Page 35 of Calling Quarters

Iwoke up to his familiar scent filling my nose. A mix of warm, fresh air with a salty sting from the sea. My lids felt like they were weighed down by mounds of sand. It took a moment for me to pry them open and survey my surroundings. I tried to sit up and was met with a jackhammer pounding into the back of my head.

Leaning back into the pillow, my hands fell to my sides and grasped the soft comforter that my body was tightly tucked into, melting into it like warm butter. I noted the dark blue and white plaid pattern and immediately recognized where I'd seen it before.

I was in Remy's room.

“There's a glass of water on the night table beside you and some ibuprofen in case you've got a headache,” his voice softly cooed from somewhere near the end of the bed.

I looked over at the table, and sure enough, a tall glass of ice water was there with a metal straw sticking out and condensation dripping down the sides. My tongue slowly ran over my lips as I fantasized about gulping the entire thing down at once, but I knew my body wouldn't allow me to sit up to drink the glass myself, and I was too embarrassed to ask him for any more help.

Based on my lack of clothes beneath the blanket, he had already helped me enough.

Remy must have taken notice of my desperate fantasy though, because without a word, he stood from wherever he was sitting and walked to the side of the bed to grab the glass. He held it over the bed for me and our eyes locked in on each other. After a few seconds of me entertaining my stubborn pride, I leaned over and took a long drink from the straw.

“You've been out for a solid twenty-four hours,” he explained as he set down the glass. “I was going to call Tabitha if you didn't come to in the next hour. I probably should have called her hours ago, but I needed to ask you what happened without an audience.”

He peered down at me expectantly, waiting for an explanation that I wasn't sure I had.

“They were on something,” I found myself saying through a thick, raw throat. I don't know why my first instinct was to defend the people who attacked me. It just seemed like something he should know before jumping into anything. Not that I thought he'd care enough to punish them, but I was sure someone did.

“And why did you end up out here alone with them? Were you going to take whatever they were on?”

“What? No.” I shook my head and the jackhammer started up again. Tightly closing my eyes to stop the pain, I continued, “They threw me in their van and drove us out here. Julia said something about her mom wanting to know more about me and it always being the Rists and the Wildes. I don't know. She wasn't making a ton of sense.”

I felt the bed sink down beside me under his weight and when I could open my eyes again, he was watching me with a confused scowl. He was trying to make sense out of a nonsensical situation, and it was driving him crazy.

“Where are my clothes?” I asked, tugging the blanket farther up my exposed chest. Even my underwear was missing.

If Remy noticed my discomfort, he didn't bother doing anything to make me feel better. He just absent-mindedly pointed to the dresser across the room where my clothes had been neatly folded and stacked.

“I couldn't get the blood out. I'm sure if I asked one of the housekeepers for help, they could have done it, but I didn't want to risk anyone knowing you're here,” he rambled, then stood from the bed to grab the pile and set it on the nightstand. He took a seat beside me again.

I reached my hand behind my head and felt around for the cut that was surely there after Beau clogged me.

“There's nothing there,” Remy said in bewilderment. “I've looked multiple times.”

“Then where did the blood come from?” I asked, raking my fingers through my hardened, matted hair.

Remy shrugged his shoulders and shook his head in confusion. “I was going to treat the wound when I brought you in here. It's like it healed itself.”

“It… healed itself?”

That wasn't possible. I knew it.

Maybe I just wasn't injured that bad.

But why else would my head be pounding and covered in dried blood?

He rapped against his leg. “Storie, I'm going to make this right. They shouldn't have come anywhere near you, especially over something that's between my family and Julia's.”

His fingers brushed my arm, sending that familiar shock into my core in the way only his touch could do. The aching in my head ceased immediately and I stared down at his hand in complete surprise.

He didn't pull away at my reaction, though. As if the contact gave him a sense of courage he'd been missing before, he watched my face change as the soft pads of his fingers slowly trailed up my arm, leaving goosebumps in their wake. I sighed, hating the way he made me feel with the smallest amount of effort.

He reached my shoulders and then turned around, moving his hand farther inside my arm to also brush against the blanket and my torso underneath. It was the most sensual, torturous thing I'd ever experienced in my life. Even worse than when he kissed me, because this was so innocent yet sinful at the same time.

I wanted to swat his hand away and pull it under the blankets with me so he could explore every other part of me.

I wanted him to quicken his pace and stop at the same time.

---