She crinkled her nose as she checked his pupils with the penlight on her keychain. Survivable. “Speak, Will. Speak.”
“Woof,” he whispered and tried to sit up.
“Get down.”
“Now I really feel like a dog,” he mumbled.
Kelly cleaned his cuts, relieved he was conscious and talking. She gently demonstrated for him to hold the ice to his eye while she rolled his pant leg up.
“Will ice help on the knee or is it too temperamental?”
He sat up. “Let me do it.”
She pushed him back down, all business. He accepted her offer of ibuprofen and drank some water while she carefully laid the peas over his knee.
He’s breathing. Ice. Painkiller. Rest. Her medical prognosis was Will would live. Her own? She was in heat.
His deep gaze was a physical burn as she spread antiseptic on the scrape on his elbow, then his stomach. Their silence lingered on the edge of awkwardness and she cleared her throat before speaking. “Was there any reason for the fight or was that just testosterone?”
His frown deepened.
“Did you know him?”
“He was watching you all night. He’s done time for beating women.” He adjusted himself on the couch.
He had her back, she realized. It touched. It mattered too much. She tried not to analyze it.
Men had fought over her before. Boys too. But it typically had been her brothers defending her because she was their precious baby sister. Which was why she had all four of them sign a notarized contract, vowing they wouldn’t lay a finger on John before she told them he had cheated. They would die for her, she figured. And she always had to tell them not to use their fists. Dad had raised them to value family and honor. She always cringed when they used a fight as a solution to a problem. How unoriginal. It kicked ass to beat someone with words and wit because anyone could fight.
But Will… Kelly couldn’t meet his gaze as she hypothesized why he had protected her. She appreciated it, but knew he couldn’t care. He certainly didn’t love her. She concluded the only logical possibility. He was being macho like a hero. Military man, hero complex. It made sense.
“So what’s the deal with the knee?” She spread the antibiotic cream over the antiseptic, trying her hardest to ignore the contours of his abs. Tight, tense muscles. Skin she wanted to lick. She narrowed her eyes to focus on the task at hand.
He inhaled deeply. “Walked into a bomb. Tore the ligaments. Three surgeries.”
Kelly nodded.
“They said I wouldn’t walk again.”
She slowly traced her finger over the on his scar on his chest. “It got you here, too?”
He nodded. “Debris from the explosion.”
She moved her hands to his knee. Her fingers massaged the end of his thigh, above his scar, and he choked on air.
“Shit. I’m sorry. Too rough?”
He coughed as he moved her hands away. “Uh, it’s sensitive.”
Kelly arranged the ice again for the lack of having something to say.
“And you quit your job because…?”
Kelly relaxed and started to smile. She shook her head. “I have too big of a heart. It wore me out, wanting to save everybody.” She lifted her face to find his deep gaze on her. “You going to be okay?”
He jerked his head in a curt nod.
“Thanks for looking out for me.” She stood and crammed her hands in her pockets before she rationalized another excuse to touch him. “It means a lot.”
“I was drunk. Lost my temper.”
“Nice try. I know exactly how many drinks you had. I was serving them. You knew what you were doing.”
Will stared at her, communicating something powerful she couldn’t handle. She twisted to the coffee table and turned the TV on mute with the remote.
“Don’t go.”
Kelly couldn’t face him. He was hurt and vulnerable. In a way, so was she. “I should.”
“Sorry to keep you up.” His voice was gruff.
“Hey. You’re not half-bad company a quarter of the time,” she teased. He seemed so lost and alone and sad, she knew if she didn’t run she wasn’t going to have the guts to leave. And it would only hurt both of them if she swayed to pity for him. She pressed a soft kiss on his forehead on her way to the door before she did something stupid.
Like admit she was in love with him.
Chapter 23
“You going to be okay?”
Will had replayed Kelly’s question in his mind for the next day and into the next night. He hadn’t known how to respond before she left and he still didn’t have an answer as he sat at Elmer’s bar at the end of a day’s work.
