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She gave a soft laugh. “Yes, it’s okay.”
“Then go to bed. Santa won’t come until you’re sleeping.” I walked over to the wall to turn the lights out, and watched in the darkness as she crawled under the sheets. “If you need anything, come get me across the hall. I’ll leave my door partway open.”
“You can sleep here if you want,” she said. “It wouldn’t bother me.”
“I prefer to sleep in my own bed,” I said as kindly as I could. It still sounded like a rebuff. “Believe me, you’ll be more comfortable here. I’m impossible to sleep with.”
Or rather, I didn’t trust myself to sleep next to her. That was the long and short of it. “Good night, Ashleigh,” I said, forcing myself to turn around and leave her lying there, tingling butt and everything. “Sleep tight.”
Chapter Nine: First Session
I woke up in Liam’s bed. I vaguely remembered him carrying me there after my third bawling nightmare. I assured him they weren’t nightmares about him, or what he’d done to me with his strap. They were nightmares about my father. Liam had soothed me and held me, and told me that it would never happen again. My waking brain knew that. My sleeping brain sometimes forgot.
In a way it had been a relief to talk about my past to Liam, to have it out in the open, but his questions brought up a lot of buried memories. Liam laid beside me now, one arm around me and the other thrown over his head, muscular even in sleep. His chest was an expanse of bronze, smooth skin bunched into tight abdominals at his waist. His eyelids twitched every so often. Dark circles shadowed his eyes.
I watched him for a while, studying the sculpted planes of his face. This handsome, charismatic man was going to try to heal me. Eventually, I guessed, we were going to have sex. I knew I was in good hands with him, that he would be careful. I believed he could help me. But oh, I felt guilty for keeping him up half the night.
I slid from beneath his arm and used my dancer’s grace to slither off the bed without jostling him. I tiptoed to the door and back across the hall to the guest room with Liam’s shirt billowing around my knees. I brushed my teeth and used the bathroom, and went out into the hall to make my way downstairs…after one last peek into Liam’s room. He’d turned over but he was still asleep, half in and half out of the covers. My God, he was a beautiful man—and I was around a lot of beautiful men at the dance studio. He was beyond a beautiful man. He was—
“Ashleigh. Good morning.”
I spun to find Mem standing behind me, holding out a fluffy white robe.
“You’re like a ninja,” I whispered.
He only smiled at me. “I trust you slept well? Come downstairs. Mr. Wilder often sleeps late.”
I shrugged into the robe. It dragged the ground but it was warm and comfy. I followed behind him in my bare feet until Mem turned around. “Slippers. I’ll get you slippers.”
“No, it’s all right.”
“We have some. He gets more as gifts than he could ever wear.”
He drifted soundlessly into Liam’s room and came out less than a minute later with a new pair of slippers in a box. They were huge but I wore them like flip-flops, flapping off the back of my heels.
“Coffee or tea?” he asked when we reached the kitchen.
“Water.”
“Ah,” he said, smiling. “You are a pure one, I remember.”
I had no idea what he meant. He clearly honed this mysterious and slightly offbeat image. I sat at the stool I’d sat on the night before. It was a credit to Mem that I didn’t feel awkward or embarrassed during this morning-after breakfast. But when he finished setting toast, fruit, and water in front of me, I decided to set the record straight.
“Me and Liam aren’t going out or anything. I didn’t sleep with him last night.”
Mem glanced up at me. “No one sleeps with Mr. Wilder.”
I had actually slept with him, but only in a messed-up, crybaby kind of way. The man turned to the refrigerator. “Would you like eggs, bacon? Waffles?”
“Do you have any peanut butter for the toast?”
Peanut butter was promptly delivered on a small plate with a fancy silver knife. I spread it on my bread, looking up at Mem from under my lashes.
“Tell the truth,” I said. “You’re one of those guys who looks harmless on the outside, but really you know twelve different ways to kill people.”
One eyebrow lifted ever so slightly. “Twelve? I know at least thirty ways. Thirty-two, if I apply myself.”
I smiled as he puttered around the kitchen, wiping counters, rearranging plates and bowls as if reluctant to leave me alone. “Where are you from, Mem?” I couldn’t place his accent or his slightly ethnic look.
“I am from the United States. From the Midwest, like you.”
A bit of peanut butter stuck in my throat. I wondered if Mem was the one who’d gone to Cowskull to dig up dirt on me. “You’re Native American,” I realized.
