Waking Kiss (27 page)

“Ash-lee. Is okay.
Tudo bem, querida
,” he said, touching the tears on my face. “I’ll take you home.”

“No,” I said. “No, no, no.” I broke away from him and ran toward the stairs, taking them two at a time. When I reached the first floor, I darted across the crowded living room like demons were chasing me. I heard Rubio calling out behind me but I didn’t stop. I was getting the fuck out of Liam Wilder’s house, because it was a horrible, horrible place where horrible things happened.

This time, I was never coming back.

I came awake to the smell of coffee and the sound of dishes clattering. I blinked up at the concrete ceiling soaring above me and then across the loft apartment to the chrome-glistening kitchen. Rubio loped across my field of vision, his dog-printed pajama pants riding low on his hips.

I sat up and stretched, and collapsed again into the comfort of his cloudlike counterpane. He was only a couple years older than me, but he had the most elegant apartment ever, and this comforter… The white cotton softness bunched up around my shoulders like a hug.

Rubio came over and sprawled next to me. There was a faint, shadowed bruise beside his eye. “You owe me a back rub, Sleeping Beauty. I slept on the couch.”

“That was very gentlemanly of you,” I murmured as he turned onto his side. I knew he’d slept on the couch because I’d woken from four or five nightmares of Liam screaming at me. All last night seemed like a nightmare. I barely remembered how I’d ended up at Ruby’s place. I didn’t want to remember any of it, not yet.

Instead I concentrated on Ruby’s muscles as I squeezed and stroked the planes of his back. It didn’t feel sexual to massage him. Last night, at Liam’s house, I hadn’t really been having sex with Ruby. It was Liam I craved, Liam who still had way too much control of my heart. I’d been trying to prove to myself that I could move past him, but all I’d learned was that I still wanted him. I thought maybe he cared for me too, at least until the end, when all hell broke loose.

“Ohhh,” Ruby sighed. “Keep going. My lower back.”

I massaged down to knead the little dimples above his ass. “You have a really nice place,” I said, looking across to his wall-sized window.

“Nah. Is small. I never buyed much furniture.”

“I like it. It’s streamlined and clean-looking. I like the whole loft thing for you, although I pictured you with a bigger place. At first I thought Liam’s house was your house.”

“Hmm.” He shuddered as I dug into the sides of his spine. “I’m not rich like Liam. Not too rich. I send most of my money to my family in Brazil. They need it more than me.”

I knew from bios and clippings that Rubio had grown up poor, in a Rio
favela
, but it never occurred to me that he supported his family now. “Do you miss them?” I asked.

He turned to me, lying back and resting his head on one arm. “I go there sometimes, when I have the time.” He stroked fingers over my tangled bed-head. “I think you have pretty black hair, like a Brazilian girl. I miss Brazil. Is hot there. Here, it’s so cold.”

“Is that why you have these big, fluffy comforters?” I asked, squirming deeper into his nest of blankets.

“I have them because girls like them,” he said with a grin. “Hey, you okay today? How’s your ass?”

“It’s fine. A little tender, but I’ll live.” I couldn’t hold his gaze beyond a moment or two. “Ruby, about last night… You and me…it’s not… I can’t…”

He made a dismissive sound. “I know. Was just playing, between friends.”

I studied the rigid set of his mouth. “If you want to cast someone else in your ballet, I’ll understand.”

“Why would I do that?” His pout deepened. “Really, you’re best for the part. I think all the money Liam gave me, I’m going to give it back to him. I don’t need it.”

“He doesn’t need it either.”

“A charity then. What charity you want, Ash-lee? You say, and I’ll give the money in your name.”

He waited for my answer, his hand lying beside mine on the comforter. Perhaps The Great Rubio was worth my adoration after all. I thought about it, turning my cheek from his pillow. “Maybe something…some charity to help victims of child sexual abuse.”

I never intended to reveal any of that to him. I probably wouldn’t have, if our gazes hadn’t met across the space between us. He was silent a moment, then he made a soft sound and touched my fingers. “
Merda
. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” I said, looking away. “I’m better now. All of that is in the past. Liam helped me move past it for good.”

“Oh. I wondered what was going on with you two. He never told me anything about you, nothing. But last night, I knew something bigger was going on.”

