Shattered (Extreme Risk 2)

“Whatever,” Logan finally says, wheeling his chair around me and toward the door of our hotel room.

“Where are you going?”

“To find Z.”

It hurts that he’d rather be with my best friend than me, but I don’t stop him. It’s almost dark, so the others should be back now. And if it hurts a little that my brother would rather spend time with him than me, well … I’m just not going to think about it.

I grab my phone, fire off a quick text to Z to let him know Logan’s looking for him, then realize I’ve missed a text from Tansy. I start to answer her—she’s in her room, trying to warm up after spending almost the whole day outside—then decide fuck it. I’d rather just walk down there than waste time texting back and forth.

Besides, from the beginning she’s always seemed to know what to do with Logan. Maybe she’ll have some insight this time, too.

Chapter 22

Tansy

The shower curtain slides open without warning, and I freeze as images of the infamous Psycho shower scene run through my head in startling, terrifying detail.

I whirl around, hands clutched over my body and a scream frozen in my throat, only to realize that it’s just Ash standing there, a wicked grin on his face.

“God, Ash! When I gave you the extra key to my room, I didn’t think you’d use it to scare the hell out of me!” I drop the defensive posture, but keep one hand pressed against my still wildly beating heart. “Don’t you know better than to sneak up on a woman in the shower?”

He leans forward, presses a line of hot kisses across my collarbone. “Actually, I always thought that was the perfect time to sneak up on a woman.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not.” I pout at him. “Hitchcock ruined that for men everywhere.”

“Huh. That’s too bad.” He shrugs out of his shirt. “I was thinking maybe I could join you in there.”

I start to make some teasing comment, but when I look closer, I see the tightness in his jaw, the stress around his eyes. “What’s wrong?” I demand, reaching for him despite the fact that I’m soaking wet.

“Later.” He unbuckles his belt, slips off his jeans. Then steps into the shower behind me. “I just want to hold you for a minute.”

I smile at him before turning back toward the spray. “I think that can be arranged.”

His arms come around me from behind, and I nestle back against him, my ass against his thighs, the back of my head resting in the crook of his neck. He feels good, really good, and I concentrate on that instead of the worry that’s started niggling away at me. If he wants a few minutes to get his head together before we talk, I’m more than willing to give him that.

“You feel amazing,” he tells me, his hands skimming lightly over my skin. He’s touching me everywhere—my shoulders, my back, my stomach, my hips, my breasts—and it feels good. So good.

At the same time, I can’t help being nervous because this is the first time we’ve ever made love in lights this bright. The first time he’s really seen my body without the camouflage of shadows and I’m a little nervous. Not because I think Ash will say anything to hurt me—he’d never do something like that—but because I know I’m not what he’s used to.

I’m still too skinny, still too weak, and in a lot of places, my bones are visible beneath my skin. My ribs, my hips, my collarbone. It won’t be like this forever—it normally takes me six to eight months to gain the weight back after chemo and radiation—but I don’t look my best right now.

Plus, there are the scars. Yes, he’s seen the big one from the port, asked about it the first time we made love. But there are little scars, too. Lots of them. From all the biopsies and the tests and the IVs that were in my body so long that the needles marked me permanently.

I’m not ashamed of my body—how can I be when my heart is still beating, even after all the abuse it’s taken in the last ten years—but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to flaunt it yet. Or ready for the questions that I’m afraid will come, questions Ash has every right to ask.

He doesn’t ask them though, doesn’t say anything at all about the marks on my back, my arms, my legs. Instead, he just holds me with his strong, calloused hands, his touch soothing me even as it turns me on.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs as he presses hot kisses to the sensitive skin behind my ear.

“I’m not,” I tell him, and I try to turn so that I can look him in the eye. So that I can show him that it doesn’t matter. That he doesn’t have to lie to make me feel better.

But Ash’s arms are steel bands around me and he doesn’t let me turn. Instead, he keeps my back to his front as he presses hot, open-mouthed kisses over my cheek and jaw, down the side of my neck.

“You are,” he murmurs. Now he’s licking drops of water off my shoulder. Kissing his way down my arm.

“I love your eyes.”

“They’re hazel. Just boring hazel.”