Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
I was awake when Cash came to bed. I’d refused the narcotics he’d tried to talk me into taking and opted for over-the-counter pain relief. This was a mistake; my back was on fire. But I’d rather the haze of pain than the blitzed-out consequence of the heavier stuff.
It was bad enough I’d lost hours. I vaguely remembered my brother’s goon removing my bra before he tossed me on a mattress.
I vividly remembered alcohol being poured on my back.
The pain of that blurring my vision until dark spots crowded in.
After that I only had flashes. One of them was the asshole trying to get me, now braless, back on the hook.
For obvious reasons I wasn’t going to allow that to happen.
One of those reasons was my brother whipping me after he’d torn my blood-soaked shirt off was bad enough—totally bare up top was disturbing on a whole new level.
“Did I kill him?” I whispered my question.
I felt the bed move but I stayed lying on my side facing him with my eyes closed. It was one thing to know Cash was lying next to me, it was another to see his handsome face sharing a bed with me. I already had enough memories of the man to torture me—the last thing I needed was to court more.
In a couple of days, he’d be out of my life again. Hell, maybe by morning he’d kick me and Cara out.
“Yeah, Stella, you did. We came in just as you snapped his neck.”
Snapped his neck.
That should’ve made me feel something. But it didn’t.
“Who is we?”
“Me and Zane.”
I pinched my eyelids tighter.
I should’ve been grateful it had only been Zane and Cash and not the whole team. Yet, I couldn’t find gratitude through my shame.
“Do you know who he was?”
“Not yet. Zane checked and he didn’t have a wallet or phone on him. We didn’t have time to search the house. Kira’s working on it.”
Kira was working on it…great.
More shame.
“She doesn’t have to do that. If you have a picture, I’ll—”
“I see you’re not understanding what’s happening here, and now’s not the time to get into it.”
A hint of annoyance was breaking through the pain. I wasn’t a fan of being interrupted. But more than that I wasn’t a fan of being treated like I was a dim bulb.
“Not…understanding?”
I waited a few seconds for Cash to confirm I’d heard him correctly. I took his silence as him not feeling the need to verify. I also took those seconds to allow my annoyance to turn into irritation.
“And maybe you wanna clarify what ‘now’s not the time’ means?” I pushed.
I felt the bed move again. This time the movement was accompanied by Cash tagging my wrist and sliding his hand down to mine.
I held my breath as he laced our fingers together.
Only releasing it when I remembered this wasn’t some fairytale that ended with fireworks and unicorns dancing—Cash holding my hand in the dead of night after taking care of me and Cara didn’t mean anything.
He was being sweet, something six months ago I wouldn’t think he had in him. Hot, sexy, loyal, deadly—yes. Sweet—no.
“Yeah, Stella, I’ll clarify. It’s been a shit day.
You’re in pain. It’s late, Cara fell asleep watching a movie after wolfing down a bag of popcorn.
I put her in my spare room, but my guess, after the day she had, sleeping in a bed that’s not hers, she’s not sleeping sound.
I get you wanting to get into the nitty gritty but now’s not the time.
What I’ll share now is, after we found you, Zane called in our doctor.
He stitched up the worst of your gashes.
Closed others with butterfly bandages and the rest of the welts he covered in Arnicare.
Tomorrow, I need to change your bandages.
In two weeks, Dr. Spenser will remove the stitches.
He gave you morphine and left a bottle of pain pills.
After the doctor saw to you, I brought you home.
Zane and Nebraska drove Cara over. I told her you had the flu.
It was the best I could come up with without freaking her out, but I didn’t want her rushing in my room asking questions, or worse getting into bed with you causing you pain.
That brings us to now. You needing to take a pain pill and me needing to sleep off this nightmare of a day. ”
Nightmare day.
He got that right.
And he’d said spare bedroom—so we were at Cash’s home.
Not a safehouse.
He’d brought us to his home.
