Page 25 of Keeping Her Safe

“When I saw the stairway, I remembered when she told me she had fallen down the stairs and had broken her arm when she was seven. I could see her there with the cast on. She once told me that when her parents died, she couldn’t bring herself to go into the house. She could feel them around her, but now they knew all the secrets she had kept from them over the years.”

“Do you think she came back after?” he asked. He didn’t even know what religion she had been raised in, much less if she believed in an afterlife.

“No, she never came back. She will forever be trapped in Florida,” she mumbled.

Exhaustion was overtaking him again, and her smooth, calm words were lulling him into sleep. He wanted to stay up and talk to her, but her words were pushing him into the darkness. With a sigh, he gave in and shut his eyes. Within moments, he was sleeping again.

CHAPTER 10

The clock read 3:25 when Zephyr’s eyes opened. Not wanting to think of what time it was, she lay in the warm bed. Zachary’s body was wrapped around hers. The hard muscles of his chest and stomach pressed into her back, and his knees were tucked into hers. Warm breath was moving the hair on the back of her head, sending tingles down her body. Or was it that his hand was under her shirt and cupping her bare breast?

She bit her lip as she willed his hand to move, not away but to caress her. But the hand stayed still. Lying there, she loved the fact that his big hand was actually not big enough to hold her entire breast. It was the first time she was happy with the huge things.

But she had to get up, and he usually got mad when he touched her, and boy was he touching her right now. It was easier to be with him when he wasn’t mad at her.

Trying to carefully wiggle free, all she managed to do was have him tighten his hold on her. He pulled her closer to his body with the arm over her stomach. The hand that had been on her breast had moved, and in doing so, his palm had slid over her sensitive nipple, and she almost moaned at the sensation. She had to force herself to suppress her body's reaction to his. It took a few minutes before his body relaxed again, and she was able to break free.

Within an hour, she was showered and dressed in leggings and a comfortable top, snuggled into the chair and opening her computer. Her eyes kept darting to the bed to see if any of her movements were waking Zachary up. So far, he hadn’t moved. He was still on his side with his bare chest showing above the covers. The white bandage reflected the streetlight, making it stand out in the dark room.

Zephyr put her headphones on and slid the USB drive into the computer. First, she started the music, then glanced up to see if Zachary could hear, but he didn’t move. Then she opened one of the two files on the USB drive.

In seconds, her book opened before her eyes. This was it, the last book. Book number thirteen. It was over. She had written the last sentence weeks ago, and now she had to remove twenty thousand of the words. Ken had said the book was too long. It was the most she had ever deleted from her work, ever. It would take entire scenes to get rid of that many words. What could she cut out, when everything was important? It was like he had asked her to cut off her arm. All of it was important.

When she had started the first book so many years ago, she had known how it would end. The middle took the most work. She could have written this book right after the first. From the beginning, she knew the twists and turns it would take to get to this spot. All of her books were written to point to this ending.

She started reading in the middle of the pages, but the story was so familiar, she knew exactly where she was and where she was going. After spending two hours deleting, typing, changing, and rewording, she noticed that the sun was coming up. She looked at her word count. It was up by over a thousand. Zephyr leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes. She was going the wrong way. This was impossible.

Movement caught her eye, and she looked at the bed to see if Zachary was up. Their eyes met over the computer. He was lying propped on his arm, just looking over at her in the chair, all just-woke-from-sleep sexy. His hard chest was still visible and even better looking in the first sunshine of morning.

He smiled at her, and she smiled back. All she wanted to do was throw the computer aside and slide back into bed with him and see what his hand looked like holding her breast like he did the night before.

Of course, the room wasn’t actually filled with the sounds of 80s love songs—that was just being pumped into her head. The sights and the sounds were blending in her mind, and she had to bite her lip to keep from moaning.

Watching him climb out of bed, she was disappointed when he slid into his jeans instead of just letting her watch him walk around in his underwear. He walked over to the bed beside where she was sitting. Reaching over, he pulled off the headphones from her head.

“Morning,” he said, his eyes staring into hers.

He was so sexy sitting there with no shirt on, just jeans that he forgot to button. His brown skin was shining in the morning sunlight. Her fingers inched to run over his muscles.

“Morning,” she managed, but barely.

“The curls came back.” He actually touched her hair.

“I know. Patty would be so sad. She said she used enough straightener to flatten the Rockies, but it was no match for this.” She pointed at her head.

“It’s only wavy now, though. Not ringlets.” His hand fell away, but his eyes were still on hers.

“Yeah, good thing I got everything to get it straight again,” she replied.

“Are you working? When did you get up?”

“I am reviewing and correcting. I’ve been up since just before four.”

“Two nights in a row, and you’ve barely slept.” There was concern in his voice.

“I don’t sleep much. Just a few hours at night is all I need.” She shook her head slightly, remembering his arm around her this morning and his hand on her breast.

“Your boyfriends must love that,” he said softly.

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