CHERISH (46 page)

For her, I’ll take my time.

I’ve waited this long, and I’m not fucking this up. She's worth everything I have to give, even when that means not
giving
her anything . . . not a touch, a lick, nothing.

I can see the look in her questioning eyes, trying to figure out whether or not I’m flirting with her or pathetically desperate. Either way, her look is guarded, and I take a deep breath and try to give off a less manic vibe.

“Do you need saving?” She’s eying me as the massive industrial door swings shut and echoes a loud crunch like the doors closing in a prison movie. “You look fairly capable.”

She’s wearing a tangerine colored peacoat. Her fingers are bright red, and her cheeks match. The wind is screaming through the tall ceiling of the loft, and I can hear the soft tinkling sound of icy rain hitting the walls of the metal framed windows

“You look cold.”

I’m happy because it’s unusually warm in here for such a large space. But, it has an industrial furnace big enough to heat the whole damn building, so getting this loft up to eighty degrees was easy.

“It’s March, and it’s hailing.” She looks at me like I’m an idiot because I am. But, I also see her right eye squint shut, pushing away a smile. “I have to say, I’m confused.” She’s looking around.

At least I’ve got her eyes off the damn floor, and I can’t wait to hear what she has to say next.

“So you are a SEAL, right? I don’t know a lot about that but, from what I gather, you are supposed to be the uber elite of badasses, right?” She doesn’t wait for me to answer. “So, why does someone like you need saving? From an old guy in a wheelchair?”

I bite down on the inside of my lip, trying to push away the stupid smile that’s ready to explode. She’s somewhere between annoyed and interested, and either one is fine with me because it means she is thinking about me on some level, and I’ll take whatever I can get.

“From where I’m standing, you’re the badass.” I see her eyes follow mine as I look over at where my father is sitting inside the separate apartment watching TV. The door between the open space of the loft and his living room is wide open, but he can’t hear us over the old-man volume on Jeopardy. “You are a badass when it comes to him, and that is a hill I can’t even begin to climb.”

She stuffs her hands down inside the pockets of her coat. I think of offering to take it from her, but she looks like she still needs it.

“So, what’s the story here?” She looks and points at the two, nearly twenty-foot long, metal tables that I have centered in the five thousand square foot space. They are covered in neat piles of paper. Letters. Some typed, some handwritten.

Then there are the notebooks—probably a hundred of them stacked by fives, ordered by date, and sitting at perfect right angles to each other.

Off to one side of the massive open space under the windows, I have my bed. I set up three tall bookcases around it, giving it near complete privacy. There’s a decent galley kitchen on the opposite wall, and Louis, true to his word, had some decent furniture delivered to create a living space with two sofas, a couple of chairs, a giant TV and pretty much anything I needed in the kitchen.

I catch her eyes looking over toward my makeshift bedroom. I decide to ignore her question for the moment and deflect with my own.

“You see something you like?” Even as the words leave my mouth, I know it’s a mistake.

She narrows those amazing blue-white eyes, and I’m having a fucking hard time not dragging her by the hair to my bed.

“If I’m going to work here, that nonsense isn’t going to fly.” She shifts her weight, and her arms cross over her chest.

The way her demeanor can turn on a dime is fascinating. One second, she’s a warm, candle flame and the next, she’s hell fire.

Unfortunately, either one of those has my blood running south, and if she catches her eye on that effect, I can be sure I’ll be in a shitstorm of hurt without her here.

“Sorry, I mean . . .” I roll my eyes at myself, but I can’t help my inner chuckle at the fierce little firecracker staring down a scarred up Navy SEAL about three times her size.

Now she’s back to somewhere between her two extremes. Her eyes are still narrow, but she’s paused them for a second longer than a glance on the side of my face that most people avoid. I give her props for just taking a look. It doesn’t bother me. I’d rather people just get it over with and ask rather than the old, uncomfortable, eye dodge. “That was a joke. A joke bomb, sorry. I want you to be comfortable here. I have no nefarious intentions, I assure you.”

She still has doubt in her eyes, and I know I've got to shake off whatever it is she does to me that has my game evaporating around her. I mean, this is one girl I actually picture myself holding hands with as much as fucking her into forever. And, I haven’t managed to get much of anything right so far.

“Okay. So, you want me to go get to work?” She shrugs and swivels her head around.

I want you to move in. Preferably naked and perched on my face.

“Yes, well, I mean he’s fine for right now. You want something to drink?” I want her to keep talking to me, and I’ll do just about anything to make that happen. “I’ve got . . .” I open the refrigerator and realize I have a single bottle of Fiji water and a Gatorade.

Then, I remember the bottle of wine Louis sent over with the furniture. He thought I might need it, and true to history, that dude is almost always right.

“It sounds a little biblical, but I have water or wine. Or, Gatorade.” I’ve already got the corkscrew working, hoping she will choose the wine. That would put us on more familiar ground than water, and I’m all about baby steppin’ to the more familiar ground.

“I’m working.” She looks straight at me.

It’s not a “no.”

“Do you hate wine?“

She shakes her head and squints her nose just a bit.

”Well, you trusted me enough to come here and take the job, so let’s spend ten minutes getting to know each other.
Ten minutes
. Tell you what, you can ask me anything. I’m an open book. I can see you want to ask me something,
I can see it
.” I grin at her because I want more than anything for it to be true. “And, this is good wine. See, no box.” I hold up the bottle like a Sommelier.

Her stoic, silent stare is questioning, but I can see a tiny crack forming in her tough exterior. I can also see she’s changed out of her scrubs and into jeans and a black turtleneck. I’m pretending she did that so she would look better.

