Was this supposed to be part of the deal? She’d heard Delia talk about her sexual escapades and never had she mentioned the time spent baring your soul to the guy you likely would never see again. But Ash asked her questions about herself, seeming genuinely interested in her answers, even if he wouldn’t offer up many of his own. She found, finally, that she couldn’t keep quiet about it.
“Why all the interest in me?”
His brows drew together, dark eyes flickering up from where he’d been watching his fingertip trail down her neck. “What’s that?”
“Why me? I know I happened to fall into your arms quite literally tonight, but…what made you pursue a pathetically weepy female with obvious baggage?” Her lips twisted with bitterness as a new thought struck, a thought that should’ve struck long ago—that should’ve knocked the hell out of her, actually. “Pity?”
“No.” The answer was sharp and without hesitation. “Never that. I’m not philanthropic enough for that.”
“Well, what, then? I mean…I’m not usually down on myself, but I can’t look that damn interesting. I wouldn’t take a look at myself and automatically think ‘sex strumpet’ or anything.”
A grin curled his lips. Lips she could stare at all night. Lips she pretty much had been staring at all night. “How lucky for us that I did. Even luckier that I was right.”
She gasped with mock outrage. “Oh, really.” They laughed together, but soon as they sobered, she couldn’t resist pressing the matter. “I guess that’s kind of lame, huh? Questioning your judgment and all.”
“Very lame.”
“Told you I wasn’t very good at this.”
“Actually, you only told me this wasn’t you, never that you wouldn’t be good at it. I found you quite good.”
“Gee, thanks.”
He just looked at her—God, she couldn’t get over how he looked at her. And how something deep in those dark eyes made her feel, crazily enough, as if he knew her. It wasn’t the first time the thought had occurred to her.
Her phone buzzed insistently on the nightstand, shattering the spell. She’d forgotten she’d meant to turn the damn thing off a while back, because even though it was after 3:00 a.m., David kept calling and texting her. Ash had kept her too occupied to worry much about it, though. She’d glanced at the display only once when she’d gotten up to go to the bathroom, but she had a pretty good idea he was still the one who was trying to get in touch with her.
Ash was watching her intently. Maybe the blend of her annoyance, guilt and grief was showing on her face. “Your boyfriend?” he asked.
“Ex,” she reminded him.
“I don’t think he’s really all that happy about the ex part.”
“He should have thought of that before he strapped himself with it.”
“I don’t think you’re all that happy about it, either.”
“Well, naturally…no one likes getting dumped.” She walked her fingers up his shoulder. “But I suppose it makes it a whole lot easier when you have someone to help you pick up the pieces.”
“Do you love him?”
“Oh. I, um…” Did she? She was upset, sure, and it stung like hell…but was she heartbroken? Or was it merely another case of someone she thought she could depend on leaving her? Did she really mourn David, or only what he represented? A normal life, security, stability, maybe a family. She’d always wanted a family. People who could depend on her to help hold them together. No one in her life had been able to do that for her.
He was waiting for her answer. She sure as hell didn’t owe him one. But he had that way, that damn way of looking at her that made her certain she was going to answer him all the same. “I cared about him a lot. Maybe I even loved him. Or maybe real, true love was possible, but would only have come later. I don’t know.”
“Did he ever make you feel like I just did?”
She frowned at him, stunned he would ask such a thing. Especially with that smug, arrogant little tone. Most guys didn’t want to hear about their predecessors. But then, he was kind of a strange guy.
Oh, shit. She hoped to God—not for the first time, but for perhaps the most fervent—he wasn’t some psycho stalker. His tattoos alone were pretty scary…she hadn’t noticed them until he got up to get her a drink earlier, and the sight of them had drawn an audible gasp from her. The thick, elaborate black patterns swirled all the way across his back and down to his butt. She didn’t mind a tattoo, but that one had been off-putting. The sheer amount of work and pain that must have gone into it…and what the hell did it mean? She’d asked, once she regained use of her voice, but he just shrugged and said he’d thought it looked cool. Okay. Then he’d come back to bed and made her forget all about it. For the time being.
