10. Chapter 10
Chapter 10
Walker
W hen Morgan left to find my bathroom, all I could do was pace back and forth by the fireplace. The thud of my heavy steps against the hardwoods echoed the turmoil in my head as I tried to pinpoint the reason for the weight in the pit of my stomach.
Something about the situation felt entirely off. When we’re together, it feels like there’s a current of electricity that runs between us and surges back and forth as we banter. But tonight, that spark was almost dim, like she wasn’t in the mood to play.
We might not know each other well, but I know without a doubt that Morgan is not the kind of woman who folds easily. And once I pulled myself out of my head long enough to recognize that the shower was still running after far too long, a knot of worry tightened in my chest. I knew there had to be more to the story.
I knocked several times before entering the bathroom because I didn’t want her to think I was being a pervert or something. But when she didn’t answer, the knot turned into a medicine ball of dread, and I opened the door to check on her.
The sounds coming from the shower almost knocked the breath out of me, clawing at my long-dead heart. Because above the noise of the pounding water, came the most gut-wrenching wails that I’d ever heard. Even if I had wanted to stop my body from going to her, I wouldn’t have been able to. That intense draw between us that’s been irritatingly present since the night of the party forced me into action. In that moment, her pain was my pain, and I needed to be there for her in a way that felt primal.
The self-assured, feisty woman I haven’t been able to stop thinking about was crumbling. And I needed to let her know that she wasn’t alone—that she was safe with me.
The water ran cold by the time we finally got out, which was an impressive feat because in the thirty-ish years that I’ve spent in this house off and on, I don’t think that has ever happened. The last thing I wanted to do was let her go from my arms, but her body started to shiver despite the warm steam in the air. I forced myself to untangle our limbs, and gave her some space while I went to change out of my soaked clothes.
“Ahem.”
The sound of Morgan clearing her throat startles me as I’m bending over to dry my legs off, and I realize she’s probably warning me that she’s got a direct line of sight with my bare ass.
A surge of heat creeps up the back of my neck as I wrap a towel around my waist and turn to face her. I try to ignore the way my heart beats wildly as her eyes travel over my body, like she’s searching for the right words but also surprised by the view.
“Like what you see?” I joke, breaking the silence between us.
She lets out a small, almost inaudible laugh as she leans against the door frame.The hint of a smirk plays at the corners of her mouth, though her eyes still hold a heaviness that I feel in my soul.
“I’ve seen worse.”
“Be careful there, little devil, I might think you actually like me.”
“Well, we can’t have that,” she replies coyly, reaching up with one hand to brush her wet hair from her shoulder. “You might be net negative for previous infractions, but you do get a point in the like category after tonight. Thank you.”
For a moment she hesitates, and I notice a flicker of vulnerability cross her face. She inhales harshly like she’s resetting herself, and it’s gone in a flash, instantly replaced by her usual impenetrable confidence.
“However, if you tell a fucking soul that this happened, I will chop your balls off.”
I ignore the threat, instead focusing on her admission that she likes me. I don’t know why it feels good—it shouldn’t feel so good. I shouldn’t care what she thinks about me, but right now it seems like the most important thing in the world, and I can’t stop myself from wanting to know if I’ve been on her mind as much as she’s been on mine.
“How do I get more points?”
I cross the room, drawn into her orbit like a lost moon that suddenly found its warming sun. I stop a foot away from her towel-covered body, and the smell of my cedary-bourbon body wash on her skin invades my nose, filling me with an acute sense of longing.
“Did you not hear my threat?” She snorts, crossing her arms defensively. “I swear if you tell anyone that this happened tonight—”
I step closer, resting my fist on the door frame above her head. “I heard it.”
My eyes drop to her full chest, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to stop a groan from escaping my mouth.Her tits are a masterpiece.
Morgan’s breath hitches as the air between us shifts. “And?”
I study the remaining drops of water on her shoulders, fighting the sudden urge to bend down and taste her, to rough her up and force those walls that she just put back up to come crashing back down.
“It’s not a concern of mine.”
She swallows harshly as goosebumps scatter across her flawless olive skin, and I know without a doubt that they’re not from the temperature in the air.
“What is a concern of yours?”
I drag my attention back to her face. I’m close enough now to notice the smattering of freckles that pepper her button nose, and the slightly darker rim of yellow that surrounds each iris. The color sparks into her pupil like a vibrant explosion on the Fourth of July, and it occurs to me how fitting that is for her. Because Morgan Lovett is a goddamn firework that erupted in the middle of my darkest night, and as much as I’ve been trying to find solitude in the silence, her booms keep coming louder and louder.
“Getting a higher score,” I reply, unable to help myself from telling her the god’s honest truth.
She’s quiet for a moment, then shakes her head. “God, you ortho bros are so competitive.”
When I don’t say anything, she lets out a resigned sigh and adds, “Fine. You can start by letting me borrow some clothes so that I don’t have to walk home naked. I only have my dirty scrubs with me because I wasn’t thinking when I came over. It was a long day.”
“I can do that. Not sure I have anything that’ll fit you, though.”
