Cowboy Casanova (Rough Riders 12)

“Ainsley, I don’t know if I can be—”

“That was not a request.” She kissed him again, then firmly shoved him out the door.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Ben rang Ainsley’s doorbell again. He’d tried calling her cell several times and she hadn’t picked up.

Maybe it was an excuse, showing up on her doorstep, but something felt…off. Something besides the bogus friendship she was trying to force on him.

Jesus. He didn’t want to be her f**king friend. In the last two days he’d already seen her pulling away. Not only from him, but from her submissive side. Trying to remake him into the type of guy he wasn’t, denying her nature and attempting to change their relationship into something it never had been and never would be: normal.

Ben was starting to lose her. That thought had driven him bat-shit crazy all day after she hadn’t returned any of his calls. Hopefully she hadn’t reverted to old habits, like that post-date game mind-fuck where the woman waited a certain amount of time before returning her date from the previous night’s calls, so as to not appear too eager.

Fuck that. They weren’t goddamn dating. She needed a reminder of what they were together. Of how right it was. And if he had to wait until the loan went through, to prove it to her, so be it. But he wouldn’t lie to her and he wouldn’t allow her to lie to herself.

So yeah, he was going all beastly Dom on her ass.

Frustrated, he turned the door handle. Locked. But the door snicked open because it hadn’t been fully latched. That wasn’t good. Ainsley was vigilant about locking the door.

Ben stepped inside.

The cats stared at him from the end of the hallway.

“Ainsley?”

No answer.

He scanned the living room. Her purse was on the chair, along with her coat. Her car keys and cell phone were on the side table.

He peeked in the kitchen, no sign of her. He headed down the short hallway. When he flipped on the lights in her bedroom, he noticed the sheets were twisted, the quilt thrown back, pillows scattered across the floor.

His heart damn near stopped at seeing her curled up on the bathroom floor. “Shit.” He crouched beside her body and found her pulse in her neck, thank God. “Ainsley?” Ben placed his hand on her forehead. “Baby. You’re burning up.”

“Ben?”

“I’m here, angel. Stay with me. I need to get you to the emergency room.”

“No doctors.”

“Tough shit.”

“I won’t go.” She tried to roll away.

He held her still and tamped down his fear. “Then what should I do?”

She mumbled, “Call Joely.”

Ben grabbed Ainsley’s cell and scrolled until he found Joely’s number. He dropped to his knees beside her on the tile as he hit Send.

The doc picked up on the second ring. “Doc? It’s Ben McKay.”

“Ben. Why are you on Ainsley’s phone?”

“I stopped to see her and found her layin’ on the floor in the bathroom. Her skin is on fire. She won’t go to the ER. It’s freaking me out because she was fine yesterday.” His words came out machine-gun fast.

“Calm down. Can you tell if she’s been throwing up?”

“There’s none on the floor or in her hair or anything.”

“Can you ask her?”

“She’s pretty out of it.”

“Put me on speaker.”

Ben poked the button and held the phone lower. “You’re on.”

“Ainsley, it’s Joely Monroe. Ben says you’re sick. Have you been vomiting?”

“No.” She shuddered and Ben’s stomach roiled. He smoothed her damp hair from her face.

“When did you first start getting sick?”

“Right after I went to work this morning. I couldn’t stay so I came home.”

“Tell me your symptoms.”

“Hot. Cold. Chills. Headache. Body aches. Sore throat.”

“She sneezed a lot last night,” Ben inserted.

“Have you taken meds for any of the symptoms?”

“No.”

“Okay, here’s my on-the-fly diagnosis. She has the flu. Probably the twenty-four-hour variety. Hopefully it already hit its peak.”

“Do I need to take her to the ER?”

“Not unless she gets markedly worse. Right now, she needs to take two Tylenol and in another hour, two Motrin. That should drop her fever. If she’s awake, make her drink lots of water, but don’t wake her to drink. Put cool cloths on her face. That’ll at least give her the impression of coolness until her fever breaks.” A pause. “You are able to stay with her tonight, Ben, or is there someone else she can call?”

He tempered his initial response, No f**king way am I ever leaving her, to a calmer, “I’m staying.” He was freaked the f**k out. He’d never taken care of a sick person before in his life. Sick calves? No problem. Sick person? Not ever.

“This is a pretty quick bug,” the doc said. “But I’ll warn you: it’s highly contagious. You should expect to get sick.”

“I never get sick,” he scoffed at the dial tone.

Ben tried to move her off the bathroom floor. “Come on. Let’s get you into your own bed.”

“It’s too hot in there.”

“It’s cooler. I promise. Let me help you up.” Ben practically carried Ainsley to her room. “Sit on the bed.”

“You’re always so bossy.”

“Part of bein’ a Dom.”

“Well, you’re not my Dom anymore, so let me lay down.”

He resisted the urge to snap, The f**k I’m not your Dom. He breathed slowly and deeply, completely out of his element on so many levels. “First you need to swallow your meds.”

Ainsley screwed up her face.

“They’ll make you feel better.”

Once she’d choked down the pills, she stretched out on the mattress.

“Close your eyes.” He placed a cool washcloth on her forehead.

She sighed. “That’s nice. You’re nice.”

“Thought I was bossy?”

“You are both nice and bossy. I like that about you. Two sides of the same coin.”

He couldn’t help but ask, “Which side do you like better?”

“The nice side. I think you’re afraid of showing that side of yourself to me, more than you are of showing me the Dom side.”

Bullshit. You’re fighting the truth that you like that bossy side of me better.