Page 47

His eyes were glued to the bed from the second he stepped in the room.  I looked with him and knew instantly what had him transfixed.
They were cheap cotton sheets, but the wonderful thing about cotton was that, if you abused it with enough washing it got really, really soft.
And I loved those sheets.  I’d been using them for years.  Just how many years, I refused to think about.
I had other sheets, nice sheets, much nicer sets, in fact, than these, but those were only used when I laundered the good stuff.
Unfortunately, the cheap ones were also distinctive sheets, white and patterned with bleached out yellow rosebuds.
I’d known when he said he was coming over that we’d end up here at some point.  Why hadn’t I changed the sheets?
And of course, he’d noticed right away, the overly observant bastard.
“I remember these,” he said, reverence in his tone.  He moved right to the bed, running his hands over the fabric, bending down to bury his face in it.  “We were on these the first time we…” he trailed off.
“I know.”  I sighed.  I should have put the sheets away.  Now he was going to want to talk about things that I wasn’t ready to talk about.
“Come here,” he said huskily.
I shook my head, but he wasn’t looking at me, his cheek pressed to one of the yellow rose pillowcases.
“Come here,” he said again.
Biting my lip, I went to him.
Slowly but firmly, he pulled me down to lie beside him, both of us on our backs, the sides of our arms touching.  “Remember these sheets?”
I swallowed.  “Of course I do.  They’re my sheets.”
“Remember the first time we made love?”
I shouldn’t have indulged him in this, I knew it, but my mouth refused to listen to my brain.  “I remember being on top, and it pissed you off.”
He smiled, rolling on his side to look at me.  His eyes were so soft that my whole body went soft with them.   “I remember that.  God, you were riding me so good, and I knew that you were just trying to drive me wild, but even knowing it, it f**king worked.  Best f**king ride of my life.”
I blushed and started smiling.  I couldn’t help it.  And I also couldn’t help asking, “Yeah?”
“Up to that point.  You weren’t done blowing my mind, though, and you know it, because the next time was even better.”
“We put these things through their paces.”
He tensed suddenly.  “Have you been using these the whole time we’ve been apart?”
I knew what he was asking.  “Only when I was by myself.”
I’d kept the sheets faithful to Tristan.  Bully for me.
We were so freaking screwed up.
So freaking screwed.
His hand moved to my stomach, stroking with a light touch through my thin shirt.  “I love these sheets.  I’m going to steal them from you when you’re not looking, or, you know, when you are.”
I laughed.  “They wouldn’t even fit your bed.  They only fit a queen.”
“I don’t care.  I’ll use them like a blanket.”
I laughed harder, then stopped abruptly as he moved to loom over me.
I stared up at him, wondering when I had lost this fight.  It was likely before it had even begun.  No wonder Andrew had never stood a chance.  No wonder no one had.  Who could compete with this beautiful, larger than life specimen of a man?
He didn’t make a move on me, or at least, not in the way I was expecting.  Instead of bending down to me, he lifted the hem of my shirt, exposing my belly, and then pulling my shorts down enough to unearth my skin, from my navel down to my pelvis.
Several long, jagged scars marred the skin there.  They’d faded more than I had ever hoped for, but still, they were impossible to miss.
He ran his fingers over each one, his expression going very blank, but not as blank as mine was.  “Will you tell me what these are?”
I wasn’t happy to talk about this, but I was anxious to get it over with.
“They’re nothing.  Completely superficial,” I lied.
Not remotely superficial.
Just the opposite.
Profoundly detrimental, that’s what those scars were.
“From the accident?” he asked, face still blank.
“Yes.  I just got scratched up a bit.  Like I said, totally superficial.  Didn’t hurt a thing but my vanity.”  Slowly but firmly, I pulled my shorts up, and my shirt down to cover the marks.
He sat up, rubbing his palms into his eyes.  “I know it’s not your favorite thing, but there is some stuff we need to talk about.”
That pissed me off.  Couldn’t we go even a few weeks before we delved into that?  Couldn’t I just enjoy myself, for once?  But even as I had the thought, I recalled several things that I’d just been dying to have him clear up for me.
I stood up and began to pace.
“Okay you want to talk?  Let’s talk.”  My tone was tense, my arms folded in front of me like I was ready to do battle.
Because I was.
I kept pacing as I asked, “Did you beat up Milton back when I was dating him?”  I snapped my neck around to look at him.
He tried to give me a very innocent look, but I was not buying it.  “Excuse me?”
“Don’t play dumb.  Answer me.”