Morgan’s eyes twinkle with amusement as she smirks deviously. “We’ll make it fit. ”
Turning away, I suppress a matching smile and head to my dresser. I dig through the drawers until I find a soft T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants that I wore in high school but never got rid of.
“Here,” I offer, handing her the clothes. “Hopefully these work. Bathroom’s all yours. Just don’t take too long, or I’ll have to check on you again.”
She rolls her eyes with a practiced defiance that makes my blood stir. “Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
Once she disappears, I toss on a fresh pair of black sweats and a gray hoodie before making my way to the kitchen. I clearly don’t know shit about what women want, but I do know that it’s cold as fuck outside and she probably needs something to warm her up on her way home.
Halfway through making her a fresh cup of coffee, I realize that it’s after ten in the evening and she’ll never sleep if I offer this to her now. Dumping the muddy liquid down the drain, I try to come up with an alternative plan.
I scour the cabinets and eventually find a gift bag of assorted teas that the hospital gave the residents for a morale-building initiative last Christmas. I have about as much understanding of tea as a newborn baby, but I choose the peppermint option because it seems like it would be soothing. Since there are two bags of each, I decide to make myself one as well.
As I’m pouring the hot water into ceramic mugs, I frown. I really should give her a travel container so she doesn’t feel obligated to stay, but something stops me—I don’t want her to leave. For the first time since I moved back in, I haven’t completely loathed being in this house.
“Whatcha doing?”
I turn, trying my hardest not to react to the sight of Morgan in my clothes. But that’s really goddamn challenging when they look perfect on her. Even from a distance, I can see the way her nipples pebble beneath the thin cotton of my oversized Braves T-shirt.
My balls start to tingle with obscene desire, and I cough to distract myself. “You like peppermint tea?”
Her thin brows furrow as she pads closer, her feet practically silent on the worn hardwoods. “Do you like blow jobs?”
“Uh — ” I stammer, caught off guard.
She shrugs and reaches for the mug I put on the counter.“Thought we were asking each other stupid questions.”
For a moment all I can do is stare at her. How can she go from being so vulnerable, to completely closed off at the drop of a hat? It’s not like I expect her to cry to me again, but I guess I just didn’t think she would immediately revert back to her normal, combative self.
“Alright,” I concede, watching as the steam from the tea frames her face in a hazy mist. “I take it that’s a yes to the tea, then?”
“I take it that’s a yes to the blow jobs, then?” she echos, her tone full of playful mockery.
Jesus—is anything easy with this woman?
I lean back, resting my weight against the kitchen cabinets. “Who doesn’t like a blow job?”
Morgan lowers her mug, staring at me as she wets her lips. I doubt that she means the gesture seductively, but it instantly makes me hard as a rock. “Most women don’t.”
I desperately want to ask if she’s one of those women, to banter like we usually do, but I hold myself back. I need to make sure she’s okay first.
“Want to talk about what happened tonight?”
Her tongue prods her cheek like she’s considering my offer. Letting out a prolonged exhale, she says, “Not particularly.”
Even though I was hoping for a different response, I don’t push her.
“Sit with me.” The words come out more like a command than an offer, but I don’t regret that—I can’t let her go yet.
Morgan dips her chin in acknowledgment, and I gesture toward the small wooden table a few feet away.
“Sorry about the papers,” I say, my tone softening. “I’ve been using this area to work.”
“I really hope this isn’t your office,” she comments, choosing the chair directly beneath the window.
I take a seat across from her in the only other chair. “Technically I don’t have one at the moment. I’ve been working on converting the guest room, but it’s not done yet. Funnily enough, I have pretty much everything done, except for buying a desk.”
When I moved back into my childhood home in December, I decided to turn one of the two bedrooms into an office. I figured that it didn’t make much sense to have a guest room when I’m never going to have guests, but now I’m wondering if I made the decision too soon.
“So where do you do all of your stupid doctor things, then?”
Unable to help myself, I chuckle.
“At the hospital, you know, where I do my dumb little surgeries,” I answer, repeating a phrase she once said to me.
The words come back to me like the lyrics of a song I haven’t heard in years, though I doubt she even remembers them because she never looked twice at me. I think she views all doctors as an annoyance that she has to tolerate, but whether I wanted to or not, I’ve always seen her. Maybe not in the way I do now, but it’s hard to forget a woman like Morgan.
“If I’m studying at home,” I add, sipping the flavored hot water, “I’ll usually just sit here or on the couch.”
“I never took you for someone so informal,” she says, slowly drawing circles on the rim of her mug with her index finger.
I offer her a teasing smile. “Yeah, the tattoo-covered arm really screams formal, huh?”
Morgan scoffs as her eyes rake over the ink I’ve had since I was eighteen. “You know what I mean.”
“Actually, I don’t.”
Given the way I grew up, the word formal isn’t something I would ever associate with. That’s mostly because I barely had the money to buy basic necessities, let alone purchase anything nice for myself. But now that I have more money than I know what to do with, I still don’t relate to the word in the slightest.
A flush blooms on her cheeks. “It just seems like you’re the kind of guy who likes control and order. You’re so . . . serious all of the time.”
“And you’re not.”
