Submit and Surrender (31 page)

Anyway, he thought about that now, as he undid the ties on her wrap dress. Because this time it was different.

There was a charge in the air.

She didn’t move to do it herself. Just let him undress her.

Fuck
.

“Lean forward,” he said, and helped pull her up, as gently as he could.

Silently, she obeyed. Ford managed to position her between his legs, in the middle of this ridiculous nest of pillows and blankets, and she leaned into him.

It would not be even remotely appropriate for his dick to get hard at this particular moment, and yet Ford knew that fucker had a mind of his own.

Concentrate
.

Looking at her wounds made him feel crazy all over again. Thinking about how much they must hurt drove him even crazier. If he could take that pain on himself, he’d do it in a heartbeat.

“How’s it feel?” he said, removing the dressing.

“Um…” She was breathing a little bit too hard. Damn. “Not…great. Not terrible, but not great.”

“You’re due for another painkiller, anyway,” Ford said. “Take it.”

“Yes, sir.”

They both paused.

By the time he got the bandages changed, he couldn’t tell what was going on anymore. She was in some degree of pain, and so was he, just watching her, but that didn’t seem to matter. Whenever he touched her, he felt it, that charge.

So did she.

When he repositioned her next to him, he could see that she was on the verge of tears.

“Tell me what hurts,” he said.

He knew it wasn’t anything physical.

She laughed, and wiped away that first tear. “Ford, this isn’t fair to you.”

“Bullshit,” he said. “I decide what’s best for me.”

She hit him with those big, wet doe eyes.

“And for me, too?” she asked.

Ford took her hand. “Only when you’re being dumb.”

Adra glared at him, genuinely pissed off. Which was good. It was honest; it was real. He liked that.

“You are dangerously close to calling me stupid,” she said. “I might be injured, but I can still find a way to kick your ass if you deserve it.”

“I didn’t call you stupid, I said you were being dumb. And you are. And you know it.”

She looked at him, mouth open, but speechless. Then she frowned in frustration and looked away.

That was it. There was no more time to waste. She needed to be pushed, and Ford needed to say it.

“You think you’re going to end up like your brother,” he said.

She didn’t say anything.

“You think you’re going to pull a Charlie and hurt people, and that’s why you can’t be happy,” he went on. “You can’t let anyone love you because of the Davis curse, or whatever the hell it is.”

She turned on him, then, angry for the first time, eyes flashing.

“No, shut up and listen, Adra,” Ford said. “That is what you believe. Only it is total, complete bullshit. If you don’t want to be with me, that’s one thing. But I’m not going to let you talk shit about yourself and then use it as an excuse to run away because you’re scared. I am
not
going to let you believe those things about yourself. And when I’m done with that, then you can tell me to fuck off if you want.”

“Stop cursing,” she said.

“Stop screwing yourself over,” he said back. “And while you’re at it, stop worrying about me. I’m tough as fucking nails, Adra, and you know it. I don’t care if you break my heart anymore; it’s already yours to do with as you please, and I’m better off that way. You could break my heart tomorrow and every damn day with you would still be worth it. What you’re really worried about is you, because you know you’re wrong, and you know I’ll prove it to you.”

There was a silence. Adra stared at the hem of her wrap dress and picked at it with a little too much concentration, but the tension had gone out of her shoulders.

“You’re kind of being a bully,” she said finally. Softly. Smiling ruefully while she said it.

“Hell yeah I am. If you really want me to go and you can tell me to leave, you know I’ll leave you alone,” he said. “But you have to say it. And I know you can’t.”

Finally, she sighed.

And then she relaxed against him.

“I’m too tired to prove you wrong right now,” she said.

“Uh-huh.”

“That, and painkillers,” she said.

“I know.”

“You don’t fight fair, you know that?”

Ford grinned. “I’m a
lawyer
.”

Adra laughed, and then winced, her hand going to her side. “Don’t make me laugh,” she said, smiling.

Goddamn, he was so relieved to see her smile. He could barely bring himself to let go of her, but he had to.

“Spicy beef and a movie?” he said, lowering her back onto a pillow.

“Yes, please,” she said. “
Die Hard
marathon this time. All these injuries make me feel like a badass.”

“You are a badass,” he agreed. Then, an order: “Don’t ever do it again.”

Adra tried to fight it, but she gave him a satisfied smile. He’d take it.

The rest of the night, they settled in, silently agreeing to just table the big stuff until later. Which left them with just time spent with each other, which was always better than anything else, anyway. It was the easiest thing in the world.

Until Adra started to drift off, tired from healing and the drugs, and it was time to go to bed.

He carried her, with less protests this time, to his bedroom. To his bed.

She didn’t say anything, but he could feel the question.

When he put her down, he said, “I can sleep on the floor if you want, but I’m going to be here in case you need me.”

“Ford, I’m not stealing your bed.”

“Don’t argue,” he said. Then, realizing he couldn’t leave, even if he’d wanted to, he said, “I saw blood on the ground, Adra.”

There was a brief silence.

“What?” she said.

“I saw the crash site. I saw your car. There was blood on the ground.”

Before she could say anything else, he silenced her, his hand going to her cheek.

“It’s ok. No one was killed—it just looked bad.”

“And you thought…”

They looked at each other.

“I’m not leaving,” he finally said. “Besides, you know you’ll do something dumb like try to hop to the kitchen in the middle of the night.”

“Stop being right,” she whispered.

