by Kara Braden
“Fuck.” Cecily gasped, flinching violently this time. How the hell could he know what she was thinking? “Ian—”
“I already know.”
Through clenched teeth, Cecily accused, “Your brother told—”
“Told me nothing,” he interrupted. He closed the distance between them again and touched her face as if to hold her still. “I saw enough, Cecily. I know you.”
“Ian—”
“And I’m still here.”
Cecily closed her mouth, turning away from Ian, though the motion pressed her face against his palm. His hand was warm and steady, holding her without trapping her.
“That’s just one more indication that you’re probably crazy,” she managed to say, her voice distant and faint.
“So?”
Cecily laughed and nodded tightly. She pulled the gun out of her waistband and put it on the nightstand, finally feeling the cold. Shivering, she pushed back into Ian, saying, “Back up. You’re hogging the bed.”
“We’ll be warmer if we share blankets,” he suggested.
Cecily hesitated. “Ian…”
In answer, he moved back, mattress shifting as he settled down on the far side of the bed. “Tomorrow night, then.”
“I didn’t picture you as an optimist.”
“Realist,” Ian corrected. “Go to sleep. You’re awful company if you don’t get at least four hours.”
“Thanks,” Cecily muttered, pulling her blanket up and trying to tell herself that Ian was right about sharing warmth. She curled up at the very edge of the bed and stared into the darkness, wondering if she’d be able to fall asleep listening to the sound of someone else’s slow breathing.
***
Cecily moved in her sleep, sprawling over the bed one limb at a time until she seemed to achieve an impossible state by all laws of physics and anatomy, occupying far more of the mattress than a woman of her stature possibly could. Ian had awakened each time a hand or foot had invaded his side of the bed, determined that Cecily was restfully sleeping, and retreated until he was at the very edge of the king-sized mattress.
This time, though, when her movements woke him, he immediately identified the difference between those previous movements and a nightmare.
Without full disclosure of Cecily’s past experiences, thoughts, and feelings, Ian couldn’t be entirely certain that she suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. The professionals couldn’t agree if PTSD existed or if it should have a different name. They couldn’t even agree on a course of treatment. Still, Ian had a vested interest in knowing as much as he could about it, given his family’s tradition of military service. And because of that knowledge, he was prepared to handle the abrupt onset of her nightmare.
She didn’t scream of thrash or even speak. Instead, she went quiet and tense, body moving in minute twitches, reminding Ian of watching the guard dogs dreaming in a pile on the kennel floor. He couldn’t have been more than five when he’d asked Preston why the dogs’ feet were moving, and Preston, twelve years old and pompous with unearned wisdom, had given some platitude about chasing rabbits. He’d been entirely unprepared for Ian’s demands to explain the difference between dog and human consciousness and to explain how dogs could dream if they were “only animals.”
Without a proper bedside light, Ian had to depend on his cell phone. He knew better than to try and wake her while still in arm’s reach. He guessed that Cecily would perceive any attempt at stealth as a threat, so he moved off the bed quietly but naturally, picked up his cell phone from the nightstand (where it served as nothing more than a clock), and stepped back.
He powered the device up and turned it, playing the glow of the start-up screen over Cecily. The blankets covered her from the neck down, magnifying every little twitch of her hands and feet into wavelike motions of fabric. Behind her closed lids, her eyes were moving rapidly and her jaw was clenched. Her pulse and respiration were accelerated.
Definitely a nightmare.
Ian couldn’t gauge if it was a particularly bad nightmare, but it was best not to take any chances—not for his own safety but for Cecily’s peace of mind. Shivering in the cold, he moved to the foot of the bed and held his mobile in one hand, pointed upward to illuminate both himself and the rest of the room as best he could.
“Cecily,” he said, his voice calm and pitched low but firm. He waited a few seconds before repeating her name two more times.
The fact that she didn’t immediately awaken and grab for her weapon felt like an accomplishment. Subconsciously at least she might well have recognized Ian’s voice and categorized him as safe.
