“Okay. I’m in.”
He dragged himself to the edge of the bed. “I’m going to look at some pictures of geological rock formations, or something equally unstimulating, and then I’ll set the timer on the coffee maker. What time should we be up?”
“I’ll shower back at my place, if that’s okay? I should be back there by quarter to eight at the latest. Can you drop me off at Union Station at seven thirty?”
He nodded and then headed off to the kitchen while I folded my hands under my head, staring at the ceiling with a stupid grin on my face, basking in the glow of—well, not what I wished I was basking in, but I basked anyway. When Daniel came back into the bedroom, he sat on the edge of the bed beside me, fiddling with the alarm clock.
“You look adorable,” he said.
“I feel like a burrito.”
“Well, you certainly do look good enough to eat.” He kissed me chastely and crawled under the covers. He moved over to lie close to me and draped his arm across my stomach. “Can you reach the light to turn it off?” he asked.
I flicked the switch, and a deep darkness enveloped the room. I snuggled up against him, content.
He groaned suddenly. “Shit, I forgot something.”
He reached over me to turn the lamp back on and opened the top drawer of the nightstand. He pulled out a calendar—the exact same calendar he’d bought me. He looked at me and winked, removing the cap off a red pen with his teeth. Using my stomach to lean on he drew a decisive X through Sunday, March 15th. One more day down.
He tossed everything back in the drawer, turned the light off, and settled in again.
“Forty-six,” he whispered, kissing the top of my head.
I groaned. “I can’t wait.”
“Patience,” he said softly.
“Patience, shmatience,” I grumbled, resting my hand on his chest. I felt, rather than heard, his gentle laugh. As tired as I was, I couldn’t stop my brain from replaying the evening, and I thought uneasily of the prescription pill bottles as I listened to Daniel breathing in the darkness. Was he already asleep?
“Daniel?” I whispered.
“Hmm?”
“Would you consider yourself healthy?”
“What?” He chuckled quietly again. “I’m as healthy as a horse.”
“Okay. Good. Good night, sailor.”
“Good night, poppet. Sleep well.”
And I did.
Until exactly 3:20 a.m.
Chapter 7
Conscience
Love is too young to know what conscience is;
Yet who knows not conscience is born of love?
(Sonnet 151)
I WOKE WITH A START, completely disoriented. Something was crushing my shoulder. Then I remembered—I was at Daniel’s. He was still curled up against me, and it was his hand that was squeezing near my neck like a vice. He was moaning, repeating, “No, I didn’t do it,” over and over again.
He was having a bad dream.
I unclasped his fingers from my shoulder and drew his head to my chest, stroking his hair. His hand settled on my abdomen.
“I didn’t do it,” he mumbled.
“Shh, I know you didn’t,” I said.
“Why are you doing this to me?”
There was pain and disbelief in his whispered words. Was he awake? Asleep? Could he hear me?
“It’s okay. I’m here. It’s Aubrey. Everything’s all right.”
“I didn’t do it.” He snuggled up to me.
“I know, go back to sleep,” I whispered, gently running my hand through his hair and over the nape of his neck, but he couldn’t hear me. He was already out. He’d probably been asleep all along, talking while he dreamed. He snuffled and sighed, then relaxed against me.
My heart clenched. What had he been dreaming about? More fallout from his troubles with Nicola, even over a year later? I wanted to smack that girl so hard! I continued to rub his back, listening to him snore.
I blinked into the darkness. Holy crap, I was roasting! Why was it so frigging hot?
Without jostling Daniel too much, I worked at the knot on my PJ bottoms with one hand and wriggled out of them, pushing them down with my feet until they were balled up in the bottom of the sleeping bag. I rolled the sleeping bag down to my waist. I could feel a rivulet of sweat between my breasts. Charming.
Having Daniel’s warm body pressed against me wasn’t helping, but I wasn’t about to move him. I may have been hotter than hell, but I was happier than a pig in muck. I settled back into the pillow and tried to regulate my breathing, and I soon drifted back into a deep, dark sleep.
