Annie sighed. “You sure?”
“I’m as sure as sure,” Sarah said firmly. “A dress. Maybe some shoes. That’s it. If I want sparkle near my face, I’ll buy some sparkly eyeshadow and shiny lip gloss at Walmart.”
“Ohhhh-kay,” Gabi said, totally deflated. “You’re the boss.”
Sarah gave Elise a huge smile as she sat down again, grabbed her Champagne. “Alright, Elise. Let’s see what you got.”
“Oh, Sarah.” Elise returned her smile. “Get ready, honey. You’re going to have fun, I promise you.”
Chapter Seven
Shay awoke with a start. She was disoriented, and sore all over. She was also starving, and really, really needed to brush her teeth.
It was dark outside now, and she squinted around the room, trying to see in the dimness without her glasses. Where were her glasses, anyway? The fire had mostly died, and she felt a chill in the air. She shivered, hauled the thick blankets up to her chin. She was still just in her underwear, and for the first time it occurred to her that she had no idea where her clothes were. She was starting to think that keeping her half-naked was part of that asshole's messed-up power play.
Trying hard to relax, she listened for any sound at all, inside the cabin and outside. Nothing but the wind howling, a lonely, haunting sound. It made her feel like there was nobody else in the whole world, and her chest tightened in fear.
She wondered where he was. Wondered what he was doing. Wondered if he was going to keep her locked in here for hours or maybe even days, just to show her that he could.
Wondered if he was going to hurt her, now that she was starting to heal. Hurt her just because he could.
“You awake, honey?”
The voice came from the shadows at the far side of the room, and she gave a sharp cry.
Warren appeared now, materializing as if by magic from the darkness. She swallowed, tried to stop the panicked sob that was rising in her throat. She wasn’t entirely successful.
At the strangled little sound, his face changed. Became tender again, became almost soft. “You OK?”
Not trusting herself to speak quite yet, she nodded. She gathered up her shot nerves, forced her mouth open.
“How long have I been sleeping?” she said.
“Just over seven hours, and you were completely out. I changed your bandage about four hours ago, and you didn’t even budge. I was a bit worried about you, so I just sat here, kept an eye on you. Waited for you to wake up.”
She couldn’t think of a single thing to say to any of that. The thought of Warren just sitting there in the shadows for hours on end, watching her sleep, made her feel something dark and deep. She wasn’t sure she could actually name it, but she didn’t think that it was anything bad.
He came closer, and automatically, she shrank back. God, he just looked so much bigger in the half-light, and she felt incredibly small, all curled up under the covers. She was afraid, she admitted to herself, and for the first time since this all began, she thought about crying.
“Easy, Shay,” he said quietly. “I’m not the slightest bit interested in scaring or hurting you, alright? I just want to check your stitches again, and get you fed and watered. Maybe cleaned up, too. If you feel up to any of it, I mean.”
She peered up at him, even more confused now. His words and voice were a complete one-eighty turn from her last memory of him threatening her and then bolting out of the bedroom, locking the door behind him. The whiplash was back, big-time, and she couldn’t even begin to cope with his changing moods and behaviors, so she latched on to the thing most essential to her at the moment.
“Feed me?” she asked cautiously.
“Uh-huh.” He sat on the bed next to her, and she found herself gazing in to his gorgeous blue eyes. “I want to make you some dinner.”
“You do?”
“Yeah.” He cocked his head, smiled at her. “Can I take a look at your stitches now?”
“Um.” She clutched the blankets tighter. “Can I put on a shirt first?”
“Oh. Oh, right.” He looked startled, like it honestly hadn’t crossed his mind that she’d have an issue with flashing her breasts at him again. Some more. Maybe he thought that since he’d already seen… well, pretty much everything… that she wouldn’t care if he saw it all again now? “Uh. One sec.”
He got up again, crossed the room, disappeared once more in to the shadows. She squinted after him.
“Do you know where my glasses are?” she called in to the darkness.
“Yeah,” his faceless, formless voice answered. “On the window sill.”
“Thanks.” She lifted the long curtains, and sure enough, there they were. It was an immense relief to put them on at last, and see the world for the first time in what felt like a very, very long time. That was when he re-emerged from the darkness, and Shay took her first real-time, clear-eyed, non-brain-addled, look at Warren.
Dear. Sweet. Lord.
Why was her dream man also an MC asshole? Why? Why? What kind of cruel fate stuck her in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, all alone with the sexiest, hottest man that she’d ever laid eyes on… and then made said man a brutal, horrible human being?
But – was he? Was he really?
He lumbered over to her, all muscles and bulk in well-worn jeans and a tight black t-shirt, all soft blond hair and hard blue eyes, all raw power and cool toughness. It was literally unbelievable to her that this man – this man! – had held her through her fever and delirium and shaking. That this man had cared for her as tenderly as if she were a helpless infant. That even after their ugly argument and all his threats, this man had sat here in the dark, watching over her, keeping her safe.
It just didn’t make any damn sense. None of it.
“Here you go,” he said, extending his arm. “Put that on.”
