Chapter 16
chapter sixteen
Kai
When I wake up, three things are certain. First off, my head is pounding, but at least it's still there. Second, my stomach feels empty, but it's no longer trying to revolt. In fact, I think I want food. Lastly, my pillow doesn't feel like it should.
In fact, it feels like it's moving.
I pull back just a fraction, peeking out from under my lashes at what sits in my headspace. And what I find surprises me.
"You stayed."
Denali's sitting against my headboard, and my arms are wrapped around her waist, holding her in place as I apparently use her as a pillow. She's leaned her head back and is currently grimacing from what is no doubt about to be an agonizing amount of neck pain when she straightens back up.
I feel bad for her, but I'm touched that she didn't leave me last night.
As she registers that I spoke, she jerks awake, hissing at the instant crick in her neck from the position change. "Ah, fuck." Her hand shoots up to rub at the back of her neck, and I realize it must've been on my shoulder, because that part of me feels strangely cool now.
"Don't move so fast," I mutter, rolling onto my back so I can release her and put my hands on my chest, folded, waiting to see what she'll do next. "There's ibuprofen in the drawer next to the bed. Take some, they'll help."
She leans over, groaning, and liberates my well-loved bottle of meds, shaking a few out into her hand before she eyes me, then the bottle, and then swallows them dry.
"Oh, god, you're insane," I mumble, remembering the one time I tried that, how it felt.
Horrible. It was horrible.
"Nothing to drink, and I'm currently serving as someone's personal pillow, so I can't go get anything," she points out, and man, there's no more effective way she could have basically managed to get me off her lap.
Her movements are slow as she shifts on the edge of the bed and throws her legs over the side, preparing to stand.
Apparently, I'm heavier than I thought I was, though, because she stands up and her legs give out, no doubt asleep from the fact that until a minute ago, she had a solid hundred and thirty five pounds of man lying on them.
I can't help but laugh when she looks at me, rolls her eyes, and flops down on her back, groaning with her arms starfished outto the sides. "Ugh, well, apparently I've forgotten how walking works."
Our eyes meet as she turns her head and cusses again, and though I'm sympathetic to her plight, I'm still reeling from the fact that she could have just left me here last night and gone home, and instead, she remained.
She didn't walk away when it got rough. I think at one point in time, I barfed on her.
Would explain why she's wearing my clothes.
Denali is wearing my clothes. And likely nothing else.
I wonder, albeit briefly, if she put her own underthings on beneath my briefs and shirt, and then catch msyelf staring a hole into her chest in the hopes that I can confirm or deny the presence of a bra there.
I have to practically shake myself for the stupid act.
I shouldn't be ogling my assistant. It's not a good idea.
But lately, I've been thinking a lot about her.
And last night, when I was with the girl from the interview, all I could think about was the way she looked so angry when she stormed off and left me there at the restaurant. How hurt she looked, beneath the anger.
I wanted to go after her.
"Here, come back up here on the soft bed," I plead, offering her a hand. "I'll help you."
It's like she wakes up in real time now, her eyes open wide as she registers how alert and cooperative I am. "Oh, shit, how are you feeling?"
I flex my limbs, wiggle my toes, take stock of lingering damage. "I feel . . . not my best, but certainly not as bad as last night."
She rolls over onto her stomach, pushing up onto her hands and knees. I have to remind my body I'm still recovering from being drugged as the sight of her crawling in my direction does things to me south of my waistline. "What do you remember?"
I close my eyes for a moment, half trying to remember, half trying to forget how hot she looks right now.
In my clothes. On my bedroom floor. On her hands and knees at my bedside.
It's not working too well. "I remember going to the club.
Telling Anton to fuck off," I admit with a wince, realizing just how asshole-ish that sounds even to my own ears now.
"Having a drink at the bar with the girl from the interview.
" I blink slowly, trying to remember what all I can before it all slips away.
"There was . . . another girl? Maybe? After I turned down the podcast girl, another slid up to me on the chair.
Said her name was Priscilla something or other, she was looking for a good time. "
Was it the podcast girl who drugged me? Or this Priscilla chick? Was that even her name?
"And then?" Denali looks hopeful, but from the moment Priscilla stepped into my range, everything is fuzzy.
"Nothing, that I can remember, at least," I say on a sigh, wishing I had more for her.
I want to be able to give her what she wants, but it's just not there.
"Not until I went to the bathroom and felt off.
I realized something was wrong, so I went out the back door and started walking.
Figured I'd better put as much space between me and whoever had drugged me as possible, and fast."
"But you could have called anyone," she says, her voice soft, small. Like she can't believe what happened actually happened. Like it confuses her, the next bit. "You called me."
"Yeah. I did."
Her slow blink is adorable, and I find myself smiling at her like an idiot as she just stares blankly in my direction. "Why, though? And why my personal number?"
Don't tell her the truth, man. She's gonna think you're weird.
