth and closed it. What on earth was one supposed to say to that? As if I wasn’t standing right there, he pulled his sweater and T-shirt over his head, unbuckled his belt, dropped his jeans on the floor and grappled with his foot brace. Wearing only his boxer briefs, he got in bed and patted the mattress next to him.
“No way.” My defective sense for self-preservation finally made an appearance. That kiss today? It was the kind of catastrophic mistake I couldn’t afford. “I don’t want to sleep with you.”
“Lia, sweetness—”
“Don’t you dare ‘Lia, sweetness’ me.”
“I’ve waited for days at a time in a cradle to take a single shot.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I have the patience to stalk my target and the perseverance to stick with it for however long is necessary to accomplish the mission.”
I wheeled on my heels. “I don’t care if you have my pillow. I’m sleeping on the couch.”
“Go ahead,” he said. “I’ll come down and carry you back up if I have to. I’ll do it later when you’re asleep, whether my foot hurts or not.”
It was a cheap shot. I glared at him. I wasn’t going to be swayed by theatrics. The problem was that, coming from him, it wasn’t theatrics. His foot did hurt. His entire leg hurt.
I gritted my teeth and stomped to the door.
“Have it your way,” he said. “By the end of the night, we’re both going to be sick and tired of that damn staircase and you’ll be sleeping right here, in this room, in this bed.”
Everest had spoken.
“Let’s be reasonable,” I said. “I don’t think this is wise.”
“Lia...” He groaned. “I’m not good at bullshit. I’m not going to explain what you already know.”
“And what is it that I’m supposed to know?”
“Everything.”
“That would make me the smartest woman on the planet.”
“Really?” He rolled his eyes. “Okay, I’ll just say it, then. I want you to sleep in my bed.”
My heart did that Irish jig thing again, but my mind crushed it like a giant mallet. “No.”
“Why not?” he said. “We did it last night and you didn’t complain.”
“Last night was an exception.”
“Or a first time.”
Every cell in my body twinkled like the brightest stars, but the realist in me wasn’t fooled by things like joy and anticipation. “Let’s just leave it like it is.”
“Let’s not,” he said. “Come to bed. Think of it as therapy.”
“Therapy?”
“Yes, Lia, therapy.” He huffed, not a little exasperated. “I don’t know what happened before I met you, but I know trauma when I see it, and you’re really screwed up. The only way to get over your fears is to confront them. You fear getting in bed with me? Then you need to do exactly that.”
Holy Mother.
“Choose,” he said. “You can sleep here with me or sleep here without me.”
I didn’t know what to do.
“Come on, Neil.” Ash got up from the bed and grabbed his pillow and his cane. “We’ll go sleep in the freezer next door.”
That room got too cold. He wouldn’t get a wink of rest. He’d have nightmares for sure. He could get sick just from sleeping in there...
“Wait.”
Both Ash and Neil froze in place.
“If I get in bed with you,” I said, “there will be none of that kissing stuff and no hanky-panky.”
He straightened and crossed his arms. “You don’t like kissing?”
“I like kissing fine.”
“Then you have some specific grievances about the way I kissed you today?”
“No, I mean, that’s not the point.”
“Yeah,” he said. “What is the point of this discussion?”
“We have an arrangement,” I said. “I’m your caretaker—I mean, caregiver—and you’ll be moving on as soon as Gunny Watkins gives you your medical release.”
He sighed, dropped the pillow on the bed and plopped down on the mattress. “What am I going to do with you? Please, come to bed. I promise: no kissing and no hanky-panky, unless you decide that’s exactly what you want, in which case, I’ll be happy to oblige.”
“I’m serious,” I said. “You and I—we can’t get involved.”
“Newsflash,” he said. “We’re already involved.”
“What?”
“You were there,” he said. “This afternoon. When I kissed you? You know.”
The shiver that fringed my spine teased every part of me. It tickled my belly, curled my toes and tightened my nipples. They poked through my T-shirt as if I’d been hit with a burst of arctic air. Ash noticed, no doubt about it. His stare only aggravated my condition. I blushed to the roots of my hair.
“And modest to boot.” Ash lifted the bedcovers. “Come on.”
The fear, it was like Red Rush, barreling through my veins. It raked my guts and wiped out my brain. But this was Ash. I’d cared for Ash. I trusted him. And he was not going to go to sleep in this bed unless I did too.
I hesitated. I drew in a great gulp of courage then marched across the room, got in the bed and slid between the sheets.
“That a girl.” He tucked the covers around me, slid his shoulder beneath my head and scooped me close to him. “That wasn’t so hard.”
“Good night,” I said in a tone that forbade talk or touch.
