Undertow (14 page)

Unfortunately for me, minutes later, before I could wash my hair, the hot water ran out and I was splashed by freezing water. It felt like the chill of the sea. I squealed and jumped out, inelegantly crashing into the decrepit vanity. Shaking wildly, I reached for a towel, needing to dry off as quickly as possible. While I fumbled to get it around me, a thumping on the bathroom door startled me even further.

“Are you okay in there?” Decker asked, trying the knob.

“Yep, I'm fine. Sorry about the scream. The hot water ran out and the blast of cold shocked me. Just gimme a sec.”

The towel was small and barely covered me from breast to buttocks. I ignored the discolorations on the white terry cloth while I attempted to tuck it in under my arms so I could open the door. When I finally did, Decker's eyes widened momentarily, unable to stay on mine. Instead, they involuntarily scanned my body, lingering on the scandalous hemline that barely covered my virtue.

He said nothing, only stared, his eyes eventually returning to mine. I returned his look, meeting the intensity of his gaze as best I could. He and I had shared many silent moments in our short time together. I wondered how many more we would have.

“Soooo, I'm just going to get dressed and then go to bed. Sorry about the girly breakdown. It just surprised me.”

“No problem,” he mumbled, forcing himself to turn and walk away. He glanced back at me this time as I closed the door behind me, not locking it. I never did understand why I chose not to. Something about it seemed offensive, like I was scared of him or what he might do. Nothing could have been further from the truth.

I dropped the towel, thinking of how he'd looked at me when I opened the bathroom door. My body warmed at the memory. He had wanted me; there was no doubt about that. Men often did. But there was something deeper in his gaze than the sheer lust I had borne witness to many times. There was a sense of longing.

Maybe I remind him of someone . . .

I shook my head to clear it while I pulled on my long underwear, which was doubling as outerwear, and my tight-fitting thermal shirt. I left everything else off, finding a plastic bag to place the undergarments in. I didn't want to wear them all night. They'd been worn long enough.

I did my best to sneak out of the bathroom, afraid to wake him up for a third time since I'd arrived. The room was dark and quiet except for the wind that had picked up outside, the howling noise whipping against the cheap windows. The threadbare curtains danced with the slight breeze that infiltrated the casing, moving them gently. The light they allowed to penetrate the room fell on Decker's body, highlighting him in a glorious way. His back was naked and the shadows that were cast by his musculature begged to be touched and traced. My breath caught in my throat as I stared at his sleeping form. His rugged beauty was impossible to deny, but with it came a sensitive side that balanced it beautifully. He was all a woman could have wanted—a woman that was ready to give herself to someone fully.

I was not that female.

With that realization, I turned away from him and pulled back the undoubtedly fluid-encrusted comforter. With only a sheet to keep me warm, I balled myself into the fetal position and tucked the thin piece of cotton in around me. In minutes, I was asleep.

* * *

Falling . . .

I dreamt of falling that night, never landing anywhere, just perpetually plummeting into a darkness that never ceased. When my mind could take it no longer, I shot out of bed with a start, panting heavily and sweating, though I was frozen to the bone. As I tried to pull myself together, I heard movement from the bed beside me.

“Aesa?” Decker mumbled, his voice heavy with sleep and confusion.

“I'm sorry,” I whispered. “Bad dream. Go back to sleep.”

I lay back down, trying to warm myself in the thin cotton sheet, but to no avail. With my mind racing and my body shivering, I knew sleep wouldn't find me.

“You're freezing,” he observed from the bed across the narrow aisle.

“Yeah, well, I'm not using that blanket. God only knows what diseases I could catch from it,” I replied, turning to face him.

“I think your cold runs deeper than that, Aesa.” His words were heavy with subtext that I chose to ignore. It was as if he'd known what my nightmare was about.

“I'll sort it out. No worries. Goodnight.”

“It's warm over here,” he replied, with no hint of his earlier implications.

I propped myself up on my elbow to get a better look at his expression in the darkness. It gave nothing away. He might as well have been making a statement of observation about any random fact. However, I wasn't so sure the fact he chose to voice was all that random.

“I've disrupted you enough tonight, Decker. I don't want to bother you any more than I already have. Besides, if I have another bad dream, you'll get caught in the flailing crossfire.”

“I'll take my chances, Aesa.”

He was unbending on the issue, and, given that I was still shivering uncontrollably, his offer was highly appealing. It was appealing for other reasons that I tried to deny as well.

Tentatively, I brought my legs out from under the sheet and placed my feet on the floor, all the while watching to see if anything in his guarded expression changed. If he had ulterior motives, he was giving nothing away. I pushed off of the bed and took the two steps necessary to reach the edge of his, placing myself down on it slowly and in a way that let me keep eye contact with him the entire time. He never even moved. Pulling the blanket back, I pressed my body underneath it, unwilling to move too close to him right away. I was waiting for something in him to change, but it never did. He helped me by arranging the sheet around me, but that was all. When he rested himself against the pillow, he rolled onto his back, giving me the space he thought I needed.

For whatever reason, his leaving that empty space between us only pulled me toward him. Before I could account for my actions, I slid in close to his body, rewarded instantly by the heat radiating off of it. He lifted his arm to allow me closer and my head found the space between his shoulder and cheek instinctively, resting comfortably there as if it had been carved out perfectly for only me. To complete the encroachment on his space, I wound my arm across his impossibly hard stomach, snuggling into him even tighter. My fingers involuntarily traced a delicate path back and forth along the chiseled lines I found there.

“Aesa—” he whispered, his tone almost cautionary.

“Shhhh,” I whispered back, enjoying the sensation that overwhelmed my body. Being near him was a completion I'd never known possible. “Don't ruin this.”