"It's the only number I have memorized. And I needed someone I can trust. That's—that's you."
Both true.
"You walked in the direction of my house for six blocks before you called me, Kai." Her eyes narrow. "What could have possibly possessed you to head in my direction instead of your own?"
I spent all night thinking I should apologise for letting you walk away. I wanted to be with you, not her. I've been having secret fantasies about you that I'm just now finally willing to open up about, and I need you to know how bad I want you.
"You're—you—because I trust you. Because I knew if I made it to you, you wouldn't let anything bad happen to me. And I don't know anyone else here, Denali. The cops aren't exactly known for being pariahs of good virtue in your country. I sent Roger home. Anton, too."
"Anton was outside, waiting for you."
Well, shit, there went that idea. "I didn't know."
She looks out the window just as one of our phones starts to vibrate across the nightstand. I reach for it, but it's not mine making the ruckus. It's hers.
Wordlessly, I hold it out for her, but she takes one look at the caller ID and practically throws it across the room, her eyes wider now than I've ever seen them.
She looks spooked. She looks frightened.
She looks like she doesn't want to answer that call, like she'd rather throw her phone off my balcony than pick up.
"Shitty ex?" I can't think of any other reason for her to act so panicked about a little phone call.
"Something like that," she mumbles, getting to her feet. "What do you think about putting some food in your stomach?"
Her hand reaches out in my direction, and though I'm not really sure I want to eat yet, not before coffee, I take it anyway and stand up with her, letting this waif of a woman lead me into my own kitchen, her ringing phone in the corner be damned.
I sit at the counter of my island where she deposits me as she putters around my kitchen to find what she needs to make good happen, and it's like she belongs there.
This place is always so empty, I can't even remember the last time someone spent more than a few hours in it, and certainly not in the morning, making me breakfast. All those one night stands were in and out before dawn, no lingering, no cutesy girlfriend shit.
And here she is, Denali Stone, my fucking assistant, going above and beyond what I pay her for, just to make sure I'm well cared for after my own stupidity landed me in a heap of trouble.
And she looks good doing it in my clothes, too.
"Do you not have any eggs, Kai?" She leans over in the fridge, shuffling things around to search for them, and as much as I know I should tell her they're in the door, I don't. I'm enjoying the view too much.
"They're in there somewhere, kera," I say absently, hoping she'll keep looking. "I just got some two days ago in my grocery delivery."
"Do you cook?" Her voice is thoughtful, not harsh or judgemental, as she thinks about the possibility that I might handle adult things for myself because I'm an adult, ya know, and I can just feel it's not meant as an insult. Just an observation. "You don't seem like the type."
"I learned at my mom's side when I was growing up in Sapporo," I tell her, watching the way her thighs flex as she stands on her tip toes to reach things in the cabinet above her head.
"Do you want me to help you?" I'm not much taller than she is, but like, I'm tall enough to reach the things she's after. "I can—"
"No, no, you just sit there and behave," she commands, climbing onto my marble countertop on her knees.
And wouldn't you know it, the second I see her on my kitchen counter, in nothing but my shirt, I think any number of things that make me wonder if that drug used to spike my drink last night had some ecstasy in it, too.
There's no other explanation for how hard I am in seconds.
How far off the reasonable end of the pool my thoughts have wandered.
I must still be half-drugged. Yeah, that's it.
"So, let's get some food in you, and then we go down and make your police report, like we promised that asshole detective last night," she says, setting a plate in front of me finally, one that's laden down with a couple pounds more food than I could imagine eating in one sitting.
"I can't eat all this," I say warily, eyeing the mountain of eggs and vegetables she's cooked up for me. "I'll explode."
"I'll help you, then," she says confidently, her fork poised above the dish as she waits for me to take the first bite.
I don't bother telling her that sharing a dish like this is a little more intimate than I think she planned to get with me this early in the morning. At least, in my culture it is. It's not the full-scale sharing of food, feeding each other, that would denote a relationship. But it's close.
When it comes time to leave, and we've managed to eat everything she cooked, I watch her hunt around for her clothes and sigh when she finds them in a state of obvious disarray.
"Shit, I didn't wash my clothes. I'll have to stop at my house and change. I can throw these ones in the wash while I'm there—"
"Throw them in my washing machine," I say suddenly, looking for any excuse to get her to come back. "You can get them later."
I don't tell her it's because I don't want to spend another night here alone, not after all that happened over the past twenty-four hours.
I certainly don't tell her it's because I hope that by inviting her back under the pretense of coming to get her clothes, I won't seem so pathetic when I tell her I'd rather not be by myself, and beg her to stay, using work and her on-call status as an excuse.
And I'll never tell her that there's a very high chance that I want her, in more ways than one, all of them ways that I have no business wanting my assistant.
That's for later. Right now, I'm just hoping she'll say—
"Alright. But you'll have to show me where the laundry room is."