Yeah, no. I had to shove whatever fanciful feelings that information provoked—Cash didn’t actually want me in his bed in his home—it was just probably easier than arranging a safehouse on short notice.
“Maybe I should go sleep with Cara,” I murmured. “You’re right about her being in a strange bed. She could wake up and need me.”
“You go to her but if she wakes up before you do and she sees the bruises around your neck what are you going to tell her?”
He hadn’t told me I had bruises on my neck.
Though, I wasn’t surprised my brother’s dickhead friend left marks.
Even with only flashes of the fight, I did remember the asshole’s hands around my throat—I just couldn’t remember how I’d removed them before he choked me to death.
Or maybe he didn’t want to kill me. Damion probably would’ve been mad if I’d died; my brother was having too much fun torturing me.
Mad.
That was such a weak word for what Damion would’ve felt—infuriated would’ve been more like it. Enraged I’d died taking the account numbers he wanted to the grave. Incensed his time toying with me had come to an end.
I’d yet to formulate a proper response when Cash continued.
“If she gets up, I’ll hear her. Cara’s covered, Stella, so are you.
Take a pain pill and get some sleep. Tomorrow’s gonna suck, baby girl.
We got a lot of ground to cover. It’ll be good we do that without you being tired as fuck-all and in pain. ”
Stella.
He hadn’t called me Lore since I’d woken up in his bed. Actually, the last time he’d called me Lore was in his last voicemail. He’d started it calling me Stella but ended it calling me Lore.
Lore was dead.
Or at least she was supposed to be.
Though my brother had resurrected her earlier than I’d expected.
But here in Cash’s bed, I was just Stella.
And he was holding my hand.
That shouldn’t have caused me to feel any sort of way, yet there I was lying next to Cash with my insides feeling funny and my fingers tight around his.
I couldn’t get used to this.
Not feeling safe and protected.
Not lying next to Cash.
Not holding his hand.
And I had to wipe the memory of him being sweet to Cara from my memory.
I heard Cara giggling before I smelled the bacon.
Which meant I woke up smiling, in pain, and with my stomach reminding me I hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning.
Which further meant, I gingerly hauled my ass out of bed.
Stopping twice on my way to the bathroom.
The first time was to get my balance when halfway across the room I started to get dizzy.
The second time was in the doorway of the bathroom so I could hold on to the frame and take in Cash’s bedroom.
It wasn’t what I expected.
Buckskin-colored walls.
Bulky, expensive-looking furniture—all of it matching. Two nightstands, two dressers—one long, one tall—and a headboard that looked like it was made out of recycled barnwood.
There were three crazy cool abstract pieces of art hung above the long dresser—you had to look carefully to see it, but in the midst of the brush strokes and blotches of paint there were three horses running, manes wild in the wind.
A smaller one was perched over the tall dresser—the face of a bear snarling could be made out.
However, Cash had deviated from the wildlife theme for the painting over the bed.
The colors were more vibrant, including slashes of yellow in what looked to be a woman’s hair flowing off the edge of the canvas.
I could also make out the silhouette of her face, the lines of her body.
The longer I stared at it, the more the image came into focus.
A woman lounging back on her elbows, head tipped back—no facial features.
The curve of her breast hidden behind layers of paint and brush strokes.
Same with her bent knees—closed and cocked to the side.
I glanced down at the bed, seeing the cream sheets and the comforter was a kickass shade of muted blue that I was sure had an equally kickass name like Timber Wolf, tangled together.
Before I dipped into the bathroom I took another slow perusal of Cash’s personal space.
The room wasn’t huge, but it was big enough that all of his furniture including a leather chair positioned in the far corner fit, making the room cozy but not cluttered—a well put together cozy room, not at all how I thought a badass’s room would look.
Which I had to admit made me curious about the rest of his house.
All thoughts of abstract paintings and Timber-Wolf-colored bedclothes flew out of my mind when I got a good look at myself in the mirror.
I ignored my bloodshot eyes and tangled hair—though it must be noted by tangled I meant total rat’s nest to the point I might need to cut some of the knots out.
