Chapter 16 #2
“ Please , talk to me.” I scramble for a way to reach her. To get my stubborn woman to comply. “This isn’t healthy for Mason. We have to be able to communicate with each other.”
My face pinches up in nervous anticipation as I wait for her to either give in or verbally eviscerate me for that one.
But to my surprise, the door shifts and then opens.
Only before she fully opens it, I start to lose my shit, thrusting it all the way open and getting right up in her face with my hands all over her.
“What happened?”
Her eyes are puffy and red-rimmed, but the bright swollen patch on her right cheek, along with the scrape slicing right through it, has me seeing red.
“It’s not how it looks,” she starts, and that alone makes me postal.
Fury shoots a blazing path through my veins. “Wynter, tell me where he is and what he did to you because he is a fucking dead man. No one touches you. No one.”
“It was an accident.”
“You see,” I start, walking her into the bedroom and then straight into her bathroom, her feet stumbling behind her as I push her along, “to me, that’s bullshit. Because in my twenty-nine years, I’ve never accidentally hurt anyone, let alone a woman.”
“Asher—”
I scoop my good arm around her waist and pick her up, dropping her ass on the counter. Then I get right up in her face again. “Do not Asher me. Tell me the truth right now before I have Lenox look the motherfucker up and we destroy his life.”
She can tell that nothing I’m saying is in jest. I’m one hundred percent serious right now.
Her hand goes to my chest, over my blood-thirsty heart. “We left the restaurant,” she starts, her voice calm. “He offered to drive me home since I Ubered there. I agreed. I had two glasses of wine with dinner, and maybe that’s why, but he seemed nice, and it was just a ride home.”
I clench my jaw and look away. I never should have gone on that date. Never.
Her hand cups my face, and she drags my gaze back to hers.
“He asked if he could come up. I told him no. He asked if he could come up for just a little while without anything happening, and again, I said no. He didn’t like that, I don’t think.
By that point, I was a little standoffish.
Your eyes on me the whole night threw me off, and I was angry and upset.
Then he moved on me, going in for a kiss, and I didn’t want him to.
He really didn’t like that. I went for a hug instead, and he was still going in for the kiss, and somehow his fist hit my cheek, along with the pinkie ring he had on. ”
“Pinkie ring?” My eyebrows hit my hairline. “Who is he, the godfather? Who wears pinkie rings anymore?”
“Maybe not on his pinkie. I don’t know. It was a big ring. Maybe a championship ring from when his team won the Stanley Cup the year he was injured. I didn’t pay much attention to it, but it scratched my face when it made contact.”
“He’s a hockey player? Christ, woman. That’s the devil you taunted me with me?
” I drag a hand roughly across my face, trying to calm my breathing when it feels like knives are shredding my lungs.
I open my eyes and give it to her straight.
“I’m sorry, but him going in to kiss you and you going in for a hug does not translate to what you have on your cheek or the tears in your eyes. ”
“He didn’t mean to, Asher. I could see it all over his face.
He freaked out and apologized profusely.
He’d had a few glasses of wine too, and that’s another reason I shouldn’t have gotten in the car with him.
” Her face tilts down. “I didn’t expect it.
It hurt, and I reacted. I shoved him away and fled the car. It’s done. I’ll never see him again.”
“Jesus.” My hand is all over my face and through my hair.
With a vicious shake of my head, I snatch one of the white hand towels from the towel bar and turn on the faucet as cold as it’ll go, running the cotton through it and then ringing it out as best as I can, since my other hand is far from at full strength.
I press the cold, wet cloth to her face.
“You don’t need to do this. I can take care of the cut myself. I’m the doctor here.”
I run my fingers along her forehead and down the slope of her other cheek. “Stop being brave when you don’t have to be. I want to do this. I want to take care of you and make sure you know that not all men are like that. Some men will take care of you with no ulterior motive.”
A noise clears the back of her throat, but she won’t meet my eyes. “What are you doing here anyway? Shouldn’t you be out with the blonde still?”
“No. Definitely not.” I force her gaze. “It was a setup date. Not one I wanted to be on. My PR team felt I needed something to distract the public from my shoulder, and they felt some influencer with a decent-sized following would be the ticket. I was done with that date long before I knew you were there.”
“Hmmm.”
“No hmmm, sweetheart. It wasn’t going anywhere beyond that restaurant.
Trust me.” I step in between the V of her legs, pressing my chest to hers as I continue to hold the cloth to her face.
“She couldn’t hold a candle to you. It was you who I couldn’t take my eyes off.
You who I wanted there as my date. Not her.
I never wanted her. In fact, I couldn’t wait to get rid of her. ”
“Asher—”
“I know,” I interject. “I know what you’re going to say and I’m not pushing anything.” Tonight , I add. “But promise me you won’t go out with him again.”
“I promise.”
“Good girl. Okay. Now, let’s see this.”
I pull the cloth away and swallow down curses. I might still kill the man and have Lenox cover it up. He’d be good at that. Him or Zax for that matter.
I lean in and press my lips to the spot right above it. “Does it hurt?”
“Not much.”
I frown. “Come with me.”
“Where?”
“To bed. Obviously.”
“I’m not sharing my bed with you.”
“You will for a bit,” I tell her, my voice firm. “But I won’t stay, and I swear, I won’t try anything. I just want to hold you for a while, and I think you could use that too.”
She starts to shake, and I hate this. Her trust was already so fractured. It was paper thin, and then this happened. I need to know more. I need the details. But now isn’t the time. And frankly, maybe it doesn’t matter.
I’m not him, and that’s what’s important.
Me proving that to her.
“I don’t know,” she hesitates, still so goddamn uncertain and rattled.
“I do. Don’t fight it. Let me take care of you the way you take care of everyone else.”
I exit the bathroom so she can get ready for bed, and while she does that, I text Freddy, Hunter, and Jean to inform them I will never take their date suggestions again. They’re already over it. According to them, us at dinner is all over the internet, so mission accomplished.
Whatever. Who cares.
I hear Wynter entering the bedroom, and I turn around to find her wearing a T-shirt and possibly nothing else.
I look—I can’t help it with her—but I don’t linger.
Instead, I switch out the light, bathing us both in darkness.
Wordlessly she climbs into bed, and I follow her, using my good arm to hold her.
She settles against my chest, but I can tell the damage has been done, and I’m still not her favorite person. But if she didn’t care, she wouldn’t have cared that I was on a date. And if she hated me, she wouldn’t allow me to hold her now.
That’s something to build on.
Until then, I plant my lips in her hair, and I hold her body against mine until she falls asleep. And with her body limp against mine, I make a decision. No more fucking around. Wynter Hathaway is mine.