The Asset (17 page)

“She said the doctors were very pleased with my progress. The evaluations all agreed that I’d met the major milestones, physically and psychologically. She said I should be able to manage my own recovery.”

I’d been out of a job for a while and didn’t even know it. He’d gotten his coveted medical release. Days ago. The sand shifted beneath my feet. I wasn’t sure where I stood.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

He shrugged. “Why do you think?”

“I don’t know.” I reeled. “You never wanted a caretaker—I mean, caregiver. You should’ve been delirious with joy on hearing the news.”

“You’re right. I never wanted a caretaker, that is, until I met you.” The look in his eyes softened. “I didn’t tell you about it because I didn’t want you to bolt the moment you learned I’d been released from your care.”

I tried to wrap my mind around that. “I... I don’t understand.”

“You’re going to make me talk about it, aren’t you?” He took a deep breath. “Okay, I guess I’ll have to make the effort. I’m not good at saying stuff people want to hear. I’m no good at talking, period. I do, Lia. That’s who I am. Can you understand that?”

Perhaps I could.

“All my adult life, it was all about being a SEAL,” he said. “I lived for the mission. I gave each mission my all. Nothing else mattered. Then we got ambushed and blown apart, and all hell broke loose and we fought like devils to get out alive, but not all of us did—”

His voice fractured. The pain in his eyes was more than I could bear.

“What I’m trying to say is that life becomes very clear when you’re dying,” he said. “The golden hour is a century of pain and wisdom. You don’t regret what you did. You regret what you didn’t get to do. Four months is a lifetime in a hospital bed. Plenty of time to think. When the pain allows it, you spend a lot of time figuring out what you’re going to do differently if you survive. You think about who you’d want to spend your time with if you could, about what matters.”

He paused, wet his lips and continued. “I swore to myself that given the chance, I’d live differently the next time around. It was hard to come home, but I did. It was the first step. And there you were, at the lake, in the cottage, at the one place I could bear to be, my only possible destination, where only
I
could find
you
.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Maybe I was just in the right time at the right place?”

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “You were there, waiting for me, as if God Himself had executed a precision drop and delivered me an exclusive lifeline.” His gaze slid down my neck. “And just in case I missed the point—’cause He knows, and everyone else in my life knows, that I’m as dense as they come—you were wearing
my
stone.”

“Your stone?” My hand followed his eyes to the little pendant I wore around my neck, the one Wynona had made for me. My fingers closed around the carved obsidian.

“I found that stone when I was a child,” Ash said. “It was shortly after my parents died. Nona and I were walking around the lake and I thought it was precious. Nona laughed and convinced me that it was rare but only because it was special to me. I didn’t know she’d kept it all this time until I saw it embedded in your pendant. She made sure with the design that even if I was out of my mind and mad with pain, I’d notice it.”

“How?”

“Do you know what they used to call SEALs when the program was first established?”

I shook my head.

“Frogmen,” he said. “Some still call us that. The skulled frog is a respected symbol for SEALs. That’s why Nona carved her stylized version of it on that stone.”

“Are you saying that Wynona chose me for you?”

“Chose you?” He laughed. “No, she’d never admit to that. She raised a rebel. I’ve always made my own choices and they were very different from hers. But I think she saw something in you. She even left me that note in the safe, reminding me to trust my judgment. She wanted me to notice that you were special. And I did.”

That Irish jig? It blared in my head to the tune of a full orchestra. And my heart? It joined in the ruckus, swelled to impossible proportions, full with the emotions rocking my world. I sent my gratitude to the stars, where I was sure Wynona’s soul looked down on us tonight. I sent a good scolding her way too. She’d been party to this mess.

“Lia, I know what I want,” Ash said. “The question is whether you want the same thing.”

“Ash...” I faltered. “You may need a new mission, but I’m not it.”

“You’re absolutely right.” His eyes fastened on me. “I’m crazy about you, but you can’t be my new mission. That would be screwed up. Our new mission—should you choose to accept it—would be
us
.”

