Chapter Nineteen
Sleep wouldn’t come for Alayah. When they’d returned to the room, Derek had wished her a good night and disappeared into the bedroom.
She’d be lying to herself if she didn’t notice the way he’d hesitated at the door when he’d said good-night.
Almost like he was hoping she’d say something.
The request to share his bed had been on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn’t force the words passed her lips.
“Alayah?” His voice filled the darkness, and she jumped with a squeal, throwing a hand to her heart. “I didn’t mean to scare you, but you’ve been flopping around like a fish out here. I was worried something was wrong.”
“Can’t sleep,” she said, sitting up to rub her face.
“Even though I’m beyond exhausted. That happens sometimes when I’m working on a big case.
I know Cal is worried my ankle won’t heal if I don’t get enough rest, but it’s fine.
It only gives me an occasional twinge if I step on it wrong.
I probably won’t even need the walker by tomorrow. ”
“You’ll use the walker,” he said firmly. “At least for long distances around the hotel. You don’t want to set your recovery back by overdoing it, right?”
“Yes, Selina,” she said with a smirk that he probably couldn’t see. “Sorry to have disturbed you. I’ll try to keep it down out here.”
He sat next to her on the sofa bed and took her hand. “I have a better idea. Why don’t we share my bed? This one can’t be all that comfortable.”
Her laughter was more nervous than amused when it fell from her lips. “I’ve slept on better mattresses, and it’s sweet of you to offer, but you shouldn’t have to share. I’d need a stepstool to get up on that bed anyway.”
“If I didn’t want to share, I wouldn’t have offered,” he said, his brow furrowed. “Truthfully, when I said good-night, what I really wanted was you in my bed to hold. I’m not asking for more than that, Alayah. Just the opportunity to hold you and help you get some rest.”
With her heart pounding, she pushed herself up and met his gaze. “As much as I’ve enjoyed our time together, a murder charge hanging over your head notwithstanding, there’s so much about me that you don’t know. None of that information is any easier than what I’ve already told you.”
“And you think that means you don’t deserve to be loved or to find happiness?”
“Maybe? I don’t know. I’m tired.” She did know and she could explain it, but she also didn’t want to hurt him by implying that what he thought he was feeling tonight might be completely different come the morning light.
He probably wouldn’t like her putting words in his mouth, even if she knew they were true.
“Which brings us back to where we were a few minutes ago. Is it okay if I carry you? I don’t want to hurt you.”
Her head tipped in curiosity. “I can walk, Derek.”
“Maybe, but you need help getting up on the bed, so why not take a ride?”
Heat rose on her cheeks at the thought of being in his arms. When she ducked her head, it was partly to hide her reaction and partly from embarrassment that she couldn’t get on the bed without his help.
“It’s fine as long as you don’t expect me to wrap my arms around your neck. ” She held up her arms and waved them.
Gently, he grasped her hands and lowered them to his lap. “I know what you’re doing, Alayah, and I understand. It’s hard for you to be intimate without feeling vulnerable, right?”
She lifted her head and nodded. What she saw on his handsome face was eagerness to be what she needed him to be and she wished for the millionth time in her life that she had been born differently.
Then she remembered her life would be completely different had she been born without the syndrome.
The family she had at Secure Inc. wouldn’t exist, and she wouldn’t have met Derek.
Though they’d go their separate ways, she was still blessed to have known him.
“I want you to understand that I respect you and you have full control over what happens from here forward. If you’d rather I carry your stepstool into the bedroom instead of you, I’m happy to do that if it makes you feel more comfortable and in control.”
His offer told her he understood her fears. Maybe it was time to help him understand her desires. “I’d love a ride to bed. Thank you.”
Tenderly, he scooped her up into his chest and cradled her there as he carried her to the bedroom. The bed was king-sized and piled high with pillows. “I might get lost in this bed.”
“Unlikely,” he said, lowering her to the mattress to rest up against the pillows. “Since you’ll be in my arms the entire night, I’ll keep you safe. What’s the best way for you to sleep? I feel like you don’t sleep on your back to avoid compression on your chest.”
Her sharp glance at him revealed his expressionless face as he waited for her to answer. “No one has ever listened to what I say closely enough to come to a conclusion like that, Derek.”
