For Everly (27 page)

“You can’t get your stitches wet,” he reminded her.

“I know. But I’m not going a week without washing my hair. I’ll figure something out.”

Giving her a long, drawn-out sigh, he got to his feet. “I’ll never forgive myself if you fall while trying some weird acrobatic pose in the shower just to wash your hair.”

She took his hand and trailed after him into his bedroom. “Weird acrobatic pose?”

“Hey, let a guy dream.” He released her hand and walked into the bathroom. “Strip down,” he called over his shoulder as he turned on the water in his walk-in shower. “We’ve only got twenty minutes until the pizza arrives.”

Following his own advice, he pulled his shirt over his head, then unfastened his belt and jeans. He was down to only his underwear within a minute. Turning, he saw Everly in the bathroom doorway wearing just the white bra and panties he’d grabbed for her.

“I’ll leave the bandage over my stitches,” she said. “Just in case.”

“Okay.” He stepped into the shower and removed the long-handled showerhead. “Come on in. The water’s fine.”

She stepped inside, looking around as she did so. “Are those jets in the walls?”

“Yep. We’ll leave those off for now or this will quickly turn into a scene from a bad porno.”

Her eyebrows lifted as she walked over to him. He deliberately avoided looking at her right arm. Just the sight of the dark purple coloring was enough to make him want to kill someone.

“Bad porno, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said. “We do have clothes on, you know.”

“Ah. We do seem to see a lot of each other in our underwear.”

“It’s what gets me through the day. Turn around and bend your head back,” he instructed.

He was sorry he did when she turned and he saw her back for the first time. Bruises covered most of her right upper torso. He thought of her fractured ribs and swallowed hard. She hadn’t issued one word of complaint since waking up that morning, but he knew she had to be in pain.

Since he couldn’t speak, he focused on the task at hand. He avoided getting her stitches wet while going through the routine of shampooing and conditioning her hair. His actions were quick and purposeful since he knew they were on a schedule, but he took care not to hurt her.

Helping her like this generated an entirely different set of feelings in him than he’d expected. After a few minutes, he realized that he hadn’t thought about sex once after making the decision to help her wash her hair.

Though he knew what that meant, he continued to avoid acknowledging it. Instead, he finished with her hair and then put the showerhead back in its holder.

“You’re all set,” he said. “Feel free to linger for twenty minutes doing whatever it is you girls do in here for that long. Don’t tell me. I want to leave it up to my imagination.” He opened the shower door and got out. “Just know that the amount of pizza reduces exponentially with each minute it spends in the kitchen alone with me.”

“Roger that,” she said. “Thanks.”

He reached for a towel and dried himself off. A second towel remained for Everly to use when she was ready. He couldn’t resist a glance over his shoulder when he left the bathroom and started to pull the door closed behind him. When he did, he watched Everly hang her wet bra over the side of the shower. What he saw of her side profile was enough to make him realize that his desire for her was only thinly veiled by his concern.

Leaving her alone was one of the most challenging things he’d ever done.

By the time the pizza arrived, he was dressed and ready with the payment for the delivery guy. He had no sooner set out plates and napkins than Everly emerged from his bedroom. She wore one of his long-sleeved T-shirts with the sleeves cuffed. It hit her at mid-thigh.

“I guess I need to get some more of my clothes,” she said.

“Actually, Margaret got you some things to wear,” he admitted as he poured them both some ice water. “I just got focused on the pizza and left them in the guest room.”

“Oh.” She looked down the hallway.

“Please don’t change,” he said.

“But I’m not wearing any underwear.”

Since he was only too aware of that fact, he dipped his head as if to say,
And your point is?

Rolling her eyes, she walked over to the island and took a seat. “All right. If it gets me to this pizza faster, I’ll cave in to your wanton ways.”

“Sucker.”

