A hand brushed his hair off his forehead. Her touch cast him back to the simplicity of childhood. He sighed and unknotted his spine, sinking farther into the couch. Her breath whispered along his cheek. “Are you going to tell me what happened?”
He opened his eyes to find her close, examining his stinging scrapes. “I went to Hunter Galloway’s house to check on him. His brother thought I was . . . Actually, I have no idea what he thought I was doing. Blindsided me.”
“Gracious, Will’s a bruiser. He’s has got to be two-thirty if he’s a pound.”
“I’d guess closer to two-sixty these days.”
“Your face looks terrible.”
“It looks worse than it feels. It’s my shoulder that’s killing me. And I think I bruised my ribs.” He rotated his shoulder and raised his arm, the movement painful but doable. Nothing torn or dislocated, just wrenched. “A couple of days, and I’ll be all good.”
Half of him wanted to pull her hand back to his forehead to continue soothing him. While the sane half wondered why in hell had he come to her in the first place. He hadn’t needed anyone to take care of him for years.
“Shouldn’t you get checked out at the ER?”
Feeling like an idiot, he tried to push himself to standing, his teeth clenched against the pins and needles pain shooting through his arm. “Sorry I bothered you. I’ll head home.”
“For goodness sake, that wasn’t code for ‘get gone.’ Lay down.” She slipped a hand around his neck and eased him to prone, her hair brushing his cheek. He turned toward the soft caress, but it was gone, her voice growing distant. “Don’t move.”
He’d lost the will to leave. Closing his eyes, he disassociated from the various parts of his body throbbing with pain, his mind wandering in a state of limbo where time didn’t exist. Warm water on his cuts and the smell of disinfecting soap brought him back to reality.
“You’re awake. I wasn’t sure,” she said softly. “Open your mouth.”
Beyond arguments, he obeyed. She put two pills on his tongue, and he swallowed with cool water she offered through a straw. Tipping his head to the side with the palm of her hand, she continued to clean his face, her touch gentle. After dabbing some sort of antiseptic-smelling ointment on his cuts, she ran fingers through his hair and massaged his scalp.
How long had it been since someone had touched him like this? Like they cared about him and not his money or his name. His mother had when he was a kid, before football became the family obsession. None of his girlfriends had ever soothed his football-related injuries. They preferred him dressed up and escorting them to the city’s hotspots, not wallowing in pain.
“I thought you hated me.” His lips felt numb, his ears stuffed with cotton. Her hands stilled, and he cursed his tongue.
“I don’t hate you,” she said quietly, but in his head, the words echoed into his chest, disintegrating the tight bands squeezing his heart. He didn’t realize how much he had been bothered by the thought.
“I don’t know why I came here. Did you have plans tonight?”
“Yeah, a hot date with my Chinese food delivery boy.” The humor and sarcasm in her voice made him want to smile, but his lips refused to obey.
“I didn’t want to be alone.” He tried to stop the admission, but couldn’t. His eyelids were heavy, but he forced them open. Colors ran together, and the cogs in his brain moved slowly. His tongue felt thick, his words slurring. “What’d you give me?”
* * *
Lilliana knew beyond a shadow that he would never have admitted a weakness if it weren’t for the painkillers. His hazel eyes had dilated, leaving them darker than normal, and his gaze travelled slowly over her face and hair as if she were a figment of his imagination. Had the two pills been overkill?
“Some pain medication I had left over. Threw my back out last year pushing furniture around. I should have moved you upstairs before I gave them to you. Can you walk?”
He mumbled something, but lifted his torso off the old couch that was at least three feet too short for him. She grabbed his right hand and helped him to standing, notching her shoulder under his arm.
He shuffled forward with her, making good progress until they came to the stairs. The climb was arduous and slow. He alternated between groans and laughter, the pills at least starting to do their job. By the time they reached the landing, Lilliana had broken into a sweat from both physical exertion and anxiety. She guided him into her room and to the bed. He sprawled over the mattress like a starfish, one leg hanging over the side.