My heart exploded in my chest. My inner self danced wildly beneath the stars’ fireworks. Not even in my most elaborate dreams could I have imagined I’d love a man, a marine, a SEAL. And that he’d love me.

“I... I don’t think you understand.” I gnawed on my lips. “If something bad happened to you, I wouldn’t forgive myself. I wouldn’t want to go on. I don’t think I could.”

“Lia.” He started toward me then reversed the impulse and held back. “Give me the choice. In time, we’ll deal with the rest. You’ve got to trust that I know what I’m doing. I want the choice. Please.”

The look on his face scattered the last of my defenses. My resolve dissolved into the hot springs. It was as if the minerals in the water were corroding the shell I’d painstakingly built around myself. But there was something else, something I didn’t know if he could understand.

“I don’t know if I can...” God, I didn’t even know how to say it. “I don’t know if I can—you know—stand it.”

“
It
?”

It took him a moment to realize what I meant. Who could blame him? It was beyond me why anybody in their right mind would want to grapple with a screwed-up mess like me. Sex terrified me. Memories of pain and humiliation shaped my only knowledge of it. But since I’d met Ash, sex had also begun to intrigue me and, even now, as I looked into Ash’s eyes, something shifted in me.

I’d tried. I’d read everything I could get my hands on. I’d researched the matter at length. I’d even talked to a counselor at the shelter for a few sessions. She’d taught me the
steady, breathe, cope
technique that allowed me to get by most of the time.

The trauma had been difficult to overcome, but I’d been determined to free myself from Red’s hold at every level. I’d worked hard to transform myself from victim to survivor. I’d tackled each step on my way toward recovery, but this moment was the summit of all of those steps and I didn’t know if I could stand the final test. Was I ready?

“There’s something else...” The words refused to come out of my parched throat. I tried to explain several times, then lowered my eyes and slumped in defeat.

“What is it?” Ash asked softly. “Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

“That’s the problem,” I mumbled. “I... I can’t.”

Ash’s stare caressed my face and perused my soul, deconstructing me as he tried to make sense of me, my reluctance, my fears. I groaned inside, wallowing in a surge of desperation. He needed to know, but I couldn’t explain, not now. If I did, I could fall apart for good.

“Perhaps we can table this one for later,” he suggested.

I shook my head. “You need to know...before...before you make your decision.”

“My decision has already been made,” he said with mind-boggling certainty.

“You could change your mind.” I gulped dryly. “
This
could change your mind.”

Mount Everest rumbled. “I doubt it.”

“I understand if it does.” I took a step back and then another, until I crouched in the shallow end of the pool, with my knees bent beneath me and my heart pumping hard in my throat. “But you deserve better. You should have a choice too.”

I turned around and straightened my knees. I rose from the pool until the water lapped at my hips. The night’s cold fingers tickled my skin despite the waves of steam wafting from me. Water trickled down my body like tears. I wrapped my arms around myself and shivered, baring my back for him.

I knew what he saw, grooves, notches and nicks from the belt and buckle that had permanently scarred my back, the little round blotches from the burns that puckered between my ribs and the countless other scars that littered my skin. He saw my shame too, a life of pain, and all the things I couldn’t talk about.

After a little while, I dared a glance over my shoulder. Ash wasn’t shying from the sight. On the contrary, mouth straight and brow furrowed, he stared at me, taking a hard look indeed, absorbing the dreadful story written on my body.

“Lia?” The restraint in his voice was a mix of compassion, outrage and kindness. “Turn around. Look at me.”

I submerged myself in the pool and concealed the scars beneath the water, banishing them to the realm of anonymity, where they belonged. I took a deep breath and turned to face Ash. The warmth beaming from his eyes soothed my stiff shoulders as surely as the steaming current.

“I’ve seen what you wanted me to see,” he said. “I won’t lie. It makes me mad as hell to know that you had to live through that. But those scars on your back? They don’t change the way I feel about you. They do, however, help me to understand the depth of your fears.”

I didn’t repulse him. The sight of me didn’t dissuade him. He didn’t judge me, didn’t think less of me, didn’t reject me outright. I let out the long breath I’d been holding.

