He glanced at his phone again. Seven-fifteen. He tried to quell his rising panic. Hair took a while to color and curl and whatever else she did, right? She wouldn’t have put this much care and compassion into helping him recover if he didn’t mean something to her. Or was he desperate enough to bullshit himself?
Fuck if he knew. He had never had more than the standard ten-minute haircut. And he’d never tried to have a real relationship with a woman. Until he could fucking talk, he still couldn’t.
Eight days. That’s how much longer his jaw would be wired shut. That’s how long he had to wait before he could open his mouth well enough to tell Brea how he felt, kiss her senseless…and hope she reciprocated.
He hoped like hell that she loved him—at least a little—too.
A gentle knock sounded at the door. Brea.
Thank fuck.
Excitement replaced anxiety. His heart started revving, just like it did every time he saw her.
Usually, she let herself in the house. Early in his convalescence, it had taken every bit of strength he possessed simply to get out of bed. Walking downstairs to open the door had been almost impossible and wiped him out for hours. So he’d given her a key. Tonight, despite nagging fatigue and needing a shower he feared would sap him even more, he let her in himself.
“Hey.” He settled for greeting her with a nod, but he’d give anything to lay his lips over hers, get her underneath him, and convince her to ditch Cutter.
She sent him a wry smile and an eye roll as she stepped into the foyer. “Sorry I’m late, and I couldn’t text you back while I was driving. My last appointment was a mess. Mrs. Goodwin thinks her husband is having an affair, and nothing I said would convince her that hair extensions weren’t the answer to her marital woes.”
It wasn’t funny…but it kind of was. “You did them?”
“No. That takes hours, and I didn’t have the product there. So I colored and curled her…and listened to her talk about buying new lingerie. She scheduled the extensions for next week.”
“Eat something?” He shut the door behind her.
With a wrinkle of her nose, she shook her head. “My stomach is unsettled again today. Just…not hungry. What about you? Yogurt? Soup? Smoothie? Did that protein powder you ordered come in?”
He’d love to take her out to dinner, where they could eat together, talk, hold hands, and eye-fuck as they counted the seconds until they were alone. But he kept running into the limitations of his body…and the unspoken hesitation he kept feeling from her.
“Yeah. Surprise me.” The short answers his broken jaw forced him to give were pissing him off, too.
“Okay. Any laundry?”
“I did it.” At the surprise in her expression, he scowled. “You aren’t my maid.”
“No, but that’s a lot for you to tackle. You should be resting. I’m here to help…”
He fucking didn’t want her pity. “I got it.”
When she reared back, he cursed. He must have been growlier than normal. But he felt like a volcano building and building. Every day he woke up, he ran face-first into all the things he still couldn’t do—talk normally, pump serious iron, sleep without nightmares, resume his job, lay his heart on the line and tell Brea how he felt. And without that last part, sex wasn’t happening. He wanted it. Ached for it. Two months was a long time without it, and she was right in front of him every day, somehow looking prettier and more womanly every time he set eyes on her. He thought about her, masturbated to fantasies of her.
He couldn’t keep going like this.
“Sorry. I pushed today. I’m tired.”
Her face softened as she set her purse down, gave his arm a gentle squeeze, then headed to his kitchen. Once there, she threw some juice, a protein drink, and vegetables into his blender. “And you’re frustrated. I know you’re used to being able to do anything and everything.”
He retrieved the protein powder and set it on the counter beside her. Her hair smelled like some flowery fragrance he didn’t have a name for, but it turned him the fuck on. “Yeah. Day felt long.”
She paused while opening the canister and turned with wide eyes. “Oh, that’s right. It was your first day without the home nurse. What was his name?”
One-Mile nodded, glad she’d remembered so he didn’t have to explain while he felt like a cross between a ventriloquist and a drooler. “Stewart.”
“Not too hard, I hope,” she said as she scooped powder into the blender.
“No. Just more computer work.”
Brea tried not to laugh. “I know how much you love that…”
“Not.”
“Did you start making a dent in that Netflix list yet?”
One-Mile didn’t have the heart to tell her no. She had painstakingly compiled that queue shortly after he’d been discharged from the hospital. He’d watched a few documentaries…but didn’t remember much between the naps and the pain meds. In the past two weeks, he’d focused most of his effort and waking hours on rebuilding his strength and stamina.
So he’d started an exercise regimen, first walking, then running on his treadmill. Push-ups, pull-ups, biceps and triceps curls, planks—he pushed his body to the limit of the doctor’s advice…and a little bit beyond—working harder every day. He’d also talked Josiah and Trees into giving him rides to the shooting range. He wanted to go back to work, so he had to stay sharp.
After all, he had a vendetta to settle.
“Got busy.”
“Did you nap?”
“No.” He’d resisted the urge, because once he resumed work, the bad guys weren’t going to let him curl up with a blankie in the corner and check out for a couple of hours. And if he got tired enough, maybe he’d finally sleep a whole fucking night without waking up in a cold sweat.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Did you work out again?”
