by Celia Ashley
Paige shook her head. “I heard—well, felt, really—footsteps on the ground, running toward us. I don’t have a real clear recollection of much after that until the ambulance came. It was probably the Marine Patrol guy at the barrier. He just didn’t get there in time to catch him.”
Liam nodded. “Do you—do you mind if I get into bed with you? I want to hold you. That’s all. Nothing else.”
Scooting closer to the edge of the mattress, Paige made room for him to climb over and stretch out behind her. He reached for the crumpled blanket and spread it across both their bodies before circling her with one arm, pressing as near as he dared with her injured hip. “Let me know when you want that tea. I’ll help you.”
“Maybe later. I don’t mind cold tea. For now, I think lying here like this is good.”
He kissed her shoulder blade through a shirt much stained from her battle, then lowered his head onto his folded arm on the pillow.
“If I felt better…” she mumbled.
“I know.”
“At least you got to see the ghost on the beach. That’s got to be one thrill for the night.”
“Sure.”
“You don’t sound thrilled.”
“You’ve seen one ghost, you’ve seen them all.”
“Liam.”
“What about you? You’re not even scared.”
She was quiet so long he thought she’d dozed off, but then she stirred. “People are far scarier than something that goes bump in the night.”
He felt like he’d been stabbed, eviscerated, left to bleed in a silent agony of guilt. “Paige, if I’d known, I wouldn’t have left you. I should have—”
“Liam, stop—”
“I should have been there.”
“Liam, this isn’t the same. I’m not your wife, your daughter. And even that wasn’t your fault.”
“But instead of staying with you, I ran off to rescue someone else. Someone who didn’t need rescuing, but even so—”
“Helping people appears to be your nature. Don’t condemn yourself for that. I’m sure tonight was hard for you and I’m, well, I’m proud of you.”
Liam said nothing. His heart swelled with gratitude.
“Besides, half of what happened was my fault. More than half. I got out of the Jeep at the dock. I lost it and jumped on the bastard.”
“You did do that, didn’t you?” Liam smiled. “God, Paige, you are…are…”
“Insane? Yeah.”
“Okay. Rather wonderfully, in fact. And if you ever do anything like that again, I’ll borrow Stauffer’s manacles and handcuff you to the bed.”
Silence again. Liam leaned up on an elbow, peering around her hair. “Paige?”
“Sorry. Just picturing that scenario.”
Groaning, Liam tossed the covers off and got back out of the bed. “Not fair, Ms. Waters. You’re broken, remember?”
“Only parts of me,” she said, “and they’re merely dislocated.”
At the renewed reminder, Liam’s brief and ill-timed flare of arousal faded. He knelt down on the floor beside the mattress, bending to look into Paige’s eyes. After a moment, he smoothed the riotous curls back from her face. “You know I’d like nothing more than to make love to you, don’t you? I probably think about it one second out of every sixty.”
She snorted.
“But you’ve had a rough night. I realize that’s an understatement, but that’s where we’ll leave it.”
Paige studied his face, the mask of calm hiding deeper concern. “Your night hasn’t been easy, either.”
“But you should sleep. I’ll—” He glanced around the room, sighting the paperback on the nightstand. “I’ll read for a while.”
“What? My little mystery novel?”
“I’ve read worse. Hell, I’ve written worse.”
“I don’t like being scared, Liam.”
He kissed her on the forehead and stood. “I know you don’t. But you’re the bravest scared person I’ve ever met.” He tucked the blanket around her shoulders and retrieved the book. Pulling the chair closer to the bed, he sat on the hard wooden seat, stretching out both legs, ankles crossed on the end of the mattress. As he opened the novel, a piece of paper fluttered to the floor.
“Don’t lose that,” Paige said sleepily, pulling the blanket up around her face to block the light. “Call me sappy, but I thought your note was very sweet when I found it. It made me smile.”
Sweet? After he’d penned the message on the Post-It, he’d felt the sentiment rather abrupt, considering the night they’d shared. Still, he wasn’t about to argue. Stretching his fingers out over the floorboards, he grabbed the paper between two of them and dropped it on the open page of the book to smooth the edges. His heart nearly stopped mid-beat.
MISS ME YET?
He hadn’t written those words. But he knew who had.
Chapter 22
Paige awoke in darkness with a scream careening around inside her head. She knew it had stayed there and not escaped her open mouth when she found Liam fast asleep beside her, undisturbed. She listened to his even breathing, his body warm and solid against her back. After a minute, she eased out from beneath the blanket—no mean feat with her limbs protesting every movement—and stood beside the bed. The floor was cold beneath her feet even though the small window air conditioner wasn’t running. The temperature outside had probably dropped. It did most nights. And what with that damned mouse-infested crawlspace directly beneath…well, she wouldn’t think about the area under the cottage. Not tonight.
She padded into the bathroom to use the toilet. After twisting off the faucet and watching soapy water swirl down the drain, she lifted her head slowly to the mirror.
