Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
“You’ll be sleeping in my room,” Nash announced.
He’d just stalked back into the cabin. The intruders had been taken away, though she was pretty sure the assailant who’d gone through the window had needed to be carried away due to his broken leg.
Lowell Vail. Delaney had recognized him, too. Both intruders had been on Kurt’s payroll. Their presence just reinforced the fact that Kurt was not going to let her walk away. He would keep hunting her. Hunting Nash.
“Did you hear me?” Nash strode toward her as she perched on the edge of the couch. “My room.”
Her head tilted back. “Considering that there is a huge hole where my window should have been, yes, I did figure that I would not be sleeping in that particular bedroom tonight.” She tapped the couch cushion near her.
“But there is no need to sacrifice your bedroom. I can sleep right here.” If she slept.
“The couch is perfectly fine.” Adrenaline pumped through her veins, and she was terrified that, even if she did sleep, she’d just wake up to dark shadows near her. Shadows who wanted to take her away.
Nash eyed the couch. Then the floor. “If you insist on sleeping in here, then I’ll bunk on the floor next to you.”
“Why would you do that?” She craned to look toward the front door. An agent had been inside with her while Nash and Ryan made sure the intruders were secured. An agent who’d given his name as John Doe. Sure. Whatever. But John Doe was gone, having stepped out just as Nash entered.
“Because you’re not going to be away from me again,” Nash said in his deep, rumbling voice. “Where you sleep, I’ll be sleeping. No one is going to sneak in and try to take you. Not happening.”
Her stare whipped back to him. He could not be serious.
Nash nodded. “I believe you would call this a one-bed situation.”
She jumped to her feet. “You sleeping on the floor is not a one-bed situation!”
“One couch? Is it a one-couch situation?”
“Nash! Stop!” She wanted to touch him. She was afraid to touch him. She was afraid of everything. Her arms crossed over her chest. “I heard the orders you gave. There is a semi-army of agents surrounding the cabin now. No one else is going to get past them.”
“No one should have ever gotten past the exterior agents—or past me—in the first place.”
She swallowed. “You were outside…” Delaney began.
He stepped closer. “I wasn’t close enough to you. That mistake won’t be made again. When you sleep, I’ll be right next to you.”
“But—”
“It’s a done deal. So we either bunk down here, with you on the couch and me on the floor, or we go upstairs and sleep in my bed.”
Despite her previous words, the couch was not, in fact, fine. The couch was lumpy. Old. Narrow. And she didn’t want him on the floor. But the idea of being in bed with him set off all kinds of alarm bells. “How big is the bed?”
His eyes narrowed. “How terrified of me are you?”
Her chin notched up. “That is not an answer to my question.”
“Fine. You answer my question, and then I’ll answer yours.”
The front door squeaked. Her head whipped toward the sound.
Ryan crept inside, wincing. “Sorry. Feels like I just interrupted something.” He pursed his lips.
“You guys want to take this upstairs? I’d really like to crash on that couch.
It’s a more central location than the back bedroom that’s down here on the first floor, and, if I’m on the couch, I’ll be able to spring into action faster from this location.
Should, you know, any would-be kidnappers or killers make an appearance. ”
If Ryan was taking the couch, then she didn’t really have a choice.
Brisk, determined, she nodded and began walking for the stairs.
The robe she wore swirled around her feet.
She’d grabbed the robe right before the other agents arrived.
The soft, white cotton robe skimmed her ankles and fell all the way to her elbows.
As she mounted the stairs, she was far too aware of Nash following behind her. She could feel him. Warm. Strong. Determined.
Her eyes were up, focused ahead. She reached the landing, then turned to the right. Her fast footsteps led her past her room, and Delaney only paused when she was at the bedroom that had been designated for Nash.
“Queen-size bed,” he told her. “So it will be a tight fit.”
She wet her lips. He’d finally answered her question. Was she still supposed to answer his? Truth be told, she’d really love to avoid a response to his query. How terrified of me are you? Delaney reached for the doorknob and swung open the door. Her fingers hit the light switch.
The covers were still in place. The bed made. Unlike her, Nash had never gone to sleep.
And it was, indeed, a queen-size bed. Given Nash’s massive proportions, it was certainly going to be a tight fit, as he’d said.
She made sure the belt of her robe was extra snug as she made her way across the bedroom. Delaney hauled back some of the covers and slid as far to the right side of the bed as possible. Practically hanging off the edge.
