between the covers of the king-size bed, I rolled onto my right side, and it was Lights Out, Blair.
Chapter Thirteen
I woke some hours later shivering with cold, hurting, and generally miserable. I couldn’t get comfortable no matter how I squirmed. Wyatt woke and stretched to turn on the lamp, and mellow light flooded the room. “What’s wrong?” he asked, putting his hand on my face. “Ah.”
“Ah, what?” I asked fretfully as he got out of bed and walked into the bathroom.
He came back with a glass of water and two tablets. “You’re feverish. The doctor said you probably would be. Take these; then I’ll get another pain pill for you.”
I sat up to take the two tablets, then huddled under the covers until he came back with the other pill. After I took it, he turned out the light and got back into bed, cuddling me close and sharing his body warmth with me. I pressed my nose against his shoulder, inhaling the heat and scent, and my heart turned over. No doubt about it: he cranked my tractor. I could probably be near death and he’d still turn me on.
I was still too cold and uncomfortable to go back to sleep, so I decided I might as well talk.
“Why did you get divorced?”
“I wondered when you’d get around to that,” he observed in a lazy tone.
“Do you mind talking about it? Just until I get sleepy?”
“No, it’s no big deal. She filed for divorce the day I quit pro ball. She thought I was crazy to walk out on millions of dollars to be a cop.”
“Not many people would disagree with her.”
“Do you?”
“Well, see, I’m from your hometown, so I’ve read the articles in the newspaper and I know that being a cop was what you always wanted, that you majored in criminal justice in college. I would have expected it. She was surprised, I take it?”
“Big-time. I don’t blame her. She signed on to be the wife of a pro football player, with the money and the glamour, not the wife of a cop, with never enough money and never knowing if he’s going to come home or die on the job.”
“You didn’t talk about the future before you got married? What you wanted?”
He snorted. “I was twenty-one when we got married; she was twenty. At that age, the future is something that happens in five minutes, not five years. Throw in rioting hormones, and there you go, one divorce in the making. It just took us a couple of years to get there. She was a good kid, but we wanted different things out of life.”
“But everyone knows-everyone
“I did make millions-I had four of them when I quit, to be exact. That didn’t exactly turn me into Donald Trump, but it was enough to turn things around for the family. I took care of all the repairs and renovations on Mom’s home, set up college funds for my sister’s kids, bought this place and remodeled it, then invested the rest. There wasn’t a huge amount left, but if I can leave it untouched until I retire, it should give me a comfortable retirement. I took a hit when the stock market bottomed out five, six years ago, but my stocks have come back all the way, so things look okay.”
I yawned and settled my head more comfortably on his shoulder. “Why didn’t you buy a smaller place? One that didn’t need so much work?”
“I really like the location, and I thought it would be a good house someday for a family.”
“You want a family?” I was a little startled. That usually isn’t something you hear a bachelor say.
“Sure. I’ll get married again someday, and two or three kids would be nice. What about you?”
The bottom dropped out of my stomach, and it was a moment before I realized that wasn’t a very offhand proposal. The pain medication must be kicking in, if I was getting that punchy. “Sure, I want to get married again,” I said sleepily. “And have a munchkin. I have the perfect setup. I could take a baby with me to work, because it’s my business and it’s an informal, relaxed setting. There’s music, no television, and lots of adult supervision. What could be better?”
“You have it all planned out, huh?”
“Well, no. I’m neither married nor pregnant, so everything is still hypothetical. And I’m flexible. If circumstances change, I’ll adjust.”
He said something else, but I was in the middle of another yawn and missed it. “What?” I asked when I could talk.
“Never mind.” He kissed my temple. “You’re fading fast. I thought it would take the pill half an hour or so to work.”
“I didn’t get much sleep last night,” I mumbled. “Accumulative effect.” He was the reason I hadn’t had much sleep the night before, because he kept waking me every couple of hours to have sex. My toes curled at the memory, and for a moment I flashed to how it felt when his big body settled on mine. Wow. I definitely wasn’t cold now.
I wanted to climb on top of him and take care of matters, but I’d told him no sex, so I couldn’t violate my own edict. Probably I should have put on underwear before getting in bed with him, though, because of course the shirt had ridden up to my waist. That’s what shirts do when you sleep in them. He’d been very gentlemanly, not feeling me up or anything, but that was only because I was hurt. I expected that would change, because being a gentleman was probably a strain for him. Not that he didn’t have great manners, because he did, but his instincts were aggressive and competitive. That was what had made him such a good athlete. Besides the physical ability, he had that ruthless drive to come out on top. I wondered how long he would be considerate because of my arm.
I went to sleep on that thought, and found out the answer around six in the morning when he gently turned me on my back and settled between my legs. I was barely awake when he started, but wide awake when he finished. He was careful with my arm, but ruthless in his attack on my neck.
When he finally let me up, I stormed into the bathroom. “That was so not fair!” Delicious, but not fair. “That was a sneak attack!”
He was laughing when I slammed the door. Just to be on the safe side, I also locked it. He could use one of the other bathrooms.
I definitely felt better this morning, not as shaky, and the pain in my arm was more of a dull throb now. Checking myself in the mirror, I saw that I didn’t even look pale. How could I, when Wyatt had just done me? My cheeks were flushed and it wasn’t from fever.
I cleaned up, then rummaged one-handed through my duffel, which was still parked in the middle of the bathroom floor. I found my clean underwear and managed to pull it on, then brushed my teeth and hair. That was the limit of what I could do by myself, though. My clean clothes were wrinkled and needed to be run through the clothes dryer, but even if they had been newly pressed, I couldn’t have coped. I couldn’t put on a bra. I could move my arm a little more this morning, but not enough to extend to dressing.
I unlocked the door and stomped out. He was nowhere to be seen. Just how did he expect me to harangue him if he didn’t stay where he could hear me?
Fuming, I gathered my clean clothes in my right arm and went downstairs. The stairs led me to a great room with ten-foot ceilings, leather furniture, and the required big-screen television. There wasn’t a plant in sight.
