The Asset

by Anna del Mar

  “Really?” He rolled his eyes. “Okay, I’ll just say it, then. I want you to sleep in my bed.”

  My heart did that Irish jig thing again, but my mind crushed it like a giant mallet. “No.”

  “Why not?” he said. “We did it last night and you didn’t complain.”

  “Last night was an exception.”

  “Or a first time.”

  Every cell in my body twinkled like the brightest stars, but the realist in me wasn’t fooled by things like joy and anticipation. “Let’s just leave it like it is.”

  “Let’s not,” he said. “Come to bed. Think of it as therapy.”

  “Therapy?”

  “Yes, Lia, therapy.” He huffed, not a little exasperated. “I don’t know what happened before I met you, but I know trauma when I see it, and you’re really screwed up. The only way to get over your fears is to confront them. You fear getting in bed with me? Then you need to do exactly that.”

  Holy Mother.

  “Choose,” he said. “You can sleep here with me or sleep here without me.”

  I didn’t know what to do.

  “Come on, Neil.” Ash got up from the bed and grabbed his pillow and his cane. “We’ll go sleep in the freezer next door.”

  That room got too cold. He wouldn’t get a wink of rest. He’d have nightmares for sure. He could get sick just from sleeping in there...

  “Wait.”

  Both Ash and Neil froze in place.

  “If I get in bed with you,” I said, “there will be none of that kissing stuff and no hanky-panky.”

  He straightened and crossed his arms. “You don’t like kissing?”

  “I like kissing fine.”

  “Then you have some specific grievances about the way I kissed you today?”

  “No, I mean, that’s not the point.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “What is the point of this discussion?”

  “We have an arrangement,” I said. “I’m your caretaker—I mean, caregiver—and you’ll be moving on as soon as Gunny Watkins gives you your medical release.”

  He sighed, dropped the pillow on the bed and plopped down on the mattress. “What am I going to do with you? Please, come to bed. I promise: no kissing and no hanky-panky, unless you decide that’s exactly what you want, in which case, I’ll be happy to oblige.”

  “I’m serious,” I said. “You and I—we can’t get involved.”

  “Newsflash,” he said. “We’re already involved.”

  “What?”

  “You were there,” he said. “This afternoon. When I kissed you? You know.”

  The shiver that fringed my spine teased every part of me. It tickled my belly, curled my toes and tightened my nipples. They poked through my T-shirt as if I’d been hit with a burst of arctic air. Ash noticed, no doubt about it. His stare only aggravated my condition. I blushed to the roots of my hair.

  “And modest to boot.” Ash lifted the bedcovers. “Come on.”

  The fear, it was like Red Rush, barreling through my veins. It raked my guts and wiped out my brain. But this was Ash. I’d cared for Ash. I trusted him. And he was not going to go to sleep in this bed unless I did too.

  I hesitated. I drew in a great gulp of courage then marched across the room, got in the bed and slid between the sheets.

  “That a girl.” He tucked the covers around me, slid his shoulder beneath my head and scooped me close to him. “That wasn’t so hard.”

  “Good night,” I said in a tone that forbade talk or touch.

  “Good night.” He chuckled quietly.

  * * *

  I woke up later that night, snug in Ash’s bed, firmly ensconced in his arms. Basking in his body’s heat, I was beyond warm. I was really hot. I shed one of the blankets and tucked the remaining sheet beneath my armpits. That’s when I noticed the blue eyes beaming at me and something else, something much more alarming.

  I launched out of the bed like a gold-medal sprinter, but I got snared in Ash’s hold before I managed to hit the floor. I ended up clinging to my pillow with my backside pressed to him, no less exposed to his offending parts.

  “Sorry about that.” He held me tightly and gently at the same time. “But I swear, you’re safe. Please, don’t go. You’ve got to know that I’d never hurt you.”

