Anything For Us
Page 8
It takes a few minutes, but I finally convince her to get off the table. I hold my hand out and help her back down to the floor. She’s fucking terrified. Her eyes are wide with fear and her pulse is racing.
“I’m gonna die,” she says in a high-pitched voice.
“No, babe, you’re not. It just feels like you are, but you are perfectly safe. You’re with me. Now, take a deep breath.” She nods as the fear in her eyes grows. I instruct her to take more deep breaths; eventually, it calms her.
She would have been better off smoking weed than eating it since a bad high from edibles lasts twice as long. She’s going to be out of it for the next four to six hours. She won’t die from it, as I told her, but she’s gonna have a bad time coming down.
I get her situated on the sofa and hand her a few bottles of water. I tell her to drink as much water as she can. In the meantime, I grab a handful of lemons from the counter and start making lemonade. There’s a chemical in lemons called terpene. It helps reverse the effects. I make her a big pitcher and pour a glass. When she’s done, she folds herself into a ball and cries because the walls are coming for her. I keep reassuring her, but she’s deep into her dark thoughts.
Crap.
I have to find a way to get her to relax, or this will only get worse. I head to the master bath and turn on the whirlpool tub. That damn thing has saved me plenty of times. The fact is even when you are wearing a bulletproof vest, getting shot hurts like a bitch. I’ve found spending time in here helps. I’m hoping it will have the same effect for Sky. I fill the tub and place a few drops of peppermint oil in the water.
I head back to the sofa, where Sky is now in the corner fighting off the sun because apparently it’s coming for her. I come close to her and hold her hand. I promise her that she’s safe. I try to get her to go into the bathroom, but she says she can’t leave the corner because the floor has big teeth and claws.
“Alright, then you won’t touch the floor,” I reply as I scoop her up in my arms and carry her to the bathroom. I place her down and tell her to take her clothes off. She’s not sure how to react. I take a large towel and block her so that she can get undressed with some privacy. She takes her clothes off and gets into the tub. I worry the water might be too stimulating, but so far it seems to be helping.
I’m glad when I see that Sky’s distracted by the bubbles that emerge from the jets. I need to leave her alone so I can find something for her to wear—something that fits loosely and allows her room to be comfortable. I quickly find something and head back to the bathroom. I hold up the towel so she can get out of the tub. She wraps herself in the towel. I hand her my favorite, most comfortable tee shirt. It’s a little tight on me, but it’s swimming on her. I take her hand and lead her to the master bedroom.
She beams and giggles when she gets into bed, saying that the sheets feel like clouds. That compliment is meant for my mom. I couldn’t care less about sheet quality, but when she was decorating, she insisted I have top-of-the-line sheets and bedding. She said I would thank her someday, and I guess that day is today.
Sky slips under the covers and snuggles in my bed. I can make out the shape of her ass and all her curves. My dick begins thinking about things that I know I can’t allow to happen. I have wanted to lie beside Sky since the day I met her. I thought about what I would do if she were ever in my bed. I imagined softly biting her neck from behind while my fingers played with her legs. She’s lying there. In my shirt with no underwear on, looking like everything I’ve ever wanted.
My dick wants me in that bed—now. It’s hard and twitching. It’s ready—more than ready—to be inside her. I try my best to think of things that will get my cock under control, but my raging hard-on is only growing.
You better figure this shit out, Cash. She’s still high and doesn’t know what’s happening—walk away.
I want her; I want her so fucking bad, it’s painful. But I damn sure don’t want her in an altered state. We’ve put guys away for taking advantage of women when they couldn’t say no. And although I know this is somewhat different, I won’t do it. I won’t have her do something that she is unwilling to do when she’s in her right mind. I walk over to her, tuck the covers around her, and kiss her forehead. “Get some rest, babe.”
Her eyes begin to close, but just as I reach for the door, she calls out to me in a weak, sleepy voice. “There’s stuff moving everywhere. It’s all around. Can you stay with me?”
“Yeah, babe. I can do that,” I reply.
Okay, I can do this. I am not a fucking teenager. I can control myself.
I lie beside her but stay above the covers.
“Can you get under the covers?”
“Sure,” I reply as I curse my life.
I slide under the covers, behind her. She wiggles herself towards me until her ass is perfectly in line with my bulging crotch. I close my eyes and softly exhale as lust grips me. The urge to graze her thigh and bury myself inside her grows. She takes my arm and wraps it around her upper body. I feel her soft, supple breast under my forearm. If I move my arm one inch, in either direction, I will graze her nipple.
Christ.
“I got a secret,” she whispers, still very out of it, judging by the airiness of her voice.
“You do?”
“Yeah, it’s about Cash,” she whispers drowsily. “I love him...”
She falls asleep soon after her confession. I can’t allow myself to think about what she said, not now. Right now, I just hold her until she falls asleep in my arms. This is what I wanted: Sky telling me she loves me while I am holding her in my arms. Yet, as close as we are right now, the truth is, the two of us have never been further apart.
