by Marie James
He arches toward my hand, his hip rolling forward in the most tantalizing way, and that’s my cue for distance.
“Get some more sleep,” I tell him, standing abruptly and walking out of the room.
I don’t look over my shoulder to check on him one last time before leaving the room. He’s through the worst part of his illness, and the entire thing has left me feeling raw and exposed. I liked the cuddling too much. I liked the things he whispered too much. I like the idea of him being mine too much.
All of that leaves me vulnerable and open for more rejection, more disappointment, and I’m way too tired to deal with any of that right now.
Chapter 11
Flynn
I’ve been shot three times wearing a bulletproof vest, the bullets leaving fist-sized bruises on my torso, and even that didn’t feel as bad as I feel when I wake up.
I’m met with silence in an unfamiliar room, disoriented like the single time I got wasted in college. I know I’ve been sick. I know Remington took care of me even though she had no responsibility to do so. I know I’ve been in and out of consciousness for days. I know I scared her away when all she was trying to do was help me.
I’m such an idiot for being unable to control my reaction to her hand running that cloth over my body. Even sick, I was aroused. Even feeling like I’d been run over several times, I would’ve given it the old college try to get her under me. I offended her but was too out of it to follow her and apologize.
She’s not in bed beside me, and I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep. Knowing her, she took off the second she walked out of here.
With sore, aching muscles, I climb out of the bed, taking care of business in the bathroom. The shower calls to me, but the need to find her looms heavier.
I expect to find an empty suite as I walk through the rooms slowly, but there on the couch, curled up in a tiny ball is the woman I thought for sure had bolted. I want to go to her, to scoop her up and carry her back to the bed, but that would be a violation. She promised me she wouldn’t leave, and even though she kept that promise, it’s clear she also wants distance.
Hating that I’ll have to put dirty clothes back on but knowing I’m absolutely disgusting; I head back to the bathroom. I swallow thick emotions when I see a clean pile of clothing on the towels in the linen closet. They’re my clothes, the familiar lounge pants and t-shirt perfectly worn and comfortable, meaning she had to have either left the suite or had them delivered. A small bag of cosmetics and another pile of fresh laundry is beside mine, and it makes me doubt all the certainties that Remington Blair is a selfish, immature person, only thinking of herself.
She could’ve left. She could’ve had a nurse come in and care of me. She could’ve called Blackbridge like I insisted so there was someone I knew here, but she didn’t.
She stayed close, medicated me, made sure I drank fluids no matter how many times I complained about it.
She. Stayed.
The woman known for running at every turn stuck by my side when I was too sick to even get out of the bed. The things I whispered to her were a hundred percent true. She’s caring, compassionate, and gorgeous, deserving of the attention she seeks from her parents.
“She’s got all of my attention,” I grumble as I turn the shower dials, the water in this expensive hotel instantly coming out hot.
I don’t know that I’ve ever been so sick in my life, but I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. My bones ache, muscles stiff and sore as I wash away the sweat and disgust from the last couple of days. After climbing out, I can’t find any shaving supplies, but honestly, I don’t have the strength to worry about it.
My clothes are like an intimate hug, made even better by knowing that they’re here because of Remington’s thoughtfulness. Has anyone other than my mother ever cared for me the way she did? Not that I can recall.
Did she do it because she wanted to or because it was the right thing to do?
The argument is rifling through my head as I make my way back to the living room area of the suite. She could’ve easily called someone in. She could’ve taken off and let me fend for myself. There are a dozen different ways she could’ve handled the situation. She doesn’t owe me. If anything, it was her opportunity to get away from me for good.
“Remi?” I whisper, leaning close to her but making sure I don’t touch her. “You’ll be more comfortable in bed.”
She groans, shifting her weight, but she doesn’t make a move to pull the covers from over her head. She sleeps this same way back home, completely wrapped up without an inch of her body showing, and although it’s adorable, I don’t want her to be uncomfortable.
“I can call down and have them change the sheets in the bed,” I offer, knowing she didn’t want to sleep in the other room in the first place since it’s darker in the room I somehow ended up in. “Do you want me to do that?”
She doesn’t answer, and although it’s clear she wants to be left alone, I’m a stubborn man.
“Hey.” I shake what looks like the lump of her shoulder. “Go get in the bed.”
She groans again, shoving the blanket away from her face.
“Oh, sweetheart.” Where the hell did that little sentiment come from?
I can’t over analyze it right now, because the sight of her flushed cheeks and half-opened bloodshot eyes reveals her truth. She’s sick. The woman got the damn flu while she was taking care of me. My heart clenches at her unease.
“Come on,” I whisper, pulling the blanket free of her body and picking her up off of the couch.
She presses her nose into my neck, and the warmth of her skin and breath on mine makes me consider never putting her down, but that would be a gross misuse of power right now.
Instead of heading back into the room with my sweat-soaked sheets, I carry her to the other room, somehow managing to pull back the blankets without dropping her. She’s reluctant to release her hold from around my neck when I lower her to the mattress, but like I felt earlier, her arms just aren’t strong enough to maintain their hold.
