Page 8 of The Aster Valley Collection, Vol. 1

“What the hell did you do?” he blurted, reaching for my swollen hand. I leaned past him to close the door against the cold air and snuck a kiss to the warm skin of his neck while I was at it.

“Hi,” I murmured into his delicious scent.

“Hi,” he said, looking at me with worried eyes. “Were you playing guitar? I told you to take it easy.”

I took the pizza box from him and set it down on the table before turning back and clasping his face to give him a real welcome kiss.

“Mmpfh,” he hummed into my mouth. “Mmhm.”

We kissed for several minutes. By the time we came up for air, our bodies were pressed so tightly together, you wouldn’t have been able to fit a slice of oxygen between them.

“You taste better than any pizza could,” I told him. “Fuck I can’t stop touching you.”

Winter’s face was flushed pink, and his eyes were glassy. He looked debauched and he’d only been here a few minutes.

“Eat, then fuck?” I suggested with a grin.

He nodded and fell down into the nearest kitchen chair. “God today was a thousand hours long. I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”

“Challenging cases or…?”

He sighed and reached for the pizza box.

“No. I have two patients who try my patience. It’s actually a husband and wife who decided to have carpal tunnel surgery at the same time.

Their appointments are booked together, and they bicker with each other the entire forty-five minutes.

Today they turned their bickering at me and ganged up on me to tell me how I was doing everything wrong.

Apparently they’d been watching ‘the Google.’”

Winter’s grin was adorable. I set a glass of ice water at his place before grabbing one for myself before saying, “Ahh. The Google. Every medical practitioner’s worst nightmare.”

He continued to tell me about his day while we ate. It was strangely domestic and comfortable even though we didn’t know each other very well.

“What about you? Why’d you abuse your hand so much today?”

I stretched out my hand and felt the pull of tired muscles. “I was fiddling with a song and didn’t realize how long I spent poking around on the guitar.”

Winter wiped his fingers on a napkin before standing up and going to the freezer for some ice.

He rummaged through the drawers until he found a zip-top bag, and within moments, he was plunking an ice pack on my hand and wrapping a stretchy bandage around it to keep it in place.

“Keep that on there for a little while. If we can get the swelling down a little, I’ll let you play your new song for me. ”

He winked at me before sitting back down and reaching for another bite of pizza.

“You’ll let me?” I teased.

“Mmhm. Only if you keep that on there. You have to be a very good boy.”

I watched his eyes dance from across the table. He was so engaging, so present. Being with him was like being plugged into a power source.

I sat back and put my feet in his lap. “Tell me more about your sister. And can we take a moment to talk about why you don’t have siblings named Spring and Autumn?”

“You think you’re the first person to make that joke?” His eyes held me captive. “And I don’t want to talk about my sister. I want to get you naked.”

I dropped my feet to the floor and moved forward to kneel at his feet.

I kept my eyes on his as I clumsily reached for his fly.

Neither of us said another word as he helped me open his pants and slide them down.

The small room was quickly filled with the wet, slick sounds of my best efforts to make him forget his hectic workday.

By the time he came for me, we were both naked and stretched out on the rug in front of the fire, panting and gasping with bellies coated in our mixed releases.

“Fuck,” he said.

“Mm.”

“Your hand?” he asked.

I held up the hand still wrapped in a dripping ice bag. “What do I win?”

He laughed out loud, and I turned to snuggle against his side as he removed the bag and bandage.

I buried my smile in his neck and gave silent thanks for his company.

Winter Waites was a kind man. Sexy and fun and sweet.

I wanted to learn more about him, if only to figure out a way to help him get everything he deserved in his life long after I was gone.

“Now will you tell me about your sister? Or tell me about work or where you live or how you grew up?”

He laughed and moved away from me, standing up and then reaching for my hand to haul me up, too. “Yes, but let’s shower off the sweat and jizz first.”

As we showered together, flirting and teasing the whole time, he told me about starting his new job here in Aster Valley, how he was late the first day because his jeep had been blocked in by a neighbor’s truck and he’d had to ask a different neighbor for a ride.

How he’d gotten puked on by a patient having a bad reaction to pain medicine and had to beg a pair of scrubs off a new coworker.

How he’d gotten home late that night and snuggled his cat while calling his sister to tell her it had been the best day ever.

Winter told me stories about growing up in Colorado Springs. How his dad had left when his mom was still pregnant with Summer and how his mom had made it very clear that Winter was the man of the house now. At age eight.

It made me want to find the deadbeat and beat the shit out of him. I pictured an adorable eight-year-old Winter with gapped front teeth and big ears trying to be strong for his mother.

