EMBER - Part Two (The EMBER Series Book 2) (3 page)

"Do you know the name of the physical therapist you'll be working with?"

"I have it written down." I gesture towards my kitchen table. "I keep everything in a pile over there so when I need something I know where to find it."

Dane glances briefly towards the papers before he looks back down at me. "Did Ben recommend someone or were you assigned someone after you left the hospital?"

It had only taken me a few days to realize that Dane had more than a passing acquaintance with the doctor who took care of me when I was rushed to the ER. Ben Foster is the kind of physician who puts everything he has into his work. He'd explained as thoroughly as he could in layman terms, the extent of my injuries, to my parents and me. He'd never rushed me through an examination and he answered each and every one of my questions.

On the day I was being discharged, he had personally sat next to me and gone through the protocol I needed to follow after my release. He'd called to arrange my physical therapy himself and as I left the hospital, I knew that the care I'd received had helped me immeasurably.  I got home with a renewed sense of purpose and a strong belief that I'd fully recover in time.

I adjust myself slightly on the cramped couch. Dane had pulled me into his lap when he arrived and even with all the doubts still floating in my mind, I'd nuzzled my cheek into his chest. "Dr. Foster arranged it."

"You should call him Ben." He leans down to graze his lips across my cheek. "He's my friend. He told you to call him Ben, didn't he?"

He had. I can't recall our first meeting because I was still in shock but the next day I vaguely remember him introducing himself to my parents as Ben. "How long have you known him?"

"I don't know." His chest rumbles as he chuckles deeply. "Maybe a year, but it could be more."

The exact timing of the friendship doesn't matter. I don't care if they've known each other forever or for a month. I do care that he clearly wants me on a first name basis with someone he views as important to him. That has to count for something.

"I've been thinking about what we talked about the last time I was here." His index finger catches my chin to jerk it upwards until our eyes are locked.

Unless he's referring to the lack of fresh produce in my kitchen, I know exactly where this discussion is headed. Just to be sure, I'm going to get behind the driver's wheel and steer it in the direction I want. "You mean when you told me about Maisy?"

His expression does nothing to hide the fact that my blunt words stun him. He pushes his back into the couch just a touch but it's enough that he has to shift my weight on his lap. "Yes."

Now that I have confirmation I realize that I don't know what I'm supposed to say next. Zoe's confession about Beck's feelings for another woman blazes across my thoughts. I want to give Dane the benefit of the doubt but I refuse to get pulled into a love triangle when I'm on the cusp of a breakthrough in my art career. I love spending time with him but I'm not going to forsake my entire future for a relationship that may crash and burn once he realizes that wedded bliss with Maisy is actually exactly what he wants. I can't risk derailing myself emotionally that way. It would impact me too much.

"I know that I should have been more open about how serious things were between me and her." His fingers slide over the leg of my jeans. "I was going to tell you that first night when we were drinking coffee in your kitchen, but I couldn't. I was worried that you wouldn't want to see me again."

If anything, the man has a grip on logic that is unwavering. He's right in thinking I likely wouldn't have let him back into my place the next night if I'd have known that he broke up with someone he cared that much about right before he rescued me from Larry's sweaty grasp.

"I want you to understand something." He pushes my left hand into my lap, stroking his fingers over the plaster cast. "I feel like I woke up that night. When I looked at Maisy sitting across the table from me, I didn't see my future anymore. I just saw my past."

I stare at my hand, wiggling my fingers the way Ben instructed me to do a few times each day. "Why did you wait until then to end it?"

"Exactly a year ago on that same night…on my birthday," he begins before he pushes a lock of hair behind my ear. "The night of my twenty-eighth birthday, Maisy told me she wanted to marry me."
              I stare at his face. I see nothing but honesty in his eyes but it's impossible for me to judge whether that's based in reality or in my need to trust in everything that he says. "What did you say to her?"

"I can't remember." His finger slides down to my neck. "I remember exactly how I felt, but I can't remember saying anything to her after she told me she wanted to get married."

I ask the obvious because it's right there waiting for me. "How did you feel?"

"I felt panicked. I was scared."

I study the strength in his jawline. I soak in his chiseled features. After seeing him in his firefighter gear the night I was hit, I'd never label him as anything but strong and courageous.

"I should have ended it a year ago," he says the words softly. "I had to end it now or it would have only hurt her more."