“I don’t really feel like discussing my sex life with David, if it’s all the same to you.”
He scoffed. “Well, that answers my question. Come on, Madeleine. He was nothing to you. I saw the tears you shed over him and they were a crime.”
She looked at him for a moment, then sat up and hugged herself, suddenly unexplainably chilled. “You say that like you know it for a fact.”
“I do.”
“You can’t.”
“Everyone leaves you, don’t they?”
“What?”
“It’s a wonder you let anyone close to you at all. You only let me in because you expect that I’ll be gone tomorrow. No surprises. No pain. Right? Everyone you just told me about in your life, your mother, grandparents, aunts and uncles…none of them are in your life anymore, are they? You’re utterly alone.”
Who the hell was he, mind-fucking her like this? “What does it matter to you? You will be gone tomorrow, so quit trying to head-shrink me. I already had that fight tonight. What are you, a psych student and I’m a fucking experiment for you?”
He leaned up and, to her utter bemusement, skimmed his hands up her bare arms. Her shoulders. Gooseflesh exploded over her skin as if a phantom breath had gusted across it. His hand came to rest over her heart, which leapt toward him as if it wanted to break free and feel the squeeze of his fingers around it. A tiny sound erupted from her throat. She must be seriously disturbed.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, lowering his lips to her shoulder. He trailed a warm path to her neck and, against her better judgment, she found herself leaning her head away to give him easy access. After everything they’d done tonight, she still turned to liquid beneath his touch. “But you intrigue me. So much.”
Why? She’d asked him already, but he wouldn’t answer. And she wished he would, wished he could tell her something that would make all the madness make sense, all the pieces of her life fall into place.
That was ridiculous. Wasn’t it? Still, the idea wouldn’t leave her alone.
“Everyone leaves me,” she whispered, stunned when the words slipped from her lips. Once they were out, she couldn’t build up a dam fast enough to stop the rest. “You’re right. But I’ve learned to deal with it. I’ve learned to put up walls, to not let anyone get too close.”
It had all started with her mother. Sad, that she could pinpoint the moment when things started going out of control in her life—but had there ever been control of any sort? A kid could only be lied to so many times before she began to grow wary and mistrustful. By the time her mother had OD’ed, after years of empty promises and failed attempts to get sober, Maddie had been so removed from her own emotions she could remember looking in that casket and thinking that thin waxy figure inside wasn’t anything that had ever been attached to her. It had never loved her or cared about her at all.
She wanted to unload all of that on someone, she realized. Maybe she did need therapy. Or maybe she just needed this. Someone to put his arms around her and not question her sanity. To whisper in her ear it was all right. Even if it was only for tonight, the night when she needed it most.
“I’m…sorry, Madeleine, that you were hurt,” Ash said, his lips brushing her ear as the words left them. He soun
ded as if…as if he really meant it, which struck her as odd, because it implied he hadn’t meant anything he’d said all night.
“I’ll be fine. I always have been,” she said, hearing a quake in her voice she hoped he would dispel. Suddenly she wasn’t so tired anymore. And there was only one kind of therapy she craved.
Chapter Seven
The nightmare came; she’d known it would. It was never the same dream, but the same undercurrent of darkness ran through them all, like an obscene watermark. She recognized those dreams as soon as they began, recognized them, but was powerless to wake herself up or escape until the dream was done with her. By then she always stood at the edge of sanity with hurricane-force winds at her back, pushing her ever closer to the dizzying drop below.
Screaming, she clawed her way from under the sweat-soaked sheets, fighting the hands reaching for her, dead skeletal hands intent on dragging her down and imprisoning her in the earth until she suffocated on black, stinking dirt…she felt it already, filling her throat, and she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t—
Strong hands caught her, even more solid than the ones trying to kill her. She flailed against them, slapping wildly until both her wrists were shackled with fingers that felt like iron bands and pinned down to the bed.