She still wasn’t convinced he didn’t need a doctor, but getting him back down the stairs and into her SUV wasn’t happening. Will Galloway had assaulted him, and she debated on calling the police, but hesitated. That would be his decision to make.
She turned on the bedside lamp and let her gaze take him in from head to toe. Her heart had jumped into her throat when she’d gotten close enough to see him, leaning against his truck, a wild, desperate look in his eyes. Rivulets of blood had trailed down his cheek like dried tears, but the cuts were superficial. She was more worried about his shoulder and ribs.
She pulled off his boots and socks and allowed herself the weakness of skimming her hands up his pants, from calf to thigh. The muscles flexed. Bypassing his belt, she went to work on the buttons of his shirt. Blood and grass had stained the cotton, and she’d gotten the collar damp during her meticulous cleaning of his cuts. She spread the edges of the shirt open, catching her breath. His chest was as amazing as she’d remembered. If things were different, she might spend hours exploring every dark curve of ink and muscle.
With some creative rolling of his body, taking care with his shoulder, she tugged the shirt off and dropped it on the floor. During all this, his eyes remained open, but glassy, and she wasn’t sure how aware he was or how much of the night he’d remember.
With the shirt off, she sat on the bed and examined him. Purpling bruises diffused from his tats like ink stains. Any damage to his shoulder wasn’t visible. Her hair fell forward, but before she could push the mass back, he wound a thick section though his fingers and brushed the ends along his lips.
“I’ve dreamed about your hair.” The words emerged as a slurry whisper that had her leaning even closer to hear.
“You have?” She pushed a lock behind one ear to keep it out of her eyes. She had thought about cutting her hair for years but couldn’t quite stomach losing the thick, dark waves, even though most of the time she wore it back in a ponytail or braid.
He continued to play with the section he held captive. “I’ve dreamed about wrapping my hands in it and kissing you. I’ve dreamed of having it spread across my pillow while I’m inside of you. I’ve dreamed of it trailing across my legs while you go down on me.”
Her breaths came faster. His words wove a spell around her, drawing her even closer.
“But, you hate me, don’t you?” His nose crinkled and his voice was dreamy as if casting for a memory he couldn’t quite catch.
“I don’t hate you, Alec.” She repeated her earlier assertion, this time with more force.
His face smoothed and his eyes closed. “Prove it.”
“Wha—”
He tugged her hair. She didn’t fight him. In fact, she may have sped the movement. Their lips met in a closed-mouth chaste kiss, brief and unsatisfying. She pulled back, even as he tangled his hand in her hair, and lifted his head off the pillow, seeking, searching. She propped her elbows on either side of his head, wondering what in hell she was doing. He was loopy on painkillers. What was her excuse?
The kiss would be muted and muffled in his memories, if he remembered at all. Too much like their hook-up in college.
“Lilliana, please.” The plaintive tenor of his whisper destroyed her good intentions. If she could make him feel better, shouldn’t she? A thin justification.
She brushed her lips over his face, paying special attention to his wounds. He relaxed back into the pillow, the tension draining from hi
s body with each pass of her mouth. Finally, she kissed him.
Not a chaste kiss, but a slow, sensual, exploring kiss. The kind of kiss they’d never taken the time for. She sucked and nipped at his mouth. His fist tightened in her hair and held her still. Tingles shot from her scalp, registering as pleasure.
He flicked and curled his tongue against her lips until she opened her mouth with a groan. Their tongues rubbed and danced, one kiss bleeding into the next. She ran a hand over his good cheek, the uninjured one, the scrape of his stubble tickling her palm. Her breaths came ragged and quick against his mouth. Her body wound tighter with arousal even as the kiss unspiraled, slowing to the simple brush of their lips.
She pulled her lips from his but stayed close enough to feel his deepening breaths. She was losing him to the oblivion of a drugged sleep. Would he dream of her again tonight? Disentangling his lax hand, she sat up and considered his pants once again. A definite bulge tented the fabric between his legs.
She stared. For too long she stared. Safer if she left his pants on. The man was incapacitated, and she’d already proven to have no self-control.