He couldn’t get the image of Kelly out of his mind. Her hair hiding her serious face as she tended to him. Well, shit, she was a nurse. No one had ever nursed him before. Is that what it felt like to be pampered?
Nodding his head, he pretended to listen to the woman on the barstool in front of him. He wasn’t in the mood to meet a woman, or talk to a date. He wanted Kelly. Her sweetness and tenderness had cracked at his guarded soul. She was smart, witty, sharp, and sweet.
Why does she have to be silly and get worked up about love?
He grimaced as he drank his beer. He wanted her on so many levels it hurt him more than Pete’s lucky punches had.
Don’t go.
He had begged her to stay with him. Pled with her. She was screwing with his mind. Disgusted with himself, he checked the score on the TV overhead and choked on his beer at his date’s last comment.
“Knicks?” he said and wiped his chin.
She was cute, he gave her credit. Prim and eager and attentive. But God, so stupid. “Knicks are basketball,” he explained. They had been talking about last year’s World Series. He was initially impressed with their topic of small talk, as he had been glad to prove Kelly wasn’t the only woman in the world who knew anything about sports. He had been so smug in his discovery of another woman who could talk baseball. It was like walking into a brick wall when he realized she had no clue what she was saying.
Will opened his mouth to explain, but gave up, knowing it was useless. His aches and pains from the night before hadn’t bothered him at work. But as soon as his knee throbbed, he recalled the image of Kelly placing the peas.
He straightened from his slump. His knee had reminded him of Kelly, how she hadn’t been afraid to touch it, hadn’t been grossed-out by the scars on his skin. His knee had made him think of her. Not another memory of Matt dying in his arms.
“Nothing.” He forced a smile at the airhead, as he was trying hard to fit in at the bar. His new jeans were stiff, too clean and unbroken. And the stupid shirt he’d found in the back of his closet wasn’t fitted to the muscles he’d gained. Lights flickered faster than at Alan’s bowling alley. Women were giggling and shrieking all over and it reminded him of being stuck in a hen house with uncontrollable strobes. Claustrophobia neared.
“I love this shirt.” She ran her hands up his forearm, a seductive smile on her painted lips.
What an idiotic thing to say. He sighed. He couldn’t relax, couldn’t flow with it like he used to. He was too annoyed with everyone, too irritated with the bimbo in front of him, an eager brainless twit who he would have been taking home to screw in his younger days.
She tickled her fingers at his collar. “How about we get out of here?”
He resisted the urge to swat her hand away like a fly. Her nails felt like talons and he wanted to snap.
Sex. She’s offering sex. Sex is good. He frowned instead. She doesn’t know baseball. How can I sleep with someone who thinks the Knicks are a baseball team? Before, baseball hadn’t been a prerequisite. Talking hadn’t been a prerequisite. He blamed Kelly. Kelly and her damn kisses. She had ignited him and now she didn’t want him.
“We just got here.” He patted her shoulder. “Let’s finish our drinks.” And have a few more. Because there was no way he could see himself putting up with he
r sober.
***
Three hours later, Will adjusted the seat belts, both the factory-made and human arm variety. He settled the drunk and very horny girl on her side of the truck bench seat and paid attention to the road.
“You’re so sex-ee.” She actually squealed. “Turn it up. Turn it up!” She reached for the radio and blared the country pop to drunkenly sing along.
Wincing, Will maneuvered his truck down the drive past the rental house. He couldn’t help but notice Kelly’s lights were out. Humidity stuck his shirt to his back. It stretched over his bulky frame and he tugged the collar. Rain was bound to come any minute.
No sooner than he had parked the truck and silenced the grating whining music, she had launched herself at him. If he hadn’t been dually fighting her off and limping her feet along as he helped her into the stone house, she would have been left outside in the rain.