***
I must have fallen asleep because when I open my eyes, I find Sky straddling me with a huge grin on her face. She licks her lips and looks down at me with seeking eyes.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“Good. So good. You wanna feel good too?” she says, biting her lower lip as she starts to take her shirt off. I stop her.
“Sky, no.”
“Why? We can have some fun,” she insists.
I study her. She’s beautiful, that will always be the case. And I will always want her more than I want anyone else. But right now, I just want her to get better and get back to her right mind. I can feel something growing in me, and it’s not my libido. It’s frustration. It’s pointless to talk to her right now since the woman I know isn’t herself at the moment.
I look over at the clock on the nightstand; it’s a little after midnight. I lift Sky off of me and place her back on her side of the bed. She moans as she glides her fingers along the ridges of my abdominal muscles.
“You’re so sexy. I want you; I want you all the time,” she purrs.
“I want you too, babe. Just not right now, okay?” I reply sadly.
As I look down at her, sadness begins to replace my frustration. I feel a heaviness come down on me. A pool of ice forms in the center of my stomach; I’m cold all over. The sense of dread in my body is palpable.
“I’m hungry! Do you have pizza? Chips? Oh my God—pizza chips! Can we make that? Do they have that? We should make that…” She leaps out of bed and goes into the kitchen. I rake my hands through my hair and suppress a heavy sigh. I get out of bed and grab my cell. I follow her into the kitchen where she raids all the cabinets and fridge, looking for snacks. I find some chips and hand them to her; she starts munching right away. I place a call and hope he picks up.
“Hey, it’s me. Can you swing by? No, I’m fine. It’s not about work…okay, thanks. Oh, and bring a large pizza with you with everything. Make that extra large. Thanks.”
I hear a knock on the door about an hour later. I open it, expecting to see Wyatt. Instead, his wife, Winter, stands before me holding an extra-large pizza. Wyatt got lucky with Winter; he really did. She’s not just a pretty blonde with gray eyes; she’s smart, hard-working, and has a big heart. She’s also stubborn as hell.<
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“What are you doing here?” I ask as she moves in for a hug. I embrace her and take the pizza box.
“Wyatt caught me up on everything after he hung up with you. And I thought maybe talking to a woman would be better in this instance. Also, I’m trying to get the hell out of the house because two of the kids have a stomach bug and I’m so over vomit duty.”
I laugh as I step aside and let her in. “So you bailed on my brother and left him with two sick kids?”
“Yup! And I even suggested that you might need a long conversation so I might have to go out and get a drink with you.”
“Nice! So you don’t have to be back home for a while?”
“Exactly. After we’re done here, I’m gonna go home, sneak into the basement, and catch up on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” she says, laughing as I place the pizza on the table.
“You’re a horrible mom,” I joke.
“Hey, when your brother was at a training session for two weeks, I took on three ear infections, the flu, and three—count them—three sex questions. This mom is due for a break.”
“Sex questions, already?”
“Yeah, damn YouTube.”
“Well, you’ve earned a little time to yourself.”
“Hell yeah! But back to your situation, what’s going on?” she asks, turning serious.
I explain what happened tonight. She listens as closely as Wyatt did.
Winter is about to respond when Sky enters the room. She says a quick hello to Winter, but her mind is on the food. She takes a large bite of the first slice and brings the entire box of pizza with her to the bedroom.
“I like her!” Winter announces.
“Yeah, you would,” I tease.
She chuckles and playfully pushes me away. “She seems okay to me. She’s in the munchies phase. She’ll come down off her high soon.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s not that,” I reply as I invite her to sit down at the dining table. “You and Wyatt had issues when you first started. He never told any of us what the issues were—and I get that. But how did he help you overcome them? I look at Sky and I want to help, but I don’t know how.”
“Do you have any idea at all what’s bothering her? Why she’s getting high when she’s not really into that?”
“She said it was an accident,” I reply.
“Maybe eating the cookies but going somewhere where they are likely to have an entire table full of edibles…”
“I don’t know why she’s doing this. But she told me she loves me, just before she fell asleep earlier.”
Winter is beaming; I shake my head and smile sadly. “That’s not good, Winter.”
“Why? Given all the good things you’ve told me about her, she’s perfect for you. And now you know she loves you.”
“All I know is that it has taken a dozen weed cookies for her to tell me she has feelings for me. So I need weed for her to trust me? It sucks that this is the only way she lets me get close to her.” I didn’t realize I was pissed until I heard the tone of my words. I interlock my hands behind my neck and look up at the ceiling.
“Cash, you two will work it out. It just takes time.”
“You were lucky. You had my brother. Wyatt is the nice one. He was all smiles and patient with you. I’m not…I don’t know if I can do that.”
She laughs at me. “I didn’t sleep with your brother for a long time after we met, and he was mostly understanding. But after making him take one cold shower too many, nice guy or not, your brother was losing his mind. In fact, I remember him offering me things to sleep with him.”
“Things like what?”