Last Friday, she’d had a midday cancellation and dropped by to check on him, only to find him in his home gym pulling up on the bar attached to the door. She’d taken one look at him shirtless and dripping in sweat, swallowed hard, then blessed him out.
“Want me to lie to you?”
“Never.” She sighed and started the blender. “If I thought it would do any good, I’d give you a tongue lashing.”
“It won’t.” But he knew what he’d like her to do with that tongue.
She checked the consistency of his dinner, then, seemingly satisfied, poured it into the big plastic cup with its accompanying straw and handed it to him. “Is there anything the home nurse helped you with that you can’t do yourself?”
“A shower.”
Brea stilled before her stare drifted back to him. She studied him—up his legs, his abs, his chest…all the way to his face. Vaguely, One-Mile wondered whether she’d noticed behind his denim that he was hard as hell for her.
He sent her a lazy smile. “That a problem? You’ve already seen it all.”
“Um…no problem.”
Her breathless reply gave him hope. Despite his injuries, the passing of nearly two months, and however Cutter had fucking touched her, he still got to Brea. She hadn’t forgotten the night she’d spent in his bed. It was all over her face.
“How can I help?” she asked.
Such a deliciously open-ended question. He almost hated to take advantage of her sweetness. He felt a teensy bit bad about trying to tempt her to cheat on her boyfriend again.
But not enough to stop.
He shrugged. “Pretty much everything. If I lose my balance and hit my head…”
“Oh…” She paled as if that possibility hadn’t occurred to her. “That would be horrible.”
“The neurologist said another concussion this soon could take me back to square one.”
That was the truth. Not being able to shower without help…not so much. He’d been doing that for nearly three weeks. But if it took showing some skin to break down the walls between them, he was all for flashing her a full monty.
“O-ok
ay.” She nodded like she was working up her courage. “You drink your dinner. I’ll, um…”
Busy yourself so you don’t think too hard about seeing me naked? “You’ll what?”
After a comically long moment, she sent him a stilted smile. “Find you some clean clothes. Maybe I’ll change your sheets while I’m up there, too.”
Perfect. “I’ll be there in a few.”
With a nod, she disappeared upstairs. Yeah, he felt a little guilty for stretching the truth. But he couldn’t stand the bland politeness between them. If he wanted to know how she felt about him, he had to bust them out of it.
He also wondered how she would react to a body covered with a whole new litany of scars. His hair had grown back enough to disguise the ones on his scalp and the last of the yellowish bruising flaring from his temple, over his jaw. The bruising on his shoulder had almost healed. The tube they’d shoved between his ribs to help reinflate his lung was long gone, replaced by a red, puckered reminder. His back was still a network of scabs and discolorations. He’d never been anyone’s definition of pretty, not with eyes like black holes, a long nose, and an aggressive jaw. Now he probably looked downright scary.
But so far Brea didn’t seem afraid. He was calling that a win.
He did his best to slurp down dinner, then tiptoed upstairs. He found her in his bedroom being industrious and leaned against the doorjamb to watch her bend to tuck his sheets in place. Goddamn, she looked juicy, her hips seemingly a little rounder, her ass a little riper.
Fuck, he’d do anything to lay her across his mattress and muss up everything she’d just arranged.
“Need help?” he asked.
She turned, clearly startled. “No. Almost done.”
One-Mile waited patiently while he enjoyed the view. She kept stealing clandestine glances at him. Did she want to know what he was thinking? Was she imagining him naked? Probably not, but a guy could dream.
Less than a minute later, she stood and squared her shoulders. Her face said she still worried about his condition, so she was trying to be completely appropriate and platonic.
Good luck with that, pretty girl.
“Where do we start? I’m assuming you can undress yourself?”
“Yep. Grab a towel from the linen closet in the hall and meet me in the bathroom.”
Brea almost looked relieved he’d given her something else to do besides watch him strip. “Sure.”
He winked her way, then headed to the bathroom and started the spray. Then he slid out of every stitch he’d worn—with the door wide open.
“I assume the blue one is okay. I—” She stopped in the doorway, blinking furiously as she stared at him. Her cheeks turned pink, her stare glued itself to his body, and her nipples went hard. “Oh, my goodness.”
He just smiled. “Sorry for the, um…reaction. You do this to me.”
Her gaze shifted down to his cock, standing tall and desperately ready to spend quality time with her.
Brea pressed her hand to her chest. “I…”
Clearly, she didn’t know what to say. “You?”
“Ah…wanted to know if you need shampoo.”
“Nope. But it might be a good idea for you to hold my hand while I climb in. You know, so I don’t lose my balance on the wet tile.”
“Right.” Her voice trembled, but she still didn’t move, just swallowed.
She was reluctant to touch him.
He backed off. “But if this is too much for you—”
“No,” she assured him in a rush, then approached, hand outstretched. Her cheeks had gone red. “I just didn’t expect to see you this…exposed.”
She’d thought he’d be somehow less naked?
