Page 12 of You Can Make Me (Carnival of Mysteries #28)

Six

C ooper

“You evil man.”

A tear rolled down my face as I stared into Denny’s stormy green eyes. He was, without a doubt, too good for me.

He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “You can hate me later.”

“I could never. I don’t. You know that, right?”

He let go of me and sat up on the edge of the bed. He turned and gave a half-hearted shrug. “I’ll give you a minute?—”

“Dennis.”

His faint smile fell, and I saw the sadness in his eyes. I’d pushed him so far. He’d brought my family here because… God, had he actually thought I would end my life?

Oh, fuck . No. I needed to quit wallowing.

I pushed myself up to sit against the headboard.“Thank you. For all of it. I mean it.”

He stared at me for several moments, pressed his lips together and nodded. He stood from the bed. “Do you need anything?”

You to love me. You to never give up on me, no matter how awful I am or how ugly I look.

“No thanks. I’m going to shower, though. And brush my teeth. Actually…maybe you could help me tame this thing on my face with the trimmers? I’ve never had to wrangle a beard before.”

He smiled. “Okay. Let me go tell them we’ll be a little while. We should do it before you shower so you can rinse the hair off. I’ll meet you in the bathroom?”

I nodded, trying not to be terrified about facing the firing squad, though I was just as nervous about being naked in front of Denny right now.

I’d developed the ability to be outside my body whenever Denny had to help me with showering when we first got here, with changing bandages, especially the ones on my ass.

I’d been able to withdraw enough to not think about how he was seeing me, but that all changed when he held me last night in the hot spring.

His touch hadn’t been medicinal or caretaker-y.

He’d held me like before, and I’d wanted to pretend we could be like we were before.

Then he told me why he’d pulled away…and I felt even worse about how I’d treated him. The poor man had lost a good friend and faced a health scare, and instead of standing by his side, I’d thrown a tantrum, thinking he’d ghosted me.

Since when had I become such a narcissistic bitch?

I reached for my cane and pushed myself up to standing.

The action didn’t hurt nearly as much as it had in the beginning.

The first time I’d tried, my skin felt like it was ripping open again.

Sitting had been nearly unbearable, and the time I’d spent lying in a hospital bed had left my joints and muscles so stiff and atrophied that everything was five times as hard to do.

Now that the worst of my pain was nearly gone, I wanted to move. I liked the freedom of being up and around instead of stuck in bed or in a chair.

Thankfully, the bathroom had an entrance from the bedroom as well as the hallway, so I didn’t have to face my guests.

Ugh. What was I going to say to my parents? What a terrible son I’d been. I’d made Dennis tell them I didn’t want to see them! After everything they’d done to give me a more-than-wonderful life? This was how I repaid them?

And Gene and Sam. They’d been nothing but supportive, always. And Sam needed me, needed her best friend.

The crushing guilt was almost harder to deal with than my physical limitations.

Once inside the bathroom, I brushed my teeth thoroughly, taking care around the scarred area of my upper lip.

I hadn’t looked at myself in a mirror since leaving the hospital, which helped make it all seem like a bad dream but didn’t let me forget that I looked hideous.

The beard had started at the hospital, and it had helped camouflage the scar, but my lip still looked wrong, and when I spoke, it got in the way sometimes.

My smile was distorted. Eating had been awful for a while, but everything worked now.

I needed to be thankful for small things, I guessed, and quit fretting about how I looked.

Easier said than done.

I sat on the toilet seat to pull off my sweatpants and shirt. Denny had put a shower chair in the roomy stall, which was great when I needed to take a break. He’d also swapped out the overhead spout for a combo one with a handheld device. So thoughtful.

I wrapped a towel around my waist and sat on the chair in the shower. I glanced down at my now nearly concave chest, red scars on my arms, and atrophied thighs just as Denny came in.

He shut the door and turned…and stared.

Denny had never been sparing with compliments, nor had he ever hidden his appreciation for my appearance during the time we were seeing each other. But the look he gave me right then was filled with such longing and lust, such devotion and heat, that it stunned me.