The first patters started slowly on the roof as he deposited her at the bathroom door. Long past desiring her company at all, something he wasn’t sure he had even wanted in the first place, Will hoped she would pass out quickly so he could get a few hours of sleep on the couch. It wasn’t until he stepped outside to pee in the front garden under the soft slow drizzle of rain when he realized his biggest mistake of the night.
“Fuck.” Zipping up, he went for the front door and tried the knob. Locked. He had forgotten it locked behind him. He patted the empty pocket at his thigh. The keys were inside the house. He wouldn’t even be able to find refuge in his truck.
A crash sounded inside the house and he worried what the girl—whose name he couldn’t remember—had broken. Jumping to peer through the hallway window, he spotted her lying on the floor, sleeping, it seemed, and snoring quite loudly.
Shaking his head, he stuffed his hands in his stiff jeans and cursed the wasted night. Wasted night? Waste of what? If Clay wasn’t hung up on some woman from the beach, they could have played poker or tinkered with something at the garage. Or Randy was always up for some fishing. And if Matt was alive…
His boot sent a rock flying.
He walked toward the townhouse. Clay would probably let him take the couch, but after knocking on the door and hearing muffled sex noises, Will didn’t want to be a third wheel. He glanced at Kelly’s closed door and something funny folded in his stomach. No, she had made it clear. She didn’t want him. At the same time, she did. Women. They were a headache. With a sigh he went out to the beach and let the rain fall on him.
Kelly didn’t want to be a one-night-stand.
She wanted something more.
She was waiting for a big disappointment from whatever guy she ever let into her life. The thought of her with someone else burned like acid in his throat.
He could play nice. He could keep his cool. She wouldn’t be too scared to lend him her couch. She could be civil. Somewhere under the smartass, there was sweetheart.
Will returned to the townhouse and knocked on her door.
“Oh come on!” Kelly groaned from inside before she opened the door. In a sweatshirt and shorts, she cracked one eye open at him.
He stood there speechless and gazed into her drowsy blue-green eyes, powerful magnets to his soul which trapped his attention. Heavy and heated tension sizzled as silence waited between them. Drips of water plopped to the floor from his drenched clothes. The corners of her lips turned down and he found her impatience cute rather than irksome.
She raised her brows in question.
He shook the water from his head and wiped his eyes, tonguing his teeth as he tried to find something to say. Anything to say. He crunched his forehead with concentration, thinking of how he could explain she wasn’t a pain in the ass. Stupefied and intimidated, he reached in and shut the door. With his hands on his hips, he waited until he heard the lock slide.
Will walked towards the beach as the rain let up. Waves rushed to the shore, their crashes more ominous than soothing. It instantly reminded him of the last time he had gone swimming and why. His chewed on his cheek. No one had owned up to driving the boat, and it still sat uncomfortably on his conscience. He crossed his arms and studied the waves. He ceased wondering who and instead imagined the ungodly what-ifs. What if I never get to see her again? What if I never get the chance to see her put Delores in her place again? What if I never get to feel her hands on mine again? What if… He steeled his resolve to face her, no matter how much she intimidated him. He had never met a woman of her caliber and he was at loss how to approach her, but approach her he would.
Ten minutes later he pounded on her door again.
Shuffling footsteps sounded to the door and she flung it open. In a cami and panties, she groaned, then leaned her forearm on the doorframe and her cheek in the nook of her elbow. Her brows raised again in silent inquiry.
He took a deep breath and stepped inside the apartment, then locked the door behind him. With his back to her, he closed his eyes to commit her to memory. I’m a dead man. He faced her and took a deep breath.
“Problem?” She blinked the sleep away.
“I’m locked out.” He took his shoes off at the door, leaning on the doorknob.
“And?”
“It’s raining. I’m crashing on your couch.”
“What? Why?” She averted her attention from his chest as he took his shirt off.
“What, I’m sleeping on your couch. Why, I was locked out. It’s raining. Have a heart.”
“Stay with Clay.”
“He’s busy.” He started on his zipper.
“Oh God. Stop!” She held her hands out like she was stopping an animal from running to her. A pink glow spread on her face. “You can’t barge in here and invite yourself in.”