Cautiously, he said, “Cecily, wake up,” as he reached down to touch the top of her foot.
Immediately, her body coiled in on itself. She twisted and sat up. The blanket went flying as she reached out with both arms, a quick motion to assess her surroundings. Then she started to reach for the weapon on her side of the bed, but her hand never made it that far. She stopped as her fingers crossed the edge of the mattress; she stared up at Ian, panting to catch her breath.
“Ian?” she asked, her voice soft and very tight, almost a whisper.
In answer, he pressed and held the power button on his cell phone. “Go back to sleep,” he said, determined to treat the situation as nothing out of the ordinary. He crawled up the bed, tossed the BlackBerry on the table, and then tried to sort out his blankets.
“What—” Cecily began, still sitting up. “Are you all right?”
“Fine, though I have no idea how someone your height can take up even more space than me,” he accused, mostly to divert Cecily’s mind from any lingering trace of the nightmare.
She didn’t immediately answer. She moved gracelessly back down the bed and thrashed under her blankets to get herself sorted. Only when she was lying down, blankets pulled up over her body, did she roll onto her right side to face Ian. “I had a nightmare,” she said.
Ian bit back his response: Obviously.
After a few silent seconds ticked by, Cecily asked, “Did I hurt you?”
“No.”
Cecily’s exhale was shaky. “That’s good. I didn’t…say anything, did I?”
Ian moved a bit closer, shifting his pillow. “No. You barely even moved.”
He couldn’t see Cecily’s frown, but he could hear it in her tone of voice as she asked, “Then why did you wake me? Did I take up that much of the bed?”
Ian laughed softly. “Yes, but that’s not why. Consensus is that it’s best to wake someone from a nightmare. Did it help?”
“Hell if I know. Night always seems to last forever. Even if I shake off the nightmares, it’s like I’m still half-asleep.” She moved then, reaching out to find Ian’s arm with her fingertips. “Thanks.”
He resisted the urge to take Cecily’s hand and instead pressed into the touch, taking it as an unspoken invitation to move closer. “If this were group therapy, I’d be expected to ask you how you feel,” he said, unable to hide the distaste in his voice.
“God. Don’t,” Cecily said, sounding equally repulsed. “If you want to stay awake, there are far better things we can do than talk. Or I can just go out into the living room and let you sleep.”
“Sleep is a waste of time,” Ian agreed, trailing his fingers along the underside of Cecily’s forearm, though she was still wearing her long-sleeved shirt and jeans. She shivered and made a pleased little sound. Encouraged, Ian hinted, “You’re wearing too much for anything but talk, though.”
Cecily laughed. “Let me build up the fire. You deal with the mess we’ve made of the blankets.”
Ian sighed and reached for his cell phone to turn it back on for light. “Cecily…” he began as an idea struck him.
“Hm?”
“When you told my brother I could stay with you this winter, did either of you specify where?”
“Well, no…” Cecily hesitated. “Did you want to leave?”
“How would you like to see Ibiza?” he asked, surprising her with the odd question.
She said nothing as she worked on building up the fire. Slowly, light filled that corner of the room, throwing long shadows everywhere. She rose, surrounded by an aura of red-gold light that brought out bright highlights in her night-dark hair. Her back was turned, arms crossed, hands rubbing over her biceps.
“Afraid you’ll have to do that one on your own. I told him you could stay here, but you’re not a prisoner. If you want to go—”
Startled by the change in her tone, Ian interrupted, “Cecily. I’m not going anywhere without you. If you’d rather stay, we’ll stay. Going somewhere warmer would let us take off our clothes without worrying about freezing to death, that’s all.”
She took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders as though telling herself to relax. “Is that your way of saying sex with me is boring?” she asked, turning enough for Ian to see her profile. Though the words were delivered deadpan, he caught a hint of amusement—or at least a lack of anger—in her half-glimpsed expression.
He forced his sleepy, dull mind to work faster. “Freezing to death before we even get to the sex is definitely boring.”