When I awoke a few hours later, I was instantly aware of my surroundings. Although I’d fallen back to sleep with Daniel snuggled up against me, I was now lying on his warm, bare chest. I’d kicked the sleeping bag off completely, and Daniel had relieved himself of his shirt. The soft hairs on Daniel’s chest tickled my cheek. My right hand rested on his stomach, and my right leg was slung haphazardly across his hips. His hand firmly grasped my thigh, very close to my ass.
Wowza.
Without moving my hand too much, I felt the sprinkling of hairs above his waistband. Glorious. As for what I could feel trapped under my thigh? Well, that was beyond glorious.
I shifted and squinted at the alarm clock. Six fifteen. My movements roused Daniel, who sighed sleepily and opened his eyes, blinking at me groggily.
“Good morning, beautiful.” He kissed my forehead and glanced at the clock with a groan.
“Morning yourself, handsome.”
He peered down at our entwined bodies, taking in the position of my leg and gently rubbing my thigh.
“Not that those aren’t some fantastic black knickers, but where the hell are your pajama bottoms? And what happened to the sleeping bag?”
“Excuse me, I could ask the same of you. Where’s your T-shirt?”
“Bloody hell, I woke up a couple of hours ago sweating like mad. You were like a furnace.”
“I know! I was roasting. The sleeping bag had to go.”
He laughed and shifted his hips under my leg. “Christ, that’s a little too close for comfort.” He gave my upper thigh a squeeze. “It’s nothing short of a miracle that we made it through the night. I think you’d best move your luscious leg right this minute.”
“Like this?” I asked, moving my leg up and down, feeling him harden even more beneath my inner thigh.
He moaned and grabbed my leg, pushing me away decisively. “No, like that,” he said as I rolled onto my back, laughing. He flicked on the bedside lamp and stood, looking down at me, his hands on his hips. I stared at him stupidly, distracted by his bare chest, arms, and toned abdomen, not to mention the tent pole down below. He seemed oblivious to my ogling, casting his own eyes up and down my bare legs. “Are you, um, sure you don’t want to shower here? If you do, you can go ahead.”
“No, I’ll wait till I get home,” I said, snapping out of my trance. The thought of showering and then having to put yesterday’s clothes back on was particularly distasteful.
“Okay. Well, I have to shower. The coffee should be ready if you want to grab a cup. And help yourself to food if you want something.”
“Have a good shower,” I said, raising my eyebrow knowingly.
“I intend to.” He rubbed at his chest hair absently. “Did you drool on me?”
“Probably. I’m a total mouth breather when I sleep.”
He smiled and shook his head. “That explains the dragon breath.”
“Fuck off!” I threw several pillows at him. He dodged them, running for the bathroom door and slamming it behind him. “You’ll get yours, Grant!” I hollered.
“Promises, promises, Miss Price!” he yelled back. I heard him chuckling to himself and then turning the shower on. I made my way to the kitchen, feeling surprisingly happy for a Monday morning.
I breathed in the tantalizing aroma of freshly brewed coffee. There were two mugs on the counter in front of the coffee make
r, along with a spoon and a bowl of sugar. Daniel had done this last night. Apart from these items, the counters were bare. He was such a neat freak. This whole extreme organization thing was daunting.
I poured us both a cup, leaving Daniel’s coffee black while helping myself to sugar and milk, noting the spotlessness of the fridge as I put the milk carton back on the shelf.
Did I feel like eating? I opened the cupboards to see what might appeal to me. In one I found numerous soup cans, neatly lined up with the labels all facing forward. In the next one, boxes of cereal were arranged smallest to largest. I decided to wait until I was home to eat, but I couldn’t resist twirling the cans so that the labels were no longer uniform and rearranging the order of the cereal boxes—a little something for Daniel to remember me by.
On the way back to Daniel’s bedroom, I lingered beside the couch, checking out a shelf full of DVDs. He had quite an impressive collection of movies. I strolled back into the bedroom with the two mugs of coffee. The shower was still running. Tempting. Oh, so very tempting.