For the entire time we’d been here, he’d been so careful with me, but his feelings had been there, simmering right beneath the surface of every interaction—and I’d ignored them.

Disregarded the fact that he’d not only given up his career to be my nursemaid, but he’d put aside his own desires to be here for me.

How was it possible that he could still look at me like this after all I’d put him through?

Instead of wishing I could disappear, with a deep breath, I held my head up and let him look his fill. I expected to feel like my skin was crawling…but this time, it broke out in the good kind of goose bumps.

Something had changed the moment he held me in his arms in the hot spring. It was if a switch was turned back on, and I recognized our connection once more. As if my libido had awakened to the possibilities of what could be if I just quit resisting what I desperately wanted.

The challenge would be to step outside of my hatred for what my body looked like now, and go with my heart’s desire.

He blinked several times, and it reminded me of how he’d looked at me that first night, at Gene’s party, like my very existence made him rethink everything he thought he’d known about humanity. About himself in particular.

I ducked my head slightly and smiled. Man, that night had been something else. And despite everything…he still looked at me that way. There was no pity or horror in his gaze.

“Have you ever had a beard?” I asked.

He approached me, a lopsided smile on his face. “Yeah, after I got out of the Marines. I think all of us buck the grooming standards when we’re done. Didn’t last long, though, because I entered the police academy six months later.”

He clicked on the trimmers and put a gentle hand on my chin, tipping my head back.

God, this position reminded me of the first night we’d spent together in Las Vegas.

Me sitting on the back of the couch in my hotel room, Denny invading my space, but forbidding me to touch him while he figured out how to touch another man intimately for the first time.

“Did you know you wanted to be a cop when you got out of the service?”

He shook his head and went to work, trimming the out-of-control growth on my face with precise strokes.

“Nah. I tried a few other things first. I got recruited by some defense contractors, but I hated the attitude of the guys in charge who had no idea what it was like to serve in combat, and being around the Vietnam vets in those companies was just fucking awful. Those guys were like the walking dead. I saw some shit, no doubt, but I got out before it sucked the life out of me.”

“Were you ever in combat? I wondered, but we never talked about it.”

“Panama.”

“No shit? When? I don’t remember learning about that.”

He huffed out a breath. “Why would you? It wasn’t one of our greatest moments.

Eighty-nine to ninety. Right after I finished boot.

Didn’t last too long, but yeah. Long enough for me to hope that was the last of it.

Then they sent us to Somalia. Operation Restore Hope.

Then Rwanda to help with evacuations. My last deployment was to Bosnia. ”

I blanched, and he tsked me.

“Don’t move or I’ll fuck this up.” He spoke softly, and his touch…so careful, so gentle. Not how I ever would have imagined being handled by a Marine.

I put my hands on his waist, careful not to bump him. I needed to test the waters. Could I handle the intimacy? With him so close, touching me, could I forget what he was looking at? I’d always been an affectionate person. Touch was my love language. I realized then just how starved I was for it.

“That must have been heartbreaking. Peacekeeping missions?”

He nodded, a crease appearing between his heavy brows that usually added a stern effect to his expression, except when I could tell he was covering up a hurt so deep he likely didn’t know how to acknowledge it.

“Yeah.” His voice cracked, and he switched his handhold on the trimmers.

I glanced down to see tufts of darker blond and reddish hair falling onto the white tile.

“God, what is that? You didn’t tell me I turned ginger on you!”

Dennis smirked. “Not the only place you’ve got red hair.”

I pinched his side, and he sucked in a breath.

“Now, now. I’m going to end up carving my initials into your beard if you keep that up.”

The thought of his mark on me sent a thrill throughout my body. His ownership. His .

Denny had strict boundaries, and he was so good at doing the right thing, but the thought of him being possessive over me, possessing me , was so hot.

It was that line of thinking that had led me to attempt to seduce him.

It was also the line of thinking that should be furthest from my mind, sitting here naked in just a towel, with my parents and our friends down the hall.

But being this close to Denny took me to that place I longed to be again.

I wondered if he’d even let me after the awful things I’d said and done.

I wondered if I could do it, knowing what I looked like.