Cecily laughed and broke away from the fireplace, crossing to the bathroom. “Then sort out the blankets, lazy bastard,” she said, her voice light and full of the humor she’d been hiding. “And go break into your stash. We have a lot of condoms to get through before spring.”
The bathroom door shut firmly, and Ian laughed, satisfaction warming him more than the blankets. He knew better than to suggest they go anywhere crowded—and Ibiza was nothing if not crowded—but Cecily hadn’t taken offense at his slip. Instead, she’d pushed past any sense of embarrassment and discomfort to make a far more clever joke of her own.
Cecily was resilient. That was how she’d survived for this long, even if she hadn’t healed from the trauma of her experience. And that deep, solid foundation of inner strength was all Ian needed to help her recover.
Chapter 11
October 28
Standing in the bathroom, Cecily splashed water over her face and tried to push away the surreal feeling that had crept over her. Her nightmares were nothing new. Fragments of imagery clung to her day and night, and she never went twenty-four hours without waking in a cold sweat at least once. When Ian had stubbornly insisted on sharing the bed for sleep, she had expected this. Feared it. And now that it had happened…
Nothing.
Ian had safely pulled Cecily out of the nightmare. She didn’t miss the fact that he had awakened her from the other side of the room, intentionally visible and recognizable in the light of his cell phone. And then he’d treated the whole incident as nothing remarkable. No awkward questions, no demands that she share her fears, no crushing insistence on cuddling or any physical contact at all, in fact. He hadn’t even commented on her reaction to his travel invitation, though he had to know it wasn’t normal for a grown woman to avoid other people the way Cecily did.
This could work, whispered the little voice in the back of her mind, the voice that had been silent for seven years.
Hope felt alien to her, but in a good way. She didn’t try to hide from it. Instead, she allowed herself to acknowledge that Ian might be just as strange as Cecily was, in his own way. And he might be just what she…if not needed, then at least wanted.
She went back into the bedroom and found Ian under both blankets, pillows stacked under his head. His bared arms were visible, hands tucked behind his neck, his posture lazy and casual. His pajamas were draped over the side of the bed. Deliberately, he’d placed a zigzag fan of condoms on the corner of the mattress, where Cecily wouldn’t miss them.
“Not bored already, are you?” she asked as she pulled off her heavy sweatshirt.
Ian’s eyes dropped to watch Cecily’s fingers, and his lips curled up in a sly, satisfied smile. The subdued firelight brought out gold highlights in his hair, now that it had dried from the melting snow. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and his blue-gray eyes seemed darker. “Not anymore.”
Cecily’s heart started to pound at the look of obvious desire on Ian’s face. She had to turn away. She hadn’t been self-conscious about getting undressed in front of someone for years. High school locker rooms, university, the Marines… Any hint of body-shyness had been long since cured, except for the scars she’d gotten seven years ago.
She tossed the sweatshirt aside. Cold air slithered over her bare arms, and she told herself she was keeping the T-shirt on for warmth, not to hide. Sometimes, she could almost believe her own bullshit, though tonight wasn’t one of those times.
“I take it you have some ideas, then?” she asked to hide her own embarrassment.
“A list of them,” Ian confirmed.
Cecily grinned as another layer of tension melted away. He rid herself of her jeans as quickly as she could, stripped off her socks, and got under the blankets. She pushed them up so she could roll on top of Ian. “Where did you want to start?”
Moving slowly, he slid his hands out from under his neck and reached up to touch Cecily’s face. He combed his fingers back through her hair, tugging lightly. “You shouldn’t think about cutting this short,” he said thoughtfully.
“Not exactly an answer,” she said, trying to sound unaffected, but the gently rough touch stole her breath. The beginnings of panic slithered down her spine, but she pushed up onto all fours, and the freedom of movement helped keep her anxiety at bay. Trying to seem like the movement had been nothing more than a casual stretch, she lay back down, chest against Ian’s, and waited for their shared body warmth to steal through her T-shirt.