  My heart pumped at a mad rate. My lungs refused to draw in the air. I had to try to set aside the fear. From his doggy bed, Neil raised his head briefly then lowered it back onto his paws. He would have alerted if I was in danger. Right? He would have alerted me, even if the danger came from Ash.

  “Give me a moment,” Ash said. “Let me see what the hell I can do about this. I’m thinking triangles and squares, cold showers and icy lakes. In the meanwhile, try to relax. You don’t have a thing to fear from me. Okay?”

  “Okay,” I squeaked, scooting away on the mattress, putting some space between his body and mine, breathing, always breathing. “Do you—um—do you have to do that?”

  “Christ, Lia, the things you ask.” He scooped me right back against his chest. “It’s a biological response, a natural reflex. It’s not so easy to suppress when you’re lying next to someone you want.”

  If I had been woolly before, now I was wide-awake. He wanted me? Beyond a kiss, he wanted me?

  “I’m not a beast,” he said. “Wanting is one thing. Taking is quite the other. I don’t have to act on my impulses. I promise.”

  At a rational level, I understood what he meant, but a jolt of stomach-turning fear reminded me that other people out there had no such restraint.

  “To be honest, it’s not such bad news,” he said. “At least not for me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s sort of a relief.”

  I shifted in his arms and craned my neck to lay eyes on his face. “Relief?”

  “Lying in that hospital bed, one had to wonder if all the plumbing is going to work right. Lots of guys do.”

  Had I become the most selfish, self-centered witch in the universe? I hadn’t thought about him after the explosion, coming out of months of painful treatment in the hospital, about his injuries and how they would have impacted his body’s natural functions, his state of mind and his confidence. I forced aside my fears to pay attention to his. I remembered that day at the dock. His plumbing seemed to be working just fine and his reaction had echoed in my body in a way that warmed me all over again now.

  “Well,” I mumbled. “Now you know that you can load the old cannon.”

  He laughed so hard that the whole bed shook. “True,” he said, “at least when you’re around. It’s not what you want to hear, I know, but it’s the God’s honest truth.”

  A new front opened up in the battle raging inside me. I gnawed on my lips until they hurt. On one side, reason argued on behalf of common sense and survival. On the other side, my heart longed to break free and my body craved what my heart wanted.

  I turned ever so slightly in his arms. The pretext of helping him to heal lent me the strength I needed. But it was just a pretext. As I reached out under the covers, I wanted to touch him. I wanted to touch him intimately. I wanted to touch him...there.

  My fingers slid over the fabric of his boxers, outlining the bulk of his erection. Something stirred deep inside me, something primal and powerful capable of giving my fear a run for its money. He was already hard, but when my hand brushed against it, his cock tightened.

  “Lia?” His body went as rigid as his erection. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Um...” I gulped dryly. “Helping out?”

  He rumbled quietly. “Is that so?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “In that case... Take your hand off me.”

  “But—”

  “That’s not how it works.”
He grabbed my hand and placed it over the covers. “And I won’t have it like that.”

  “I... I just wanted to help.”

  “Don’t.”

  He might as well have punched me in the gut. He didn’t really want me to touch him after all. My blush was so hot that my face was probably glowing in the dark.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled. “I just thought that you—that maybe you wanted me to...”

  He scoffed, “The understatement of the century.”

  I frowned in the darkness.

  “Look at me.” He turned me around in his arms and tilted up my chin until I was doing exactly that. “That’s better. Don’t be afraid and don’t be mad at me either. Get this through your thick skull: I don’t want your pity and I sure as hell don’t want you to make out with me out of a twisted sense of obligation.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “What do you want then?”

  “I want you to want me.”

  “Oh.”

  “Anything less is a bust.” He planted a quick kiss on my lips. “Now go to sleep. Don’t be afraid. I don’t know what kind of life you lived before this one, but I’m not going to force, coax or seduce you. On the other hand, I do plan to be around when you’re ready for me.”