For me.

The cork makes a soft
pop
as I jerk it free, and I do an invisible high five when she unbuttons her jacket. I feel lighter. There were some fucking bricks on my shoulders, both from dealing with Dad this morning and my inability to stop thinking about how to get her under me. Now, I’m happy she is willing to take the glass of wine and take off her coat.

“Here . . .” I slide a half-full glass of burgundy toward her across the stainless steel counter then quickly move around to gently help her with her jacket.

As soon as I do that, her sweet, soft scent catches in my nose, and I’m frozen. It’s not overtly sexy, yet it is like a call to a primal part of me—a part that has rumbled around with other women before but never really surfaced. Not until now.

I’m suddenly very aware of her. I mean, I was before, but not like this. Now it’s acute.

Every tiny detail is standing up and calling to me. Every shining strand of her hair is more stunning than the last. The way she tips her head to the side and raises her shoulders as I pull the coat free has my senses spinning.

She reaches for the wine glass, and I settle her coat on the back of a chair, stealing a deep inhale from its soft fabric when she turns away.

“You’re beautiful,” I whisper before I can stop, then immediately I hope it was soft enough for her to ignore.

No such luck.

“What?” She spins around, the wine in her glass swirling and almost curling over the edge.

“Sorry, I meant you have beautiful hair.”

“See, there you go again with that.” She’s stepping back, darting her finger at my face, but she raises the glass to her lips, and I watch as she takes a sip.

Even just that simple act is one of the most precious, stunning things I have ever seen in my life. Watching the wine touch her lips before slowly being pulled inside, I am quickly lost again thinking of tasting the wine by tasting her.

“Okay. So what do you want to know? Ask me anything.” Quick subject change and hopefully I’ll save my ass from more humiliation. I pour myself a glass of wine while she decides just how creepy I am.

“What happened to your face?”

Gutshot.

I cough and half-choke on the sip of wine with a half-gasp half-laugh.

Most girls ask me about being a SEAL or what it feels like to shoot someone or something frivolous to get things started, but not Promise. She’s seen too much to dick around with useless small talk.

She’s a force. I can see her thick walls made of stone and topped with razor wire. I also see the cracks, those places where I will get in and, from the inside, work my way out, becoming the reason she no longer needs her own defenses—because I protect what’s mine.

She wraps one arm around her waist as the other spins the wine glass around on the counter, making a rhythmic sound in the silence of the concrete and metal.

“Well, okay. When I was ten, our house caught on fire. My face got burned, and I couldn’t see through the smoke. So, when I found a window, I crawled through it, but there was some glass—”

“Okay.” She cuts me off, and I’m not sure which one of us is more relieved.

“So, my turn.” My need to know her overrides my need to make her comfortable.

“What do you mean,
your
turn? That was not part of the deal. You said
I
got to ask you a question, not the other way around.”

“Do you have something to hide?” I can’t stop thinking about that pink and black lace that winked at me earlier from under her scrub top. I can’t stop imagining it holding up what is a damn nice rack under that curve-hugging, black sweater.

“No.”

She takes another sip, so I figure she at least hasn’t slammed that door all the way shut. Like a moron, I shove my head inside, pushing.

“Would you have taken twenty-five dollars an hour?” I want to ask her a million other things, but more than anything, I want to see her smile.

“What?”
Her incredulous reaction is followed by a shocked smile. Leaning forward just an inch, looking me dead in the eyes, she says, “Not a penny less than forty-nine.”

I have the sudden urge to bury my lips into hers and taste the flavor of the wine. It’s got to be so much better that way. Then, the next thought is of burying my face between her legs.

I also know that flavor would put this $300 bottle of French Burgundy to shame.

She’s holding back another smile, and I have the realization that I want to be the one to put that smile on her face for the rest of her life.

“But we already agreed, so you are just going to have to swallow that one dollar premium.” She’s got me by the damn short hairs, the way she gives it right back to me.

“Fair enough. I won’t expect anything more for that extra dollar.” My eyes playfully scan her from nose to toes.

She is deciding if I just crossed into the creeper category again, but when I hear her let out a short sigh followed by a shake of her head, I feel like I just won the damn lottery.

“So, do you want me to get drunk with you or take care of your dad?”

“You’re on to me. My dad is really able to take care of himself. We just set up this elaborate plan to get you here to get drunk with me.” I take a long swallow from my wine glass, unable to stop myself from covering her from top to bottom again with my eyes, which draws up a strange, nervous tension in the back of my neck.

There is nothing about her that does not call to the beast she seems to have awakened in me.

“How do you know it wasn’t
my
plan to get
you
to pay
me
fifty bucks an hour to get drunk on your wine?”

She smashes the ball right back in my face, and I’ve got nothing to return.

She lets out a full laugh this time in answer to my paused response, and it’s like the damn Forth of July inside my head as well as inside my boxers.

This was not what I was expecting when I swung that door open to my Dad’s room two days ago. But, I’m almost inclined to call a truce with God and give a nod of thanks.

She’s so much more than I’d imagined, and there’s so much more to discover. For the first time in my life, I want it all.

I see how fragile she is, standing there, taking the last bit of wine between her lips. I want to crush her under me and fuck all the delicate parts of her. I want to treat her like she is strong and powerful even as I break her in such a stunning way that only I can put her back together again. I need to hold her as much as she needs to be held. She just doesn’t know it yet.

Over the next four hours, I do my best to keep my instinct to stalk her under control. The primal part of me that has surfaced is intent on her every move, but I manage to get a few hours of focused work done on the letters and the drawings.