I don't know Maisy but judging by the fragmented parts of her relationship that I'm hearing about, she had to have been in pain after the break up. She expected a proposal that night and instead her dreams of a happily-ever-after collapsed in the blink of an eye. That explains, at least partially, why she's still holding onto the house. It's the place where she built her plans for the future.

"I wish I had met you first, Bridget," he whispers the words against the skin of my neck. "I wish every day that you had walked into my life before I ever met her."

I lean my cheek against the headboard as he lashes his tongue over my core again and again. "Dane, please."

The only response is a growl through the moans that have been pouring from his lips since he undressed us both and got on his back on my bed. He'd gently guided me onto his face and now, after coming already once, I'm too tender. I'm so close to another orgasm that I can already feel the rush flowing through me.

I grip tightly to the top of the headboard as I glide myself over his lips. His hands jump up to my thighs to hold me in place. I cry out from the high, knowing that as soon as I crash back down, he'll pull me back and onto his hard cock.

He licks me softly as I feel my body collapse beneath the weight of the pleasure. I try to move to gain distance only because it all feels like too much and if he dives back into my wetness full force, I'm going to pass right out. I already feel faint.

"I can't," I whisper as I look down at his eyes. "You need to stop."

He grazes his tongue slowly over the length of my cleft before he pushes my body back onto his chest. "I could eat you all night, Bridget. I love doing that."

I love when he does that too. "It feels so good."

I inch myself downwards as gracefully as I can but having my arm encased in a plaster prison doesn't help. I wince when I feel a burst of pain shoot through my side as I try and twist slightly to gain enough leverage to slide down to his stomach.

His hands land on my waist before I can react and I'm suddenly on my back with him hovering above me. "I'm sorry. I hurt you, didn't I?"

I look up into his handsome face. He'd shaved before he arrived at my apartment and each time he does that I'm taken back by how gorgeous and strong his face is. I doubt that he's ever looked in the mirror and questioned whether or not he's attractive. "You didn't."

"Why are you looking at me like that?" A small smile tugs at the corner of his lips. "You've never looked at me like that before."

I part my lips and dart my tongue over them. "I've never known anyone like you before."

"A fireman?"

I smile at the jest in his tone. "I don't know any firemen but that's not what I meant."

"What did you mean then?" He brings his hand to my forehead to softly brush away some wayward strands of hair.

"Sometimes I think you're too good to be true."

"I think the same thing when I look at you." His lips follow the path that his fingers just took. "I didn't know a woman like you was out there."

"I like when we're together," I confess softly knowing that revealing everything I'm feeling too soon, and when things are still unresolved between him and Maisy, isn't my best move but I can't help it.

He slides his lips over my cheek before he brushes them against mine. "I love when we're together."

I don't need more than that right now. It's enough to quiet the raging voices within me that are telling me that I shouldn't invest myself in this so soon. I'm trying not to but every moment I spend with him is making it harder and harder to stay objective.

He kisses me one more time, before he slides his body from the bed, reaches into the drawer of the nightstand and pulls a condom out.

***

"I wanted to ask you something." His breath is on my cheek.

I try to open my eyes but I'm exhausted.

After he'd sheathed himself, he'd sat on my bed with his back resting against the headboard. He'd helped me get onto his lap and then I'd ridden him until I'd come hard with my lips pressed against his.

The moment my body stopped shaking, he'd pushed me onto my back and he mounted me. He'd pulled my legs up against his chest and had thrust himself into me over and over again until he released with a deep growl pulled between the syllables of my name. The look of raw pleasure on his face had brought me back to the brink and he'd lowered his hand to my core to gently glide his fingers over my flesh until I shuddered under the weight of one last intense climax.

"Bridget." His lips are on my neck. "Please look at me."

It's a request that I can't resist, regardless of how weary my eyelids feel. I pull them open slowly and I'm instantly greeted with the vision of his face only inches from mine. "What is it?"

He pulls the pad of his thumb over my bottom lip. "Can I stay here tonight? I want to sleep with you."

I want that too. I know, for a fact, that if he hadn't wakened me that I would have curled into the warmth and comfort of his side the moment he crawled under the covers with me. I have no doubt that I wouldn't have woken until the sunlight had poured into my room in the morning.

"Stay," I whisper into his chest as he tugs me into his body. "I want you to stay."