His arrival had interrupted her work. She left him for her studio, cleaning her brushes and capping her paints, too distracted to concentrate on the commissioned portrait. While she got ready for bed, she checked on him frequently. A grunt brought her running. He’d turned his face into the pillow, his hurt arm thrown over his head. Pulling a quilt from the antique chest at the foot of her bed, she spread it over him and climbed into bed beside him.
She reached across to turn off the light but stopped. She pulled the quilt down a few inches. With his arm above his head, she could see the script he’d had tattooed down his flank.
Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.
She whistled low. Wow, trust issues much? In sleep, with the added pain medication, he looked different—peaceful and open. The lines around his eyes had softened, the harsh pull to his mouth was gone, relaxing his lips, making him look younger and carefree.
Feeling safe, she trailed a fingertip down his cheek, over his lips, and into the dimple in his chin. Even after she’d kicked the red Alabama clay off her shoes, she’d followed his career. The passing records he’d set as a senior in college, the media coverage during the Heisman race, the sports articles touting him as the Eagles’ savior. He’d dated a series of skinny, leggy blondes—the quintessential all-American cheerleaders. The devastating injury to his knee had happened his second year in the league. And then . . . nothing.
Until she’d come home for her daddy’s funeral and discovered him running his construction business and coaching the Falcon quarterbacks. She traced the quote with her fingertips. How much pain was etched into those words?
His right hand caught her wrist, and her gaze darted to his face. His eyes were barely open. She steeled herself for accusations, but he said nothing, only pulled her hand over his heart and covered it with his own. With a sigh, he closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep.
She took his cue, flipped off the light, and pulled the quilt over them, keeping far enough away she wouldn’t jostle him during the night, but sneaking her foot to rest against his leg, needing to anchor him top and bottom to her somehow.
The rhythm of his heart and the smell of cedar from the quilt lulled her into sleep where she dreamed of a younger, smiling Alec, his tattoos and distrust gone.
6
She jerked awake with early morning sun diffusing through the windows. Sometime during the night Alec had rolled away from her, resting on his uninjured shoulder, and she had curled around his warm, naked back, a hand draped over his taut stomach.
She lay still and listened. The doorbell chimed, probably for the second time. Shimmying to the opposite side of the bed, she slid out, doing her best not to wake him. She ran toward the door, hoping to catch her visitor before the doorbell rang again and woke Alec.
Halfway down the stairs, it rang two more times in succession while a hand rapped hard on the door. She tore at the locks and swung the door open. “For the love of— Aunt Esmerelda.”
Her aunt—in reality her great-aunt, but she’d only been ten years older than her daddy—stood on the porch bearing a cloth basket. “Good morning to you too, missy. Constance said she saw you at Walmart looking the worse for wear.” Her aunt walked past her and into the kitchen, and Lilliana trailed like a chastised puppy.
“I’m fine.”
Lilliana switched the coffee maker to brew, and the sound of hissing, dripping hot coffee and smell of hazelnut filled the kitchen. After unloading freshly baked bread and several jars of her home-cultivated honey, Aunt Esmerelda set a bejeweled hand on her hip, shook her head, and tutted. Lilliana pulled at her tank top and crossed her arms, trying to masquerade her braless state.
“Why is Mr. Grayson’s truck in your driveway, Lilliana? I assumed he was working, but seeing you now . . .” Her aunt looked over a pair of cat-eyed glasses, her mouth pinched into a circle, the picture of a stereotypical, shushing librarian.
“It’s not what you think. I can promise you that.”
“I think you shared a bed last night.”
“Well . . .” Lilliana drew the word out. “Then it is kind of what you think, but I have a non-salacious explanation.”
The coffee maker burbled the last of the coffee into the pot, and Lilliana pulled out two mugs. She added milk and sugar to each before pouring and handing one over. How much should she tell her aunt?
“Alec showed up last night hurt. I cleaned him up and put him up in my bed knocked out from pain pills. He’s still asleep.”
Her aunt’s eyes widened. “His truck looked fine, so not an accident?”
