Chapter 50
Fifty
T he ache shooting through Esther’s belly and hips threatened to take her out. While she was glad she was no longer basically bed-bound at the hospital, she’d done entirely too much moving around for her first day of freedom and was now ecstatic it was time for bed. She wanted nothing more than to stretch out and not move for the next eight to ten hours.
Wearing her softest, loosest pjs, she left the bathroom and made her way down the hall to her bedroom, using the wall for support. She rounded the corner and paused, eyeing the ten feet of open space between her and the bed. It was maybe five steps without support, but it felt like miles. Her body was utterly done.
Heavy footsteps on the stairs made her look over her shoulder. Asher appeared at the top of the steps.
“Hey.” He hovered near the stairs, a hesitant look on his face. He’d been keeping his distance all afternoon and evening. Ever since her outburst. She wasn’t sure if she’d offended him or if it was his way of respecting her wishes. Either way, it bugged her. She just wanted things to go back to the way they were.
“Hey. Help me to bed?”
Without a word, he walked forward, then put an arm around her waist, holding lightly onto her hip while he gripped her opposite hand. Esther leaned into him, letting him propel them across the room. With a wince, she sank onto the mattress and brought her feet up.
“Do you need anything else before you go to sleep?”
“Yes. You.”
A slight widening to his eyes was the only emotion that crossed his face. “Esther…”
She rolled her eyes and let out a little chuckle. “Not like that. I can barely walk. I just want you here with me.” She patted the sheets beside her.
“Oh. Are you sure? I wouldn’t?—”
“Asher, get your sexy, nerdy ass in this bed.”
Fire roared to life in his eyes, turning the light brown depths the color of rich caramel. “For the record, I’m not tired yet.” He reached for the collar of his shirt.
“Good. I’m not either.”
He froze, then dropped his hand. “Essy, this isn’t?—”
“Don’t finish that sentence. I know what you’re going to say. All I want to do is talk and snuggle, Asher. That’s it.”
He blew out a breath, holding her gaze for a moment. “What about Edie? Wasn’t she sleeping in here with you while I was missing?”
“Mom and Dad brought over a twin-size air mattress. Audra set it up in the guest room and moved in there with Brooke and Annabeth. Edie took the couch. Are there any other questions you’d like me to answer?”
A teasing glint entered his eyes, and those beautiful lips tilted up ever so slightly in a smirk. “No.” In one swift movement, he whisked his shirt over his head. A second later, he unfastened his jeans and let them drop to the floor.
Esther bit her lip. Just because she wasn’t physically capable of what her mind and body wanted, didn’t mean she couldn’t appreciate the sight before her. She’d meant it when she called him a sexy nerd. His big, beautiful brain was wrapped in a big, beautiful package.
He crawled into bed next to her and drew the covers up. Esther shifted, settling into the crook of his arm with a wince.
“Are you all right? Do you need me to move?”
“No. I’m just achy. I’m ready to stay in one place for a while.”
He hummed. She could hear the lecture in that one sound. He was as aware as she was that she’d done too much today.
But she didn’t want to talk about that. She wasn’t even sure how to bring up what she wanted to talk about.
So, she drew circles on his chest with her fingernail and waited for him to speak. She’d figure it out.
Somehow.
Except he didn’t talk. He stayed silent and drew his own circles on her shoulder as they laid there.
Head tucked, Esther rolled her eyes. The man was never without words. Why was he silent now?
Finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. She pushed up on one arm and looked at him. “Are you all right?”
His eyebrows dipped. “Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“You’re quiet. You’re never quiet.”
His expression shuttered. “I’m fine.”
Esther shook a finger in his face. “No. You’re shutting me out. Why? Something’s bugging you. Why won’t you talk to me?” It was her turn to frown as her anxiety kicked in. “It’s because of earlier, isn’t it? Asking you not to hover doesn’t mean I don’t want you to talk to me.”
“It’s not that.” He stopped and inhaled a breath, then pushed up so he was sitting.
Esther scooched up next to him and waited for him to continue.
He scrubbed his hands over his face and groaned. “I don’t even know where to start.”
