He pulled free of my hands, trying to roll over, away from me. “I won’t be some charity case that you feel––”
Grabbing his shoulder, I wrenched him back to me, the movement fast, leaving no second of protest before his face was in my hands. “I don’t think you’re broken,” I said sharply, letting him hear the resoluteness in my voice. “And I don’t feel sorry for you, and I don’t think you need saving.” I loosened my hold, and he went from staring at me with wild eyes to taking a breath. “I think you need to talk to someone to work through all the things you’ve seen that haunt you.”
His eyes filled, and he narrowed them to slits so they wouldn’t overflow.
“Agreed?”
“Yes,” he rasped, shivering again.
Tucking his head under my chin, I clutched him against me, squeezing tight, letting him feel the kind of shelter from the storm I could be.
“How can you stand being so close to me? I’m gross and sweaty.”
“Are you kidding?” I said, nuzzling my face into the side of his neck. “Gross and sweaty’s my favorite.”
He whimpered in relief, and I held him until his whole body stilled.
“I wanna shower,” he croaked out.
“Okay,” I soothed him. “Let me help you, all right?”
He nodded, and I left him under the warm water as I stripped the bed. Then, because I couldn’t find a linen closet, I had to go back and lean into the bathroom. After several attempts to get the answer, I opened the shower door and looked at him.
“Hey,” I teased him. “Don’t drown in here because you fell asleep standing up.”
But he wasn’t asleep. He was, in fact, very awake, and erect, as evidenced by his hard cock that he was stroking in his hand.
“Enjoying yourself?”
“I know what I’d like better,” he drawled, his eyes locked on me. “Croy.”
He was gorgeous, all wet, with his lazy smile and hot stare, and far too great a temptation to turn from. More importantly, he needed to see that, in my eyes, nothing was diminished or altered when I looked at him.
When I stepped under the warm spray, wrapped one hand around his throat and the other around his cock, he was shivering all over again, but it was the good kind, in arousal and anticipation, all of the good, none of the bad.
When he arched against me and said my name like a prayer, I knew I was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Ten
Dallas woke slowly, rolling over and stretching, and then turning to look up at me, blinking as he tried to get his bearings.
“I—what?”
“It’s good that you’re awake, because your mother expects us for drinks at six, and its five thirty now.”
“It’s about—wait. Dinner?”
I chuckled.
“You did that on purpose.”
He looked so good, all rumpled and not fully awake, trying to figure out what the hell was happening at the moment.
“You said, like, a million words at once just to be an ass.”
I had, he was right. “Perhaps not a million.”
“That was mean.”
“I apologize.”
He squinted at me. “We just had breakfast.”
“Technically, we had breakfast for lunch, but that was still five hours or so ago.”
“What?” His voice broke like he was horrified.
I snorted out a laugh.
“It’s five thirty?”
“It is,” I assured him.
“And I slept the whole time?”
“You needed it after you woke up,” I reminded him gently.
“No,” he moaned, and he sounded so miserable. “No, no, no, no, that’s not what I wanted. I can sleep anytime, but I won’t have you in my bed after tonight. We have to stay at that house at the Ridges tomorrow night.”
“The thing is, you don’t sleep most of the time, so if me being here helps that, I have to tell you that I take that as a compliment.”
He whimpered in the back of his throat.
“I’ll make out with you in the car before we drive over there,” I offered, grinning at him.
“Let’s just stay here and go to bed.”
After he fell asleep the second time, I’d moved from the couch to the dining room table, and then into the bedroom. I’d been working on my laptop, first skyping with an annoyed Locryn Barnes, and then with my boss. Jared had not liked me signing away my birthright for a Paul Revere silver tea service, but more than that, he was appalled that I’d even been asked. He was deeply disturbed by the fact that I’d given away who I was, and I’d countered that I hadn’t been that person in years, so it hardly mattered. We left it with him saying that he would look into the whole thing, even after I’d explained that the deal was done.
“I’ll do as I see fit,” Jared Colter said irritably, and I shut up at that point because questioning him, arguing with him, didn’t seem like the smart course of action.