Chapter 21
DASH
Iwas exercising every ounce of willpower by not saying a single word about the fact that Krista Hedley looked like a tomato. A pretty tomato, but damn, she was the kind of red that made you wince just looking at it. The kind of red that radiated heat from three feet away.
Her red cheeks and shoulders made my skin hurt. The look on her face told me she was about thirty seconds from either passing out or emptying the contents of her stomach onto the street. She was severely dehydrated.
She’d been running on empty for hours and had been too stubborn to acknowledge it. I should have said something earlier, but she wouldn’t have listened to me. I assumed with all of her military training she would recognize the signs and take care of herself.
I was wrong.
She lowered the water bottle and took a shaky breath. “Thanks.”
“How long have you been feeling sick?”
“I’m fine.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
She pressed her lips together, which told me the answer was probably since this afternoon and she was not going to say it out loud. She took another, slower sip of water.
“The car’s coming,” I said.
She nodded and didn’t yell at me, which told me more about how she was feeling. The fact that she just nodded meant the stubbornness had been temporarily overridden by survival instinct. And that meant things were dire. I needed to get her hydrated. And fed.
The car pulled up. I put my hand on her back, barely touching, just enough to guide her toward the door. She didn’t swat my hand away, which was another clue.
The ride back was quiet. She drank the second water bottle slowly with her gaze out the window.
“You were about to hurl,” I said.
“I was not.”
“Krista, come on.”
She narrowed her eyes at me, which meant she was starting to feel better. “I was managing it,” she said.
“Sure.” I looked out my own window. “That’s what we’ll call it.”
“Thank you for the water.”
I didn’t make a big deal of it. I knew what it cost for her to admit she was struggling. Worse, the fact that I was the one to rescue her. “You’re welcome.”
By the time we got back to the hotel, she’d finished both bottles and looked considerably more human. Her eyes were clearer and she was walking under her own power through the lobby without holding on to things.
We rode the elevator up in silence. The tension was heavy. She fished out her key card. I took it from her before she could protest.
“I can open my own door,” she griped.
“And yet, I’m opening it anyway.” I held it for her, smiling at her stormy expression.
She walked in and glanced over her shoulder. It wasn’t an invitation, but it wasn’t a rejection. I let myself in behind her.
“I’m ordering room service,” I said. “You need food.”
“I’m okay.”
I ignored her and did it anyway. It was late and the kitchen was closed, but the concierge on the night desk sent someone out to pick things up.
“I’m not hungry,” she said when I hung up. “Not really.”
“Well, then I’ll just have to eat it all,” I said with a shrug. “Take a cold shower. By the time you’re finished, the food will be here along with aloe vera.”
“I have aloe,” she said tiredly.
“You’re going to need twenty bottles.”
She frowned but went into the bathroom. I heard the shower turn on.
I remembered falling asleep on a yacht in the Caribbean.
Sebastian had been there. Fucker let me cook.
I was fried. I couldn’t move my arms. My lips had been so chapped I was forced to survive on smoothies because eating was too painful.
There was a knock at the door. I collected the bags of tacos, pain reliever, and more aloe vera gel.
She walked out of the bathroom wearing her shorts and that ugly shirt.
“Sit, let me rub some of this gel on your shoulders.”
“I can do it myself.”
“Sit down, Krista.”
She frowned at me. She wanted to argue but didn’t. She flopped on the bed.
“Take off your shirt.”
“No!”
I rolled my eyes. “First of all, I’ve seen them and you have nothing to be ashamed of. Second, I’ll be behind you.”
She exhaled and reached for the hem of her shirt, back toward me, and pulled it over her head. It was still on her arms, covering her breasts. I shook my head but didn’t give her shit for it.
I opened the aloe and squeezed some into my palm. I applied it as gently as I could manage. She sucked in a breath.
“Too much?”
“No. Just cold.” A pause. “It’s good. Great, actually. Keep going.”
Her head dropped forward, exposing the back of her neck. I worked carefully, spreading the gel across her shoulders and neck, trying to cover every angry inch without pressing hard. I was glad she was facing away from me because my cock was about half an inch from poking her in the back.
She had a mole just below her right shoulder blade. I wanted to kiss it. Fuck, I wanted to kiss every inch of her bright red skin.
“Why are you being nice?” she asked.
“Just helping out.”
“You were a complete dick yesterday. You fucking abandoned me at the pool and then avoided me all day.”
“I know.”
She waited.
I was not built for silence.
I capped the gel and moved away. She put her shirt back on but still said nothing.
I busied myself opening the bag of tacos and set them out on the table. “Adrian called. He told me they were coming to Santorini.” I rubbed the back of my neck. “And I know he said it’s not about babysitting, but it is. And this thing between us is fucked. You don’t want anything to do with me.”
She didn’t say anything, just sat down and went about tearing open a hot sauce packet and squeezing it over a taco.
Saying it out loud made me feel dumb. I looked down at my hands, then back at her.
“I want this to go well. The runway show is a big deal. There won’t be anywhere to hide once it starts.
It’s on me.” I paused, trying to find the right words.
“I want to prove I don’t need people watching over my shoulder. ”
She took a bite of her taco, chewing slowly. Watching me. “I get that.”
“And if I’m honest with myself?” I ran a hand through my hair. “The challenges have ignited something inside me. I work well under pressure. It’s satisfying to close loops, solve problems, and move the needle forward. I’ve never felt that before. Not like this.”
“So what does that have to do with me?” she asked quietly.
“Everything. You make me want to be better. And then you push me away like I’m just another asshole in a long line of assholes who’ve disappointed you.
At the pool, I wanted to kiss you. I wanted everyone to see that you’re with me.
That you chose me. And you shut me down.
Made me feel like I was just trying to add you to some collection.