By the time he got to that part of the story, we were curled up again in front of the fire, on the sofa with a throw wrapped over our legs and glasses of wine.

“She did the best she could, I guess,” he said with a sigh.

“I can’t imagine being left with two kids like that.

Especially making jack shit for money as a nurse’s aide.

Watching her never have enough money is what helped push me through seven years of college and grad school and thousands of hours of specialty training. ”

I set down my wineglass and wrapped both arms around him. “Do you dream about being able to make her life easier one day, now that you’re making better money?”

He laughed softly. “I’m a hundred and three thousand dollars in debt, Gent.

I did the math and figured out it will take me approximately the rest of my life to pay it off.

” He took another sip of wine and leaned over to set his glass next to mine.

“Nah. It should take me about ten years. I have good interest rates. It’s just a matter of banging it out and not being stupid.

I’m taking on extra work to get through it quicker.

It’ll happen. Thankfully, I have an aunt who lives outside of Denver who’s pretty good with cars.

Whenever something comes up with the jeep, she usually helps me figure it out.

And Summer has some good scholarships. I mostly help her with the extra stuff.

Books, fees, clothes… that kind of thing.

But she has a really old car, and I’d like to replace it sooner than later.

I told my aunt to keep an eye out for a good deal. ”

Winter stared into the fire for a while before continuing. “You asked whether I’d want to help my mom out. That’s tough. I feel like I should say yes. Of course I should. She’s my mom. And she was left in a bad way.”

“But?” I asked gently.

He shrugged and continued staring into the fire.

“She always has excuses for everything. For a long time, I thought it was normal to call into work sick if you didn’t feel like going.

Or to ask people for free stuff with made-up stories about family emergencies.

Yes, she’s worked hard, but only when it was that or literally starve.

And even then, she’d tell Summer and me to go to our friends’ houses for dinner as often as we could.

Sometimes I feel ungrateful, but sometimes I feel resentful, you know? ”

I didn’t. My family hadn’t been very wealthy, but we’d been stable. We’d never come close to going without the necessities.

“I might as well have grown up in an eighties sitcom,” I admitted. “We were fine. My parents were nutty, but they loved the hell out of us.”

“You have brothers and sisters?” Winter asked.

I nodded. “Three sisters and one brother. My brother is the youngest. He’s just finishing college and works part-time for our brother-in-law who runs a ranch.

He loves working with animals.” Then I told him about two of my sisters’ exploits sharing an apartment in Dallas while working and partying in the city.

“And my oldest sister is a stay-at-home mom in west Texas. Her husband is the rancher. Rae raises chickens and wants to homeschool her kids when they’re old enough. Then there’s me. I’m the oldest.”

“So everyone in your family is back in Texas except you? Do you miss them?”

I thought about it before answering. “Mom and Dad are retired now and they’re traveling a ton.

So they’re not home much. I wish I lived closer to Rae mostly so I could see my nieces more often.

But the other three? They’re not really settled yet, so it doesn’t make much sense for me to move back just to have them all wind up scattering to the four winds, you know?

” I let out a chuckle. “Besides, my mom’s brother Doran lives in my guesthouse and runs my life, so I don’t exactly need more family around. ”

“You’re kidding? What’s he like? Is he your manager?”

“No. He’s more of a personal assistant. He’s really quirky.

You’d love him. Everyone loves him. He asked if he could come with me to LA when I first moved out there.

He’s always wanted to see what it was like in a big city.

I said sure. Uncle Doran refused to do it without finding a way to earn his keep.

We just sort of fell into this symbiotic relationship.

He keeps my personal life and the house in order, and if the band goes on tour, he comes along and takes on the role of everyone’s mother.

Makes sure we eat and sleep, get where we need to be on time. He’s great.”

We kept talking without realizing how much time was passing. When I finally noticed Winter’s eyes lowering, I nudged him up. “Bed, sweetheart,” I murmured. “You’re dead on your feet, and it’s late.”

I enjoyed putting him to bed more than I expected. This whole night had been a domestic scene I’d never had before. I’d spent so many years chasing my dream of becoming a singer and songwriter that I’d never slowed down enough for an actual relationship.

But as I settled into the bed with Winter curled up in my arms, I realized how much I’d been missing.

The comfort, the quiet companionship. The shared laughs and sexy looks across the dinner table.

Giving a shit about someone else’s life outside of my family because I cared about them and wanted them to be happy.

I stayed up for hours wondering what it would be like to have an actual relationship with someone like Winter. How would that work with my crazy schedule and all of the travel I did for my job? Would it be fair to my partner?

By the time I finally fell asleep, I knew one thing for sure. I wanted to see as much of Winter Waites as possible before my time in Aster Valley came to an end.