“God, last night.” I sat up with a groan. “Thanks for letting me stay here at your place.”

“It was my fault, last night. I was bad. I push him sometimes. He’ll get over it.”

“He won’t get over it. He was mad at me, not you.”

“No, he was mad at himself. He gets that way. Sometimes, in his head, he is just…” He made some scattered gesture with his fingers.

“How long have you known Liam? How did you meet?”

“He helped me once in a bar fight. Four or five years ago now. Protected my pretty face,” he said, breaking into a grin. “This was before he had his own play room for me to be wild in. After that, he was a friend who put up with me, and so we became closer. With guys, you know, friendship is just knowing each other. Accepting each other’s weirdness.”

“Like last night?”

“Last night was not about me and him.” He turned his dark, piercing gaze on me. “Until now we were always ‘bros before hos,’ but you changed him. Since you met him, he is not the same.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I think he fell in love for you. I don’t think he ever loved anyone before, any woman. I know he didn’t. But now he does. Ash-lee, you know, it is really messing him up.”

I felt a terrible pain in my soul, because I wanted so badly for that to be true. “I don’t think he loves me. I tried to get closer to him, tried to tell him how much I cared for him, but he didn’t want any part of it.”

“But you see how he acts? Brooding and yelling, and hanging out at the theater all the time? He wants you.”

“Wanting and loving are different things,” I argued. “Just because we want each other doesn’t mean we should be a couple, that we’re ‘in love.’”

“You’re wrong,” he said, wagging a finger at me. “He is in love with you. Sometimes I love you, Ash-lee, and sometimes I want you, but I am not
in love
with you. He is.”

I collapsed back onto the pillows, unable to deal with his glib confession. What did love mean, anyway? “It doesn’t matter now,” I said. “Liam threw me out of his house. He told me not to come back.”

“I called you a whale once, and an asshole,” he pointed out. “I didn’t mean it. People say things they don’t mean sometimes.” He walked around the bed and pulled me to my feet. “The question is, do you love him? Enough not to listen to his mean stuff?” He patted my face. “Don’t worry about it now, girl. Was a difficult night, yes? It happens. Come have coffee. Eat something.”

After he fed me breakfast, Rubio walked me the two blocks to my place in the late morning sun. We talked about
Waking Kiss
and some of the other ballets being choreographed for the showcase. Amazing that in a few months’ time Rubio had gone from an untouchable god to this…this friend. He really was my friend. I turned to him at the door to my building.

“You know, Ruby, about last night… It was great up until the end. There was a time I would have given anything for your attention, so it was special to me. I know it was just crazy sex games to you, but I’ll always remember your kindness, and the care you took to make it good for me.”

He made a face. “I didn’t take any care.”

“Yes, you did. And I think…” I caught his chin and made him look me in the eyes. “I think someday, when you fall in love, all hell’s going to break loose for some poor girl. And for you too.”

He gave me a lopsided grin. “Why don’t you worry about your own problems, lady? Hey, I see you later at the theater. After the performance, we practice. Back to business, yes?”

“Back to business. Yes.” God knew I wanted to get back to business. He gave me one of his nice, grabby hugs and I went up the stairs to shower and get ready for work. When I got to my floor, Mem was standing outside my door.

“Ashleigh. Good morning,” he said.

He looked so serious that I felt a pang of distress. “Is everything okay? Is Liam—”

“Mr. Wilder is fine. Sleeping off a long night. I am only here to ensure you got home safely, and that you sustained no lasting damage in last night’s fracas.”

Fracas.
What a word. “I’m fine,” I said, digging my keys out of my bag. “I wasn’t involved in it. Do they fight like that a lot?”

“No,” Mem said. “Not very often. May I come in, just for a moment?”

“Okay. But my place is a mess.”

“It is no matter.”

I let him in, flushing at the jumble of clothes on the floor, my unmade forest bed and the blanket structure I’d rebuilt last week. I scratched my forehead and threw my bag onto the table. “Sit anywhere you like.”

He sat on the edge of the couch while I went to the kitchen. “Can I get you something? Coffee? Tea?”

“No, thank you. I can’t stay long.”

I walked over and sat on the couch with him, feeling flustered and a little defensive. “In case you’re wondering, I stayed at Rubio’s last night, but I didn’t sleep with him.”

