It did.
And it didn’t.
God, she was so conflicted when it came to this man.
She rolled over and looked at him. His jaw was shadowed with a heavy layer of stubble, and his dark hair was mussed from her running her hands through it all day. Even now, she wanted to tangle her fingers in it again. He had a bit of curl in his hair, which she liked, and it was so soft, which always made her smile. Vaughn Wilde was not a soft man in any way, and it struck her as funny that his hair was as silky as a puppy’s coat.
He stirred, cracked one blue eye open, then squinched it closed again and groaned.
She laughed. “Good morning.”
“No. It’s not morning yet. It can’t be.”
“Yes, it is.” She kissed his chin. She remembered he wasn’t a morning person, and even though he’d always wakened before her, he’d never been happy about it. “It’s almost nine. How are you feeling?”
He opened both eyes and stared up at the ceiling for a second, as if taking an internal inventory. Then he winced. “Moving’s going to be a bitch.”
“Maybe you should take another hot shower.”
He slid his hand down her waist to her thigh. Squeezed her ass. “I could be persuaded.”
“Alone,” she added. “You don’t need sex right now.”
He stared at her, wide-eyed, like she was crazy. “I always need sex.”
In his mind, that was probably true, but she could tell he was hurting. Always the tough guy, pretending he was okay when he wasn’t. She sat up and dragged her fingers over the deep purple bruises on his ribs.
He hissed out a breath.
She arched a brow and didn’t quite manage to keep the smugness out of her expression. “You either take a hot shower or I take you to a hospital.”
“All right,” he grumbled. “I’m going.”
He got up out of bed, slowly, which gave her time to admire his backside. He was thinner than the last time they’d been together. He’d lost some weight but still had a gorgeous body underneath all of the bruises. All long, lean, well-used muscle with an ass that was made for grabbing. A tribal tattoo covered one whole shoulder, and she remembered tracing all of those intricate swirls with her tongue their first time together in Key West. It had driven him wild, and he’d scooped her up off the bed and fucked her hard and fast against the wall until their neighbors in the next room over pounded in annoyance…
At the bathroom door, Vaughn hesitated and glanced back. “Sage. Will you, uh, be here when I get out?”
The note of vulnerability in his tone jolted her out of her daydream, and she flinched. Oh God. He might as well have taken a chisel to her heart with that question. It would have hurt less. She swallowed the lump in her throat and nodded. She wasn’t planning on going anywhere—for now. But she would. Eventually, she’d have no choice but to run again. Except this time, she’d be leaving her heart behind with him.
He hesitated for another beat, then walked into the bathroom. He came back a second later with her leggings, now mostly dry, and handed them to her. “There’s a Navy T-shirt in my bag. It’ll be big, but it’s all I have.”
“Thank you.” She accepted the leggings, but he didn’t let go right away. Their gazes clashed, and he leaned down, pressed his lips to her forehead.
For some reason, she got the feeling he was saying good-bye. Did he not trust that she’d still be here when he finished showering?
Ouch, that hurt. Then again, she hadn’t given him a whole lot of reason to trust her, but he’d see when he came back that she was keeping her word this time. She wasn’t going anywhere until she absolutely had no other choice.
The bathroom door shut behind him, and she climbed out of bed to find the T-shirt he’d mentioned. It was right on top in his bag, and underneath was his cell phone charger. They’d been too busy to bother plugging it in. She pulled out the shirt, then grabbed the charger and found his phone on the dresser. The screen was black. Battery dead. She plugged it into the outlet at the base of the nightstand lamp and watched the screen go through its power-up.
Of course, now they had a signal.
“Where were you yesterday?” she demanded of it and set the phone down on top of the motel’s information binder. She dragged on her leggings and then Vaughn’s T-shirt. It was huge on her, like a dress, but since he outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds, that was to be expected. She gathered the hem and tied it in a knot around her waist. Much better.
She was just turning away to see if she could find anything remotely brush-like in his bag when his phone rang.
Sage shot a glance toward the bathroom door, her heart surging into her throat. What if it was Marcus calling to tell him about her?
She snatched up the phone and started to hit the “ignore” button, but then she hit answer instead. If it was Marcus, maybe she could talk him out of spilling her secrets. At least for a little while. “Hello?”