“Good night.” He chuckled quietly.
* * *
I woke up later that night, snug in Ash’s bed, firmly ensconced in his arms. Basking in his body’s heat, I was beyond warm. I was really hot. I shed one of the blankets and tucked the remaining sheet beneath my armpits. That’s when I noticed the blue eyes beaming at me and something else, something much more alarming.
I launched out of the bed like a gold-medal sprinter, but I got snared in Ash’s hold before I managed to hit the floor. I ended up clinging to my pillow with my backside pressed to him, no less exposed to his offending parts.
“Sorry about that.” He held me tightly and gently at the same time. “But I swear, you’re safe. Please, don’t go. You’ve got to know that I’d never hurt you.”
My heart pumped at a mad rate. My lungs refused to draw in the air. I had to try to set aside the fear. From his doggy bed, Neil raised his head briefly then lowered it back onto his paws. He would have alerted if I was in danger. Right? He would have alerted me, even if the danger came from Ash.
“Give me a moment,” Ash said. “Let me see what the hell I can do about this. I’m thinking triangles and squares, cold showers and icy lakes. In the meanwhile, try to relax. You don’t have a thing to fear from me. Okay?”
“Okay,” I squeaked, scooting away on the mattress, putting some space between his body and mine, breathing, always breathing. “Do you—um—do you have to do that?”
“Christ, Lia, the things you ask.” He scooped me right back against his chest. “It’s a biological response, a natural reflex. It’s not so easy to suppress when you’re lying next to someone you want.”
If I had been woolly before, now I was wide-awake. He wanted me? Beyond a kiss, he wanted me?
“I’m not a beast,” he said. “Wanting is one thing. Taking is quite the other. I don’t have to act on my impulses. I promise.”
At a rational level, I understood what he meant, but a jolt of stomach-turning fear reminded me that other people out there had no such restraint.
“To be honest, it’s not such bad news,” he said. “At least not for me.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s sort of a relief.”
I shifted in his arms and craned my neck to lay eyes on his face. “Relief?”
“Lying in that hospital bed, one had to wonder if all the plumbing is going to work right. Lots of guys do.”
Had I become the most selfish, self-centered witch in the universe? I hadn’t thought about him after the explosion, coming out of months of painful treatment in the hospital, about his injuries and how they would have impacted his body’s natural functions, his state of mind and his confidence. I forced aside my fears to pay attention to his. I remembered that day at the dock. His plumbing seemed to be working just fine and his reaction had echoed in my body in a way that warmed me all over again now.
“Well,” I mumbled. “Now you know that you can load the old cannon.”
He laughed so hard that the whole bed shook. “True,” he said, “at least when you’re around. It’s not what you want to hear, I know, but it’s the God’s honest truth.”
A new front opened up in the battle raging inside me. I gnawed on my lips until they hurt. On one side, reason argued on behalf of common sense and survival. On the other side, my heart longed to break free and my body craved what my heart wanted.
I turned ever so slightly in his arms. The pretext of helping him to heal lent me the strength I needed. But it was just a pretext. As I reached out under the covers, I wanted to touch him. I wanted to touch him intimately. I wanted to touch him...there.
My fingers slid over the fabric of his boxers, outlining the bulk of his erection. Something stirred deep inside me, something primal and powerful capable of giving my fear a run for its money. He was already hard, but when my hand brushed against it, his cock tightened.
“Lia?” His body went as rigid as his erection. “What the hell are you doing?”
“Um...” I gulped dryly. “Helping out?”
He rumbled quietly. “Is that so?”
“Uh-huh.”
“In that case... Take your hand off me.”
“But—”
“That’s not how it works.” He grabbed my hand and placed it over the covers. “And I won’t have it like that.”
“I... I just wanted to help.”
“Don’t.”
He might as well have punched me in the gut. He didn’t really want me to touch him after all. My blush was so hot that my face was probably glowing in the dark.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I just thought that you—that maybe you wanted me to...”
He scoffed, “The understatement of the century.”
I frowned in the darkness.
“Look at me.” He turned me around in his arms and tilted up my chin until I was doing exactly that. “That’s better. Don’t be afraid and don’t be mad at me either. Get this through your thick skull: I don’t want your pity and I sure as hell don’t want you to make out with me out of a twisted sense of obligation.”
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What do you want then?”
“I want you to want me.”
“Oh.”
“Anything less is a bust.” He planted a quick kiss on my lips. “Now go to sleep. Don’t be afraid. I don’t know what kind of life you lived before this one, but I’m not going to force, coax or seduce you. On the other hand, I do plan to be around when you’re ready for me.”