Wiping the smile off his face, he stepped into the walk-in shower, then released her hand. The hot water sluiced down his body, washing away grime and sweat. He groaned.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Does something hurt?”
Brea was a carer. She worried about people, often more than herself. As he reached for the shampoo, he really looked at her face. The dark smudges he saw under her eyes worried him. He didn’t remember seeing them before.
“Fine,” he assured. “I’m better every day. What about you? Tired?”
“I am. I don’t know why, just feeling run down lately. Suddenly, I want to nap all the time. It’s got to be the change in seasons and the fact we’ve had such gloomy skies this week.”
Maybe, but he didn’t like it. As soon as he finished showering, he’d stop yanking her chain and take care of her for a change.
“Have you been sleeping?” she asked, changing the subject.
He lathered his hair, then grabbed the soap to scrub up his body.
Brea was still watching.
“Not much.” Now that he was almost healed and getting good calories, he wasn’t constantly exhausted. That was great during the day. At night? The fitful hours sucked.
“Are you still having nightmares?”
“Yeah.” He turned his back on her, not eager to continue this conversational thread.
He’d been around other soldiers enough to know the symptoms of PTSD. He was a month out from his captivity. If the anxiety and bad dreams didn’t ease soon, that therapist his bosses at EM Security Management had forced him to start videoconferencing with would put a label on him that might persuade everyone to bar him from action.
One-Mile wasn’t having that shit.
“Do you want to talk about them?”
“No.”
“Pierce…”
As he managed his final rinse, his half-formed plan to soap up his hard cock and stroke it for her went down the drain with the suds.
Fuck, he hated that the mood between them was dead.
“Don’t worry.” He cut off the water.
She handed him the towel. “Of course I’m going to worry. If I didn’t, why else would I come see you every day?”
“Why do you?” he asked, wrapping the terry cloth around his waist.
A pretty flush that had nothing to do with the warm, humid bathroom rushed back to her cheeks. “Because you matter.”
“To who? My bosses? The guys I work with?” He stepped from the shower, challenging her. “Or to you?”
She frowned. “Of course you matter to me. Now sit so I can put this ointment on your back.”
One-Mile wanted to press her for more, but it was too many words to speak with his jaw wired shut. For now, he had to settle for the fact that he mattered to her in some way. He could build from that.
Instead, he bit back a surly growl and yanked the prescription tube from a nearby drawer, then handed it to her and lowered himself onto the closed lid of the commode.
Seconds later, she set the tube down on the adjacent counter and began to spread the thick antibiotic ointment across his back, focused on where Montilla’s whip had opened his flesh repeatedly over his twenty-two days of hell. Her fingers glided over his skin in a delicate brush that made him shudder in pleasure.
God, he’d love to have her hands all over him…
“Your wounds are looking a lot better,” she remarked. “The scabs are really healing over.”
He grunted. He couldn’t see his back, but he’d believe her.
“Do you have any vitamin E oil?”
Why would he? “No.”
“I’ll bring some tomorrow. It helps with scarring.”
Honestly, he didn’t care about that much, except the damage done to his ink, but… “Will you put it on for me?”
“Of course.”
“I’d like that.”
She lifted her hands off him and washed them in the nearby sink. “I laid some clothes out for you on your bed in case you were too tired. Can you manage from here?”
He nodded.
“I’ll meet you downstairs.”
“Thanks.”
Thirty seconds later, he’d tossed on the sweats and T-shirt she’d folded nicely on his well-made bed he’d give anything to share with her
tonight. Just being in the same room with her made him feel calmer, more centered. Whole.
Jesus, he sounded like a lovesick schmuck—and he didn’t fucking care.
After finding a pair of tube socks, he slid into those and padded down the stairs. He stopped halfway down when he spotted Brea on his sofa, head propped up on her open palm, eyes closed.
She was asleep.
On soft footfalls, he made his way to her and sat. She awoke with a start as he pulled her onto his lap and curled her head onto his shoulder.
“W-what are you doing?”
“Showing you that you matter to me, too. Rest.”
The starch left her body, and she melted against him, eyes closing again. “Just for a minute.”
“Sure.” He dropped a kiss onto her forehead.
She sighed, then her breathing evened out.
Suddenly, he was the happiest he’d been in what seemed like an eternity.
Without really trying, Brea had become his everything.
As she curled her legs against his side and cuddled closer, he started scheming ways to keep her with him forever.
Chapter Ten
Thursday, October 23
Less than thirty minutes after her last client left the salon, Brea rushed toward Pierce’s front door, feeling almost giddy.
Today, his jaw had been unwired. Tonight, they would finally be able to talk.
For weeks, she’d purposely kept their conversations short since speaking had been both hard and frustrating for him. But as she’d left his house yesterday, his smoldering stare had promised he would have a lot to say tonight. So did she.
Brea couldn’t wait.
She’d fallen in love with Pierce Walker. After their night together, she’d already been halfway there. But now? There was no denying her stalwart warrior held her whole heart in the palms of his big hands.
Looking back, she suspected she’d been head over heels from the start. Now she had the courage to admit it.
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