But right then the angry purple-and-blue bruising around my throat took precedence over the prospect of losing chunks of my hair.
I lifted my chin, taking in the fullness of the marks.
Back in the day when I was still Blair McKnight, socialite, I had a dab hand with a makeup brush.
I hadn’t lost that touch as Lore when I was working a mark that required a woman’s touch.
Not that I’d ever slept with a target, but men tend to get stupid around a pretty woman—one showing skin with a face full of expertly applied makeup and heavily smoked out eyes, paired with fuck-me pumps didn’t make men stupid—it made them biddable. And a compliant man was an easy mark.
But even in my heyday of makeup application, I wasn’t sure I possessed the skill required to conceal all that purple and blue.
And just like the abstract paintings on Cash’s wall, if I stared at those marks closely enough, I could make out a thumbprint under my right ear, fainter lines across my throat from the webbing of a hand, and four vertical marks on my left side—a visual representation of the term ‘going for the jugular.’
I decided to stop staring at myself and use the facilities.
Once I was done and back in front of the basin, I kept my eyes on my hands as I washed them.
I didn’t so much as glance in the mirror when I went in search of a toothbrush.
After some looking, and coming to the realization Cash might’ve tricked his bedroom out in a super cool masculine cozy way but he didn’t keep extra toothbrushes lying around.
Without hesitation, I pulled his out of the matte black holder, loaded it up, and started scrubbing.
I did this thinking he had a kickass bathroom.
I stopped thinking about his bathroom when during my mental review I flashed to the big, jetted tub—big as in two people could comfortably fit.
I didn’t want to think about Cash in the bathtub.
No, scratch that, I didn’t want to remember what Cash looked like soaking in a tub.
And I really didn’t want to remember all that came about after I’d caught him.
I blanked my mind of all things naked Cash, spit, and rinsed. Wiping the magnificence that is Cash from my mind was only made possible by the pain searing through my lower back when I bent to clean the toothpaste from my mouth.
After I breathed through that, I went in search of something to wear.
Surely Cash had to own a turtleneck. After a fast but thorough look through his closet I found no such article of clothing.
Not wanting to snoop through his dressers—I mean, a closet was one thing, opening drawers seemed like an invasion of privacy Cash wouldn’t appreciate.
I pulled a hoodie out of a built-in shelf.
I had yet to figure out how I was going to get it over my head without causing extreme agony, when Cash walked in.
And stopped.
I waited for him to move father into the room, to say something, do something, but he just stared.
No, that wasn’t right—his eyes did a toe-to-top sweep, then they locked with mine.
Suddenly I was well aware I was standing in Cash’s bedroom, in nothing but an oversized shirt. A t-shirt I was avoiding thinking about—not only whose it was but who had put it on me.
Unable to handle the way his unveiled gaze was taking me in any longer, I had two choices—start to squirm under his scrutiny or break the silence.
Squirming was an unacceptable show of weakness.
I broke the silence.
“Cash?”
His head tipped to the side. A move so uncharacteristically Cash it took me by surprise.
Uncharacteristic and cute and that wasn’t a surprise—it was shocking.
Cash was a lot of things, cute was not one of them.
The man was positively hot. The kind of masculine beauty that made women lose their minds.
The kind that would have women writing him love letters and marriage proposals if he ever found himself arrested and his mugshot was blasted over social media, not caring what crime he’d committed.
But cute… no.
Unfortunately, there was a secondary byproduct of that head tilt.
One that I had no chance of hiding without a bra, and only a thin t-shirt to cover.
I mean, who knew Cash looking cute would make my nipples tighten?
Not me. Cute men did nothing for me. Yet there I was standing, staring at the man I’d thought I said good-bye to forever, aroused and feeling very exposed.
Before I could lift Cash’s hoodie to cover my chest and the evidence of a new-to-me unlocked turn on—the sound of glass shattering had Cash darting from the room.