“It’s not hard to listen to someone you care about, Alayah.”
“Most don’t,” she answered with a shrug.
“It means the entire world to me that you did, though. It’s a simple thing to you, but for me, it’s…
” She made the mind-blown motion with her hands.
He took her hand and rubbed his thumb over her knuckles while he waited patiently for her to finish her thought.
Heat spiraled through her at his touch, so she cleared her throat to avoid sounding needy.
“You’re right. Usually, I sleep elevated, almost sitting up.
If I can’t do that, then I sleep on my side with pillows behind me so I don’t fall backward. ”
“Easy enough,” he said, propping the pillows along the headboard until there was a ramp of sorts and then leaning into them, pulling her back in the process.
Once he had the covers over them, he snugged her into his side with her head on his shoulder.
“A perfect fit.” His words were a whisper as he leaned down and brushed his lips across hers in a tender kiss of understanding. “Are you comfortable?”
She nodded, fighting back tears at just how understanding he was and at how perfectly she fit against him.
Her eyelids drooped as he rubbed her shoulder, her body refusing to stay awake a moment longer.
As she drifted off to sleep, she heard him whisper, “I would be a lucky man to get to hold you like this forever, Alayah Heath.”
A sigh of happiness escaped her lips as she fell into dreamland.
* * *
THE NEXT TIME she woke, the room was starting to brighten, which meant a new day had arrived, and she could only imagine what would come of it.
She should be cataloging everything she had left to do, but now that she’d cleared Cal and Derek, her brain wanted to take a break from all the thinking.
It wanted to enjoy being in a warm pair of arms as they cuddled together under the blankets.
Since they had hours until their team meeting, she was going to do exactly that.
Once she made a trip to the bathroom, that is.
As much as she hated to get up and risk waking Derek, she had no choice.
In sleep, he’d loosened his arms, and she was able to slide out of them and to the edge of the bed without waking him.
Getting off the bed was another matter, but she managed by sliding over the edge on her belly until her feet touched the floor.
Thankfully, her ankle no longer hurt. She would take that as a solid win.
She’d still protect it, but if she could avoid using the walker all day, that would be helpful.
Derek seemed to think her reluctance to use the walker stemmed only from embarrassment, but it was also about the pain in her shoulders, elbows and hands from using it all day.
That was one of the reasons she’d worked so hard in physical therapy over the years.
She didn’t want to use it any more than necessary.
It was fine when she was hurt, but she preferred getting around under her own volition the rest of the time.
Besides, her physical therapist had emphasized the importance of keeping her muscles strong, so she had a set of weights that she lifted at home.
While she couldn’t use most gym equipment, she also had a program for lower leg exercises that kept her limber and strong.
Even if it didn’t look that way to the average person.
After using the restroom and brushing her teeth, she snuck a look at the clock on the way past to see it was almost 6:00 a.m. They could spend at least another two hours in bed before they had to think about getting up, and she planned to enjoy every second of it.
They’d only been asleep for about three hours, but she felt rested and ready to go for the day.
That was likely because her body was used to short stints of sleep when working time-sensitive jobs at Secure Watch.
Once the job was finished, she’d pass out and sleep for twelve or sixteen hours and then be ready to start all over again.
She’d learned over the years that many coders and cybersecurity people had sleep issues.
Their brains didn’t want to shut down when struggling with a complex problem that needed fixing.
Especially if the case involved someone’s personal or business safety.
She often worried that stepping away for a few hours to rest could be the reason a case fell apart.
Last night, she’d needed sleep and though the job wasn’t over, at least she’d be able to attack it today with renewed vigor.
“Hey,” Derek said, making her jump as she approached the bedroom door. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you. I was using the other bathroom.”
“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said with a frown, but he shook his head and motioned her to the bed.
“Don’t apologize. We can snuggle back together for a few hours since Cal said we had until nine, right?”
“At the earliest,” she agreed as he helped her back onto the bed with a gentle lift from her hips. “But I want to be there when he briefs the team, so we should aim for nine.”
“When I woke up, it took my brain a few seconds to catch up to what happened last night,” he admitted, pulling her into him again.