She took the long-sleeved denim shirt, and he turned his back. Shay blinked in astonishment, then decided that she liked this little gesture of respect. She liked it quite a bit, actually.
She slipped the shirt on, and it fell over her slim hips, fell way past her knees. She did up the buttons, rolled up the sleeves, then she pushed the bed covers aside.
“All set,” she said, swinging her feet to the floor.
He turned back to face her as she sat in his shirt, and a glint of something flared in his eyes. Just for a second. But then his stare dropped to her exposed wrists, and he cleared the space between them in two steps. Knelt down in front of her, reached for her.
Shay gasped, but didn’t dare to protest when he took her hands in his. He turned them over, examined her wrists. His thumbs touched the bruises and cuts carefully, then he glanced up at her.
“Hurts?” he said, his voice raspy.
“A bit,” she whispered, caught in that intense blue gaze. “Not bad.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
He nodded, his eyes still locked on hers. “I’m sorry.”
She fell silent. She had no idea what exactly he was apologizing for, but she did know that it was sincere, and she knew that it was about more than a few bruises. This huge, terrifying man, this hard-boiled MC beast, was kneeling at her bare feet, saying that he was sorry – and she believed him. She believed him with everything that she had.
Slowly, Warren reached out again, hoping to God that she didn’t shrink back. He couldn’t explain it – not even to himself – but he had to touch this woman. If he didn’t, he thought he might go insane, or maybe even die, right there and then, on his knees on the floor, in front of her.
He’d spent the past few hours sitting in the corner of the bedroom, watching her sleep. He’d just sat there in the dark, thinking about what had happened between them earlier – the thaw and the sweetness, then the chill and the harsh words. The threats, the intimidation, the fear.
It had hurt and d
isturbed him deeply to do that to her, he’d been surprised to discover. Yeah, he’d had his reasons, and they were damn good ones. But they weren’t good enough to justify what he’d done to her, and he didn’t want to do it anymore. He didn’t want to threaten, or intimidate, or scare Shay. Not ever again.
It made him a selfish prick, he knew, but he understood now that he needed to be good to her. He needed her to look at him the way that she’d done earlier: all warm and soft and sweet. She’d looked at him like he was a man that she could trust to take care of her. Like he was a decent man.
He had been that kind of man, once upon a time. He really had. The past eight months had chipped away at that decency, though, taken it from him a piece at a time. Some pieces he’d given away all by himself, out of the necessity to survive, and the few pieces that he’d managed to hang on to were hollow victories.
Warren’s biggest fear was that he was one violent act away from turning in to a full-blown monster. He didn’t want to believe that about himself, didn’t want to believe that he could go that far down that dark road – but his faith in his own goodness and humanity had been severely shaken, questioned, tested by his time in the MC. He knew now that his faith in himself was almost gone. He was almost gone.
Well, he had been almost gone… until Shay. She’d made things resurface in his soul, things that he’d thought were lost forever. Without either one of them even knowing it, she’d called those good things out of him, retrieved the scattered pieces that he’d thought were beyond saving, started to put him back together again.
She’d given him the chance to be kind and nurturing. To be decent. And – as it turned out – a chance was all that he’d needed and wanted.
He didn’t want to stop being good to her. He didn’t want to be anything but good to her.
If she’d just let him.
Shay tensed as his large hand moved to her face, but she didn’t move away. In fact, despite her lingering fear and uncertainty, she leaned forward, just a bit, to meet it. To meet him.
His palm cupped her cheek carefully; his fingers moved in her hair carefully; his thumb stroked her lower lip carefully. He was being so damn careful with her, and while that was the last thing that she’d have ever expected from an MC member, it was the first thing that she’d come to expect from Warren.
That knowledge washed over her, so strong and real, that she felt it on her skin. She felt it as sure as she felt his gentle touch. It settled on her, then sank on in to her; she absorbed it in to her blood, and bones, and cells. In to her heart and soul.
No matter what he’d said earlier, this man wasn’t going to hurt her. She knew that now, knew it with as much confidence as she knew the sun was going to rise tomorrow. He’d had plenty of chances to take advantage of her – to rape her, or hit her, or worse – and he hadn’t. And he wouldn’t… of that, she was certain.
She looked at him as he knelt there in front of her, cradling her face in his huge hand, and she saw him. She saw Warren. And just like that – between breaths and heartbeats – she stopped being afraid.
She smiled at him. “Hi.”
He smiled back, and it changed his whole face. Made him look younger, all of a sudden, and lighter. And so, so much more gorgeous, which made him totally, utterly, breath-stealing.
“Hi,” he replied, his voice husky. “You ready to get up, baby?”
“Yes.”
“C’mon, then. Let me help you.”
“Alright.”
Carefully, he eased her up on to her feet. She winced as pain shot down her right calf, and her legs wobbled under her. God, she was weak and shaky, and he saw it. Without a word, he swept her up in to his arms, and she let him. She rested her head against his chest, and his arms tightened around her.
“So what do you want first?” His voice rumbled in his chest, and she pressed herself up against the vibrations. “Food? Bath?”
“Bath, please.”
“OK. Hang on to me.”