Like what almost happened meant nothing. ”
She set down her taco and wiped her hands on a napkin. “It meant something but I’m working, Dash. You just said you wanted this to work. We can’t be distracted.”
“I can walk and chew gum at the same time.”
She smirked. “You want this show to go off without a hitch, so do it.”
Like it was that simple. As if I had chosen chaos in the past. Well, maybe I had.
I laughed and tore open a sauce packet. “That’s it? That’s your advice?”
“That’s it,” she said. “Because that’s what it is.
You want to prove something? Handle it. One thing at a time.
The next thing in front of you. Don’t think about Santorini, don’t think about Adrian standing in the front row watching you, don’t think about your father or your brothers.
” She took a bite, chewed, and swallowed.
“Just think about what needs to happen next and then make it happen. The rest is noise.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is simple. Not easy. But simple. People overcomplicate things. They look at Everest and act like it’s about jumping to the top.
It’s not. One step at a time gets you there.
You just have to do it.” She looked at me with those dark eyes that stared straight into my soul.
“You have to stop living in your head, Dash. That’s where all of it goes wrong.
You start thinking about what everyone else is thinking, and then you get paralyzed.
You put your head in the sand and shit hits the fan.
You said you liked putting out fires but why allow them to start?
Shit happens, but you don’t have to encourage it to happen. ”
I winced. “Well, yeah.”
“Stop performing and start doing,” she said. “That’s all.”
This woman might be the only person who had ever just told me the truth without an agenda attached to it. It wasn’t personal. It was just facts.
“That’s what I did when I kissed you,” I said.
She stopped chewing. “Dash.”
“I stopped thinking about it and I just did it.” I held her gaze. “Maybe I need to practice that more.”
I stood up from the chair and kissed her. Just a quick peck before I pulled her to her feet, giving her every opportunity to tell me to sit back down. She didn’t. We weren’t at the pool with an audience. This was just the two of us. She tilted her chin up and that was the green light I needed.
I kissed her again, deeper this time, tasting the hot sauce on her lips and tongue and reveling in it.
Her hands came up to my chest. She grabbed hold of my shirt instead of pushing me away.
I slid one hand into her hair, careful of her burned skin, keeping my hands above the worst of the damage.
She made a soft sound against my mouth and I felt it everywhere.
I’d been sporting a semi since I rubbed her down with aloe and now the rest of my blood was pumping south. I ached with need.
I walked her back to the bed without breaking the kiss. Her hands wrapped around my neck. I picked her up and gently laid her down before joining her.
She made a sound of surprise and wrapped her legs around me. My mouth devoured hers as I held myself up by my arms to keep from crushing her. My mouth slid over to suck on her ear and then her neck. The second my lips touched her heated skin, I remembered.
She hissed.
I froze. “Shit. Sorry.”
“It’s fine—”
I shifted my weight, trying to find a position that didn’t involve touching any sunburned areas.
She lifted her head and kissed me but I felt her stiffen under me.
She kept trying not to flinch and failed.
I kept trying to find an angle that wouldn’t cause her pain, but it wasn’t going to work.
The gods were against me. I finally dropped my forehead to hers.
“This is a logistical nightmare,” I said. “I said I like a challenge, but I’m not sure how to keep from making this painful.”
She started laughing. “I’m sorry,” she groaned. “This is definitely not ideal.”
I rolled off her and stretched out on the bed beside her, making sure I didn’t touch her. My cock pulsed. I was going to have the worst case of blue balls I’d ever experienced. The little guy didn’t appreciate getting so close and left hanging twice.
“We could try—” she said and gestured to my lower body.
“It’s all good,” I said. “It’s no fun for me unless we’re both enjoying it.”
She propped herself up on her elbows and looked at me. My cock jerked and now I was the one flinching in pain.
“Does it hurt?” she asked, eyes widening.
I chuckled. “You have no idea.”
She laughed again, which did not help. “I can maybe—”
“No. I want all of you and I’m not going to do that with you in pain. I can wait.”
She gingerly lay back down. “Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. Lying here with you is nice too. And I’m not the kind of guy who would turn down steak just because it doesn’t have a side of lobster.”
We lay there in companionable silence for a while.
“Tell me about the first event you ever ran,” she said.
I turned my head. “What?”
“Logistics. The first one you handled. Tell me about it.”
I thought about it. “I was twenty-two. The guy that normally did it had emergency surgery and couldn’t do it. I stepped in. It was a disaster for the first forty-eight hours.”
“And then?”
“And then I figured it out.” I stared at the ceiling. “I stayed up for about thirty hours straight and I figured it out.”
“See?” she said quietly.
I understood what she meant.
We talked some more. About that Milan show and about West Point and about what her father was like at her age.
She told me about a logistics operation she ran in Germany that had gone wrong in fifteen different ways and how she fixed it.
She sounded very excited about all the little fires she got to put out.
She said she’d been too young to know how scared she should have been.
I told her about the time Briggs and I got stuck in an airport in Seoul for twenty-two hours and how we’d ended up teaching each other card tricks in a Dunkin Donuts at three in the morning.
She yawned, which caused me to yawn. I leaned over to grab my phone. It was three o’clock. I could get up and go to my room. But I didn’t want to move.
“You’re going to be the little spoon,” she said and rolled to her side.
“I am absolutely not.”
“I can’t have anything touching my back.”
I thought about arguing. I thought about my dignity. Then I thought about Krista Hedley willingly wanting my body against hers. In her bed. I rolled onto my side.
She curved in behind me, her forehead touching the back of my neck. I felt her exhale.
“Not a word to anyone,” I said.
“I’m not saying anything.”
“Ever.”
“I’m asleep,” she said. “I have no idea what’s happening.”
I smiled in the dark.