“Somewhat,” he replied. “I have a lot of different blood in me. Like you. Like Mr. Wilder. Ah.” He looked up as he spoke his name. “And so he joins us.”
“Good morning, Mem. Or afternoon,” Liam said, looking at his watch. His gaze found me next, with a directness that made me shiver. I felt struck dumb by the sight of him. I didn’t know why. This was our neutral ground, he’d said, but things didn’t feel neutral any longer. He was freshly showered, dressed in jeans and a long sleeved dark green tee that hugged his muscles way too much. I looked around for Mem but he’d disappeared again. Ninja.
Liam crossed to me and stroked a finger down my cheek. “Better today?”
I nodded. “Much better. I’m sorry I wrecked your sleep.”
“I’m sorry I wrecked yours. You seemed like you calmed down at the end. I didn’t snore all night, did I?”
“If you did, I didn’t notice.”
Liam went into the kitchen and started making an omelet with all kinds of extra stuff. Mushrooms, peppers, cheese, and pieces of bacon. I watched him, chewing on my toast.
“How come Mem doesn’t make your breakfast?”
Liam chuckled. “Sometimes he does. I think he’s more concerned with giving us privacy at the moment.” He looked up at me. “He’s my most trusted friend, Ashleigh. He’ll never talk about what goes on here, but he knows pretty much everything.”
“He knows about me? About why I came here last night?”
“No.”
“Was he the one who went to Cowskull?”
Liam sighed. “Don’t worry about that, okay? Your privacy is assured. As for Mem…” He flipped his omelet and shrugged. “He can be very insightful. Don’t let it bother you.”
“When I came here last night, he said I was…I don’t remember. Itchy? Icky?”
“Ishi?”
“Yeah.”
His mouth tensed as he nudged the omelet onto a plate. “Mem says a lot of weird stuff like that. Take it with a grain of salt.”
He called you Ishi too. Why don’t you have a home, Liam? I didn’t say it. He didn’t look like he wanted to discuss it further.
“So, did Santa come?” he asked a little too brightly. He craned his head to look at the far corner of the living room. Last night, in the dim light, I hadn’t even noticed the tree. It was a real tree, albeit sparsely decorated. I sensed Mem’s involvement. “Damn,” Liam said. “Nothing. I was too naughty again.”
I laughed as he brought his plate and a cup of coffee around the counter to join me. He slid into the seat beside me with a broad smile. This was my cue to joke with him and be cute but I had nothing. I took a sip of water. “I think Santa only comes for kids.”
“I think you’re probably right. Anyway,” he said, gesturing around, “I already have everything I need. If I don’t have something, I buy it.” He looked at me. “Do you buy presents for yourself?”
“No. But on Christmas, sometimes, I let myself eat bad foods.”
“Bad foods? What is that? What’s a bad food?”
“Chocolate. Co
okies. Ice cream.”
He flashed me a conspiratorial grin. “I have all three of those here, and more. What do you want? Ice cream?” He shoveled in another bite of omelet. “I have, like, eight flavors in the freezer right now.”
“Ice cream for breakfast? That’s bad behavior and bad food,” I said. Bad behavior. That called to mind a whole slew of other thoughts. Heat bloomed on my cheeks and I looked away from him.
Liam had hit me with a strap last night.
Not only that, but he’d touched my legs and made me open them, and spread my arms out at my sides. I was so hot afterward, so wet. So confused. The sting of the strap had been nothing compared to the throbbing ache in my pelvis, all because he’d hurt me and made me lay a specific way. When I looked up he was staring back at me.
“We don’t have to start today unless you want to,” he said. “If you want to go home and think things over a little more first…”
“I want to start today.”
There, that was blunt enough. He smiled his casual, everything’s-great smile and nodded. “Okay. I’m looking forward to it. Maybe after a little ice cream.”
I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it. It was more like my Sleeping Beauty performance, hoping to survive it without fucking up too bad.
*** *** ***
Up in the room, he took a chair from the table and dragged it to the middle of the floor.
“Sit.”
He meant me. I flopped over in my slippers with the oversize robe still bunched around me. This didn’t feel very sexy. I sat in the chair and as soon as I did, he sprawled on the bed. He leaned back against the pillows and waited for me to meet his gaze.
“We’re going to start by talking about personal boundaries. Mental and physical.”
Hm, that wasn’t where I’d expected us to start, but it didn’t matter. I put on my listening face.