“I’ll be right back,” I whisper with my lips against her forehead.
When I pull away, I convince myself that I did it the way a mother would check for fever because the truth would just be too much right now. I rush back to the other room, collecting the thermometer, meds, and Pedialyte.
She’s once again snuggled completely under the covers, grousing when I pull them back.
“Temp first,” I say, holding the thermometer close to her head. “One-o-two. Now meds.”
She rolls away, using her arm to cover her head when her seeking arm doesn’t find the top of the blanket.
“Let me die in peace,” she begs.
“I got you sick, Remi. Please take some medicine.”
She rolls over to face me but makes no attempt to sit up. With an arm around her shoulders, I incline her enough to get pills into her mouth and a couple of sips down her throat.
“Get some rest.” I press my lips to her forehead once again, feeling utterly exhausted. “I’ll let your parents know where you are.”
She grips my arm with a strength I didn’t know she had. “Don’t. They wouldn’t even care.”
I promised her before that I was here for her, for her safety, and although her parents are the ones signing the checks to BBS, I meant every word of it. She’s not in trouble nor acting out in a way that would upset them, so I don’t see the issue with doing as she wishes.
“Okay, baby. Just get some rest.”
She frowns as her eyes flutter closed, and I lift the covers back over her head, smiling a little when she sighs in contentment.
She may not want me to call her parents, but at the end of the day, I’m here for work, and I have to cover my own ass. I find my phone on the living room table and press the contact to the office.
“Blackbridge Security,” Pam says when she answers the line. “How may I help you?”
“Hey,” I husk. “Who’s all around?”
/> “Hi, Flynn. How are things in New York?” she asks.
“Fine. They’re good. Is Deacon around?”
“He’s at an appointment with Anna. You have a choice between Wren or Ignacio.”
I don’t want to speak with either of them, knowing they’ll just give me shit, but I also don’t want to bother my boss while he’s with his wife either.
“Give me the geek,” I mutter.
“I haven’t said a word,” Wren says the second the line connects.
“I’m telling!” Puff Daddy squawks in the background.
“But,” Wren continues as if his psychotic bird didn’t just speak, “the boss man isn’t going to be happy finding out that you’ve been in a hotel room with your client for the last three days. I can’t hold him off forever.”
“I’m not—” I scrub my hand down the front of my face. “I’ve been sick.”
“She’s of legal age, so I wouldn’t exactly call it sick, but the business repercussions are—”
“Literally sick, you asshole. I’ve had the flu.”
My confession is met with silence.
“Flynn.” The tone is motherly and chastising. “You’re gonna have to come up with something better than that.”
And this is why I should’ve just left a damn message for Deacon to call me back.
“It’s the truth.”
“Not very believable.”
“I hate liars!” I vow to strangle the damn bird the next time I’m in the office. “You’re gonna get fired!”
“Wren,” I warn. “Get that damn bird under control.”
“He’s his own man,” Wren responds.
“You’ll end up in the soup line!” Puff squawks. “Please, sir, can I have some more!”
“Take me off speaker then,” I demand.
A few clicks later, Wren is back. “He’s cranky this morning. Simon pulled two feathers out of his ass last night. I told him to stay up high, but he didn’t listen.”
“I was assaulted!”
Normally, I’d laugh at the antics, but I still feel like shit, and at the moment, I’m not finding anything funny.
“I told you to stop antagonizing him. You never listen,” Wren snaps, arguing with the damn bird. “Serves you right.”
“Shit on your head,” the bird threatens.
“I fucking dare y—”
“Wren,” I snap. “Goddamn it. Can you focus for a minute?”
“Do you have a better story?”
“There’s no story. I was sick. I’m still sick, and now Remi has—”
“Remi? That seems cozy.”
“Remington is sick now too. She doesn’t want me calling her parents, but I know I need to check in.”
“So you’re checking in after checking into a hotel room?”
“Are you always so damn immature?”
“It’s one of my finer character traits.”
“A man can spend time in a hotel room with a woman and nothing happen,” I assure him, although I think things would be different had I not gotten sick. “Didn’t you spend a night in a hotel with Whitney not long ago?”
He groans. “The things we did to each other in that room—”
“Fuck, dude. Stop. I’m telling you nothing happened, and nothing is going to happen. She’s got the damn flu. I feel like I’ve barely survived a war zone. Let Deacon know she’s safe and not causing any problems. As far as anyone else needs to know, we’re at home.”
“Home?”
If I could send a virus to his damn computer and get away with it…
“Her house. For all anyone needs to know, we’re at her house. I’m fine. She’s fine. Every damn thing is fine.”
“Brooks said she’s more than fine. As a man in a committed relationship, I don’t have an opinion, but—”
Unable to listen to anymore, I hang up the phone, ignoring the immediate dick text message he sends right after.
Back in the bedroom, Remington is still curled up, from what I can tell, in the same position she was when I left her. The bed looks inviting, but I’ve crossed enough boundaries for one day. I settle in the chair in the small reading corner and keep my heavy eyes on the lump on top of the mattress.
