Alone for the first time since the accident she couldn’t even remember, she stripped off her clothes slowly. Her life could be clearly segmented in two halves, Before and After the accident. Everything Before equaled normalcy. Tasks she’d never have considered hard Before were suddenly endeavors After. Even her clothes were no longer a reflection of who she’d been Before. She’d loved her skinny jeans, chucks, and babydoll tees. Now? Yoga pants. Always damned yoga pants since it was too hard to get in and out of her jeans by herself, and dammit, she didn’t want him playing with Robbie Doll, the defective Barbie.
Besides, nothing said sexy like yoga pants.
Once she’d stripped, she turned to the full-length mirror she’d avoided looking at while she worked to disrobe. She wanted to see it all—at once, in one horrible gulp—so she’d know what the full picture was After.
Oddly enough, it still looked like her body. She wasn’t sure why she expected a Frankenstein monster in the reflection, but everything still appeared as it had Before. Heavy breasts, curving hips…fuck, she really needed to figure out how to shave her cooch. It was one thing to have the bath lady help with her legs since her balance still sometimes wasn’t the best, but asking the other woman to help shave the va-jay-jay? Yeah, no way in hell.
Her hair had been short before the accident, thankfully. It had always been fine and flyaway, so she’d not bothered to grow it out only to fight the lankness of fine hair. From what she could see, they’d not shaved her anywhere….
Except the small patch right in the front, of course. Right where her head had bashed into the passenger door after bouncing off the windshield, leaving a gash that required fourteen stitches they’d since removed. The skin was pink, the hair growing back in stubble, but it almost looked as though it was growing up rather than down, giving her a weird tufting curl on one side.
The bruising had faded, leaving greenish-yellow swirls just touched with blue and some light purple. Almost two months since the wreck, and they still marked her physically while her disabilities marked her mentally. Surprisingly, her face seemed mostly okay, but her hip had clearly taken the brunt of something, marked with the worst of the remaining bruises. One arm was also bruised, as if she’d lifted an arm to try to save herself from injury, leaving a rose-shaped mark of color on her otherwise pale skin. None of it hurt.
Which was the real bitch of it. Nothing hurt anymore, other than the flash-fire of headaches that seemed to sneak up on her and slam her into raging waters of pain, made only mostly tolerable with serious medicine. Shoving a hand through her hair, she leaned on the sink countertop and continued to study her body—which looked so normal considering nothing worked like it should anymore.
If she looked this okay, how could she still be so absolutely fucking pathetic?
When the door swung open, she nearly lost her balance and fell. Bracing both hands on the sink to keep from collapsing, she glared at Gray.
“Seriously? The door was closed!”
His mouth opened and closed comically. If it didn’t piss her off that he’d followed her into the shitter, she might have laughed at the overt play of emotion on his rugged features. Then her breath caught in her throat, and she clutched hard at the cold marble behind her.
“Gray?”
From shocked and appalled, his expression shifted, and his gaze tracked over her body fast, as if he couldn’t help but look. When hunger sparked in his eyes, her heart raced in answer. Then shutters slammed down on the display, and he was back to Nurse Gray.
“Are you okay? Do you need help?” His gaze now locked on the ceiling, though he didn’t close the door.
Had she imagined the desire she’d glimpsed? Had she projected her own feelings onto him? She gnawed her lip for a second, trying to decide whether to be pissed off or to taunt him, perhaps to test him to see how he reacted. Then again, her words still weren’t always what she intended since her broken brain didn’t quite cooperate at times, so anything witty on her part would likely come out a garbled mess anyway.
“I’m going to shower.”
A safe answer, rather than an inciting or angry one. It grated on her nerves when she felt a surge of stupid pride that she’d said all the words right.
“That’s not safe. Put your clothes back on.”
Okay, for sure pissed off.
“No, dammit. I’m fine. I have the fucking chair in there. I can sit. It’s a shower, not rocket appliances.”
His face hardened, the blockheaded, determined expression sliding into place, although he still didn’t look away from the ceiling. She punched the sink.
Wrong word. Dammit.
“I’m not leaving you in here alone. The most I’ll concede is I can sit on the toilet. With the curtain closed, you’ll have privacy. As an added bonus, I’ll have the peace of mind knowing I’m close if you fall or need me.”
He still kept his head averted, more than obviously not wanting to look her way.
Sighing heavily, she weighed the idea of telling him off against making him happy. On one hand, fuck him. She didn’t need or want a babysitter, and how would she ever regain her independence if he kept up his Nurse Gray shit? On the other, he’d ground his social life to a halt, remodeled his house to accommodate the damned chair they insisted she spend so much time in due to her shady-ass balance, and had otherwise been trying very hard to help, whether she wanted it or not.
Finally caving to the knowledge she pretty much had ruined his life with one mistake, she moved to the shower, shoving the curtain aside with more force than needed. “Whatever floats your boat just tickles the shit out of me, Gray.” Adjusting the faucets, she blinked past the dizziness that bending caused. She was so sick of being an invalid.
Once she got the water nice and hot, she glanced back to see him still studying the ceiling.
“I’ll wait until you close the curtain to come in, don’t worry.”