They dug in. Although he wanted to ask her about what he’d overheard her father say in her hospital room, he didn’t. She’d been through enough in the past couple of days as it was. That didn’t keep him from wishing she’d just tell him. Surely she realized that he’d been standing on the other side of the curtain when her father threatened her. Didn’t she?

What had happened to her all those years ago?

The question circled around his brain as they ate and again when they moved into the family room to watch television. After setting her up on one of the sofa’s recliners, he moved the coffee table closer so he could put his feet up while he sat beside her. She snuggled against his right side, smelling like his shampoo and body wash. Thinking of her sitting there in his shirt without any undergarments on made him want to scoop her up and take her to his bed.

Less than an hour later, he found himself doing just that. She fell asleep during a Hawks game. Since he hadn’t done much more than doze in a waiting room chair the night before, he was more than ready to call it a night.

Rather than carry her to the guest room, though, he brought her to his room. He settled her under the covers, then went and collected her things from the other room, including her medication. He set everything on the nightstand where she could see it in case she woke up in the middle of the night. Then he went to shower away the grime from the past twenty-four hours.

By the time he had dried himself off, brushed his teeth, and pulled on his cotton sleep shorts, his vision had all but crossed from exhaustion. Leaving the subtle over-shower light on, he pulled the door almost all the way closed and stumbled to his bed.

Then, since she wasn’t awake to object, he pulled Everly up against him and slept.

*     *     *

Everly woke to find herself draped over Cole.

It took her a long moment to remember where she was. She blinked blearily in the faint sunlight that filtered into the room and allowed the memories to return. She remembered the time during the night when Cole woke her and forced her to take a pain pill. He told her that she was making noises in her sleep. Then she remembered trying to get comfortable. She hadn’t been able to do so until she was on her left side, her right arm thrown over Cole’s waist.

That didn’t explain the leg she’d also thrown over him, she thought now.

Since he was also on his side, she faced his back and felt free to bite her bottom lip as she fully realized she was in Cole Parker’s bed. Her hand lay against his muscular abdomen. Her left leg pressed against his backside while her right leg was over his thigh.

When she moved her right hand, she quickly found her fingers entangled in his.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asked in a sleepy voice.

She grinned. Pressing her forehead against his back, she replied, “I have this physical therapy gig. It pays well, so…”

He slowly turned so he was on his back and she was nestled in the crook of his arm. His fingers ran idly through her hair, caressing her neck and the side of her jaw. Goosebumps sprang up on her arms. She traced a mindless pattern on his chest that mimicked his touch.

“How much would I have to pay you to get you to stay here with me instead?” he asked.

She pretended to think about it. “Maybe…a million dollars?”

“Done.”

She laughed. “Nice try. You’re not getting out of your exercises today.”

“You’re such a hardass.”

His fingers brushed against her earlobe, making her shiver. She found herself wishing he’d use his lips and teeth instead.

“Sorry,” she said. “I have a lot of interest in getting this particular client to full health.”

“Hmm.”

She noted that when she reached certain areas of his upper body, he tensed and held his breath. Curious, she allowed her hand to drift to those areas more often. After a minute, his hand reached up and stilled hers.

Interesting.

“I might be convinced to dawdle a bit if you kissed me,” she said in a soft voice.

Since she wasn’t looking at his face, she was unprepared for his sudden movement. Before she realized it, she was on her back and he held himself above her on his elbows. Pain twinged in her side, but it paled in comparison to the feelings generated by the look in his eyes.

“You’re playing with fire, Ms. Wallace,” he murmured, looking at her mouth.

“I know.” The words were a breathless whisper.

Then he kissed her. It wasn’t a quick, gentle encounter. He started it with purpose, parting her lips and rubbing his tongue roughly against hers. She met him stroke for stroke, not in the mood to dance around how she felt any more than he was.

His hands moved along her body, caressing her skin as he waged his assault on her mouth. She allowed herself to get lost in the sensation of his touch, barely realizing when his hands slipped beneath the shirt she wore. All she knew was she would die if he stopped touching her. Nothing else in the world compared to it.