Nash watched her. Again, she felt his stare.
“You didn’t answer my question,” he said. His fingers slid over the light switch.
Darkness.
But the floor creaked, and she saw his shadowy form moving around the room. He went toward the window. Peered out.
“I don’t, uh, remember your question,” she lied.
“How much do I terrify you?”
“Oh, right, that question.” She blew out a long breath. “On a scale of one to ten? Is that what you’re asking?”
More creaking of the floor. And then the bed dipped. He’d just slid onto the mattress.
Her shoulders tensed.
“You planning to keep that robe on all night?” Nash murmured.
“There’s barely a few hours left of the night. And I’m cold.”
“You’re afraid. Of me.”
Yes. So, about that scale. “Maybe a two.” A whisper. But, she’d lied. “Or…maybe a nine.” Still not true. “Ten,” she confessed, miserable.
“Fuck.” Anger pulsed in the word.
She flipped toward him because he was beside her in bed.
“Well, what do you expect? How do you expect me to feel? You are putting your life on the line! You are fighting men who want to kill you!” He was mere inches away.
It would be far too easy to touch him. “You don’t seem to care about the risk to yourself.
You act like the danger doesn’t matter. Or, worse, that you like it.
So, yes, that terrifies me! You shouldn’t like danger.
You should run from danger the way a normal person does. The way I want to run!”
“No, Delaney. No. I mean—you’re terrified of me. Of. Me. Not for me.”
She had a death grip on the covers.
“I saw the way you looked at me when I was taking those intruders down.” Gruff.
“You were relentless.” She would never get those images out of her head. The way he’d just launched at Jacob. The way he’d tossed Lowell through the window. “You attacked brutally.”
“And you’re afraid. Of me.”
Was she? “Yes.” A stark truth that hung in the air between them.
Nash cursed.
She sprang toward him, and Delaney kissed him.
Super huge, super terrible mistake, but she did it.
Because while she might fear him, the fear didn’t stop her from wanting him.
Nothing had ever stopped her from wanting him.
She’d wanted him when she was a lovesick teen.
She’d wanted him when she’d been an impassioned college student.
She wanted him now, when she was a desperate and afraid adult.
There just had always been something about Nash.
Her lips pressed to his. It was a quick, clumsy kiss. Exceptionally low on the skill and seduction level. She’d just done it to prove a point. Fear didn’t stop her. But he…
His hand curled around her hip. “Do it right,” he growled against her mouth.
Her lips parted.
His tongue thrust inside. A hungry, desperate moan pulled from her lips even as wildfire seemed to ignite in her veins.
Her breasts ached, her sex yearned, and she could all too easily imagine stripping off the too hot robe and ditching all the clothes she wore beneath it.
Climbing on top of him. Feeling that long, hard dick of his pushing between her legs.
Nash had been the one to teach her all about pleasure. To set her expectations so high in the bedroom that no one else had been able to match him. No one else had come close.
Unfortunately, Nash had also been the one to teach her about pain. As he’d shattered her heart into a million, itty-bitty pieces.
His hand grabbed the belt of her robe. He yanked it loose, and then his fingers slid inside the robe. He caught the edge of her t-shirt. His hand slid under the t-shirt. His warm, callused fingertips touched her skin.
She jerked at the contact.
“That’s gonna be a fucking problem,” he rasped against her mouth. “You kiss me and you fear me and you flinch when I touch you.” Nash began to withdraw his hand.
She caught his wrist. She pushed his hand back against her.
“I flinched,” a whisper against his mouth, “because when you touch me, I feel it in every cell of my body. Heat surges all the way through me. When we are skin to skin, I want to forget the years between us and just give in to the need that burns inside of me. A need for you that just won’t stop. ” A stark, painful truth.
But…
They shouldn’t. They should not have sex right then.
They. Should. Not. There were a million reasons not to go too far. And…
So much need. Craving. Wanting. Longing.
“You like for me to touch you?” Nash’s low, deep voice.
She nodded. He could see that gesture in the darkness, couldn’t he? He’d always had such strong vision in the dark.
“Prove it.” A dare.
She eased away from him, but she still held his wrist. She could still taste him on her tongue.
“Let me touch you.” Hard words from Nash. But, somehow, they held the ragged edge of a plea. “Just touching. Not fucking, Delaney. Let me just touch you.”