Lilliana bit her lip and took a sip of coffee. Her aunt could be old-fashioned and a stickler for propriety, but she knew everyone and everything that went on in Falcon, and the woman was a sharp as a Ginsu knife.
“He was over in Mill Town looking for Hunter Galloway and got jumped by Will.”
Her aunt hummed and took a sip, her dark eyes never leaving Lilliana’s face. “That boy is trouble. Does Mr. Grayson need a doctor? Dr. Mackenzie would make a house call if I asked.”
Lilliana chewed on a fingernail. “He didn’t want me to take him to the hospital last night. I’m worried though.”
“Are you? I didn’t think you could stand the man. Interesting he would choose to come here of all places.”
“The last week has been strange. We don’t hate each other anymore—” Her aunt laughed, the tinkling sound echoing around the kitchen. Lilliana popped a hip. “What’s so funny?”
“Mr. Grayson never hated you, I can assure you of that.” Her aunt added another spoonful of sugar and topped off her cup with fresh coffee.
“He acted like he hated me.”
Her aunt’s smile was Cheshire Cat–worthy, and she raised the cup, steam fogging the glasses that had slipped farther down her nose. “He certainly isn’t indifferent to you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I watched him watch you. I think he finds you . . . intriguing.”
A warmth that resembled embarrassment, but had tinges of something else settled in her chest and spread outward, heating her cheeks. “He watches me?”
“The same way you watch him.” Her aunt waggled her eyebrows and took another sip with her secretive smile in place. “I thought perhaps you’d hired him to fix up the wiring. Carl told me it was a mess.”
Lilliana slumped over the counter, propping her cheek in her hand. “He offered, but it’s not only the wiring. The entire guest bathroom needs to be gutted.”
“Perhaps it’s time to modify your plans for a B&B, dear.” Her aunt took another sip of her coffee, cows in bikinis dancing across the mug.
Lilliana straightened. “What do you mean? What else could I do with the old place?”
“You could find a young man and fill the house with children.”
Aunt Esmeralda wasn’t Nostradamus, yet the
picture she painted was closer to fruition than Lilliana dared admit—minus the implied husband. She raised her mug and took a slow sip, buying time.
A crash sounded upstairs. Lilliana plopped her cup down and made for the stairs, taking them two at a time. Alec was leaning in her bedroom doorway, one hand pressed against his injured shoulder while he worked it in circles. He’d put his shirt back on, but buttoned it wrong, leaving the bottom uneven.
The cuts on his face were already scabbing, but faint bruises tinged one cheek, making the other look abnormally pale. His eyes were shut, the lashes blending with the dark circles underneath.
She put her hands on his arms, and his eyes shot open. “I hope you’re feeling better than you look, Alec.”
“I’m fine.” He straightened against the doorjamb, looking far from “fine.”
“Will you see a doctor today?”
He stretched his elbow up, testing his shoulder, and rotated at the waist, wincing. “Nothing’s broken or torn. I’m only sore.”
Her aunt crested the top of the stairs holding a glass of water and a bottle of pills. Alec’s gaze shot to Lilliana, his eyes narrowed. “You told her?”
Lilliana chewed the inside of her mouth and shrugged. “She asked. I couldn’t lie.”
No longer glassy or pain-filled, his hazel eyes bore into her, but the crinkles eased. His gaze wandered south, and she glanced down to see her nipples poking at the thin cotton of her shirt. She tried to will them away, but instead they puckered further, as if glorying in his attention. Instead of hiding them, she had the urge to arch her back and flaunt them. The instinct went against years of ingrained behavior, leaving her confused.
Aunt Esmerelda sniffed from beside them. “Lilliana, darling, might I suggest you change into something a bit more . . . appropriate. And, Mr. Grayson, you need aspirin at the very least.”
Lilliana walked past Alec, grabbed a change of clothes, and retreated to her bathroom to dress. What she really needed was a cold shower. If he hadn’t maybe knocked her up, they would still be throwing eye daggers from across rooms and football fields. Now she had no idea what they were doing now.
Melting into You Page 7
