Heath hadn’t even asked my permission. He’d come to see me whether I wanted him there or not. As much as it sucked to admit, there was a lot I needed to thank him for.
“Can I get you anything?”
I look from the door to his face, his light blue eyes gray in the darkening room. He needed to stop being so nice; it was putting a hitch in my whole hating him plan.
Distance would be helpful.
With a tilt of my head toward the hallway, I say, “I think I’ll go lie down.”
He stands. “Here, let me help you.”
Before I can argue, he’s behind me and pushing me to his spare bedroom.
“You don’t have to,” I murmur, my right hand gripping the arm of my chair.
If he heard me, he makes no indication. My head twists to the right as he passes the spare room, and wheels me into his room.
“This is your room,” I hiss.
“I know, the bed is bigger so you’ll be more comfortable,” he explains from behind me.
I’ve spent every night since the mudslide in a twin-sized hospital bed. The double in his spare room will already be plenty big in comparison.
“The bed in your spare room will be fine and you already moved the TV there,” I argue.
“My dad upgraded the TV in their den. I brought their old one back with me to go in here. It was bigger than the one I had.”
No, I cannot sleep in his bed.
“I’ll pull the blankets back,” he says, moving past me and straight to his bed.
My brain cries out for him not to touch the sheets I’ll need to sleep against. It will be impossible to block him from my thoughts if they smell like him. I banish that thought, realizing that by being in his house in the first place has already done that. The whole place smells like his cologne, somehow clean, woodsy and spicy all at the same time.
Being surrounded by the subtle hints of his scent is torture. I know exactly where that scent is the strongest: on his skin. Worse, I know what each and every one of those places taste like. I had sought them out, pushed him back onto my bed and licked, kissed, and nibbled his skin in search of the places where his irresistible scent was the strongest.
Gulping, I focus on my lap, praying that he can’t see how his nearness still affects me. That’s why I’m not ready when his hand is suddenly under me, lifting me up as his other arm cradles me against his chest. He then settles me gently onto his bed.
This is the first time I’ve been in his bed. All of our time together had been spent at my place. That should have been a red flag that he was trying to hide our . . . relationship is not the right word, our whatever we were.
“This is weird,” I murmur, my right hand pulling away from the fabric of his sheets as if it burns.
He ignores me. “I’ll be right back with the TV.”
I stare at the spot were seconds ago he stood. What would he do if I got back into my chair and wheeled myself to his spare room? Would he just pick me up and carry me back here? I can’t sleep in his bed. I can barely wrap my brain around the idea of sleeping in his apartment at all.
His bed? No.
I was under the impression I’d be in his spare room. Did that plan somehow change when he was at his parents? That seems like a cruel and unusual punishment. My head against his pillows? Does someone hate me?
That’s the only logical explanation I can come up with. It’s not fair to be tempted considering what he did. The thing that scares me the most though is his motivation. Is the only reason he’s doing all of this because he feels guilty?
It won’t take a rocket scientist to figure out he was the reason I was up at the cabin in the first place. Are his visits and his need to take care of me now coming from him feeling obligated to?
“This won’t take long to set up,” he says, walking back through the door, a decent-sized flat screen TV in his hands.
It was definitely bigger than the one currently in the spare room.
He keeps talking. “I have Netflix and all the movie channels or if you want, I can rent something on pay per view.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I softly argue.
He straightens a cord that goes from the cable box to his TV still in his hand. “I know that. I want to do this.”
“What if I don’t want you to do this?” I press.
“Set up the TV?” he asks with a teasing smile.
He wants me to come out and say it.
“Take care of me.”
He drops the cord and crosses the room to me.
Sitting on the edge of his bed, he places a hand on either side of my neck, his thumbs coming to rest below my ears. “I want to take care of you and I want you in my bed, long after your casts come off.”
He did not just say that.
I stare at him. Inside my chest I can actually feel my heart twist. How can one beating jumble of flesh melt and freeze all at the same time? His words are almost irresistible but I know what happened to Eve after she was tempted by that snake.
He won’t draw me in again.
As pretty as the picture he paints seems, I know how those colors will bleed and run in the rain. “You don’t always get what you—”
He cuts me off before I can finish by lightly, so very lightly, pressing his lips to mine.
How can a kiss hurt more than a broken bone?
The pain isn’t physical. His lips are feather light against mine; it’s mental. It’s a rip, a tear in the shield I’ve wrapped around myself.
I wasn’t prepared for a gentle assault, none of my defenses worked. My fingers itch to reach for him, to grab on tight and hold him to me, to never ever let him go. He’s quicksand though; he has a way of dragging me down before I’ll have a chance of getting away.
Pulling my head back, I stare at him as he slowly opens his eyes and stares back.
“Do you want to pick the first movie?”
I blink. What?
Wait, is that seriously what he just said?
“I’m not watching a movie with you,” I grumble.
His expression is innocent as he replies, “You won’t even know I’m here. I just want to check out the picture quality.”
“The picture quality?” I ask.
He hooks a thumb over his shoulder and answers, “On the new-to-me TV.”
“What if I want to take a nap?” I ask.