Ian pulled Cecily up for a kiss, slow and undemanding. His hands never moved down to her hips or back or T-shirt but stayed tangled in her hair, and she let the kiss relax her into the possessive touch. She moved one hand to trace the line of his jaw with soft kisses.
“You’re right, you know.”
“Of course I am,” she answered with a curious smile, continuing a lazy path up toward Ian’s ear.
He laughed and said, “About the shaving. It’s an interesting difference.”
Cecily could feel his smirk against her cheek. “I’m always right,” she teased and then nipped at Ian’s earlobe. In response, his fingers twisted, and heat spiked down from her scalp, making her skin tingle. She shifted to get her legs over his, regretting the thin fabric of her underwear separating their bodies.
Deciding it was the perfect time to do something about that, she shifted her weight to free her left hand and clawed at the waistband. Ian made no effort to help. Instead, he took advantage of the distraction to bite more sharply at Cecily’s throat, and the tingling in her body turned to fire. She fought to get the waistband over her hips, shoved the underwear down as far as she could, and kicked them off the rest of the way.
When she straddled Ian once more and rolled her hips, pleasure shot through her body like a lightning strike. He let out a soft gasp of his own. His hands relaxed, releasing Cecily’s hair, and he shifted himself down on the pillows. “Move up,” he said, reaching down to curl his hands over her thighs.
Momentarily confused, Cecily rose up on all fours, spreading her legs when Ian inched down even farther. Then he moved down, still lying on his back, and she forgot how to breathe as she realized what Ian was planning.
“Ian, you—Oh, fuck,” she gasped, feeling his tongue sweep over her clit. One hand slid over the back of Cecily’s left thigh, holding her in place.
“Stay still,” Ian said, his voice gravelly and quiet. His hand moved farther up, fingers curving around Cecily’s ass as he licked again.
She bit her lip to keep from cursing. The blanket’s weight draped over her back was almost too much, but it was soft and familiar. She took deep breaths of c
old air from the room mixed with the slight warmth trapped beneath the blankets. Her fingers dug into the sheets, and she pushed the pillow away. Breathing a bit more easily, she braced herself on her left hand and reached down with her right, searching for Ian in the darkness under the blanket.
“Cecily,” he warned sharply. “Stay still.”
She hesitated, very much aware of her body, positioned exactly how Ian had placed her, though she wasn’t held down or trapped in any way. It was different and tense, but not quite enough to push her over the edge into fear. She took a deep breath and forced herself to think about complying and waited to see if the fucked-up darkness in her mind would wreck everything.
Finally, she decided she could do this. She wanted to do this, or at least to try.
Slowly, she pulled her hand back and dug her fingers into the sheet, balancing her weight on all fours again.
Ian didn’t say anything, which was fine with Cecily. This wasn’t something she was prepared to think about, much less to discuss—not that she could have tried, once he went back to his meticulous attentions. This time, as he pressed his tongue to her clit, rubbing in gentle circles, he teased a finger at her entrance.
She let out a soft moan and buried her face against her forearms. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had done anything like this, and by the time Ian slid a finger inside her, Cecily gave up even trying to think.
***
With every touch, Ian could track Cecily’s thoughts. She was torn between allowing him to explore her body and wanting to leave, and her thighs were so tense that she was trembling. Her abdomen was tight from trying to control her breathing. Between the mattress and his best efforts to break down her self-control, she was struggling to stay balanced on all fours. Her shoulder probably still hurt, especially after the cold and stress of driving the quad over rough terrain. But short of standing up in the middle of the room, this was the best way to keep Cecily warm, give Ian access to her body, and leave her free to escape if she felt the need.
That restriction was perhaps more difficult for him than it was for her. He wanted nothing more than to throw her down on her back and pin her to the mattress, leaving her body open for him to take whatever he wanted, but not yet. Perhaps not ever, though he would work diligently to help Cecily overcome her fears. The thought of watching her struggle to endure not pain but pleasure, of Ian pushing the boundaries of her desire before granting her any relief, was intoxicating.