Page 37 of Crossed By the Stars
Thoughts of the one and only time I’d woken up in Dax’s bed hit me in my core. The surprise of finding him without a stitch of clothing on. His lust-filled eyes slowly lifting when I’d surrounded him with my mouth. But there would never be a repeat of that experience. Not ever. And definitely not when I’d just been thrown across the room by an explosion that had left behind bruised ribs and nausea.
I could do this. It would be one night, and as Dax said, I could decide what to do from there.
Dax
LOVE AND FEAR
“Good people do bad things
Bad people do good
If the choice is between love and fear
I choose love, yeah.”
Performed by Imelda May
Written by May / Hogarth
Every bump the Escalade hit hadJadawincing on the short ride from the hospital to my apartment. She refused to let me carry her from the car, but when she all but fell over trying to walk to the elevator in the underground garage, Cillian grunted and swept her into his arms. I hated him for it, and the look I’d shot him clearly told him how I felt even when I knew she would have struggled against me if I’d done it. It would have ended up hurting her more than helping.
Once inside, we settled her into my bed, and she protested.
“I need a shower,” she said, biting her lip against the pain that coursed over her from the short journey.
“Not now. After you rest.”
“You’re doing it again.” She glowered. “You can’t tell me what to do with my own body.”
I rubbed my hand over my chin. “Mon Dieu! Just rest,mon bijou. You’ll feel stronger, and unless you want to wear my underwear, you have nothing here to put on.”
Her mouth opened and closed as she realized the truth. Her bedroom had exploded. If there was anything left in her closet, it wasn’t useable.
“I could always sleep naked like you,” she threw back.
Cillian coughed, and I flushed, but it wasn’t with embarrassment. It was at the thought of Jada, completely bare in my bed. Even knowing she was bruised and battered, it was enough to make my body respond. She knew it, because her lips quirked, and that one tiny action relieved some of the weight that had settled on my shoulders over the last twenty-four hours. It meant she was slowly getting her fire back.
“I have Cara on it,” I told her. “She got your sizes from Yuriko, and she’s pulling things together from a few boutiques until Yuriko can send you a new wardrobe from her collection atÉclair.”
Jada’s black hair was splayed over the white pillows, eyes flashing at me for having the audacity to arrange her life when I’d really just been determined to care for her. It was such a fine line with Jada—one I thought I understood, given her past, but one that drove me over the edge of calm at times.
After she fought against her own emotions for longer than necessary, she gritted her teeth and ground out, “Thank you.”
“Doitashimashite,” I told her. My saying you’re welcome in Japanese caught her off guard even when I’d spoken to her father in Japanese in the car. Jada and I hadn’t spoken in her family’s language in years. Since a kiss had gone awry. Since I’d run.
I went over to the blinds and twisted them shut before turning back to the darkened room. Her eyes were closed.
“I’ll just be in the other room,” I said softly. “Please don’t get up without getting help.”
She didn’t respond. Either she was already passed out, or she was choosing to ignore me. I left the door cracked open and went into the main room of the apartment.
The sun had tried to break through earlier in the day but had never quite made it. With even more clouds rolling in, the minimal daylight that had existed was fading fast. I could barely see the man on the balcony with his back to the glass, his black cargo pants and windbreaker blending with the oncoming night.
I turned around to find Cillian waiting for me by the front door.
“I’m sorry to throw all this at you, but I’m grateful for your help,” I told him.
“I’m going into a video meeting with Reinard to revise our security plans. We have agents on the roof, and that’s Jim out on the patio. We have two more posted outside the door and a crew in the garage. I’m staying in the apartment above you. It’ll also be our home base while we’re here, so there will be plenty of us coming and going. The apartments on either side and below you were already occupied, but we’ll monitor the activity going in and out.”