“I own the house.”
“I’m renting it!”
He shrugged. “My property.”
“You can only stay here if I invite you. I was sleeping.” She brushed the hair from her face and held her hand out again. “Stop taking your clothes off.”
“They’re wet.”
She crossed her arms. “You can’t sleep on the couch.”
“Bed then?”
She smacked his shoulder. “I told you, I’m not a casual piece of ass.”
“Sleep. Kelly. I know the thought of sex freaks you out. Calm down.”
“It doesn’t freak me out. This is ridiculous.” She shook her head and he let his pants drop to the ground. Her mouth nearly followed suit. “Put those back on.”
“I can’t sleep in them. They’re wet.”
She groaned. “It’s indecent.”
“And you’re not?” He scanned her body and hid a smile.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I live here. I can wear what I want.” She uncrossed her arms and held her hands together in front of her panties. Then crossed her arms again.
“I’m not complaining.” Down to his boxers, Will went to the kitchen and helped himself to a bottle of water from the fridge.
“How did you get locked out?”
“I helped Jamie into the house, she sort of struggled and I stepped outside. Maybe it was Jessica? I don’t know.”
Her jaw dropped. “You come over here to sleep with me while you have another woman at your house?”
“Thought you said you weren’t interested in sleeping with me.” He set the bottle on the counter. Too tempted to watch her, he rediscovered Matt’s old apartment. She had painted, he noticed. Put some shelves up, added some plants here and there. He was relieved to see the space, alive with color and purpose, not a mournful reminder of what he missed.
“You’re despicable.”
“And tired.” He went for the couch and swatted Eddie off. He lay down and his feet extended over the armrest and dangled in the air. He shot her a blunt glare.
“Dammit. Fine. Take the bed. I’ll fit on the couch,” she said and looked to the ceiling.
He sat up and studied her. He had thought he was stronger than this. But his dick had other ideas. And she was arguing w
ith him. Since when could fighting be such a turn-on?
When he had first knocked and saw her with sleep in her eyes, he knew he wouldn’t be able to resist her. The second time he knocked, she had answered in practically nothing. He was playing with fire. He wasn’t a saint, but if she didn’t want him, then she didn’t want him. He wasn’t one to force anything, much less, beg—again.
The strap of her cami slipped off her shoulder.
Shoot me now.
“We’ll share.” He stood and picked her up and carried her to the bed. Her fists pounded at his back and her knees jabbed at his chest as she tried to squirm free. In the same manner as he had dumped her in the lake water, he indelicately dropped her on the mattress. He pulled the sheet aside and got in the bed.
“Are you insane?”
“Shut up and go to sleep,” he mumbled. He turned on his side before falling asleep.
***
Kelly couldn’t, of course. She had shut up because she suspected anything she said would have gone in one ear and out the other. Glaring at his back as his chest rose and fell, she loathed him as he dozed like the dead. Sleep wasn’t happening for her. And he didn’t even seem interested in her at all. He had wanted her for sex that one day at the garage. He had already got it from Jamie Jessica until she had tossed him out of his own house. So he had come to crash at her house.
Never before had she felt so undesired. So pathetic. It sucked to be ‘one of the guys’. Viewed as a pal, not respected as a breathing feeling woman. Heat radiated from his body and she bit her lip to not reach for him. As much as he infuriated her, she couldn’t deny her attraction. Turning her back to his, she waited angrily and impatiently for sleep.
Kelly woke up in his arms and felt his smile on her scalp. They had fallen into a natural fit, him spooning her. Maybe their limbs had figured it out as they had slept because he took up most of the space on the mattress and she was so petite and small compared to him.
Knocking blasted the early morning silence. She groaned and elbowed Will away from her. He tightened his arms around her, reluctant to wake. She squirmed out of his arms, humiliated she had let him envelop her. Shoving hair back from her face, she squinted at the clock. It was hardly dawn and she flipped off the digital numbers that told her so.
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