Crash sat up in bed. “What time is it?”
One second, he’d been sound asleep, and the next his eyes were wide open, as if he’d been awake and alert for hours.
“It’s nearly six.” Nell resisted the urge to dive back under the sheet and blanket and cover herself. Instead, she sat on the edge of the bed with her back toward him, briefly closing her eyes, feeling her face heat with a blush.
Her jeans were here on the floor. Her shirt and bra were across the room. Her underpants…in the bathroom, she remembered suddenly, with a dizzying surge of extremely vivid memory.
She slipped into her jeans, forsaking her underpants. There was no way she was going to walk naked all the way across this room with Crash watching. Yes, he’d seen her naked last night, but that had been last night. This was the morning. This was very different. She was leaving for Ohio today, and if he shed any tears at her departure, they were surely only going to be tears of relief.
Nell knew with a certainty that could have gotten her hired by one of those psychic hotlines, that what had happened between herself and William Hawken last night had been a fluke. It had been a result of the high emotions of the past few days, of Daisy’s death and the wake and funeral that had quickly followed.
It had been an incredible sexual experience, but Nell knew that a single episode of great sex didn’t equal a romantic relationship. When it came down to it, nothing had changed between them. They were still only friends—except now they were friends who had shared incredibly great sex.
She stood up, fastening the button on her jeans, knowing that she couldn’t keep her back to him as she went across the room in search of her shirt and bra. She was just going to have to be matter-of-fact about it. That’s all. She had breasts, he didn’t—big deal.
But Crash caught her arm before she could take a step, his fingers warm against her bare skin. “Nell, are you all right?”
She didn’t turn to face him, wishing that he would prove her wrong. Right now, he could do it—he could prove her entirely, absolutely wrong. He could slide his hand down her arm in a caress. He could pull her gently to him, move aside her hair and kiss her neck. He could run those incredible hands across her breasts, down her stomach, and unfasten the waistband of her pants. He could pull her back into the warmth of his bed and make love to her slowly in the gray morning light.
But he didn’t.
“I’m…” Nell hesitated. If she said fine, she would sound tense and tight, as if she weren’t fine. His hand dropped from her arm, and her last foolish hopes died. She crossed the room and picked up her shirt.
It was inside out, of course, and she turned away from him as she adjusted it. She slipped it over her head and only then could she turn and look at him.
Bed head. He had bed head, his dark hair charmingly rumpled, sticking out in all different directions. He looked about twelve years old—except for the fact that even the simple act of sitting up in bed had made many of his powerful-looking muscles flex. God, he was sexy, even with bed head.
Nell used all her limited acting skills to sound normal. “I’m…still pretty amazed by what happened here last night.”
“Yeah,” he said. His pale blue eyes were unreadable.
“I am, too. I feel as if I owe you an apology—”
“Don’t,” she said, moving quickly toward him. “Don’t you dare apologize for what happened last night. It was something we both needed. It was really right—don’t turn it into something wrong.”
Crash nodded. “All right. I just…” He glanced away, closing his eyes briefly before he looked back at her. “I’ve been so careful to stay away from you all this time,” he said, “because I didn’t want to hurt you this way.”
Nell slowly sat down at the foot of the bed. “Believe me, last night didn’t hurt at all.”
He didn’t smile at her poor attempt at a joke. “You know as well as I do,” he said quietly, “that it wouldn’t work, right? A relationship between us…” He shook his head. “You don’t really know me. You know this…kind of PG-rated, goody-two-shoes, Disney cartoon version of me.”
Nell wanted to protest, but he wasn’t done talking and she held her tongue, afraid if she interrupted, he would stop.
“But if you really knew me, if you knew who I really am, what I do…you wouldn’t like me very much.”
She couldn’t hold it in any longer. “How can you just make that kind of decision for me?”
“Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe you have some kind of sick thing for cold-blooded killers—”
“You are not cold-blooded!”
“But I am a killer.”
“You’re a soldier,” she argued. “There’s a difference.”
“Okay,” he said levelly. “Maybe you could get past that. But being involved with a SEAL who specializes in black ops is not something I’d wish on my worst enemy.” His usually quiet voice rang with conviction. “I certainly wouldn’t wish it on you.”
“Again, you’re just going to decide that for me?”
He threw off the covers, totally unembarrassed by his nakedness. He found his pants, but they were the ones he’d worn to the funeral. Dress pants. He tossed them over a chair and pulled a pair of army fatigues from the closet.
Nell closed her eyes at a sudden vivid image from last night. His hands around her waist, his mouth locked on hers, his body…
“Here’s the deal with black ops,” he said, zipping his fly and fastening the button at his waist. “I disappear—literally—sometimes for months at a time. You would never know where I was, or for how long I’d be gone.”
He ran his fingers back through his hair in a failed attempt to tame it, the muscles in his chest and arms standing out in sharp relief. “If I were KIA—killed in action—you might never be told,” he continued. “I just wouldn’t come back. Ever. You’d never find out about the mission I was on. There’d be no paper trail, no way to know how or why I’d died. It would be as if I’d never existed.” He shook his head. “You don’t need that kind of garbage in your life.”
“But—”
“It wouldn’t work.” He gazed at her steadily. “Last night was…nice, but you’ve got to believe me, Nell. It just wouldn’t work.”
Nice.
Nell turned away. Nice? Last night had been wonderful, amazing, fantastic. It hadn’t been nice.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly.
She looked out the window. She looked at the rug. She looked at a painting that hung on the wall. It was one of Daisy’s—a beach scene from her watercolor phase.
Only then did she look up at him. “I’m sorry, too. I’m sorry you think it wouldn’t work,” she finally said. “You know, I knew most of what you were going to say before you even said it. And I was going to pretend to agree with you. You know, ‘Yeah, you’re right, it would never work, different personalities, different worlds, different lives, whatever.’ But to hell with my pride. Because the truth is, I don’t agree with you. I think it would work. We would work. I think we’d be great together. Last night could be just the beginning and I’m…saddened that you think otherwise.”
Crash didn’t say anything. He didn’t even look at her.
Nell bolstered the very last of her rapidly fading courage and tossed the final shred of her pride out the door. “Can’t we at least try?” Her voice broke slightly—her final humiliation.
Crash didn’t speak, and again she found the courage to go on.
“Can’t we see what happens? Take it one day at a time?”
He looked up at her, but his eyes were so distant, it was as if he wasn’t quite all there.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I’m not looking for any kind of a relationship at all right now. I was wrong to give in to this attraction between us. I wanted the comfort and the instant gratification, and the real truth is, I used you, Nell. That’s all last night was. You came along, and I took what you offered. There’s nothing for us to try. There’s nothing more to happen.”
Nell stood up, trying desperately to hide her hurt. “Well,” she said. “I guess that clears that up.”
“It’s my fault, and I am sorry.”
She cleared her throat as she moved toward the door.
“No,” she said. “I knew last night…I mean, it was clear that’s what it was. Comfort, I mean. It was that way for me, too, sort of, at first anyway, and…I was just hoping…Billy, it’s not your fault.”
She opened the door and stepped into the hall. Crash hadn’t moved. She wasn’t even sure if he’d blinked.
“Happy New Year,” she said quietly, and shut the door behind her.