Sleep is imminent, but impossible with the discomfort of where I’m sitting. I resist crawling into bed with her for a total of ten minutes—each second an eternity. It’s just sleep, I convince myself as I pull back the blankets.
“It’s just comfort,” I whisper when she inches toward me and places her hand on my chest.
And by the time I fall asleep, I convince myself it means nothing when she curls against my side. It doesn’t matter that she’s flush against me or that my arm is wrapped around her back holding her tight.
None of this will matter when we wake up.
Chapter 12
Remington
Twenty-one words.
That’s the total number he’s spoken to me since we returned to my house to find my parents already gone again.
“Do you want me to help with your bags?” Followed by, “I don’t mind.” Wrapped up with, “You should get some more rest. You look exhausted.”
Out of context that may seem like a lot, but we’ve been back for days, opting to convalesce here rather than staying at the hotel. His idea, not mine, of course.
We’ve been in the same room half a dozen times. I speak and get grunts from him. I feel his eyes on me only to look up and find him gazing across the room or out the window. Somehow, in the blink of an eye, he’s gone from holding me while I was sick to being unable to look me in the eye. He’s acting the exact same way my parents do whenever they’re around. I hate it, and with each grunt, I start to hate him too.
So, I’ve done the only thing I can think of, I avoid him. I lock myself in my bedroom and hide out, quarantining myself away from all interactions. Not being seen at all is easier to handle than being ignored in the same room.
But as much as I hate the possibility of running into him, my appetite, the one that disappeared while I was sick, roared back with a vengeance this evening. I’ve spent hours trying to convince myself I wasn’t hungry, but when the pains hit, I knew I couldn’t avoid it any longer.
Orange hues from the sunset sparkle on the foyer floor as I descend the stairs and if I wasn’t in such a foul mood, I could appreciate the beauty of it. But I am in a dark mood, one that will end up bubbling over if I so much as smell Flynn’s spicy cologne on my way to the kitchen.
Fate is a twisted bitch because although I can smell his dark, tantalizing scent, I hear his voice—the second worst thing that could possibly happen with sourness swimming around inside of me.
I turn back around, knowing I can wait another hour before getting something to eat.
“Crazy, man.” He sighs. “She’s driving me fucking crazy. I don’t want to speak to you. I want to speak to Deacon.”
Silence surrounds me, and I freeze at the landing of the stairs, waiting to hear what he’s going to say next, all the while knowing it’s not going to get any better if I stick around.
“I’m going to turn that damn bird into a soup when I get back,” he grumbles. “No, Wren. Deacon, not Ignacio.”
Another pause.
“Hey, man. Yeah, I need to be pulled…It’s not that…you need to stop listening to him…laugh it up, fucker. You wouldn’t be doing any better…Four days not a fucking week, and I already told Wren, nothing happened…And if that’s the way he feels then why hasn’t he called me? If he thinks I’m fucking this up, I’d be happy to come home…Because I don’t want to be here any longer. I have better things to do with my time. This is a waste of company resources…The fact that you just called me a babysitter proves my damn point.”
I can’t stick around any longer. I knew he wasn’t interested. I knew my stupid crush on him wouldn’t go anywhere, but at the same time, before leaving the hotel suite, I thought we had bonded on some level, but it was all work for him. Taking care of me is his job, and it
means nothing more.
With a growling empty stomach, I pull on a sundress and some sandals, fixing my hair into a messy bun and applying lip gloss.
I wait until I hear his bedroom door open and close an hour later. The second he’s in his room, I make my way quietly down the stairs, using the door through the kitchen to get into the garage. I don’t get into my car, opting to use the side door into the fresh night air and walking down to the road. The Uber I ordered not long ago idles by the curb, the man smiling when I pull the back door open.
“Where are you heading?”
“Into the city, please.”
He nods and we’re off. Flynn could be running through the yard calling after me, but I don’t risk a glance in that direction.
I promised I wouldn’t leave the suite while he was sick, but I never said I wouldn’t run ever again. If he didn’t want to have to deal with me, he could’ve easily packed his things and left. He doesn’t want to be there anyway after all.
Thankfully, the driver seems lost in his own head and doesn’t try to initiate conversation. When he drops me off outside of a busy club, I tip him generously for the quiet ride.
My fake ID works at the door, even though I’m honestly not here to drink. I want attention. Scratch that, I need attention, and from previous experiences, I know men will flirt with me. I realize how pitiful it is. I realize most would be saddened by my behavior, but I’ve grown accustomed to it.
After ordering a seltzer from the bartender, I turn with my back to the subdued bar and watch the small crowd of people relaxing after work.
“Looking for trouble?”
I grin, but don’t turn my head in the direction of the man at my side.
“Not particularly,” I answer.
“I can be gentle if that’s what you like.”
With as much seduction—not really feeling it—as I can muster, I roll my head to the side. The man beside me is tall, his sandy blond hair a shaggy mess with a hoop through his right nostril. Subjectively speaking, he’s a catch. His frame is wide at his shoulders, tapering down to trim hips, but he’s no Flynn.
