Chapter Ten
“No! No, please! Leave me alone!”
Jackson bolted straight up in bed, his heart racing. The clock on his bedside table blinked 2:02 a.m. He was surprised he’d fallen asleep at all. After leaving Ridley standing alone in the hallway, he’d been too riled up, okay, too damn aroused, to relax.
He’d paced the floor for a while. He’d taken a cold shower. He’d done push-ups until he was too exhausted to continue. None of it had made a damn bit of difference.
Normally he’d go downstairs and watch a movie or something but he didn’t want to take the chance of running into Ridley. He wasn’t a saint, and if confronted with her sweet little body again while his blood was still high, he couldn’t guarantee he’d be honorable enough to walk away this time. She’d end up bent over the couch with her little shorts around her ankles as he took her from behind.
And damn if that wasn’t a mental image. He swore as he hardened again beneath the sheets.
Then he heard a soft moan.
“I don’t know anything! Just leave me alone.” There was silence, then the soft sound of crying.
“What the hell? Ridley?” He threw off his covers and sprinted through his open door and down the hall. He’d deliberately given her a room that was as far away from his as possible so she could have her privacy. Now he was cursing the decision as a million scenarios raced through his mind. What if the people she was running from had followed her here? Broken into the house?
He crashed through the door and then blinked in the bright light. Ridley lay on the top of the bed, thrashing back and forth. Every light in the room was blazing, including the lights in the adjoining bathroom. He approached the bed carefully. He’d always heard you shouldn’t wake people in the midst of a nightmare, but for the life of him he couldn’t remember what you should do. Surely he wasn’t supposed to just leave her in terror?
“Just let me go,” she sobbed.
“Forget this.” Jackson climbed on the bed next to her and pulled her into his arms. She immediately clung to his bare chest and pressed her wet cheeks against his skin.
“Shhh, it’s okay. Ridley, you’re safe,” he whispered to her and stroked a hand up and down her back. After a few minutes, she calmed. When he looked down, her eyes were open but wild and though she was looking directly at him, he couldn’t tell if she really knew he was there.
Finally her eyes focused and she whispered, “Jackson?”
“I’m here. Ridley, I’m right here.”
She squeezed her eyes shut again and tears slid down her cheeks. “I woke you. I’m so sorry. It was just a dream. A stupid dream.”
He held her tighter. It seemed completely inadequate, but in that moment it was all he had. He couldn’t fight the demons for her, but he could hold her and let her know she wasn’t alone, at least. He knew what it was like to feel utterly isolated.
As if you were standing in the midst of a storm with nothing to anchor you.
“You want to tell me what it was about?”
Ridley was quiet for a moment, then a shiver wracked her slender frame. “They tried to burn down my apartment.”
“What?” Jackson pulled back slightly so he could see her face.
“I keep a small apartment in Florida. My landlady called yesterday. There was a fire the day after I left. Then before bed, I thought I saw something outside the window. I’m scared, Jackson. What if the people who killed David are looking for me? What if they’re trying to kill me, too?” Her eyes welled with tears again.
“Shhh, now. You don’t know that for sure. Either way, they don’t know where you are, and they’re not going to find out if I have anything to do about it. It’s okay, Ridley. You’re safe here.” He made soft noises as he rubbed her back.
She took several shaky breaths, then finally exhaled the long, rattling sigh of the truly exhausted. After a few minutes, her breathing finally slowed to a normal rate. He looked down at the top of her head, a profound sense of peace washing over him.
“You don’t have to stay. I’m okay now. I know you don’t want to be here.”
“That’s not true. I wasn’t asleep, anyway. I was trying to decide whether I should take another cold shower or not.”
She blushed and lowered her eyes. “Well, that’s your own fault.”
“I know, baby girl.” He kissed the top of her head.
Her fingers danced gently over the tattoo on his chest. “I’ve never been into tattoos, but this fits you.”
He looked down at the design he’d gotten in his first year of college. “I was called ‘Treble’ because I was a music major. I was always humming bars and scribbling pieces of songs on napkins. Eventually it became less like ‘treble’ and more like ‘trouble.’ I have no idea why, of course.” He wiggled his eyebrows at her.
Relief swept through him when she smiled in response, looking more like herself.
“What about you?” He tilted his head in her direction. “Tell me something about you. Something no one knows.”
She sighed and laid her head on his chest. “I love to garden.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. What? You can’t imagine me gardening? I don’t mind getting a little dirty.”
“I just bet you don’t.”
She smacked his chest playfully. “I guess I walked right into that one, didn’t I?”
He squeezed her. “I’m just teasing you.”
“I’ve been saving to start my own landscape-design business. I had the perfect location picked out and everything. Who knows how long before I can go back, though? I feel like my whole life is on hold.”
He stopped rubbing her back and turned them so they were laying side by side, facing each other.
“If you’re passionate about this, then don’t let anything hold you back. You can start a business here. I’ll be your first client. You’ve seen what my yard looks like. I need all the help I can get.”
“You know I’d love to help you but this is exactly why I wanted to open a business in Florida. My sister has offered to help me so many times, but I want to do it on my own. To the people there, I’m just Ridley. No one could say I was successful due to who I know.”
“When I was first starting out and needed the money to buy professional equipment, Nick was the first in line to help me out. If he hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t be where I am now. Everyone needs help in the beginning. There’s no shame in that. That’s what people who care about you do. They help you.”
“And you want to help me? Because you care about me?”
“Yeah, I do. You deserve to get everything you want.”
“But I can’t have what I want,” she whispered.
“What do you—” Jackson broke off with a strangled sound when the soft hand that had been resting against his chest reached down and gripped him through the soft cotton of his sweatpants. “Whoa.” He gulped when she turned her face and kissed his chest. “What are you doing?”
She tugged on the waistband of his sweatpants gently.
“Getting what I want.”
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