Mem made a quelling gesture. “Do not feel you must make an accounting of your private life to me. I observe but I do not judge. I have observed a growing bond between you and Mr. Wilder.”

He said it as a statement but it was more of a question. “We grew close recently, yes. He was helping me with some of my problems. My many issues,” I added with a tight laugh.

“What happened last night?”

His calm, direct question wasn’t accusatory. I blinked and tried to think about what had happened, because I wasn’t totally sure. “I don’t know what made him go off, Mem. Jealousy of Ruby? But me and Liam were never in a relationship. That was his requirement, not mine. I would have liked something…something deeper, but last week, Liam said we were done.” I stood and paced over by my bed, tracing the notches in one of the sculpted tree trunks. “But then Rubio asked if I wanted to come with him to the party this weekend and I probably shouldn’t have, but I did. It was partly because I wanted to see Liam. To show him I didn’t need him, maybe. Even though…” I was babbling. Epic ramble. I turned to Mem with a frown. “I didn’t come with Rubio, though. He’s just a friend. I mean, we aren’t—” I thought about Ruby’s words earlier that morning. “We aren’t in love.”

Mem studied me a moment before he spoke. “Are you in love with Mr. Wilder?”

I didn’t answer at first, but then I met his gaze and nodded. “I have been for ages now, but it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t want me. I played with him and Rubio last night to show that I could be like him. That I could keep things sexy and impersonal the way he does. I thought it would take a load off his mind.” My forced laugh sounded a little maniacal. “I wanted to show him that I was super-independent now, and capable, and okay. Even though I’m not.”

I batted at the bed curtains, waiting for Mem, the all-knowing shaman, to figure out this mess. Unfortunately, he looked as unsettled as me.

“You know, Mr. Wilder uses women as you use those curtains.” He nodded at the sheer panels of silk. “To keep the demons away. He is not, perhaps, the man he presents himself to be.”

“What do you mean, not the man he presents himself to be?”

“I mean that, like you, he has a past. It often influences his actions. I would tell you to ask him about it, but he would not tell you. I would tell you myself, but I promised not to.”

“So you can’t tell me anything, except that he has demons.”

“I can tell you that you should not take his actions personally. That you should not blame yourself for his shortcomings. I can also give you this.”

He held out a card with gold-embossed edges. It was an Ironclad card, like Liam’s business card, but with another name on it.
Ronan Wilder.

“Liam’s father,” said Mem. “If you wish to help Liam fight his demons, perhaps you will utilize that card and pay a visit to Mr. Wilder first. The elder Mr. Wilder, that is.”

I stared down at the bold print. “Why do you call him Mr. Wilder? Why don’t you call him Liam?”

“Liam is not his real name.”

I looked up in surprise, and then I remembered. “Oh, that’s right.
Ishi
.”

“His real name is Eric.”

Eric?

Mem touched the back of my hand. “
Ishi
is a good man, and he always will be, but as I told you, he has no people. It haunts him, day and night. Go to his father. He can explain it all better than me.”

“But I don’t know his father. He won’t know who I am.”

“I imagine he will.”

I chewed my lip. I was curious now, and a little freaked out. I wanted to help Liam—
Eric?
—if he had demons, especially after he’d helped me overcome mine. But it seemed I didn’t even know who he was.

“I assure you, Ronan Wilder is a very kind man,” said Mem. “He is a good father. He will want to help his son.”

“I don’t know much about good fathers.” I stared through the shifting sheen of my bed curtains. “I never had a father, really.”

“I never had a child. But in some way I like to take care of everyone.” He held out a hand as he stood and I crossed to take it. It felt strong and cool. “It is your choice, Ashleigh, if you wish to save our
Ishi
. If you don’t, eventually someone will. But I hoped…” He paused and withdrew his hand. “Well, I should not meddle. It is a terrible vice of mine.”

With those words, he gave another of his strange little nods and disappeared out the door.

*** *** ***

The next day I called Mr. Ronan Wilder’s office to talk to him. The brusque woman who answered identified herself as his secretary and asked what my call was in regards to. In regards to? I had no idea how to answer that. I panicked and hung up. I called later that day hoping to get a different person. I didn’t. I launched into a made-up story about needing to hire a bodyguard, but I chickened out when she asked for my information. I’d hung up twice now; there was no way I could call again.