4. Chapter 4 - Kip
Chapter 4 - Kip
One Bed
H er breathing evened off shortly after she rolled over, the pain medication no doubt pulling her under and away from her thoughts. She was so troubled; I could almost see her thoughts every time I looked over at her while she sat next to the fire.
She told me she didn’t know what happened to her, but that it was someone. And when she looked at herself in the mirror, the emotional pain was obvious all over her tiny, perfect face.
Even through the bruises and cuts, she was perfect. It made my chest ache with an unrealistic need to tear apart whoever hurt her. Someone, a man more than likely, beat her almost to death and then left her out in the freezing cold to die.
Who would do something like that? She said it wasn’t an ex or a boyfriend. But who else would attack someone as small as her? It was almost inhumane to think about how unmatched that fight must have been. Especially around here, the town was tiny, everyone knew everyone else, and I couldn’t think of one person who would want to hurt her. Not a single person.
I looked over at her, huddled under the blankets, so incredibly tiny next to me, so helpless and vulnerable. But I could tell she didn’t live her life helpless or vulnerable. She was calculating and confident. In her normal life, she probably controlled everything she could as best as she could because there were so many things she physically couldn’t have the upper hand in.
Just then, she turned in her sleep towards me, slowly and easily scooting closer to me until she was curled around my arm between us.
Shit.
She was like an adorable, loveable puppy that I just didn’t want. Every time I was short or curt with her today, I could see the rejection and pain on her face until she just stopped trying to interact with me at all.
The sooner the roads cleared, and I got her into town and back on her way home, wherever that was, the better. There was a void inside me, leaving no energy to foster feelings for her or to extend my concern beyond her overall wellness .
I just couldn’t. It wasn’t fair to them .
She didn’t deserve my affection or kindness; she hadn’t earned them like they had.
I raised both arms up over my head on top of my pillow to eliminate the contact she initiated. Resigning myself to a sleepless night, when she moved in closer again, probably just seeking my warmth.
She was still sleeping, mewling quietly as she moved closer. She settled her head on my shoulder before curling her body around my stomach and legs, effectively wrapping herself around me like a tiny cat.
I stared at the ceiling as she settled completely after giving out a contented sigh into my neck.
I should have pushed her away, I contemplated it multiple times as I lay there being lulled by the steady puffs of breath coming from her lips against my chest. But instead of doing what my head was telling me to do, I did what my body was telling me to do. I brought my left arm down, wrapping it around her back, laying my large hand on her tiny hip as I tried to ignore how well her petite body fit against mine in such a foreign way.
She wasn’t at all like Molly.
My soulmate, the love of my life .
The only one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
Opposite my wife, the little curvy pixie next to me in my bed was completely different. My wife was tall and leggy, with blonde hair and clear blue eyes. Molly was my equal in every way; she was physically strong and capable, never needing me to do anything for her that she couldn’t. She always found a way. And she was always a rock, holding our home together while I was away constantly.
Having the pixie in my bed was a slap in the face to my incredible wife. Even as innocent as I intended it to be. But as I had mentioned earlier, it was best for me to avoid temptation.
“Shit,” I murmured quietly, guilt and hate washed over me for the millionth time since I’d laid eyes on Hadley’s angelic face early that morning.
“Please don’t be mad at me. I didn’t mean to make you mad.” Hadley pleaded from her spot on my chest.
I looked down at her face to see she was still fast asleep, talking through a dream, perhaps. Her small hand came up to my chest, her short nails digging into the skin as she fought some internal battle in her head .
I gently slid her off my shoulder, replacing it with her pillow as I sat on the edge of the bed. I needed to be careful with her. She was way too much of a mystery to me, I couldn’t chance anything happening between us.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered into the dark again as the images of her naked in my living room rushed back into my head. I knew I should get up and put distance between us, but I couldn’t get my body to move away from her.
“Is something wrong? Did I keep you awake?” I heard her soft voice, barely audible, coming from behind me. She leaned up on her elbow as I glanced over my shoulder. The shirt she was wearing had slid down off her shoulder, showing off her delicate collarbone and dainty neck. Her bright green eyes glowed in the dark as she let her gaze rove over my back and side.
Lust shined through the darkness as her eyes snapped back up to mine.
“You’re a bed hog,” I said harshly. Instantly regretting it, her eyes dropped to the sheets in embarrassment. Shame burned in my stomach.
“I’m sorry, I’m not used to sleeping next to someone. I’ll just go downstairs.” She gently raised herself up and started scooting to her side of the bed again to get out .
“Stop,” I commanded, turning back towards her. But she didn’t stop moving towards the edge.
“No, it’s fine. I’m sorry for disturbing you, I’ll just go sleep in the chair.” She continued.
“Stop,” I said more aggressively as I leaned across the bed and grabbed her elbow. She said she wasn’t used to sleeping next to anyone, so that must mean she was single and had been for a while. That information shouldn’t have excited me, but it did. “It’s fine, just lay back down. It’s an adjustment for both of us.” I pulled her arm back until she laid down flat on her back, but not before I saw her shiver from her toes to her teeth. “Are you cold?” I carefully pulled the blanket up and over her bare legs, ensuring she was warm before I turned to lie on my side, my eyes locked on her.
I propped my elbow on the pillow and put my head on my hand as I looked down at her, waiting for her to answer. She wouldn’t meet my eyes but nodded her head.