He shrugs. “You can sleep through anything so I’ll keep the volume down.”
“Why don’t you let me sleep in your spare room?”
He pushes off from the bed and moves back to fiddling with the cords on the back of the TV. “I want you here.”
His answer is as simple as it is confusing.
“Why?”
He doesn’t hesitate and replies, “You already know the answer to that.”
That has me holding my tongue and turning his words over and over in my head. He continues to work on his TV while I watch. It’s not fair that even doing something so mundane, something as boring as hooking up a TV to a cable box and DVD player, he can be so attractive.
His gray T-shirt fits snugly across his broad shoulders and when he lifts one arm to reach a cord on the other side of the TV stand, his shirt lifts to expose a sliver of tan skin at his waist.
His soccer shorts hang low on his hips, drawing my eyes to places they should not go, let alone linger. If there wasn’t a giant pulsing red flag all over him, I’d chain him to a bed and keep him for my own personal enjoyment. Once I have these freaking casts off, at least.
Darn pulsing red flag. As long as that thing was around, I wasn’t going anywhere near him.
“Since you’re tired, I’ll pick the first movie,” Heath says, pulling me from my thoughts.
His eyes are on me and the smirk on his face makes me wonder if he caught me checking him out. My eyes go squinty and his smirk only deepens. All you have to do is keep your distance, I remind myself.
He leaves the room, returning shortly with a DVD case in his hand.
Once he loads it into the player, he comes and stretches out beside me on the bed.
“What are you doing? My voice is as shrill as I can manage behind the wires.
“Getting comfortable,” he explains, trying and failing to look innocent.
“You cannot lie in bed with me.”
He rubs his hands over the stretch of bed between us. “If you promise to stay on your side, I promise to stay on mine.”
Annoyed, I look around his room, anywhere but at him. A hole on the same wall as where his new TV sits catches my eye.
Before I can stop myself, my curiosity gets the better of me. “What happened to your wall?”
When he doesn’t reply, I look at him. His eyes are on the hole.
I start to repeat my question when he replies, “I punched it.”
He punched it?
Holy crap.
I’ve seen Heath pissed. Once I witnessed him and Jake Whitmore almost come to blows at Lola’s. That had been a shock then and seeing the evidence of his anger here in his apartment doubles it.
“Why?”
You’d think with a mouth wired shut I’d talk less.
His eyes move from the hole to lock onto mine. “I heard you took off with some guy.”
He did not just say that.
“You did not just say that.”
“You asked,” he mutters.
“Let me get this straight,” I hiss. “I leave because you get engaged and that pissed you off enough to punch a hole in your wall?”
I purposely do not admit the guy everyone thought I took off with was imaginary and that I actually crashed on Cecil’s couch. No, let him think I was sexing it up with some random guy. Serves him right.
“That engagement was a mistake. You have to believe that by now..”
I cross my good arm over my chest and glare at the TV. He is impossible. There is no point trying to reason with him. I’m just going to ignore him and take a nap.
Hopefully, if I’m asleep, he won’t be able to piss me off.
Unfortunately, all that talking made my jaw start to hurt. I lift my hand to cup it.
“Need a pain pill?” Heath asks, all frustration gone from his voice, now only concern in its place.
Glumly, I nod.
He gets up. In a flash, he’s back with one of my pills and a glass of water with a straw. Without argument I accept his help. In my defense I’m in pain.
“Can I get you anything else?”
When I shake my head, he gets back onto the bed.
Remote in hand, he starts the movie, a superhero action flick. Not that I’ll ever admit it to him, but it’s one of my favorites. Who doesn’t like a superhero movie?
As intent as I become in watching it, sleep still tugs at me. Settling further into soft pillows that smell like the man I wish I could forget, I drift.
A cannon blast or some sort of similar explosion from the movie startles me from my nap. Blinking open my eyes, I’m met with a wall of gray chest. Somehow as I slept, I either moved closer to him or he moved closer to me.
We’ve met somewhere in the middle of his bed. My good side snuggled close to him, his arm draped over me, a warm solid weight across my middle.
Did I move on my own? In my sleep did I do what my conscious mind was too afraid to and reach out? Could I allow myself to enjoy the make-believe perfection being in his arms offered?
I didn’t want to be awake. I wanted to drift again, this time content to know he held me. When I was a little girl, my Gigi would tell me bedtime stories and hold me until I fell asleep. She always said that if someone who loved you held you when you slept, that you could only dream good dreams.
I’ve never had a nightmare when I’ve fallen asleep in the arms of someone who loved me.
I’ve had nightmares each night since the mudslide, until last night.
Why waking up, warm and content in Heath’s arms reminds me of that I do not know. What I do know is it’s not fair. It isn’t. After weeks of recovery, and weeks more to go, I hate that the first time I’ve felt right again is in his arms. It has to be some tripped wire in my brain confusing now with then. Then, when everything was shiny and new with the possibility of us. Asleep I didn’t remember to hate him.
Awake I should pull away, but I don’t. No, I somehow snuggle even closer. My excuse is he doesn’t know I’m awake, so there’s no risk. When he wakes up, I’ll act all annoyed and offended by his proximity, as I should. I’ll also be firm on the no more movie watching together in his bed, or his room for that matter.