Tears threatened. Was she that damned abhorrent? He didn’t even want to sneak a peek? Since she knew she didn’t want him to hear her voice and guess he’d hurt her feelings—her problem, not his—she simply stepped into the shower and seated herself on the shower chair. Once she’d closed the curtain, she heard him moving, probably taking a seat on the toilet. Covering her eyes, she let the water wash over her, hoping the sound of it would cover the fact she was crying and couldn’t stop. It just wasn’t fair.
This close to the one man she’d ever loved…naked…and he couldn’t even bear to look at her.
Chapter Four
He was a sick son of a bitch, and he knew it, but it didn’t stop his brain from looping, like a slideshow in his mind, the image of her gripping the white countertop. She was his best friend, recovering from a life-changing accident. She certainly wasn’t up to being ogled.
Hating himself and drowning in her scent, made all the stronger by the hot water steaming up the bathroom, he kept circling back to the sight burned on his memory. Fragile, he’d always thought her fragile with her dandelion-fluff hair and delicate hands. Big tits? Yes, she had big tits, but she was his friend, not some object of lust. Sure, she’d starred in some really spectacular dreams of his over the years, but he was a man. That was normal, right?
Still, the sight of them all ripe and round…and the vee of her waist tapering down to—nope, he should not be thinking about it.
The urge to hold her since she’d come home tangled with the urge to touch her, and he damned himself to a thousand hells for even thinking of her like that. His dick was so hard he imagined his zipper was tearing a tattoo of its zigzag design right into his cock.
“Fuck,” she mumbled, and he snapped to attention.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just hard to do my hair. For some reason, I get dizzier when I have my hands above my head for very long. I’ll just rinse it and be done with it.”
Warring needs sizzled through him like heat lightning. On one hand, he was her ca
retaker. He should volunteer to just wash her hair himself.
On the other, did he want to wash her hair for her benefit, or because he wanted to touch that creamy white flesh, all wet and flushed from the shower?
Shaking off his thoughts, he decided he was responsible for her and he was being an ass, so he said, “I can wash your hair. It’s not a big deal, Robs.”
“I hate this.”
Her soft whisper barely carried to him, but she’d not told him no, so he tugged the shower curtain to peek in. She sat in the bath chair facing the water, practically crumpled into herself.
“You hate what?”
Glancing over her shoulder, looking doe-eyed and so damned sweet it made him long to fix it all for her, she mumbled, “I hate not being able to take care of myself. This is all so very lame.”
Squirting some shampoo into his hand, he nudged the curtain farther aside and reached for her. If he focused on the task and not his dick, he could do this.
“You’re getting better every day. If it was me, you’d be there to help, right?”
Her spine snapped straight, and he snuck a look at the way it sloped into the curve of her ass, even as he berated himself for looking. Focus on her hair. Working his hands into the softness of her hair, he tried to keep the suds out of her eyes.
“You know I’d be there.” Steel laced through her tone. Good. She needed to get her fight back to pull through this thing.
“Then quit worrying so much about what you can’t do and just focus on one triumph at a time.” Her neck bowed into his hands, and he used the soap to massage her scalp. She looks so much better than just a week ago.
“You’re quoting the physical therapist slash sadist, which I think is seriously sick of you to do. But I’ll let it pass because that feels simply wonderful.”
Trailing his fingers lower, he worked the muscles in her neck, no doubt tense from a day of trying to reclaim her body. Her soft moan did nothing to relieve the pressure in his pants.
“Sorry,” he mumbled, his brain no longer working. Probably he wouldn’t be able to get more than single words out since all his blood seemed to have pooled into his cock.
“Hey, weird question?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you get my back, too?”
If she realized he would be more than happy to rub her wherever she wanted, she would either laugh at him or hate him, so he simply said, “Sure.”
Digging his fingertips into her back, all warm and slick with water and soap, he managed to make her moan again, eliciting a thousand fantasies in his mind of him finding other ways to make her moan.
“Thanks so much, Gray.”
Her voice sounded husky, and he bent low, inhaling her scent and getting his shirt wet.
“Time to rinse,” he managed. “Want me to help you keep your balance when you stand? I already saw everything, after all.”
She snorted before she sighed. “Okay, thanks.”
“Hang on, lemme pull off my shirt so I can get in there and help hold your weight.”
“You’ll get your clothes wet!” Practically squeaking the words, she swiveled her head to look at him, and he hoped she’d not look south enough to notice the probably obvious protrusion of his dick.
“I’ll tug off my jeans then, too. No different than swimming trunks, right?”
Her cheeks flushed, and she looked away from him, probably embarrassed. But, dammit, he wanted to be close to her, and he didn’t want her to fall….
Excuses, he realized, shucking his shirt and jeans. He was finding ways to rationalize his need to touch her.
Stepping in the shower, he shoved the curtain open and then one-armed her to her feet, trying to ignore how well she fit against him. He used the other arm to shove the chair out of the shower before moving her closer to the water.
“I’m not a ragdoll. You don’t have to move me around.”
The bite in her voice might have been pride, something he knew she’d been struggling with. He understood that—in her position, he’d probably be even grumpier.