“You’re so brave,” Ash said from his side of the pool. “I love that about you. But you don’t have to be brave all the time. Not when I’m around. We can wait.”

The only man I’d ever been with would have never said anything remotely like that to me. Red didn’t believe in delays, consideration or patience. His methods of operation relied on brute force, torture and blackmail, on coaxing and tricking people into doing what he wanted. He enjoyed the suffering that came with it, the pain of others, especially mine.

The contrast between one man and the other was almost too much to bear.

But the fear. God, I quaked inside and out. Could I really wipe the memories clean from my mind’s hard drive? Could I overcome the terror trained into my body? Could I conquer the fear, dread and anxiety that permanently knotted my soul?

Steady
. Ash was there, just on the other side of the pool.
Breathe
. I dug my toes in the sandy bottom and pushed my body through the spring.
Cope
. I took a second step, and then another. The intensity in his eyes sustained me through the crossing. I focused on those eyes and kept going, until I stood before him, with only a few inches of churning water between our bodies. He didn’t move. He didn’t even blink. He was as still as he could be, as if he feared that if he moved, I might scatter and fly away like a frightened little sparrow.

In truth, part of me wanted to bolt. Fleeing was something I was used to doing. Staying, now that was hard. But there was another new part of me that refused to run, emboldened by desire and driven by need. And that part of me? It was determined to stay for the night.

I took a deep breath, reached out and caressed his face. He closed his eyes. I trailed the dark stubble growing along the line of his jaw and traced his lips’ defined lines. He kissed my fingertips. I leaned closer and breathed in the air he exhaled, before I pressed my lips to his.

I kissed him.
I
kissed
him
. And I kept kissing him, allowing my lips to explore his mouth, persuading him with my kisses that I wanted this for him, but also for myself.

He groaned against my mouth. “Jesus, Lia.”

I was familiar with his body. How could I not be, after tending to his wounds and helping him heal? I’d slept with him for many nights. I was used to his shape, slumbering next to me in the darkness, to his scent, mixing with mine on the bed’s sheets, to the steady cadence of his respiration, as familiar to me as my favorite song.

But this was different. My hands explored him in a new way, openly and directly. I enjoyed the width of his shoulders beneath my palms, the span of his chest rising and falling under my hand and the raised outline of his nipples tripping against my fingers. I gave myself permission to follow his body’s tapering lines, trailing the water dripping down his chest. I inched closer. His arms opened like a gate.

I stepped into those arms of my own volition. I trembled when our skins met. For a moment I just stood there as if perched at the edge of a great abyss. Then his arms closed around me and he drew me against his body, where I discovered firm ground and safe anchorage. It was as if my flesh was made of malleable putty. My body molded to his. My breasts snuggled against his chest, my belly nuzzled against his stomach and my thighs brushed against his thighs.

“You can’t expect me to keep my word if you do that,” he murmured.

I looked into his eyes. “I want to please you. I need to please you.”

“Sweet Jesus.” His eyes sparked with blue fire. “Are you sure?”

I kissed him.

“Lia...”

The way he said my name was a poem. How could a sound hold so much power, passion and warmth?

“Don’t be scared.” He caressed my hair away from my face and brought me even closer, until his erection pressed hot and hard against my groin. “It’s just me, wanting you.”

He wanted me. Me. And I wanted him too. I could do this. I would do this. I set the fear aside. There was no need to be scared. This was Ash, the man I’d pledged to heal. This was his way of needing me and my way of healing him—and myself. I softened against his hardness, as drenched inside as I was outside.

His lips seized my mouth and stole all of my breath. His body burned, and my body—it flared with the contact. I swear the spring got hotter from the furnace burning in my lower belly.

The feel of his hands traveling down my back made me dizzy. His fingers flowed over my spine, accepting the ugly scars, soothing the old shame. His hands were hot and strong as they cupped the halves of my ass and rubbed his cock against me. My body’s jolts of pleasure reflected in his eyes.