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Chapter 14
Ashton
Something was different.
I was waking up to the glaring light of dawn peeking through my partially closed curtains, but something wasn’t quite how it always was.
Her.
She was with me.
My headache was now a dull throb in my skull, but the scent of her skin made it hard to notice anything but her softly sweet smell.
A better man would’ve turned away. He’d get out of that bed, knowing it was inappropriate to accept the comfort she was giving. This girl was my best friend’s daughter. I’d watched her grow up from afar, and she was…she was incredible. A better man wouldn’t take what she had been trying to give, but I was not a better man. I was a Raider, a killer, and a broken man.
Leaning closer, I pressed my cheek into her lap as she sat there in bed beside me, softly snoring in what must’ve been one fucking uncomfortable position.
The shirt I’d given her had ridden up, leaving her thighs nothing but skin that felt like silk against my shadow-roughened cheek.
God, she smelled incredible. Luscious and sweet and musky and a little bit floral. She was everything a man could ask for in a woman. Not just beautiful, but loyal and understanding, and she was one tough little thing. Not even my PTSD episodes had made her blink.
That all-familiar despair sank through my chest, wishing that things could be different. I wished that my team was still alive, and that I, selfishly, was healed. I wished that I could do all the delightfully depraved things I wanted to this girl. I wished that I wasn’t broken.
Fuck, I wished a lot of impossible things.
When I felt her move, a whimpering sigh left her lips as her thighs moved a little under my face. I stilled completely, forcing slow, rhythmic breaths through my nose as she awakened and realized that not only was she in my bed, but I was in her fucking lap.
Those capable fingers dropped to my hair, and I took in every stroke of her fingernails against my scalp until she inched out from underneath me, my cheek hitting warm mattress where her ass had been a moment before.
Halted footsteps moved past me, but I felt her presence linger at the door for a moment. It occurred to me that she was seeing my legs properly for the first time, in the light of day with the pink scar lingering all the way up my calf and thigh to where the sharp bedrock had impacted with my hip, shattering it in several places. The months at the SRU in Texas had been brutal and unforgettable. The recovery from my hip had been the worst, and my PT was excruciating, but now it was not much more than a faint throb periodically. Though, every week the pain was less and less noticeable. Now all I had was a nifty scar, nasty headaches, and a pink slip to show for it.
The blanket around my feet pulled back up, covering me to the waist as her feet padded out of the room.
Not five minutes later, the bathroom door closed and the shower turned on.
Good, I needed some space, anyway. Or maybe, not good. I had a naked Freya in my house, and unfortunately for me, she was as tempting as her namesake; a true goddess.
Getting up, I felt my headache pump with my heartbeat, so I took another pill to get me through the day since I still had work to get to. I managed to get some fresh clothes on before going to make breakfast.
After seven minutes exactly, Freya came out of the bathroom in her pantsuit from yesterday and a cloud of steam smelling like me, and even with all the torture of the night before, I was stiff as a fucking pole at the sight.
“Leave any hot water for me?” I asked, voice rusty with disuse.
“No,” she answered wistfully, drawn in by the smell of bacon.
I couldn’t help my smile. How were her answers so perfect?
“Good, I can use a cold shower, anyway,” I drawled, eyes focusing in on the soft curve of her cleavage in the white silky camisole underneath the dark blue blazer she wore.
She thought I was being sarcastic, but I wasn’t. Not at all. In fact, I’d taken more cold showers voluntarily in the last few months than I ever had before. Combined.
“You didn’t need to stay last night,” I said eventually as she leaned against the counter to watch me beat a few eggs in a bowl. “I’m a grown up. I would’ve been ok. I was ok.”
“You weren’t ok last night,” she clipped, sounding annoyed.
“Well, no, but I am now. Is your mom flipping out asking where you were all night?”
“I just told her I was with the girls,” she admitted, a slight blush pinkening her cheeks. “My mother doesn’t need to know every little thing.”