Ignoring what I assumed was a warning, I buried my face into his neck deeper still, breathing him in. He smelled how men should smell, making me sigh involuntarily. It brought a faint groan from deep within his chest.

I lifted my chin, trying to see the expression he wore. I was met with smoldering brown eyes staring back at me. His body was tense, like he was holding back with everything he could. I pressed mine tighter against him in response.

Dropping my head back down to his neck, I brushed my lips along the length of it, before nestling into it again. I rubbed my face into his chest, nuzzling it gently as my leg snaked around his, pulling him to me. His body was still rigid when he wrapped his free arm around my waist, sliding it up my back to displace my shirt ever so slightly. His fingertips trailing against my skin nearly undid me.

I tried to think of all the reasons why I shouldn't do what I was considering doing, but none came to mind in the heat of the moment. I'd nearly died hours earlier; he'd been the one to save me. Everything about being close to him felt right in a way that nothing ever had before. I'd been with men, several in fact, but none had a hold on me the way he did. Maybe it was PTSD, or just an epic lack of judgment, but all I could think about was his body naked and ground tightly against mine. The image was nearly tattooed on my brain.

“Aesa,” he repeated, his voice wavering slightly that time, as if his resolve was failing him too.

“I know what I'm doing,” I whispered against his body as I slid mine along it. The arm that had captured my body flew off of me, crashing to the bed beside him. I glanced up to see him fisting the sheets violently in his hand. He was clearly torn, and seeing his obvious hesitation gave me a moment of pause. I pulled away from him, lifting myself up just enough to look down on the pained expression he wore. “Maybe I don't—” I muttered to myself, wondering if my lapse in judgment had been of a completely different variety. With that sobering possibility came a chill that shot through my body. Embarrassment settled in only seconds later.

“I . . . I should go,” I mumbled, trying desperately to escape the debacle I'd created.

“Aesa, please don't,” he argued, leaping out of the bed while I slithered out of the opposite side. He rounded the foot of it to stand before me in a successful attempt to block my escape. “It's not like that—”

“I
need
to go,” I rephrased, emphasizing my desire to flee the situation that had so rapidly gone downhill.

“You don't. Just stop for a second. Let me explain.”

“There's no need to explain anything, Decker. That'll only make this more awkward than it already is. It’s my fault, not yours. Let me retain some shred of dignity. Please?”

“Aesa!” he yelled. “Stop. Please. You've got this all wrong. You seem to be working under the impression that I wasn't down for what you were just about to do. Let me be the first to tell you that that couldn't be further from the truth, but not like this. Not here. Way too much has gone on in the last twenty-four hours, and I don't want you doing something you'll regret later. I wouldn't regret it, but I'm not so sure that'd be the case for you.”

I stood there in the narrow channel between the beds, staring into his pleading face. He clasped both my arms gently in his hands in an attempt to hold me still long enough to make his point. And he did.

He was right. I wasn't thinking clearly at all.

“So . . . what do we do now?” I asked, my embarrassment still plain.

“Well, I'm still tired as hell, so how about we try sleeping? The rest can keep until tomorrow, once we've both gotten enough rest to think clearly.”

“Can I blame my concussion for this?” I asked, hoping to smooth things over a bit by mocking my injury.

“Absolutely,” he agreed with a laugh. “If you hadn't, I would have on your behalf. It's a sound defense.” Not waiting for me to reply, he turned me around and ushered me back into his bed before walking around it to get in the other side. I decided that facing him was a terrible idea and lay down on my left side to stare at my empty bed. I felt the mattress give way to his formidable frame as he moved toward me, tucking his warmth up tightly behind me.

“Just sleeping,” he whispered in my ear, and I nodded slightly in response. I didn't trust my mind enough to get the words right so I kept them in.

With that, he wrapped his arm around me, encasing my body with the heat he had originally promised me, and I fell asleep easily, knowing that tomorrow would be far more complicated than I had originally planned for it to be.

17

Tomorrow became infinitely more complicated than I could have ever bargained for when a pounding on the motel door woke me from a dead sleep. The shouting of my name did nothing to help the situation. Decker shot up beside me, his hair a tousled mess of perfection. I pressed my index finger to my lips and indicated that he should lie back down and pretend to be asleep. If he wanted to keep his job, he'd follow my instructions to a tee.

Quickly, I launched myself to the door and opened it. Outside stood my father, his expression murderous.

“What are you doing
here
?” he asked, his subtext reading loud and clear. He knew what women who stayed at that hotel were there for and was not at all excited at the potential implications for me. What I couldn't understand was how he'd found me at all.

“What are
you
doing here?” I countered, not in love with his tone. “And keep your voice down,” I scolded in a whisper. “Decker is sleeping.”

“Explain to me why I had to find you here, especially after everything you've just been through. Have you no good sense at all?”

“Well I do have a concussion, so possibly not,
Far,”
I growled. “And it's good to see you alive too, you stubborn old ass. I thought you were going to go down with that ship the last time I saw you. I thought we had a little moment there, but now you're standing in a motel room, seethingly angry about something you know nothing about. I stayed here because I couldn't stand the thought of being alone. I didn't even make it home. Decker was nice enough to let me crash here, which hasn't worked out so well for him since I spent the majority of the night having a meltdown about one thing or another, and now here you stand, yelling at me while he's trying to catch up on the sleep he so desperately needs. He jumped into the fucking Bering Sea to save me, Dad, and do you know why? I'll tell you why, because you and Robbie told him to keep me safe, so you'd better not so much as look at him sideways about my being here. It's not what you think. I'm not some whore who just hops in bed with every man in town, though, given my childhood, I'm not sure anyone would be surprised if I did.”