Jessica Bird - From the First Kiss

“Cassandra…please.”

She put her hands on her hips and leaned over, her hair falling forward. As he breathed in, he could smell the herbal shampoo she used.

The scent dragged him right back to the one sailing jaunt he’d taken with her and Reese years ago. Reese had insisted that Alex come along, and it had been clear that the man had hoped to get his wife and his best friend on better terms. That trip had been hell. They were supposed to have been gone for five days. Alex had left the boat after two, hopping off at the first port they’d come to.

He’d tried so hard to find fault with her. He’d been desperate to latch on to annoying habits, turns of phrases that irritated him, small rudenesses that proved she wasn’t even close to the image of perfection he’d created in his mind. Instead, he’d gotten to know the different shades of her laughter. Her offbeat sense of humor. Her capacity to savor the sun setting into the ocean with the same sad reverence that beat in his own chest.

And being in close quarters with her had made him mental. Every time he’d taken a shower, he’d smelled her shampoo as if the stuff had saturated the air just to mock him. He hadn’t been able to use the bar of soap at all because he knew it had been over her skin.

The nights had been…unbearable.

But all that was before she’d walked in and seen him naked. Or rather, he’d come out of the head after a shower, assuming she and Reese were off the boat swimming. He’d heard the sound of indrawn breath and looked over his shoulder. She’d been in the galley kitchen pouring lemonade, and the glass and the pitcher had come unconnected as she’d stared at him. The sound of splashing liquid had been loud in the silence.

He’d covered himself with a towel and leaped back into the head. Gathering himself over the little sink, he’d thanked God that she’d only seen the back of him. Because the front had grown hard and heavy the instant he’d felt her eyes on him.

He’d left the boat within the hour.

Now, as he breathed in again and the scent of her hair tunneled into his nose, he wanted to pull her down on top of him and bury his face in those copper waves. He wanted one of her thighs on either side of his hips. He wanted that skirt of hers up around her waist. He wanted—

“Let go of me,” she said tightly.

“No. Come closer.” He paused and tacked on, “Please.”

He hoped the word would work its magic once again.

As she slowly dropped to her knees, she seemed more confused than angry. He wanted to reach out and take her hand in his. He didn’t dare.

“Look, Cassandra, I’ve spent too much time on the sea with ex-frat boys who are past civil redemption. And my social skills were in the crapper before all that. My temper’s always been sharp, but lately I’ve been godawful to be around. I shouldn’t have asked you to come up here.” He cleared his throat. “So I really am sorry.”

Her clear, green eyes traced over his face. Such intelligent eyes, he thought. Such warm eyes, though their color was pale.

Gradually the tension left her forehead and her mouth, and she stopped blinking so much.

“You can make it up to me.”

“How?” he asked.

“Tell me about your leg. Is it healing?”

Even though the last thing in the world he wanted to talk about was his injury, he figured he owed her an answer.

“No. It’s not getting better. They took out the bone and put in a titanium rod. The damn thing didn’t take, so they installed a different kind six weeks ago. I’ll find out on Monday what happens next.”

“What if it didn’t work again?”

“Then I’m out of options.”

“Out of—” She covered her beautiful mouth with a hand. The pinkie trembled against her jawline. “Oh, Alex.”

He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. No matter what happens, I’ll deal with it. It’s fine.”

And no more than he deserved for letting a fine man die. Her man die.

He thrust his palms into the floor and pushed his torso upright.

“Will you let me help you up?” she asked.

“No. But you can bring me my crutch.”

He hated the idea of hauling himself off the floor in front of her and was grateful when she didn’t stare. After he was back on the bed, he shut his eyes, suddenly exhausted.

He heard her moving across the room, toward the door.

“Please finish the food. It will help you heal,” she said softly. When he didn’t reply, she pressed. “I’ll be back to pick that plate up. I’m hoping it will be clean.”

The door opened and shut.

Dimly he became aware that his leg was throbbing to the beat of his heart. He waited to see if the shooting agony would go away. The pain got worse.

He knew what that meant. It was going to be a long night.

Alex looked over at his collection of prescription bottles. Reaching past the antibiotics and the anticoagulants and all the other horse pills his doctors wanted him to suck back, he zeroed in on the pain meds. He hated taking the damn things because they put him out, but after that fall, he knew he was going to pay for the hard impact. Popping open the vial, he took two of the knockout specials and then eyed the food.

With a groan, he leaned down toward the floor. And picked up the scotch bottle.

As he unscrewed the top and caught a whiff of oblivion, he thought of Cassandra.

Then looked back over at the plate she’d brought him.

Goddamn it, he was not going to feel guilty because he wanted to get good and wasted. There was nothing wrong about seeking the simple darkness of rest, as opposed to the twisted torture of nightmares.

Okay, so the alcohol didn’t really work. At least not for very long. Somehow the hell of the storm always managed to fight through the scotch fog, chewing him up and spitting him out shaky and sweaty and sick to his stomach.

But the brown stuff did get him a couple hours of sleep.

He brought the mouth of the bottle to his lips.

And found his eyes on the plate of food again.

“Is everything all right up there?” Gray asked as Cass walked into the dining room. “We heard something hit the floor. Something big.”

“Everything’s fine.”

Her friend narrowed his shrewd eyes but let the sub-ject drop.

Cass got some food and headed for the empty seat next to Sean. The man stood up and pulled out her chair.

“Did I tell you I spoke with Mick Rhodes?” Sean asked as he pushed the seat in under her. “He loves what you did to his place in Greenwich. Thinks you’re an architectural genius as well as one hell of a general contractor.”

She smiled, thinking of Rhodes and the antique, six- bedroom Colonial in Greenwich he loved so much. Some people had great love for their houses and he was one of them. The man had been like a mother hen with a chick.

“He was a prince to work for.”

Sean eyed her dryly. “We talking about the same guy? Because Rhodes has been described as a lot of things. Prince usually isn’t one of them.”

“He was fine with me. We had a lot of fun together on that project.”

“Amazing,” Sean muttered as he picked up his wineglass and leaned back in the chair. “So I’ve been meaning to ask you, what kind of projects are you doing now?”

“I haven’t been working much since—” she cleared her throat “—since Reese died.”

She felt a strong hand on her shoulder and glanced over at O’Banyon’s hard face. His gray eyes were always flinty, even when he was in a good mood, but at this moment, they were as close to warm as ice could get.

“How you been doing?” he asked quietly, his Boston accent bleeding into the words.

“Better than I thought.” She smiled. “We were great friends, he and I. Even today I caught myself reaching for the cell phone. I was down by the lake. The waves were choppy and gray and the sky was milky white and the mountains were almost purple, and I thought, I need to call Reese and tell him what this looks like.”