  Chapter Ten

  Mario’s bustled Friday evening, buzzing like a frantic hive, jammed with people from wall to wall, loud with conversation and laughter. Jimmy Martin kept the dance floor crowded, belting out his folksy version of “Some Nights.” An accident had closed the interstate, kept the gas crews in town and brought in the employees seeking to escape the resort’s expensive bubble.

  I was busy. The night promised aching feet but good tips. The money would be good. Maybe I could help pay for the cottage’s internet after all. My heart tripped when Charlie Nowak showed up with some of his friends. He’d been staying away lately. I took their order and served them a few pitchers of beer without suffering for it. Maybe he’d gotten the message and learned a good lesson.

  As always, I kept my eyes on the door and my senses on alert. Jordan came in, a little later than usual. He smiled at me as he walked toward the bar. I poured for him and plunked down the mug in front of him.

  “Thanks.” He took a sip of his beer. “Listen, I just wanted to tell you—he’s not so bad.”

  “Who?” I said.

  “Ash,” Jordan said. “I might have been a little tough on him. The guy’s got his shortcomings, but he’s not an ungrateful fool. And since I’ve gotten to know him, I like him.”

  “You’ve gotten to know him?” Really? “When?”

  “He stopped by my office a few weeks ago to pay his bill,” Jordan said. “I’d never had a human for a patient before. I charged him as if he was his dog. He got a kick out of that. We’ve had a few beers since. I’ve gone out to the ranch a couple of times to help with the cleanup. He’s a good one, Lia.”

  A few beers? Ash and Jordan had struck a friendship without my knowledge. Why did the association feel subversive? And why on earth was Jordan telling me that Ash was ‘a good one?’

  Jordan’s jaw tightened. “You could’ve given me a chance.”

  “Huh?” I was really having trouble following.

  “You could’ve at least considered me,” Jordan said. “You know, pre-Ash?”

  “Pre-Ash?”

  Jordan just stared at me.

  “Oh, no.” My stomach squeezed with fear. I would’ve never considered endangering Jordan like that, just as I couldn’t endanger Ash now. “I couldn’t... I can’t...” Panic. I swallowed around the lump in my throat. I had to dispel the dangerous notion on the spot. “You think that Ash and I...?” My snort sounded as fake as it was. “No way. You’ve gotten the wrong impression.”

  Jordan’s mouth twisted into a smirk. “Ash said that’s exactly what you would say. He said you’d deny everything. You really are a lot like his great-grandfather’s mare.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “It’s a good story.” Jordan’s smirk shifted into a genuine smile. “Hasn’t he told it to you?”

  “Nope.”

  “One day, Ash’s great-grandfather found this wild mare grazing in his pastures,” Jordan said. “She was a beauty, but she wouldn’t let him come close, biting and kicking whenever he tried to approach her, except when he brought her apples.”

  “Apples?”

  “She liked apples,” Jordan said. “So for three years, Ash’s great-grandfather brought the skittish mare apples every afternoon, until one day, after all that time, the mare followed him to the stables and took up residence.”

  A skittish mare? I gritted my teeth. The gall of that man.

  “Hey, Jordan,” the sheriff called from his perch at the VIP table. “Come settle a bet. What’s the difference between an ass and a mule?”

  “I’m coming.” Jordan chugged down his beer then smirked at me. “All this time, I thought you just weren’t interested in me. Now I know better. You’re oblivious, not to mention skittish as hell. But I suppose that’s Ash’s problem now. Got to go.” Jordan offered his hand. “Are we cool?”

  We shook. “We’re cool.”

  Jordan went to set aright the nuances of the equine world. My mind was going in circles and my belly churned. How was I going to keep Ash safe when he went around telling people we were together?

  I couldn’t think of a thing, probably because I’d grown so comfortable with Ash’s presence in my life. Sure, he drove out to the ranch every day, where he and the guys worked to clear the fire’s debris, but he always returned to take a late lunch with me by the lake before he went to rehab. My car was off-limits, so he insisted on driving me to work and picking me up every night. Dinner was a late-night meal—Ash’s best efforts to meld my limited palate with his lofty nutritional expectations.