As if she’d ever let go of this body, given a choice. He felt so damn good to hold on to, his muscles flexing and sliding under her hands. She just closed her eyes, her whole body relaxing in to his embrace. Trusting him, despite it all.
She didn’t know why she felt that way about him. But she did.
Warren carried her through the cabin, down the hallway to the bathroom. He set her on the edge of the tub as if she were made of spun sugar, then he started the water.
“No bubble bath, I’m afraid,” he said. “You’ll have to make do with some body wash.”
She quirked her eyebrow at him. “You mean the Fallen Angels hide-away doesn’t come stocked with bubble bath?”
“Can you believe it?” He checked the water temperature, adjusted it a bit. “I guess the guys don’t hang out in the tub for hours on end after a stressful day.”
“Crazy.”
“Right?” Warren grinned at her. “So can I look at your stitches now?”
“Sure.” She extended her leg in front of her, and he knelt down again. He set her foot on his thigh, ran his hand up her smooth skin. Gingerly, he unwrapped the bandage and she watched his hands, liking how they moved on her body.
He revealed the injury, and she took her first look at his handiwork. She blinked when she saw how neat and even the stitches were, and she knew that he’d really taken care when he’d done them.
“Wow,” she said, still staring at the tiny stitches. “You should have been a seamstress.”
He laughed. “You think?”
“I do.” She leaned forward a bit to examine her wound more closely. “You really know what you’re doing with this stuff, huh?”
“Sometimes, with some things.” He set her foot back on the floor, checked the water again. “Like I said, I learned a lot back on the farm.”
“Your Mom taught you, right?”
“Yep.” He squirted some body wash under the faucet, and fragrant white bubbles started surfacing. “Mom ran the farm, and us kids helped out.”
“How many kids?”
“Nine, including me. I’m the youngest.”
“Big family.”
“Ummm-hmmmm.” He grabbed two towels from the shelf, set them on the edge of the tub. “OK, so… you’ll be alright in here on your own?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Now, most of the infection around the bite is gone, but don’t get the stitches wet, and if you need help, you call me.” He gave her a wolfish grin that made her heart do a summersault. “Maybe with drying off?”
Her face flushed, and her nipples hardened under the denim. Shay crossed her arms, but not before he saw the proof of her arousal. His grin got more predatory, more intense, and she shifted a bit. The movement pushed her lower lips against the porcelain of the tub, and she felt the hardness through the thin material of her panties. It felt good, to have something hard down there, rubbing and pressing on her swollen clit, and she flushed even more.
“So.” He stuck his hands in his jeans pockets, all casual in the face of her helpless desire. “You need anything else?”
Shay bit back the urge to say, “just you, inside me’. Instead, she managed to mutter, “There is one thing…”
“Name it.”
“Where are my clothes?”
“Ah, yes. Clothes.” He tilted his head at her, gave her a sexy, dirty smile. “You don’t actually have any.”
“I – what?”
“Yeah. No. Your jeans were ripped to shreds by a mountain lion, as you may well recall, and your sweater was soaked through when you were sweating out the fever. You can wash it, if you want, but it’ll take hours to dry.” He paused. “And really, do you want to wear a sweaty sweater? Like, ever again?”
“So… so I really have no clothes?”
“You really don’t. I have to say, though, that this is a blessing in disg
uise, in my humble opinion.”
“Oh, yeah?”
“Hell, yeah.” He stared down at her, his eyes roaming over her entire body, over her miles of long leg, loving the sleek curves. “First, because I like seeing you in nothing more than my shirt, baby. It looks damn good on you.”
Shay flushed purple. Warren laughed at her, the sound gentle and teasing.
“Second,” he carried on. “Those clothes were hands-down the least-flattering things that you could have ever put on your body. I mean – what were you thinking?”
“Uh…” she faltered. “I was thinking that I should be comfortable?”
“Yeah, well, I’m thinking that we should toss those rags straight in to the fire.”
She giggled. “But then what would I wear? Besides your shirt?”
He sighed dramatically. “Who says that you’d need to wear anything besides my shirt?”
“You’d like me to wear nothing besides your shirt?”
“I’d like you to wear nothing at all – not even my shirt.”
At his guttural growl, she froze, all joking forgotten. Oh, God, was this really happening between them? How was this happening between them? He was exactly the kind of man that she’d run screaming from all those years ago, and sworn to never even glance at again.
Shay had spent years doing everything humanly possible to get away, and then stay away, from the outlaw MC life. She hated it, and she hated everything that it stood for. She hated the philosophy – such as it was – and she hated the bullshit sexist mentality, and the ownership of women, and the casual sex with a healthy dose of coercion and slut-shaming thrown in for good measure.
Most of all, she hated the men in the life. Hated how they hurt people just because they could. Hated how they wore their criminal activities like badges of honor, and how they lived and breathed violence. Hell, most of them actively went looking for brutal, murderous situations, just so they could pull out their guns and be big men. These assholes delighted in living outside of the law, and wreaking havoc, and spreading fear and hatred.
What was to like or admire about any of that? What was there to build a future on, with any of that? Nothing, that’s what.
Dark Curves (Dangerous Curves Book 6) Page 9