“Vocalize what you need from me so I can fix it for you,” I stated plainly, but she looked back up at me like I’d just spoken Greek to her. Like me, fixing her problems was so absurd. Looking back on my observations and conversations with her, I realized she probably wasn’t familiar with people extending a helping hand. She didn’t have anyone to lean on, no one to sleep next to, no one to care that she was alive or dead, as she’d said earlier.
She was all alone.
Except for me, now.
“Roll over,” I said gruffly, to which she responded with a pensive questioning glare. “I’m just claiming my share of the mattress now, so hopefully you’ll stay on your side.” Placing my hand on her hip, I nudged her, encouraging her to roll on her side, facing away from me. “I’ll get you warm in no time, then we can both go to sleep.”
Slipping my arm under her pillow and positioning it in the crook of her neck, I pressed my large body against hers, bending my legs to make sure that mine embraced every inch of her skin.
When I felt her soft curves perfectly molding against my hard body, I couldn’t help but curse myself. At first, she stiffened against my hold, but within a few moments, she took a deep breath and relaxed. I slid my hand under the blankets to rest on her hip, knowing her ribs were in too much pain to lay my beefy arm across them. The shirt she was wearing had ridden up and my fingers skimmed the bare skin of her hip. They quickly, of their own accord, slid higher, taking the shirt with them and finding the crease where her hip met her thigh and into the soft skin there before settling.
We both lay silent, our breathing more labored than probably necessary. Her presence in my bed brought a newfound sense of comfort and contentment as our bodies intertwined in a tender embrace. Even though everything inside of me told me how wrong it was.
“What does that word mean?” She asked softly after a minute.
“What word?”
“ Bambina .”
I lay silently for a second, trying to think of an appropriate answer, “It means nothing.”
She huffed lightly, clearly annoyed by my dismissive response to her question.
“You’re lying.” I could hear the indignation in her voice as she accused me softly in the dark. She didn’t raise her voice though, in fact, every time she spoke to me it was soft and melodic, almost like a kid’s fairy tale character. Almost like the fairy tale princesses in the kids’ movies, I used to get sucked into watching. The ones where the fair maidens had birds and woodland creatures following them around everywhere they went, singing. But she wasn’t some innocent beauty frolicking through my forest, she had darkness surrounding her and it had kissed her skin over and over again, leaving her marked.
“You would know all about lying to someone’s questions now, wouldn’t you?” I replied because, well, I was a bastard, and I just couldn’t leave well enough alone.
I felt her sharp intake of breath and knew that was an asshole thing to say, but I couldn’t take it back because not knowing exactly what happened to her still didn’t sit well with me. It went against everything I’d ever trained for and prided myself on being about.
She said nothing else and after a while; I felt her fall asleep, and I drifted off to the rhythmic pattern of her slow breathing.
When I woke up again, I was disoriented and confused. Bright mid-morning sun shone through the windows across from the loft and it hurt my eyes as I tried to acclimate to my surroundings. Not in years had I ever woken up after the sun was fully up.
My body and head were working at two different speeds, the way it does after an extremely deep hard sleep. When I finally remembered myself, I looked to my left to check for Hadley but found the bed empty and cold.
“Hadley!” I yelled as I swung my feet to the floor and took off to the stairs.
What if she robbed me blind and took off with my dog and truck?
Okay, that sounded like a country song.
But I knew nothing about her and her mysterious appearance on my property left more questions than answers.
I made it downstairs without falling on my face in my haste, hitting the hardwood with a loud thud as I looked around the living space for her. The heavenly scent coming from the kitchen should have knocked me on my ass if gravity didn’t, but I’d been too frantic to pick up on it at first. She stood there, with her hair up in a messy bun, still wearing only my long-sleeved shirt, rolled up her arms a dozen times to clear her wrists, and my slippers from by the front door that I hardly ever wore.
“Good Morning.” She said shyly from behind the stovetop on the island as she flipped through a couple of pieces of sausage.
“Morning,” I answered curtly, trying to figure out why finding her standing in my kitchen wearing my shirt left me feeling relieved and incredibly aroused.
“I hope you don’t mind; I was starving and didn’t want to wake you.” She said as she gestured to the sausage in the pan and the fresh biscuits warming on the plate next to the gravy.
“You made biscuits and gravy?” I tried to hold back any harshness in my tone. She nodded shyly again, making eye contact only for a brief second at a time. “From scratch?”
“Yeah, you had everything for the biscuits in your pantry and the sausage was in the freezer.” She shrugged. “I whipped the gravy up from the two of them. I figured I should at least cook and clean for you while I’m here. Try to earn my keep, even if it’s still short by a long shot from what I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Hadley,” the harshness was back in my voice, and she dropped her gaze again to the pan. I wasn’t mad because she was cooking, I was mad because she thought she needed to cook to stay. “But I won’t turn away good home cooking.” I tried to soften my obvious lack of tact and good manners by accepting her offer.
She paused briefly, “Well, wait until you try it to tell me if it’s good or not.” She answered with a coy smile as she looked up shyly from under her lashes, and even just a half smile as it was, it lit up her entire face.
No, the entire room.
She was breathtaking.
She had two deep dimples that formed when she smiled, and she completely shook my world upside down with them.
“I was just kidding, I’m a pretty good cook. You won’t get sick from it, I promise.” She said, her smile dropping self-consciously as I stood there staring at her like an idiot.
I shook my head, snapping myself out of it. “Yeah, no I got it. Let me get dressed and I’ll be right back.”
And with that, I walked out, trying even harder to get a grasp on myself.