They sat there for a moment, Adra propped up against the pillows, Ford sitting on the side of the bed, just looking at each other. Ford watched those emotions play across her face again. If he’d had it rough thinking the love of his life had just died, she had it worse—every so often, he could see the reality of the fact that she could have died flash across her face.

Finally she took his hand in her tiny one and said, “I’m tired.”

Then she pulled him down beside her and let him hold her for the rest of the night.

He was
relentless
.

It was difficult to keep her thoughts straight in the face of this constant barrage of…she didn’t even know what to call it. It was like every two minutes he did something to remind her how hopelessly in love she was.

It was dirty, dirty pool.

She had already been feeling slightly foolish, just because she always felt foolish when she made people worry, and because she really shouldn’t have gotten out of her car. But mostly she’d been feeling foolish with Ford. Every time Adra thought back to that horrible, horrible phone call, she winced from embarrassment, because holy God was the whole thing dramatic and kind of…she didn’t know what. Adolescent, maybe? She thought of the words that had actually come out of her mouth, and she cringed.

And yet she still
felt
that way. Maybe a little less. Ok, definitely less, now that she wasn’t sitting in Nicole’s guest room, with the wreckage of her brother’s screw-ups right in front of her. But she’d lived with this feeling of dread for so long, with the idea that she simply would not be able to have love as an inviolable truth, that she couldn’t just…shed it, all at once, just because Ford told her to. Especially when she wasn’t convinced.

Right?

So yes, she was confused, and disoriented, and every time she thought she’d regained her balance, he’d turn around and do something else.

Royalty didn’t get treated like this. And she never knew whether to be happy or guilty, to be joyful that she had this man in her life, or scared that she’d mess it up. She could feel herself getting pulled in different directions, and wondered when she’d reach the point of maximal tension, and just…pop.

So most of the time, she gave up, and just tried to heal. Anyway, that kind of explained why she’d forgotten about Ford’s promise to “prove” that she was wrong.

Until he got that
look
.

“I’ve got something different today,” Ford said.

“Good, I think?” Adra said. “Not that lying around watching movies isn’t great, but I think I might be starting to actually meld into the cushions.”

“How’s it feel when you walk?”

It had only been a few days, but whatever Ford was doing was working.

“Ok, for a little while. Miles better than yesterday. I bet by next week it’ll just be achy ribs.”

“Think you can handle some crazy kids?” he asked, the picture of innocence.

Then he grinned.

“You didn’t,” Adra said.

“You have visitors,” Ford said, checking his phone. “They’re pulling up now.” He looked up to see her face. “Don’t move from where you are, either, because I bet you’re about to get tackled.”

She had no time at all to prepare.

All of a sudden Ford’s house was overrun by three small boys, all of them yelling and running toward their aunt with gory enthusiasm.

“We heard you got hit by a car!”

“Did you break any bones?”

“Can we see the scars?”

Ford scooped up the smallest boy, Aaron, as he was about to climb into Adra’s lap—and probably bang on those ribs—and threw him lightly into the air.

“Careful, she’s not all healed up yet,” Ford said.

And then came Nicole.

If Adra felt sheepish for her own dramatic emotional outburst, she had nothing on Nicole. It was weird, but seeing that expression on Nicole’s face, Adra saw how out of place it was. Nicole had every reason to be upset, to freak out, and here she was, looking concerned instead.

Adra felt just a little bit more foolish.

“I’ll take ‘em outside,” Ford said, looking between the two women. “You guys want to see the pool?”

And the gang of little boy-shaped tornadoes headed outside with Ford in tow, leaving Adra alone with her sister-in-law.

Carefully, Nicole sat down next to Adra.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

If she were in a cartoon, Adra’s head would have spun around a bunch of times before her eyeballs popped out of her head. “
Me?
” she said. “How are
you
feeling?”

Nicole considered this. “Like I haven’t been hit by a car.”

“Har, har,” Adra said. “You guys know I’m miraculously ok. Otherwise you would have broken down my door ages ago.”

Nicole smiled. “Ford called pretty much immediately and gave us the scoop.”

“How did he even get your number?”

“He seems like a resourceful guy. And determined. Very determined.”

“He is that,” Adra said. She looked up at Nicole and steeled herself. “How are you, really? Is Charlie…?”

Nicole shook her head.

“I’m sad, I guess. I’m in crisis mode, though, so I don’t really have time for sad yet. I’m taking care of my kids. But Adra, this wasn’t…look. This is bad—I’m not going to lie to you. I would like my husband back. I would like him to sort through whatever the hell it is he needs to sort through so he can go back to living his life. But this isn’t the first time we’ve had problems, and I’ve had a long time to prepare for…I don’t know. Am I prepared? Can you be prepared for this? That sounds crazy, now that I say it out loud,” Nicole said, shaking her head.

“It does and it doesn’t,” Adra said.

“I’ll take crazy if it makes it easier,” Nicole said, smiling. “You know what I think it is? He almost did this enough times that I thought about it a lot. I got used to the possibility. And so now I know that it won’t break us. I mean, it will be harder than I can really think about, and eventually I’ll have to deal with a broken heart, and…but it won’t
break
us.”

Adra started to cry. Damn it,
she
was the one crying.

“I know…” Nicole hesitated, then took Adra’s hand and squeezed it fiercely. “I know with your mom it was different. Charlie told me what used to happen when your dad would leave, with the drinking, and… And I just want you to know that that isn’t us. Ok? It will be hard, and I want him back, but even if…”