Morgan is playful, and passionate, and frustrating—the complete opposite of anything I’ve ever had, or thought I would want in a woman. And yet, every conversation we have just keeps drawing me in—she’s just so damn captivating.
“Not if I can help it.” She grins, settling more comfortably into her chair.
I study her. “Why not?”
She hesitates and peers down into her tea like my simple question caught her off guard. She’s quiet for a moment before she looks up at me.
“I think it’s because the pain and trauma I see at work reminds me that I’m alive. It gives me the perspective to leave the hospital and truly enjoy life. Because I see so much of it end, that if I didn’t, everything I witnessed would be a waste.”
Her voice breaks on the last word, and I watch her throat work to hold back emotion. Her eyes dart to the window, focusing intently on the street light in front of my house.
Clearly something happened at work that caused her to feel this way, something that pushed her over the edge. I want to reach out and touch her, to let her know that I understand. I might choose to express the sentiment differently in my daily life, but there’s no one who can empathize more than me.
“I like that about you by the way . . . it’s refreshing.”
She glances back at me curiously, like she does’t quite believe my admission. “It’s very different from you.”
“We all process death and trauma differently.”
Neither one of us is wrong for the way we handle our life experiences, and I appreciate that she shared this with me when she originally said she wasn’t interested in talking.
Morgan sinks her teeth into her plump bottom lip. I can tell she wants to ask me something, but she’s holding herself back.
“Yes?”
She fidgets, drawing her legs up almost defensively. “What made you become so serious, then?”
I take a slow sip of the tea, trying to determine how much I should tell her . . . and why I want to tell her anything at all.
“I didn’t have much order in my childhood, so I had to create it for myself.”
She leans forward to rest her chin on her knees. “What happened?”
“My mom overdosed when I was eighteen, and my dad died a few years before that. Had to grow up fast.”
I don’t elaborate further, and she doesn’t ask.
“I’m sorry,” she offers, and even though the words are simple, the sincerity behind them is evident. “That doesn’t sound easy.”
“It wasn’t,” I admit, allowing myself a moment of raw honesty. “But it taught me a lot. About resilience. About self-reliance. About creating the kind of life I want, despite the circumstances I was dealt.”
I don’t know why I’m telling her all of this. I guess I just feel like she’s been vulnerable with me tonight, so I can be too.
Morgan nods thoughtfully, the soft glow of the streetlights filtering through the windows and onto her heart-shaped face. “You didn’t have any other family?”
“My grandfather, but I saw him maybe once a year until he died last September.”
“Why?”
“I think it was a boundaries thing,” I explain, recalling the situation as best as I can because it’s not something I’ve thought about in a long time. “He didn’t approve of the life my parents were living, and essentially grouped me in with them, even though I was just a kid. I had come to terms with our relationship until all of his assets, including this house, were transferred to me when he died. He had been sitting on a mountain of cash, which really pissed me off since there were times in high school when I didn’t know where my next meal was coming from because my parents spent the money on drugs and God knows what else.”
She reaches for her mug, her hands gripping the ceramic so tight that her knuckles go white. “I’m sorry but he can rot in hell.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I laugh. “I feel the same way.”
Morgan reminds me a lot of Beau with the way that she defends me, blindly giving me her unearned loyalty. I’ve never had anyone like that in my life until recently, and it makes me feel at ease in a way that I didn’t know I needed.
Her lips purse as she studies me. “You don’t look like you do.”
“Did you not just tell me how good I was at control? Comes from years of practice. Plus, not all of us have the most expressive faces in the world.”
“Do not.” Her brows furrow argumentatively.
“Do too.”
She tries to school her face into indifference, though her eyes still shine with her signature fire. “What am I thinking right now?”
“Hmmm,” I murmur, pretending to be stumped by her question. “You’re thinking that you like me a little more.”
I have no idea if my statement is true, but I’m hoping that it is.
Her expression softens as a genuine smile breaks through. “I can neither confirm, nor deny that accusation,” she says, placing her mug on the table. “But I am glad that you told me.”
“Me too.”
Morgan makes a dramatic yawning sound as she stretches her arms up in the air. “I’m beat. Probably should get going since I’ve got to work at the ass-crack of dawn.”
I feel my lips tilt to the floor, unable to help my disappointment. “No problem.”
As I watch her put on her thin sweatshirt and tennis shoes, I’m struck by the sudden urge to stop her. To tell her that I want her to stay, though I can’t really explain why.
By the time her hand is on the door to leave, I still haven’t come up with a good reason to stop her from leaving .
“Thanks again for tonight,” she says quietly. Her mouth opens and closes, like she wants to add more but stops herself. It strikes me as odd because she isn’t the kind of person that holds back what she feels. After a moment she adds, “Fingers crossed I make it back in one piece. On my way over earlier, I slipped on some ice and practically surfed down the sidewalk.”
A mix of emotions that I have no business feeling begin to run through me. The thought of her going out there this late makes my chest burn with discomfort because I suddenly feel incredibly protective of her. I want her to be safe, but I also surprisingly want to spend more time with her—I shouldn’t, but I do.
I feel myself letting out a breath I didn’t even realize I was holding. “Stay.”