  It was the best life I’d ever lived and it seemed to work well for Ash, who was getting better by leaps and bounds. My only regret was that it had to end and soon. The problem wasn’t Ash, who kept his word at every turn. The problem was me.

  I woke up at night in his arms, yearning for more of him, longing for his affection and haunted by desires I hadn’t known I had until I landed in his bed. I craved his mouth like an addict, but as promised, he behaved like a gentleman, especially in bed, where every night, I wished he made an exception. His body called to mine. Or was it my body screaming for his?

  A poke from Mario startled me.

  “You look like you’re about to combust with worry,” he said. “Need a break?”

  “Do I ever.” I made for the back door, fanning my face.

  As soon as I stepped out, I breathed in great quantities of crisp air, but even the brisk Colorado breeze failed to cool down my anxiety. I paced back and forth in the alley, feeling restless, nervous and irritable, not unlike...a skittish mare.

  Shoot.

  A screech interrupted my thoughts. I recognized the sound immediately. Animal screams. They came from the huge dumpster parked under a flickering security light at the far end of the building. I looked up and down the blind alley. Nobody was about.

  I dragged a crate over to the industrial-size garbage bin and climbed on it. The metal lid weighed a ton, but I managed to lift one of the halves. No critters shot out, so I peered inside. The light was tenuous at best, but what I saw broke my heart: a raccoon entangled in a mess of ropes struggling in the corner. One of the ropes was coiled tightly around its neck.

  “You’re in a heap of trouble.”

  I had no idea how the raccoon had gotten there, but it was obvious that the small bandit, probably a juvenile, was in distress. If he managed to survive the night, the garbage truck’s compactor would surely kill him in the morning.

  “All right, buddy.” I straddled one leg over the edge of the dumpster and then the other.
“I’m coming.” Hanging over the edge, I couldn’t reach the bottom. I let go, dropped down and landed on my feet. God almighty, this was a big-ass dumpster. It didn’t smell great either. Thank heavens that the weather was cool. The stench would have been unbearable in the summer. I stepped over only a few scattered trash bags and made my way to the corner. The frightened animal growled at me.

  “I know,” I said. “You’re really scared. I’m going to try to help you, but can you please try not to bite me?”

  I crouched out of striking distance. I pulled on the ropes, but the noose actually tightened around the raccoon’s neck. Perhaps if I pulled from the other side...

  “Who do we have here?” A voice from above startled me.

  I looked up. Charlie Nowak smirked down on me from his perch on the crate.

  “Why, if it isn’t Lia,” he said. “What a surprise. It never occurred to me that you’d go out of your way to rescue a pest. No sir, never crossed my mind.”

  My stare shifted between Charlie and the raccoon. The animal hadn’t gotten into the garbage bin all by itself. It had been trapped and transported here for one purpose only: revenge.

  I rose to my feet slowly, keeping my eyes on the man looming above me.

  “Charlie,” I said. “I don’t want any more trouble with you.”

  “Then you shouldn’t have kneed me in the balls,” he said. “You should have skipped the pepper spray and accepted my invitation.”

  “You were drunk. Go back to the bar and forget about it.”

  “No fucking way,” he said. “You’re gonna pay your dues. My friends saw what happened. Beat by a fucking woman...”

  Oh, my God. He was serious.

  He pulled down on the lid. With a running start, I leaped, trying to keep it from closing, but my effort was for naught. It crashed down with a ground-rattling boom. Darkness and terror slammed on me at the same time. Confinement was one of my worst fears. The memories. All those hours spent trapped and alone came back to haunt me. My pulse broke out into a gallop. Don’t panic. Keep it together, even if my legs were reduced to rattling sticks.

  I forced my voice out of my throat. “This is not funny, Charlie. Let me out.”