Her ire with him fled as she saw the depth of uncertainty in his expression. He looked like a lost little boy. “Have you talked to anyone since that day?” She knew he hadn’t talked to her. For most of her hospital stay, he’d been absent during the day. At night, he’d slip in after the nurses turned the lights down and curl up on the couch to sleep. While she’d appreciated his presence while she slept, she missed talking to him.
“Not really, no. Things have been a bit hectic.”
“You can’t keep all that bottled up, Asher.”
“Who says I did?”
The look he sent her told her he’d had time by himself where he’d let loose. For that, she was happy. But that didn’t mean he’d dealt with it.
“And?” She lifted one eyebrow.
“And what? I had a good cry. You’re alive. All is well.”
“That’s such bull crap.” She lightly smacked his chest. “You cannot boil all you went through down to that just because ‘you had a good cry’.” She made air quotes.
“What do you want me to say, Esther? That I feel like an idiot because I let myself get knocked over the head and kidnapped while in a ridiculous costume? Or that I feel like an even bigger idiot because I didn’t do a good enough job canvassing the little prison Lennox put Leah and me in and I almost paid the price for that? How about how, if you look past both of those things, there’s the fact that my ineptitude nearly got the woman I love murdered? If I’d been more vigilant, more like Ford and the others, I’d have kept my head on a swivel and?—”
Esther laid a finger over his lips, silencing the flow of words. She swallowed around the ball of emotion clogging her throat. Had he really said he loved her?
She rolled her lips in, pressing them together for a moment before she eeked some words past the lump that refused to go away. “That’s a good start,” she whispered. Taking a shaky breath, she continued. “And you know what? I don’t blame you for anything that happened. Neither does Leah nor Connie nor anyone else. I’m grateful you’re not like your friends or my sister. They might have seen the attack coming and either ended up dead, or inadvertently left Leah all alone in that hole Lennox put you in.”
The pain in his eyes briefly abated until he looked her over. His hand skimmed the soft fabric of her shirt near her abdomen. “Yeah, but?—”
“No buts, Asher. I put myself in front of you. You didn’t do this to me. And do you know why I put myself in front of you?” She only paused for the briefest of moments. “Because I love you too.”
His hand fisted in her shirt.
“I don’t want to—can’t—live without you.” She raised a hand to touch his face. Soft beard hair tickled her fingertips. “So, please don’t blame yourself for anything that happened. Lennox is the only one at fault for any of this.”
For several long moments, he stayed silent and just stared at her neck and the hair draped over her shoulder. When he finally looked at her, her breath caught at the emotion shining in his eyes. He looked like she’d given him the greatest present ever.
“You love me?”
She huffed a laugh. “Yes, you silly man. Why else would I launch myself?—”
He cut her words off with a fierce kiss.
Esther let out a soft grunt of surprise, then blocked every thought out of her head and just savored the feel of his mouth on hers. It had been far, far too long.
Asher’s thumbs skimmed her cheekbones as he framed her face in his hands. All too soon for her liking, he pulled back.
“So, what do we do about this?” He rested his forehead on hers. His warm breath puffed on her face. “We’ve never really talked about it. Things were too new before Lennox turned our lives upside down.”
“I told you where I stand. I don’t want to do life without you. The rest is little details.”
Asher barked a short laugh. “Little details, sure. Like where we’ll live, and if this will be a long-distance thing for now.”
“I don’t want to do that.” She bit her lip and glanced away, the reality of their living situation hitting home. “Maybe the details aren’t so small.” She waved a hand. “But they still don’t matter. We’ll figure it out.”
His mouth ticked upward with a happy smile. “Yeah, we will. Because I don’t intend to ever let you go.”
Esther answered his smile with one of her own and fluttered her fingers over the planes of his face and into his thick, dark hair. She’d so missed being in his arms. “I’m glad. You know, Edie joked about setting us up. I blew her off, telling her we weren’t suited. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong.”
He chuckled. “I told her the same thing. Let’s not tell her how wise she is. No need inflating her ego.”
With a joyful laugh, Esther rested her forehead against his. “Deal.”