Don’t you see your dead mama? You’re the spitting image…
Maybe she was. She’d heard it often enough. But she’d always had her father’s hair. She didn’t thank him for it. Not for the mess of it, not for the reminder. Right now, she didn’t look much like either of them. Her cheekbone was blackened, the side of her face swollen and her skin had a pasty, sullen cast to it. She leaned forward, tapping a finger to the glass.
“Lovely.”
Whoever that asshole was, he’d known her mother in her younger days in Alcina Cove. Paige’s resemblance to her parent before their flight South would be the most evident, not what her mother had become through loneliness and illness. The likelihood of an association to her father had grown into the most plausible connection. And why not? A couple of bastards together. Buddies with a common theme.
She shouldn’t have let her anger get the best of her. But what the hell did he want? Could be Dan and Liam were right. She should go back to Tennessee. But she wasn’t a runner. She figured some things you learned were contrary to what you were taught. Like standing your ground.
Hearing a noise, Paige turned her back on her reflection and flicked off the light. She opened the door and stood a moment on the stained marble threshold, listening. She heard it again. Not Liam. Creeping toward the door, she paused a couple of feet away and waited. As soon as she heard the sound repeated, she hobbled to the door and threw the bolt.
“Come in here, Shadow.”
Black against black, Liam’s cat whisked inside. Scooting past her, he made a beeline for the bed and jumped onto it, momentarily startled to find the mattress occupied. Recognizing Liam, the cat settled down, curling up against his waist. Paige started to shut the door, her grasp already firm on the deadbolt, but stopped, attention captured by movement on the ocean.
A few hundred yards beyond the breakers, a small vessel moved without lights, cutting across the waves and leaving a foaming silver trail in its wake. Frowning, Paige stepped outside onto the doorstep and watched the ship until it rounded the jetty and disappeared from view. She supposed enough starlight and reflected illumination existed by which to navigate, but it was a foolish undertaking, running dark like that, especially when the outgoing tide te
nded to expose rock precariously close to the surface.
Dismissing someone else’s stupidity as not her problem, Paige turned on her bare heel. She caught sight of a light in one of the windows next door through the tree branches. With a startled gasp, her mind leapt ahead in a frantic scramble for her cell phone’s last location, but in the next instant, she recalled the timer plugged into the lamp on the living room table.
“Right. Idiot.” She needed to calm down. Really, what she needed was Liam. If not for her battered condition and his obvious exhaustion, she would have woken him up in a most satisfying manner and sought both solace and forgetfulness in his arms. Wasn’t that what she did best? Used a man and then let him go? But she didn’t want to let Liam go. She wanted to hold onto him tight, a desire that seemed, in the bare bones hours just before dawn, a craving more desperate than adoring. Liam deserved better. He deserved someone unscathed and unscarred. She’d meant it when she’d called him a very nice man earlier. That description was, to her, one of the highest caliber. So few of them existed, nice men, especially outrageously sexy nice men. With a touch of mystery. He had that, too.
Shuffling unevenly through the darkened room, she located her abandoned mug of tea on the nightstand and sipped the sweet room temperature liquid. Mug in hand, she made her way over to the side window and peered out between the curtains in the direction of her childhood home. As a breeze rattled long pine needles, the bulb burning brightly between the parted drapes at the side living room window appeared to leap from side to side. As soon as the wind settled, so did the light, returning to steady constancy. It was important to recognize how easily one could be fooled by variants. She needed to take more time, not be so damned reactionary. She needed to recognize certain truths about herself, about the people in her life, and accept them. If she never found out all she needed to about her parents, so be it. Life would go on.
As for the bookmark-photo-stealing lunatic—well now, that was a different matter.
“Hey.”
“Is for horses,” Paige whispered, remembering the aphorism much abused by her mom.
A rumble coursed in Liam’s throat, like a growl or a fiercely contained laugh. The bed frame creaked beneath his shifting weight. “When did Shadow get here?”
“About five minutes ago.”
“How long have you been awake?”
“About five minutes longer than that.”
“What time is it?”
“The time?” she said, lifting the mug to her mouth again. “I don’t know.”
She heard him fumbling around, presumably in search of his phone. A few seconds later the screen lit up, illuminating the darkness around his face, revealing him sleepy-eyed and frowning as he read the time. “Come back to bed.” He clicked the phone off.
Swallowing a last mouthful, Paige set the mug on the windowsill and climbed into bed as he slid over to accommodate her, his left arm wide and ready to wrap around her shoulders. She placed her head on his chest. His heart thumped beneath her ear in steady, comforting rhythm. Beside him, Shadow made a small sound and slid away.
“How are you feeling?” Liam asked.
“Sore. Stupid. Anxious. Angry.”
His ribcage expanded and shook against her cheek. “So ‘better’ isn’t in there anywhere?”
“No, better is in there. I feel a little better.”
“Liar.”
“That’s me,” she said.
He began to stroke her hair back from her crown in slow, easy movements, making her want to hum like a bee. She closed her eyes, maintaining a resolute silence.
“I care about you, Paige.”
Paige’s gaze shifted to the wall across the room where passing headlights out on the road described a diffuse, moving arc across the painted boards. “Okay.”
