Con checked his phone. “You going to work today? Because if you are, you better try to grab a few hours of sleep, and then you’re going to need to get home to change.”
I thought about what was on my calendar for the day. A meeting or two about the building project. Grant application review. Working on next year’s budget. Any other day I would’ve found those things to be critical. But right about now, they were nothing that couldn’t wait until tomorrow.
I shook my head. “I’m not going to work, but a couple hours of sleep would be good. Then I want to head back to the hospital and sit with Ms. Vincent.”
“Okay.” He strode toward the door, but paused on the threshold and turned back to me. “Where do you want to sleep?”
Fatigue was muddling my brain because I didn’t really understand the question. “What do you mean?”
“You sleeping with me? Or alone?”
I’m not sure I liked that he was giving me an option. Because that meant I had to make a choice.
A voice whispered in my head, it doesn’t matter what you choose. You can’t keep him. Might as well get what you can while you can.
The logic was a little too much like that which he’d attributed to Trey’s upbringing. But it made sense.
So I gave him the truth. “With you.”
So now I’d had her—and I remembered it. When she’d frozen up after we’d stepped out of the shower, it’d been the perfect opportunity to find her some clothes, call her a cab, and send her on her way. That was what I would’ve done if this had been any other woman.
Yeah, it would’ve made me a prick, but at least it would’ve been simple.
Because lying here, holding a sleeping Vanessa, listening to her breathe, was anything but simple. This shit was getting downright complicated. Because there was no way I was ready to let her go.
When I was sixteen, she’d been the most perfect, unattainable girl I’d ever seen. And despite my current position, she was still just as perfect and just as unattainable.
Maybe if we both turned our backs on this town and started over somewhere new… but that wasn’t about to happen.
A soft groan broke through my thoughts and the silence of the morning.
Vanessa’s body jerked against the arm I had wrapped beneath her breasts. Loosening it, I propped myself up to look down at her face. Her features were tight and twisted. It was a look I’d seen way too many times before on the faces of my buddies. Hell, they’d probably seen it on my face more times than I’d like to admit. Nightmare.
There was no question in my mind what she was dreaming about. She didn’t need to re-live that shit. I tightened my arm around her, giving her a slight shake.
“Baby, wake up.”
I’d expected her to stay in the dream for at least another moment or two. I certainly didn’t expect her to shoot straight up in bed, trying to knock my arm aside and scramble away from me.
“Whoa, honey. Calm down. You’re okay. You’re safe.”
Her lungs heaved, and I worried for a moment whether she’d hyperventilate. “Shh. Shh. It’s okay. No one can hurt you here.”
Instead of continuing to struggle, she turned and buried her face in my neck. I wrapped both arms around her and stroked her wild mane of hair. Hot tears spilled onto my bare chest.
For several minutes, I just held her. I let myself get comfortable being her rock, her protection from all the bad things in the world.
The thought was sobering. Because in Vanessa Frost’s world, I also qualified as a bad thing.
I pulled her away from my chest and met her vivid blue eyes, shining with the remains of her tears.
This was where a better man would make sure she was okay and then take her home and let her get on with her life. Without him.
And I still wasn’t a better man.
She stared up at me, looking lost and scared. Last night, she’d wanted sex to feel alive. That wasn’t a tough concept to grasp. I couldn’t say how many times I’d hopped off a chopper or rolled back into base after a mission where the bullets had flown too fucking close for comfort and found oblivion by burying myself in a willing woman’s pussy. Might’ve gotten me busted down in rank if we’d ever been found out, but the need was too strong to deny, regardless of the consequences.
And right now, Vanessa’s wide blue eyes were too tempting. I opened my mouth to say something—anything—that would win me another hour with her, but she beat me to it. Except she didn’t speak, just reached up, dug her fingers into my hair, and yanked my head down.
Her lips collided with mine. She was a woman on a mission, and I wasn’t stopping her. The kiss went on for long minutes, until I let my elbows collapse, and we fell back onto the bed, Vanessa sprawled over my chest.
Untangling her hands from my hair and pulling her lips away from mine, she propped herself up. Gone were the shining eyes, and so was the expression I expected to see.
Instead, she looked horrified. The lightning fast change from aggressor to… whatever this was… practically gave me whiplash.