He adjusts himself next to me, pulls my casted arm onto his chest and rests his lips against my cheek as we both drift off to sleep.

"I have a confession to make."

I've just walked back into my bedroom after brushing my teeth and my hair. Dane had insisted on having a shower even though he knew that the water at this time of the day would be as warm as the icy depths of the Arctic Ocean. I had giggled when I first walked into the bathroom and saw my toothbrush with toothpaste already on it. He'd done that for me before he gotten into the shower, turned on the water and let out a loud yelp.

I know that the next logical thing for me to ask is what the confession is but if it involves Maisy it's going to tarnish the memory of our first night actually sleeping together. He'd stayed over before but those nights were filled with passion and neither of us had slept more than a half hour at a time. Last night we fell asleep just before midnight and didn’t wake until almost seven. It's a milestone and in my life, it's a rarity.

"It's about your drawing," he begins before he pulls on his boxer briefs. "It's actually about the drawing you did of me."

I had promised Dane that he could have the drawing before I'd hung it on the gallery wall. After news broke of my accident, people had flooded the gallery looking for my work. It was a community gesture meant to help raise funds for my recovery and the outpouring had been more than I ever imagined it would be. With the shock in getting over the accident, and the awe in knowing that my name was now associated with the word '
artist
,' I hadn't thought to tell anyone to put the drawing of Dane aside.

Once I realized that someone had purchased it, I felt instant regret but I decided right then, on the spot, that I'd draw him again as soon as I felt well enough to.

"Someone bought it," I say softly, not wanting to give credence to the words. It bites just to think about it, but it's even more painful to have to acknowledge it verbally. This is the first time we've spoken about it since that night.

"I bought it."

"What?" My eyes dart up to meet his. "You bought that drawing?"

He scratches the back of his neck. "I went back the next day. I waited until I knew you were okay and then I went to the gallery."

My intention from the moment I first brought my pencil to the paper to capture his handsome face was to give him the drawing. It would have been the first time I had given any of my work away.  "I wanted to give it to you."

"I know." He reaches down to pull on his jeans. "I wanted it so badly that I went to get it."

The words hit me with an emotional force that's completely unexpected. That drawing represented so many things to me and it wasn't until I thought a stranger had taken it home, that I fully realized that.

It's not just the fact that it's the first time I've ever drawn someone I care for. It was more about that the drawing symbolized a shift in my life. It was a tangible reflection of my decision to share my work with the world. Dane had pushed me to do that, and within the penciled lines of his brow and the shading of his hairline, I'd captured the face of the person who held more belief in me than I held in myself.

Knowing that it meant so much to him that he went back to get it before it was lost forever, touches me on a level that feels too deep given the fact that we're still treading the waters of our new connection.

"I can't believe you bought it."

He tugs the sweater he was wearing when he arrived at my apartment yesterday back over his head. The static it generates, pulls his hair up and into a twisted mess. He looks even more striking when he's completely disheveled like this.

"I had to have it." He rakes his hand through his hair but it does little to calm it. "I just had to."

When I needed to make a decision on pricing the drawings, Brighton had urged me to consider the value in them. I had wanted to keep them at a reasonable price and to me that wasn't more than what amounted to a few cups of coffee. He had scolded me on not seeing the uniqueness in my own work. I'd given in when he suggested a few hundred dollars for each framed piece. I never expected Dane to pay that much, or anything.

"Let me give you back what you paid," I say it quickly. The words feel awkward and misplaced given the fact that he just told me that he invested what amounts to a good portion of his weekly pay on a drawing that was his to begin with.

"No." He reaches out to grab my elbow as I brush past him on my way to my purse. "It's worth way more than what I paid for it."

I giggle as I turn to look at him. "I wanted to give it to you."

"It's an investment." He leans down until his gaze is level with mine. "I see it as an investment."

I may not be an expert on romance, but I do know enough to recognize that there's nothing endearing in a man buying something as a financial investment.  "An investment?"

He steeples his fingers together as he holds them in front of his lips. "Bridget."

I can't take anything from the simple tone of his voice. "What?"

"You invested yourself in that drawing," he begins before he rests his forehead against mine. "I'm investing myself in you. That drawing symbolizes something to me. It's a new beginning."

I reach up to cup his cheek in my palm. "I'm investing myself in you too."

"You don't know how seriously I take that." He brushes his lips against mine. "You are my future. I see it. I know it."