The bed. Not the endless black maw of a waiting grave.
“Madeleine. Madeleine. Wake up.” There was strength in the voice, an undeniable command she responded to, mind, body and soul.
Her eyes flew open. Her own damp hair streaked her vision, but above her a face appeared. For one frantic moment it looked as threatening as the ones that had been taunting her since she fell asleep, but then everything came into sharp focus. Her room. The pale blue stain of dawn creeping in from her window. Ash. He was still here; he hadn’t left her. Tentatively, he loosened his hold on her wrists, a furrow creasing his brow.
The words burst out before she could stop them, her automatic response to David whenever she’d woken him up in such a way. “I’m sorry!”
He released her, settled next to her and pulled her into his arms. She rested her cheek against his naked chest, inhaled him and wished she could disappear inside him. She wasn’t crying—she was always too terrified to cry—but she was shaking all over. His warm solidity against her was the only thing keeping her from flying apart.
“It’s all right,” he murmured against her hair.
Minutes passed, and true embarrassment began to fill the emptiness left in the wake of panic. She didn’t want to lift her head from his chest because she didn’t want to face him, didn’t want to have to explain. Not that she owed him anything. It was morning, so surely he’d be out the door and out of her life within an hour. Better to just let it go and get back to reality.
Reality would be good. The nightmare still hovered at the fringes of her memory, intruding despite her efforts to hold it at bay. She tried to breathe deeply, slowly, but her lungs refused to cooperate just yet.
Then Ash tilted her chin up and kissed her.
She hadn’t expected it, wasn’t prepared. She only had time for one fleeting fear about morning breath and then she was swept away.
Nothing was wrong with the way he tasted. It was better than coffee. His lips gently teased hers apart and his tongue slipped between her teeth, the sensual motions reminding her in excruciating detail of the other things he was good at doing with it. His hands cradled her face; his biceps flexed under her hand…a hand that wasn’t clenching him in fear any longer, but softening with desire.
How did he do that? How did he chase away all the bad stuff?
“Better now?” he murmured, pulling away only to continue taking little nips at her mouth.
“Mm-hmm,” she replied, scarcely recognizing her own voice. She sounded sated, fulfilled…she even felt sleepy again. When she opened her eyes, she saw that the morning was slowly chasing away the last of the shadows in her room. Usually she welcomed it. This particular day, she would like to be able to postpone its arrival, only for a while.
Ash laid her head back down on his chest, stroking her hair. “Go back to sleep.”
It sounded divine, but still sent a little sliver of panic through her. “I don’t know if I can. The dreams—”
“I’ll keep them away.”
It was cheesy, romantic nonsense, but something melted around her heart.
She almost believed him.
Delia was late to her own store, as usual. No big deal. It wasn’t as if a line was waiting when Maddie unlocked the door and disarmed the security system.
It was almost eleven. She’d had a couple more hours of blessedly dreamless sleep in Ash’s arms and then she’d seen him off. It had been…odd, a little awkward, and he’d seemed reluctant to leave, looking at her in a way she found confusing. As if there was something he wanted to do or say before he finally gave up the battle with himself and kissed her goodbye. Nothing had been said about seeing each other again, but of course, he knew where to find her if he wanted.
She knew nothing about him. No phone number, no address…that ball was entirely in his court. She’d be a freaking liar if she said she hoped he wouldn’t do something with it. So much for love them and leave them.
Delia bounced in thirty minutes later, bearing a bakery box and Starbucks despite it being nearly noon. She’d probably just rolled out of bed herself. Her shoulder-length black hair wasn’t as immaculately tousled as usual, but smooth and flat. Her eyes were covered with oversized sunglasses.