His excuse last night was he wanted to see how the TV compared to his old one. I still don’t get why he had to do it last night but, whatever. That’s done so he won’t be able to use that reason again. Besides, I only agreed to stay here one night. I held up my end of the bargain. Once I’m truly awake, I’ll find someone willing to take me in. Hell, I’ll even crash in someone’s garage if I have to. Anyplace would be better than here. Glancing up, I stare at the underside of Heath’s annoyingly square jaw.
He’s overdue for a shave. The stubble looks good on him. That annoys me for some reason. When you’re angry with someone, no matter how benign their appearance or behavior is, they still piss you off just by existing.
If the universe was kinder, I would look amazing every time I chanced seeing him. I would also know exactly what to say. No, since the universe hates me, I’ve had to see him day in and day out looking like he stepped off the pages of a magazine while I look like a hot mess.
I clearly pissed off karma in a former life. What am I even thinking? I should be grateful I’m alive and only temporarily injured. It’s hard to remember to count your blessings when you haven’t been able to eat real food in weeks.
Food, that’ll take my mind off Heath. Closing my eyes, I imagine every chewy thing I’m going to gorge on as soon as I’m allowed to chew again. I want tortilla chips and guacamole, I want the biggest caramel apple, and I want pecan pie, possibly in that order.
“Why are you moaning?”
What?
Was I?
Oh God.
I force my panicked face slack in an attempt to still appear asleep.
“I know you’re awake.” Heath chuckles.
Shit.
Another thing that sucks about having your mouth wired shut is you can’t yawn. Oh, if you’re tired enough your body will try to but there’s absolutely no satisfaction in it. Also, if you want to appear nonchalant as you fake waking up, you can’t do it.
Instead, I start blinking my eyes like I need to get used to the brightness of his room. “Hm?”
“Cut the crap, faker.”
“What?” I hedge.
He shifts his body so we’re nose to nose and looks me dead in the eyes. “Why were you moaning? Were you thinking about me?”
It’s an effort not to roll my eyes.
Instead, I answer him honestly, “I was thinking about what food I’m going to eat as soon as I can chew again.”
He blinks, and then slow-motion grins before throwing his head back and laughing. He is so devastatingly beautiful when he does this that I just stare at him, dumbfounded.
How am I ever going to get over Heath Mackey?
The universe doesn’t just hate me; it cruelly wants to torment me as well.
“Can you move?” I snap, best I can.
He instantly sobers and shifts in a way that none of his body weight is pressing down on me. Stupidly, I curse my words for pushing him away.
“Are you sore? Did I hurt you?”
His earnest concern only makes knowing I’ll never be able to trust him hurt even more.
I avoid his questions. “I need to go to the bathroom.”
He’s up in a flash, off the bed and to my side, lifting me. Once I’m settled in my chair he pushes me right to and then into his bathroom.
He didn’t even give me a chance to try and get up on my own. Sure, I can’t walk on my bad leg until it’s healed but I can sit up and stand o
n my good leg. As long as my chair is close enough, I can pivot and sit.
“I could have wheeled myself and I can take it from here,” I hurriedly murmur before Heath tries to help me get on the toilet.
In the mirror I watch as he leaves, closing the door behind him. My gaze moves until it’s my eyes that I stare into. I should have thanked him; instead, I was inadvertently a bitch.
Great job, Sydney.
Once I’m done in the bathroom, I wheel my way back into his living room. His back is to me as he slices up cantaloupe.
“Thank you for helping me to the bathroom,” I quietly say.
He looks over his shoulder, his eyes scanning me. “You don’t have to thank me.”
“I do,” I argue.
He shakes his head and looks back down at the cutting board. “I’m making you a smoothie. It’ll be ready in a minute.”
“Heath, you don’t have to take care of me,” I reply.
He looks back at me again. “The thing that you aren’t getting is I want to take care of you.”
She looks away.
I knew this wouldn’t be easy. If whatever you are working toward is worth it, you do what it takes to succeed. Sydney Fairlane is worth it.
The silence between us isn’t as noticeable once the blender is going.
Once it’s off and while I pour her drink into a glass, she speaks, “Don’t you have to leave for work?”
Shaking my head, I reach for a straw. “I took today off to get you settled.”
There’s a pause and then she asks, “Why are you doing all of this?”
Turning, I hand her the drink, then move around her so I can push her chair up to the table. Then leaning down to press my lips to the top of her head I reply, “I care about you.”
Before she can pull away, I move first, backing up. Her pain meds are on my counter. I grab her morning dose so she can take it with her drink.
“Thank you,” she murmurs when I set it on the table in front of her.
As I make my breakfast, I lift my gaze to look at her profile. I will never, not until my dying day, forget what she looked like the first time I saw her in her hospital bed. She was groggy from all the pain medicine they had her on. She blinked up at us and pursed her lips as she groaned incoherently. Her face was swollen, bruises already painting her skin with their angry strokes.
Why Lie? (Love Riddles #2) Page 9