Don’t do it, Aubrey, a little voice chirped in my ear. Oddly enough, it sounded an awful lot like Julie. What the hell? I stayed away from the bathroom, flicking on the TV instead and turning to the Weather Network. The forecast for the coming week was horrid.
The shower turned off as I sat on the edge of the bed, sipping my coffee and rubbing my shoulder absently, my thoughts turning to Daniel’s bad dream. He hadn’t mentioned it and had seemed quite cheerful when he’d woken up. If he didn’t remember it, I wasn’t about to bring it up. Grabbing his cup, I made my way over to the bathroom door and tapped gently.
“You decent, sweet knees?”
He opened the door.
“I’m not sure. Am I?” he asked. He was wearing nothing but a pair of navy blue boxers, and his hair was sticking up, still wet from the shower. There was a blob of shaving cream on his cheek.
Decent? Good lord.
“I, uh, brought you a cup,” I said, trying not to lose my cool entirely as I took in the sexy line of hair under his navel.
“What a treat.” He put the mug on the counter and continued to lather his face.
“Do you mind if I stay?” I rested against the doorframe.
“I’m okay with it if you are.” He gestured to his state of undress. “If you can control yourself, that is.” He smirked through his shaving cream.
Well, that was a challenge, wasn’t it?
“I think I can manage.” I sounded far more confident than I felt. I slipped past him and perched on the vanity. “I’m a little disappointed that you’re shaving.”
He ran his razor under the hot water.
“I can’t let it grow indefinitely. If I shave now, I can let it go all week, and by Friday it’ll be the way you like it again.”
I sipped my coffee, eyeing him over the edge of the mug. “You want to do this again next weekend?”
“I’d love it if you could stay tonight—every night this week, for that matter. But I know that’s not realistic.”
“Probably not.”
I looked at him appraisingly. Daniel Grant is standing in front of me in his boxers. This is surreal.
“Is it odd that I want to lick your face?” I asked.
He chuckled. “This is shaving cream, not whipped cream.”
“True. Put whipped cream on your grocery list—for Friday.” I winked at him.
“Deal.” He stretched his neck taut, scraping the razor gingerly down his throat.
“Daniel, are you religious?” I asked.
His eyes flickered to mine curiously. “Why do you ask?”
“I guess I’m thinking about your dad. He used to make you go to church when you were a kid, right?”
“I wasn’t prepared to take everything at face value, but, yes, we attended church regularly.”
“So, is there a higher power that guides your actions?”
“I don’t know.” He moved the razor across his right cheek. “My conscience guides my actions. I’d like to think I behave the way I do because it’s right, not because some entity is judging me or waiting to catch me screwing up. How you live when no one is watching is the true test of your morality,” he clarified.
“No one’s watching you right now.”
“I see what you’re getting at.” He sighed and stepped back. “You’re absolutely right, and it’s making me crazy because you being here doesn’t feel wrong. That’s not good. I mean, shouldn’t I feel guilty as hell?”
“I don’t like the idea of you wrestling with your conscience because of me.”
“I’m not. That’s my point. I was, but I’m not anymore.”
“How do you just turn your conscience off?”
“It’s not like that,” he said, the razor temporarily forgotten. “It’s—well, take the whole objectivity thing. Martin decided he wants me to mark this Friday’s test. I was freaked out about it at first, but the more I think about it, the more sure I am that I can be impartial. It’s like a switch flips in my brain when I think about marking your work. I don’t know how to explain it.”
“I get that. You have this strange aura in tutorials. It’s cool. I look at you, and you’re under there somewhere, but you have this different vibe. So, is that all there is to it?” I asked.
“No, there’s the power dynamic aspect. But I’m not trying to manipulate you with my authority, so that doesn’t feel like it applies either.”
“You’ve thought about this a lot.”
“You have no idea how much time I’ve devoted to batting this around in my head. I needed to come to terms with everything.”
“And you have?”
“I think so. I’ve tried to see what we’re doing as morally repugnant, Aubrey, but I can’t do it. Having you here like this—just the way we are now—feels so comfortable. It feels right.”