“An island, his kidney, his lungs…” she teases. I roll my eyes. I know she’s kidding. Wyatt was wonderful with her, and it worked. But I’m not Wyatt…
Winter places her arm on my shoulder. “What you need to know is this: it’s not about sex. It’s about being close to you. She’s afraid to admit she’s in love with you. The only way to find out why is to find out what happened the last time she was in love,” my sister-in-law concludes.
“You think we actually have a shot?”
“I think no woman would leave her best friend in a guy’s house alone unless she knew that her best friend would be loved and cared for.”
“I would do anything for her. She filled a void I didn’t even know was there. But what if the only way to help her is to let her go? What if instead of loving her, all I’m doing is hurting her?”
I have never really thought too much about heaven, but I think that’s where I am right now. My eyes are closed but the material I feel against my skin is so soft and so smooth, this has to be heaven. I roll around and take up as much space as I can. They have beds in heaven. Cool.
“Good afternoon,” someone says. Suddenly everything comes rushing back to me even before I open my eyes. Shit. Maybe it’s not real. I didn’t get high and spend the night with Cash. Please, someone, tell me I didn’t spend the night high in the presence of a DEA agent. I pop my eyes open.
Fuck!
It’s all true, and I wish I had blacked out drunk—that way it could be a haze. But it’s not a haze. My head hurts, my mind is a little foggy, and I could use another month of sleep. But I remember everything. Why? Because the Weed Gods hate me.
“Hello,” I reply with a raspy voice that I don’t recognize.
“You should get something; you missed breakfast,” Cash says.
Holy crap have I messed up.
He hands me a bottle of water and two aspirin tablets. I thank him and gladly down the pills and chase them with the cool, delicious water. I could drink ten bottles right now.
“There are fresh towels in the linen closet and your clothes are over by the windowsill,” he says. I look towards the window and find my clothes freshly washed and folded.
“You washed my clothes?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says, not making eye contact as he heads out of the room. It’s easy to see he’s upset with me. Um, yeah. I came to his home, stoned out of my mind, and he was stuck with me all night. I decide the best thing to do is to shower as quickly as I can and then get my butt home. I’ve intruded long enough.
I enter the bathroom, and he’s laid out a brand-new toiletry kit that includes a toothbrush, shampoo, and deodorant. I wash up quickly but it’s hard to walk away from such a great shower. The showerhead has ten settings, each one better than the last.
I get out of the shower, towel dry my hair, and put my clothes back on. Once back in the bedroom, I look around for my cell but can’t find it. Damn, I was hoping not to have to bother him. Crap! I enter the living room and find him in his leather armchair, reading. I take a closer look. The book is called Bound for Canaan: The story of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.
I love men who read. My ex, Josh, could barely get through a thread on Twitter, let alone a book. Cash seems lost inside the pages. He absentmindedly trails his thumb over his bottom lip. I don’t know why I find that so hot but I do. I feel extra bad now. He has a hectic life at work, and he comes home and finds a stoned-out crazy lady at his door.
“Hey, sorry to interrupt, but do you know where my cell is?” I ask.
“Check behind the nightstand; it might have fallen back there when you were kicking everything.”
“I was kicking things?”
“Yeah. You thought that the water inside the water bottle was making fun of you, so you kicked it. And everything else around you,” he says, not bothering to take his eyes away from his book.
Ouch.
“Okay, thank you,” I reply.
I have screwed this up, big time.
I find my cell; Kenzy left me a dozen messages. According to her messages she came by twice and checked on me, and I was asleep. She said she’s sorry a million times. I text her and tell her I’m fine and that I’m headed home. If only there were a way I could get out of here without having to walk by Cash.
Sky, grow up and face what you did, missy!
I take a deep breath and head up to the roof, where we had our amazing first date. He’s standing near the edge, looking out onto the city. The same place where he first kissed me. Wow, even the memory makes my stomach flip.
“I’m gonna take off. But before I go, Cash, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for all of this.”
“Sorry for what exactly?”
“For barging into your home, acting crazy. I never did weed except once back in college. It was so stupid. I didn’t know that they put anything in the cookies. I can’t imagine how upset you are with me—you are an agent, after all, and that was just so out of line.”
“Is that what you think I’m worried about? I was glad it wasn’t anything stronger. And who told you it was a good idea to go to a party with people you don’t know and ingest anything? That could have gone very wrong.”
“I know. It was an accident. Thank you for taking care of me. I won’t put you in that position again. I’m sorry,” I reply as I turn to walk away. God, I feel like a loser.
“Do you remember everything that happened?” he says.
“Yeah, most of it, I think.”
“Anything you want to take back?”
I look down at the floor and can’t bring myself to reply. He nods impatiently and folds his arms across his chest. That’s a sure signal that he wants me to go, so I do. But then something takes over me. Maybe I’m still hung over and saying crazy things from the cookies; I don’t know.
“You don’t have to be a jerk about it. I said I made a mistake. I don’t normally get high. It was an accident. Just because you’re an agent doesn’t mean you have to hold everyone to some superior standard. I’m sorry I pissed you off by not being perfect. I’m sorry that I got high and made you have to take care of me.”