Maddie eyed the box and cocked an eyebrow at her. “I was thinking about lunch.”
“Hell, I’ll eat all this and whatever you go get. I’m starving.” Delia tossed the white box on the counter and flipped it open, attacking the flaky pastry with gusto. She bit into one and her face underwent a shift to orgasmic bliss.
Maddie reached over and pulled Delia’s glasses off, tilting her chin up and inspecting her eyes as the other girl chewed and stared back impassively. Clear. “No hangover, then? I’m impressed.”
“Nah. I didn’t even go out.”
“Really? I tried to call you.”
“I crashed early.”
“What’s gotten into you?”
Delia shrugged. Only after she’d demolished a croissant did she sip her coffee and pass Maddie her own. “Did you get me cheese danish?” Maddie asked.
“It’s lunchtime,” Delia mimicked, propelling the box toward her. “Of course I did.”
“Like I need it.” She’d packed on a few extra pounds in the past several months…okay, more than a few. She was a stress eater, and, well, there had been a lot of stress to eat about lately. Two weeks ago, in a fit of rage, she’d tossed her scales in the cabinet under the sink. It was too depressing to watch the numbers climb. “I need to start exercising,” she announced suddenly.
Delia almost choked, managed to swallow with an audible gulp. “Jesus, Mad, when would you have time? Sometimes I want to fire you just so you can relax.”
“Ha. Don’t you dare. I would starve.”
“Well, maybe I would feed you every now and then.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“It’s only because I love you. So, how did your date go last night?”
She’d known the question was coming. For the past couple of days she’d been confiding in Delia about her hopes for last night. Breathing deep, she said, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you. You absolutely will not believe it. I mean, I’m glad it’s not April Fool’s Day, or you’d accuse me of trying to pull one over on you.”
Delia’s round blue eyes had grown even rounder and seemingly even bluer as Maddie spoke. “What the hell. Did he propose?”
“He dumped me.”
Delia’s jaw dropped. “That bastard! Holy crap! Mad…I mean, holy crap! Why the… what the… Dude, you look pretty awesome for just having been dumped. I mean, you’re glowing. It doesn’t make any sense. With the way you’re looking, I was expecting you to flash your fucking new diamond sparkler or something.”
“It makes perfect sense once you hear all of it.”
“What, did you make up and break up all in one night? Wild make-up sex?”
“I think we can safely say David is out of the picture. There was no wild make-up sex. There was, however, wild sex.”
Maddie chanced a look at her friend and burst out laughing. There was no description for the look on Delia’s face. She only wished she had a camera to capture it for posterity. Or just to hang on the wall in this place. Plenty of the regulars would get a kick out of it.
“With who?”
“Oh God, Dee. This guy. I met this guy by some freak accident in the parking garage as I was leaving the restaurant. And he was…wonderful and gorgeous and sexy, and we talked for only a few minutes but…I took him home with me.”
“Holy shit! I’m…speechless! And speechless never happens to me.”
“I know, right?”
“So, spill. Details, girl.”
“Oh, I can’t go into all the lurid details. But he was…he was awesome.” Maddie practically felt the wistfulness in her own smile as she lifted her coffee to her lips. She glanced at Delia over the cup. Her friend shook her head slowly, still in disbelief.
“Damn. I feel as proud as a…as a mother or something, like my little Maddie is all growed up now.”
“Let’s not be ridiculous. It happened, and it was good, and it definitely got my mind off things. If nothing else, it showed me there’s plenty more out there. David wasn’t the be-all, end-all.”
“So are you going to see this guy again? Tell me his name, at least. Maybe I know him if he’s from around here.”
“I don’t think he is. He’s got a little bit of an accent, but I can’t place it. He didn’t talk about himself much…but his name is Ash…” Damn. She hadn’t even asked his last name. “Um, well, we didn’t get that far. But I doubt I’ll be seeing him anymore. It was just one of those things, you know?”