“Shh, you’re going to get soap in your eyes. Just let me help you.”
Shifting their positions, he leaned near the taps and put her in the stream of water. Working the suds out, he tried to keep her balanced against one thigh while preventing her from feeling his dick. Soap and water ran in rivulets down her back, distracting him. He wanted to chase the bubbles with his tongue, licking the water from her back and nibbling as he went.
She tried to turn, shifting her weight when he wasn’t expecting it, and slid off his thigh to land against the length of his body. Her hiss of breath told him she’d figured out his dirty secret pretty quickly, and he froze, one hand still buried in her hair and the other around her waist.
Her breath came fast, and he waited for her to tell him off.
Instead, she turned the rest of the way around, big beautiful breasts drawing his gaze when he should look her dead in the eye and come up with some excuse—any excuse—to save their friendship.
Instead of telling him off, she wrapped her arms around his neck, went up on her toes, and kissed him.
***
All the times she’d imagined kissing Gray, she never imagined him not responding.
The whole morning and most of the afternoon passed according to schedule, and she still kept rehashing the scene. She’d fantasized about what kind of kisser he might be more times than she cared to admit. A hard, fierce kisser to match his natural leadership and dominant nature, maybe. Or perhaps his kiss would melt her bones, and she’d feel….
Rejected. She felt rejected.
On the upside, she had something to think about besides how messed up her life was or about how long the road to recovery would be…or about all of the mess that summed up After. On the downside, she kept replaying the moments in the shower in her head as if she could either make sense of the whole kerfuffle or, failing that, at least figure out where things went so horribly wrong.
She hadn’t imagined his dick hard against her back because, when she’d turned, she glanced down and saw visual confirmation he wanted her. Or, to be entirely honest, that at least his cock did. His face was carved need—an expression she’d never dared to hope to see—and he seemed to be fascinated by her breasts. Good. She’d been fascinated by all of him for quite a while.
He hadn’t stopped her from twining her arms around him, and she probably leaned more than a little against him since she still sucked at the whole gross-motor-skills thing, but he hadn’t moved toward her either. He’d simply frozen, all rock-hard and hot man, wet from the shower and irresistible.
She’d touched her lips to his, a moment she’d been sure would be the most sexual of her life if it ever happened in reality, and he’d still not moved. So she began to kiss him.
His breath hissed out in a rush—she’d thought it a sure sign he was about to crush her against him and lay waste to her feeble attempt at a lip lock with his own devastating passion—and then carefully lifted her out of the shower. “I got the soap out.”
His gruff voice slammed into her lust like a fist. Shame washed over her, hotter than the water, and she battled nausea caused by her horror by his silent rejection.
Although she hated it when he took care of her, she’d simply frozen herself, unable to protest or anything else while he roughly dried her body with a thick, soft towel. She couldn’t remember whether or not she helped him dress her, only that he’d carried her—still in his wet boxers—out to the chair and practically dropped her into it.
“I’m going to dry off and dress. I’ll be back.”
And he’d vanished.
For a few minutes, she just blinked hard, working to keep the tears that threatened inside before they gave evidence to how deeply he’d shattered her with his unmitigated rebuff of her advance. Then he’d reappeared, and she couldn’t—wouldn’t—look at him. His sigh filled the room before he again scooped her
up like a child to be carried from room to room. Laying her on her bed, he tugged her close. Close enough, in fact, that she knew for certain any hard-on from the bathroom had vanished. Meaning he didn’t want her.
Maybe he’d just gotten hard because—hello—a naked, wet woman had pushed up against him. Maybe she’d misread his signals entirely. Then again, he’d held her all night.
Snorting, she plucked at her yoga pants. Finally in bed with Gray Smythe, and he’d held her. Proof, if she’d needed it, that her crush on him was stupid. She’d known better. What were the chances they could be together for this many years as friends without him ever making a move if he’d been attracted all the while? Gray was the kind of man who took what he wanted. She’d been there forever, and he’d never taken her…because he didn’t want her like that.
Sure, he loved her, but as a friend. Her very best and most trusted friend, as proved by his presence at her side during the unarguably worst time of her life. Meaning it wasn’t a rejection so much as a reminder of her place in his life. She was a big girl, and she could respect his decision. Maybe she crushed on him, but that didn’t change the fact that he had every right not to return the sentiment.
As if the universe finally felt like cutting her a break, her rambling thoughts were cut short by the knock at the door. The snowstorm still raged, so Gray was up and about and headed to answer it—she didn’t have to move. She couldn’t stop her grin when the open door revealed the rest of the Pack.
“Twinkletoes! My Rowdyman! What in the hell have you assholes been up to?” Standing, she opened her arms. Braced for the impact of their bear hugs, she still gasped when Twinkles swept her into his arms.
“Oh, you know…changing diapers and missing you. How you feeling, girl? You’re looking great, sounding better. This asshole taking good care of you?” Rowdy tugged her free of Twinkles hug to give her one of his own, and she buried her face in his familiar shoulder to hide the fact that his question jarred her. Sure, Gray’d been taking fantastic care of her.
Forever Devoted Page 3