“I think so too. Last night was perfect.”
“Ups and downs and all?” he asked.
“Absolutely. I think we did great. And I’m so proud of us for not crossing the line.”
“Me too.”
He smiled as he splashed his face clean and patted it dry with a hand towel. He stood in front of me, squeezing my waist. I hung onto his shoulders as he kissed me and gently rubbed his cheek against mine.
“You need some cologne, Mr. Grant.”
“You’re right. Mind your legs?” he said, gesturing to the drawer beneath me. Instead of swinging my legs to one side or the other, I opted to move them apart. He shook his head and reached into the drawer for his cologne, spritzing himself and then replacing the bottle, no doubt getting an eyeful in the process.
“Clothes—now,” he said, decisively pulling my legs together. “You can get dressed in here.”
He walked out to the bedroom to collect my clothes, and that’s when I noticed the scratch marks.
“Gosh, what happened to your back?” I asked, feigning surprise.
“Whatever it was felt great, and I sure hope it happens again,” he said with a salacious grin. He handed me my clothes, and I took one last look at him in his boxers, capturing the picture in my mind for later reference before the door closed between us.
I dressed and freshened up, peeking at his cologne before leaving. Burberry. Where the hell had I gotten sandalwood from?
I pushed the drawer closed and went in search of Daniel. He was in his office, already dressed and looking out the window with his cup of coffee. He seemed so relaxed as he surveyed the skyline. I was reluctant to bring him out of his reverie.
“Hey, there you are.” He turned as I crossed to his desk. “I topped up your coffee. We still have a few minutes.”
“Thanks.” I grabbed the mug and took a sip, wrinkling my nose as the coffee mixed with the toothpaste taste in my mouth. I wandered over to sit on the couch.
The couch.
“That’s a nice guitar,” I said. “I can’t believe I was here all night and I didn’t get you to play it for me.”
&nbs
p; He smiled and walked around his desk to grab it, perching his foot on the table and balancing the instrument on his knee. Who was that smoking hot at seven o’clock in the morning? Honestly?
“How about I play you a little something I learned for someone when I was a teenager? You ready?”
“Absolutely.” I leaned forward eagerly.
He played a few bars of a song, strumming the strings expertly. I had no clue what the song was, but he looked delicious. As soon as he began to whistle, I clued in—it was Guns N’ Roses’ “Patience.” Daniel continued to strum, whistling like his life depended on it. I tried to join in, but the serious look on his face made me laugh.
“You’re a fantastic whistler,” I said between giggles.
“Helps when you have something amazing to whistle at,” he said, wiggling his eyebrows.
“So, I’m your whistling muse?”
“Yes, among other things.” He played a few more bars, singing the opening lines of the song, but then he abruptly stopped playing. “Huh. Who would’ve thought the lyrical stylings of Guns N’ Roses would be so pertinent to my life?”
“I know. Clearly we need more patience,” I said.
“This is true. I think I should switch my PhD topic. I don’t think anyone has come close to unearthing Axl Rose’s lyrical brilliance.”
Daniel placed his guitar on its stand.
“So, who was this someone you learned the song for?” I asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
“Bradley, of course.” Daniel rolled his eyes. “And I think I know Rush’s entire repertoire. He forced me to learn all their songs so he could pretend he was Neil Peart.”
“That’s right. He plays the drums.”
“Brad’s only aspiration in high school was to bang things.”
“I bet,” I said with a knowing smile. “Too bad no one ever told him guitarists are way hotter than drummers.” I ran my nose along his freshly shaved jaw.
He kissed me slowly, all hot and wet and coffee-tasting. When he drew back, he was grimacing uncomfortably.
“I’d better get you back to Vic before I end up throwing you down on the couch and ravishing you.” He picked up his laptop bag and motioned for me to follow him. “Come on, crazy legs, let’s go.” He ushered me down the hall to the front door where he helped me with my coat, slipping my hair to the side to place a gentle kiss on my neck. “I miss you already,” he whispered.
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