“Don’t sound so scared. For crying out loud, you leapt on the back of a stalker. I tell you I care about you, and you act like you stepped into a cage with a lion.”
She pressed herself closer to the warmth of his body. “Well, it sounded like there was going to be a ‘but’ at the end of that statement.”
“No but,” he said.
She breathed, each inhalation bringing the scent of him into her nostrils, into her bloodstream, like an intoxicant. “And yet, you’re afraid of caring, aren’t you?”
He didn’t answer, continuing to massage her scalp in long strokes.
“It’s all right,” she whispered. “I am, too.”
“Do you think I’ll hurt you?”
“Right now, or ever?”
“Both.”
He deserved an honest answer, but she couldn’t give it to him. Such a response could never be withdrawn down the line. It would always lurk in the background to haunt them both, subtly painting the relationship in miasmal hues. Thinking of what she and Liam had as a relationship, however, sent a small thrill through her veins that was its own hope. “Let’s worry about now first, shall we? Like how you’re going to avoid all these bruises when you put your hands on me.”
“Paige we can’t—”
“Too late.” She lifted his hand and placed his fingers gently on the swell of her breast. “Done deal.”
His groan turned into a rumble of laughter. “Oh, well, if I must.”
“I do insist.”
“Bossy wench.”
“Gets the job done.”
“Not if I refu—” The air rushed from his lungs as she stroked the length of his penis.
“I would say,” she whispered, “that the whole business of an erection is like wilting in reverse, except you were well on your way to being hard. I don’t think refusal was really on your mind.”
“Take off your clothes, Paige.”
“Now who’s the bossy one?”
“I wear the pants, don’t I?”
She laughed. “Not at the moment.”
The only thing he had been wearing was his boxers, but she’d already managed to shove them halfway down his thighs. She trailed her fingers along his leg, sensing the shiver beneath her touch. Aware, too, not only of the ridges and hollows of his musculature, but of the scars she’d seen.
“Don’t ask,’ he said above her head. “Not yet. There will be time to explain everything to you.”
Time. She liked the sound of that. Not the time kept by the ticking of a clock, by the movement of hands in constant forward momentum around a numbered face, but the time measured by events and growth and change.
She left off exploring the sensitive skin on his thigh, where hair follicles lifted in her fingertip’s wake, and shifted her attention to the tightening flesh of his balls. His breath whistled in over his teeth as his belly expanded beneath her cheek. Remembering her thoughts about his possible conservative nature, she said, “May I?”
“May you what?”
“This.” The moan, the shuddering tremor, was her answer. She ran her tongue over him again. He arched and sighed and said something she did not quite hear. Suddenly she felt his fingers circling her arms, pulling her up and away.
“Ow, ow, ow,” she said, as she flipped onto her knees beside him.
“I’m sorry.”
She kissed him. “Not to worry.”
“No. I’m really sorry. About everything.”
She let out a breath. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
He tugged the hem of her blouse. “Can I take this off without hurting you?”
“Yes.”
With exaggerated care, he removed every stitch she wore until she sat naked on the mattress. He then stripped off his own garments and lay back down. “There’s only one way we’re going to do this, Paige. You can’t move.”
“That doesn’t sound fun.”
“Neither do cries of pain. Got it?” Placing a pillow beneath her hips, Liam helped her to lie on her back. “You know that expression, about the first two inches?”
“Mmm, maybe?”
“Liar. Th
at’s all you’re getting, though. Those contusions on your hip are no laughing matter.”
Paige ran a fingertip around his nipple. “If you don’t want to…”
“Oh, I want to.”
Taking her hands, he placed them on the headboard, curling the fingers of her left around the metal. “Hold on there and don’t touch me. Control is going to be difficult enough without you doing the things you like to do. Understood?”
She nodded. Rising above her, he slanted his mouth across hers, his tongue moving in slow exploration. He then kissed her jaw, her throat, her breast. He licked her nipple, toyed with it, made her moan. Slipping his fingers inside, he tested her restraint, stopping every time she began to rock to the motion of his caress. Her grip tightened on the headboard. His thumb began a slow rotation on the slippery nub of flesh between her legs.
“Don’t move.”
She gasped as sensation rocketed from her core to every nerve ending in her body. He clamped her nipple between his teeth, lapping at it with delicate strokes. She released the headboard and took him in her hand, delighting in his rushing breath across her flesh, the way he liberated her breast from exquisite torture to arch back in a shuddering moan.
“Paige…”
“Liam.”
“What?”
“Two inches be damned.”
He plunged himself inside her, all pain forgotten as her pleasured cries mingled with the rumbling of her name. Tomorrow, she might awaken unable to move, but tonight—tonight she wanted to know she was his.
* * * *
Sauntering from Paige’s cottage toward his home, carrying Shadow in one arm, Liam turned his head to watch the sun lift above the horizon. With its initial flicker the waves turned gold and in the next instant became striated with silver and orange across the deep gray-green waters. Despite everything in the offing, Liam experienced pervading contentment.
Until he stepped up on the porch and spotted the broken glass on the door.
* * * *