“It took me some time to remember that this beautiful and brilliant woman I’d held all night long had managed to give me my future back with her dogged determination.
Maybe I’m not completely out of the woods yet, but now we have breathing room to figure out who really killed Hugo. ”
She raised her hand to stroke his jaw, a bit of scruff tickling her fingers. “We’ll figure it out. That’s what we do at Secure Watch. We protect and serve, just in a different way than Detective Henry.”
“He’s a total blowhard,” he said, laughing even harder when she joined him with her hee-haw laugh.
“Cybersecurity is the kind of job where you rarely get to see interactions like last night, but nothing was more satisfying than seeing his face when he realized his entire case had fallen apart.”
“It was a moment of relief for me,” he said, leaning toward her. She wound her fingers into his hair, bringing his lips to hers in a kiss that left her dizzy with anticipation and need. Derek broke the lip lock to trail his lips down her neck to her collarbone.
“What are you doing?” she asked as he moved her sleep shirt aside to kiss her shoulder.
“Kissing you,” he whispered. “Isn’t it obvious?”
She pulled her shirt back over her shoulder. “Trust me, you don’t want to take those kisses any further.”
When he sat up, it was easy to read the confusion in his eyes. “Because?”
“Because of so many reasons, Derek. You can’t understand, so I won’t bother to explain it,” she said, leaning back against the pillows.
“Saying you won’t bother to explain it because I can’t understand is insulting, Alayah. Saying that you don’t know how to explain it leaves room for an open discussion.”
Her frown deepened when she glanced up into his face, his expression honest and caring. “I’m sorry. It’s not that you can’t understand it. It’s that I can’t explain it.”
“Or maybe it’s that you can’t explain how I could feel differently about your body than you do?
” Her nod was her only answer. “It would be easy to fall back on the old saying of beauty is in the eye of the beholder here, right?” She nodded again with a shrug.
“And while that’s true, I suspect it goes deeper than that for you.
This is about the bigger picture. It’s about everything you’ve internalized regarding the things you were told were wrong with you, even though there’s nothing wrong with you. ”
“There’s plenty wrong with me, Derek,” she said with a derisive laugh. “From my strangely shaped torso to the scars crisscrossing it, not to mention my protruding forehead and impossibly short arms and legs.”
“And you can feel that way if you want to,” he agreed. “But I want you to consider my version of that story. It’s different, that’s for sure, but maybe it’s a kinder way to treat yourself. I haven’t seen the scars, but what I have seen paints a much different picture of who you are.”
“You’re going to say my skills as a cybersecurity agent and my childlike innocence, right?” she asked, trying to keep the sarcasm at bay but fearing it slipped in anyway.
His mouth opened to respond, but then he closed it again and held up his finger. “I think it’s time for show rather than tell,” he said as he lowered himself to the bed and laid his lips on hers.
“Derek,” she whispered as he kissed his way down her arm. “What are you doing?”
“Kissing you,” he answered, kissing the tip of every finger. When he was finished, he brought his lips back to hers for another tangle of tongues that left them both breathing heavily.
She was about to beg him to keep going when a sound from the other room stopped her. “That’s my phone.”
“Leave it,” he whispered, dropping his head to place a kiss on her chest. “They’ll call back.”
When the ringing stopped, she relaxed into the mattress as he lifted her shirt just a hair to feather his lips across her navel, drawing a quick breath from her lips before heat pooled low in her belly. Suddenly, the sound of a trumpet filled the room.
“Is that ‘Reveille’?” he asked, lifting his head.
“Cal was an army guy,” she said with a smirk before she realized what it meant. “That’s an all-call alert! Quick, grab my phone.”
Derek darted from the room and was back in record time, holding out her Secure Watch phone. Before she had it to her ear, she answered. The voice on the other end was calm, but it did nothing to quell the tremor of anxiety that went through her at his explanation.
“We’ll come to your room.” She paused as he continued speaking, then nodded. “Heard and understood. See you in ten.”
Whatever look was on her face had him turning on the bedside lamp. “Something happened.”
“You could say that,” she agreed, swallowing down the bile threatening to erupt. “Josh Hunt was just found floating face down in Lake Superior.”