J Ward - Crave

Isaac was pure octane.

Yanking the covers over herself, she sat up and drew her hair back behind her ears. The reality was, that man in there had had more sense than she did. He’d wanted to go and leave her; she’d made him stay. He’d given her a chance to go back to bed alone; she’d shut them in together. He was going to take off without looking back; she was going to want to see him after tomorrow…

Frowning, she realized there were still no sounds in the bathroom. Nothing.

What was he doing in there? It had been a while.

Grier dragged a sheet with her as she got up and walked over to the door. Knocking softly, she said, “Are you okay?”

No answer. “Isaac? Is there something wrong?”

Well, other than the fact that he was on the lam from both the federal government and now the state of Massachusetts and was staying at his soon-to-be former attorney’s house… having had sex with her.

Details, details.

Or wait, did the lack of orgasm on his part mean the hookup didn’t count? She had finished, though… so maybe she’d been with four and a half men now?

“Isaac?”

When there was no response, she rapped quietly. “Isaac?”

Without much hope, she went for the knob, but the thing turned easily-to her relief, he hadn’t locked himself in. Cracking the door, she saw a bare foot and an ankle in the dim light from outside. He was evidently sitting on the floor in the corner by the shower.

“Mind if I come in?” she asked, pushing her way into the room…

Dear God… he was curled into himself, his face on his biceps, his arm up and blocking his face, his bruised hand lying on his hair. He was breathing hard, his shoulders rising and falling.

He was sobbing. Sobbing in that restrained, manly way where he barely let any of it out, his choked inhales the only thing that clued her in.

Grier approached him slowly and sat down beside him. When she put her hand lightly on his bare shoulder, he jumped.

“Shhh… it’s just me.”

He didn’t look at her and she was willing to bet if he’d been able to, he would have told her to get out. But he couldn’t. And all she could do was sit with him and gently soothe him with touch.

“It’s okay,” she murmured, knowing there was no reason to ask about the whys: There were a lot to choose from. “You’re all right… It’s okay…”

“It’s really not,” he said hoarsely. “It’s so not. I’m… not…”

“Come here.” She tugged at him, not really expecting him to give in… but he did. He turned to her and let her wrap her arms around him as if he were a wild beast who had decided to be tamed for a short time. He was so big that she couldn’t reach far, but she made what contact she had count and put her face in his cropped hair.

“Shhh… you’re all right…” As she murmured the lie over and over again, she wanted to say something else, but that was the only thing that came to her-even though she had to agree with him. Nothing about the situation was fine. Neither of them was all right.

And she had the sense that “okay” was not going to fit the way things ended between them. Or for him.

“I still don’t know how,” he said after a while.

“How what?”

“That you knew I was having my nightmare.”

As she frowned in the darkness, she stroked his hair. “Ah… you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“An angel came into my room.” There was a beat of silence. “He was… magnificent. A warrior… he woke me up and pointed to the door and I knew it was because of you.” Just so she didn’t sound freakish, she tacked on, “I guess I was dreaming, too.”

“Guess so.”

“Yeah.” Because angels didn’t exist any more than vampires and werewolves did.

At least… she’d believed that until tonight. Except what she’d seen certainly hadn’t felt like a dream.

God only knew how long they stayed like that, curled around each other, their collective warmth amplifying for a different reason than it had out in the bedroom: now, it was skin-on-skin comfort.

When Isaac finally sat up from her, she braced herself for him to thank her awkwardly and tell her to go. But instead, he traded places with her, his arms wrapping around her body, one behind her knees, the other at her back. Then he rose from the floor as if she weighed nothing and carried her out past the messy bed into the hall. He took the stairs without slowing or seeming to exert himself; his breathing barely changed even while he held her.

Up in her room, he laid her out in between her sheets and then just stood over her.

She could feel the hunger in him, but this time it wasn’t sexual. It was for something that seemed even more important than all that desperate heat.

Grier moved over to make space, and after a moment, he slipped inside with her. Now, she was the one being cradled, that muscled chest of his somehow making all her problems magically seem smaller. And yes, the idea that she was falling into some kind of Cinderella state made her cringe, but she was too relaxed to put up a fight.

Closing her eyes, she tucked her arm around his waist.

As exhaustion slammed into her and knocked her out cold, her last thought was that it was okay to sleep. There would be time to say good-bye in the morning.

Isaac lay beside Grier, and waited for her to sink down solidly into REM territory. To pass the time, he reviewed vocabulary terms, because his mind was cannibalizing itself and he needed to redirect his neurons.

In the male lexicon of labels, the term nancy usually referred to guys who were a little light in their loafers: the kind who made women kill spiders for them, worried about how much starch was in their dry cleaning, and might possibly have a spice rack that was alphabetized.

Real men did not have spice racks. Or even know how to find them in a kitchen-much less what to do with what was in ’em… At least, that was what his father had taught him and his brothers. And actually, in retrospect, that opinion sort of explained why their mother had gone off, married someone else, and started a new family before she’d died. Clearly, she’d known that a reboot of the system was going to get her nowhere and the only solution was to get fresh components-

What had he been thinking about? Oh, right. Nancys.

Next step up the vocab ladder-or down, as it were- was probably pantywaister. He wasn’t exactly sure where that little ditty had come from, but it was synonymous with terms like sissy, the old-school pencil-necked geek, and the newer little bitch. These were the guys who might well have the impulse to change a tire for a woman, but would have trouble lifting the spare out of the trunk-and forget about working the lug wrench. They were also the sort who threw like girls, shrieked when they saw rats, and would call the police in a bar brawl instead of getting in there to start punching.

His father had always believed women were weaker, and maybe when it came to hefting bales of hay for six to eight hours straight in the ninety-degree heat, he might have had a point. But Isaac knew a lot of females in the service who could not only pitch baseballs like a man; they could punch as good as one, too-and had better aim.

Strength didn’t have to be identical to be equal…

God, why the hell was he thinking about his father?

Right. Back to the Dictionary of Dickless Wonders. Which apparently his pops had been an editor of.

The lowest of the low… the bottom rung… the ball shriveler of them all… had to be pussy. That was the kind of thing that, if your buddy was joking with you and busting you for something, he could throw it out and the shit was funny. If the word was said seriously, however, it was a leveler. In general, nonspecific terms, pussy could refer to a guy who, say, couldn’t perform in bed with a woman he had the hots for. And then capped that lack of follow-through with… oh, say-and this was purely a hypothetical-maybe collapsing naked on the floor of said woman’s loo and crying like a motherfucking baby.