Then he tore himself away from her mouth and rolled out of the bed. He stood and braced himself on the edge of the mattress with his fists, his head bent as he tried to catch his breath.

“God,” he panted. “Sweet Jesus.”

Confused, she tugged the shirt back into place. “Why did you stop?” she asked.

He looked up. Then he glanced at the door. “Margaret’s right out there,” he said. “She’d probably kill me if she heard…” He trailed off. Then he caught her gaze. “Everly, I promise you, if you decide later that you want to give this another go, I’m all for it.

“And believe me when I say that I won’t stop.”

Chapter 37

Cole realized he shouldn’t have made his promise to Everly almost immediately after he did so. A look came into her eyes after he spoke the words. He didn’t recognize it at first, but he soon came to realize it was a look of feminine challenge.

He got dressed and left the bedroom first to explain things to Margaret. When Everly came out in her own clothes, Margaret did a fair share of tongue clucking over the bruising and bandages she saw, then made them a breakfast of biscuits and gravy. While it wasn’t quite as good as his mother’s, it was a close second.

While Margaret handled the few tasks she had on her agenda, Cole put on
SportsCenter,
grabbed his iPad, and once again sat beside Everly on the couch. Since she didn’t have an armrest, she rested her hand on his leg while he went through the process of checking his stocks. He didn’t think anything of that until her hand slowly got higher on his thigh.

Did she realize what she was doing? he wondered. He looked at her in-between reading e-mails, but she appeared focused on the television.

Not wanting to hurt her injured arm, he didn’t bother trying to move it. Hell, it felt fantastic. Why would he complain?

He saw that he had e-mails from Caroline and Wayne. He’d spoken to each of them several times throughout the day yesterday. They both assured him that they would handle the press. So far, he’d only seen a couple of small blurbs about the incident with Everly among the sports sites. He figured the pair had done a lot of damage control and down-playing.

Just as he started responding to their messages, he felt Everly’s hand rise higher. He had to find a new position on the couch to get comfortable. When he glanced at her this time, he found her grinning at the television.

“Really?” he said.

She let out a snicker.

“Well,” he whispered into her ear, “two can play at this game.”

He allowed his lips to linger near her ear as he spoke. Then he teased her, nibbling on her ear and progressing down the side of her neck. It was only when she tilted her head to the side to give him better access that he realized her hand had climbed even higher.

There was no way he was going to win this match.

Defeated, he ended up putting some space between them so he could respond to the e-mails. She laughed, giving him a look that warned him what lay ahead.

Once Margaret left, it was time for PT. Everly was far from easy on him. He’d thought he was making progress, but she made him feel as weak as an infant. He tried to give himself some credit. They’d only been working together for a little less than a month. Still, he hated that he wasn’t a hundred percent.

He had to give it to her. Even though she’d been beaten with a baseball bat, she didn’t let up or take it easy on him. She clearly wanted him to get better.

She also apparently wanted to drive him out of his mind.

He should have known something was up when she told him she wanted to oversee his PT exercises without him wearing a shirt. She rattled off some excuse about wanting to see how his subscapularis and infraspinatus muscles functioned during his exercises. His eyes glazed over mid-explanation, so he just pulled his shirt over his head and told her to do her thing.

She used her plastic goniometer to measure his range of motion so she could record it in the spiral notebook she kept at his house. Unlike the last time she’d done the measurements, her hands touched his chest and bicep more frequently and strayed down to brush against his abdomen. The light touching had him clamping his back teeth together to keep from reacting. He couldn’t tell whether or not she was doing it deliberately at first, as her expression was a mix between intense and thoughtful.

Only as their work continued did he figure it out. Whenever she touched him to guide him through his exercises, she allowed her fingers to linger in certain places on his body in a way she’d never done before. He saw her evaluating his reactions, adjusting her touch until she registered that it brought him pleasure. He supposed he should probably object, but for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out why.