Blended (Redemption #1) (27 page)

The calm and strength that her kiss provided for me earlier are now gone. I reach for her hand and intertwine my fingers with hers. “Barely.”

Her smile falls, and she looks away from me. I silently curse myself.

“I’m trying,” she whispers as Jacobs heads in the direction of the hotel.

“I know, Rye. This is just . . . it’s a lot to take in.”

I let go of her hand and move my arm around her shoulders. She leans back against my chest and gets as close to me as the seatbelt will allow.

“I apologize.”

She tilts her chin up and gives me a small smile. “Please don’t. I understand that all of this is new to you. You’re learning to rely on others instead of taking charge, and I can tell that it makes you uncomfortable. It’s simply a minor setback that you will recover from, and it’ll help you to take greater strides afterward.”

“I’m a lucky son of a bitch to have you, you know that?”

Jacobs pulls into the main entrance of the hotel and Madelyn has my door open before I can hear Hadley’s reply. Jacobs brings the wheelchair around as a horde of media crews jumps out of their vans.

“Stay close to me, Rye.”

“I swear it.”

Jacobs and Madelyn get me out of the SUV without much trouble before the first camera is on us. Hadley steps out of the vehicle and starts pushing my chair into the hotel’s expansive lobby while Madelyn grabs her medical supplies from the trunk.

Rye and I head up to the elevators, and she gets us onto one before Madelyn can catch up to us. Once it starts to ascend, she leans over to the panel and presses the red emergency stop button.

“What’s the matter?”

“Nothing. I just wanted a minute alone with you.”

I chuckle and reach my arm out for her. She walks to me and locks my chair in place before taking a seat on my lap, “I’m not hurting you, am I?”

“Not one bit, baby.”

Her smile is contagious as she rings her arms around my neck and plants her lips on mine in a frantic kiss. A kiss that she needs. One in which I can tell her that I’ll recover from this bullshit without using the words. I think back to the first time I kissed her on the dock, and her lips met mine tentatively. As if she was protecting her foul and destructive soul from me, but she’s neither of those words. She’s come alive with me, and I believe that I’m on the verge of breaking her if I haven’t already. The affection she shows me is no longer linked to sex or a need for an orgasm. It’s a simple need to be with me, and the feeling is mutual.

“Don’t you dare do anything so stupid again, do you hear me, Whiskey?” she states suddenly as she pulls away in the middle of our embrace.

“Are you scolding me, Miss Rye?”

“Absolutely! You were reckless, and you put your life at risk. I could have lost you completely,” she sobs and buries her head in the crook of my neck.

“I know, but I survived, and you’re in my arms. I couldn’t ask for more.”

She sniffles loudly and tightens her arms around my neck. “When I was on the plane to Los Angeles, I thought that I had lost your heart. When I was on the plane back to Sydney, I thought that I had lost mine. I thought that you were dead. I couldn’t breathe with the thought of never seeing you again.”

The static sizzles in the negative space between us as she weeps in my arms. “Your heart is well and secure with me as mine is with you.”

She jerks her head back and stares at me. “You swear it?”

“I do. Do you not understand what I feel for you, Hadley?”

She shrugs and wipes a tear off of her cheek.

“I’m in love with you. I crave you in every form possible. Whether innocent or dirty, you’re the rye to my whiskey, Hads. Everything about you to me is fucking addictive.”

She places her hands on either side of my face, and the confined space that we are in ceases to exist. “Tell me again?”

“I confess that I am in love with you, Hadley Rye.”

Her tears fall freely again. “There isn’t a single person in this world that I want more than I do you, Wade.”

As she sits on my lap, I watch the final chink in her armor give way with my words. “There’s no running now, Hadley. I won’t allow it.”

She nods as the elevator jerks. Someone must be controlling it remotely.

“Holy shit,” she squeals and jumps off of my lap as we start to ascend again.

I watch her as she calms herself down while holding a hand over her heart. The elevator door opens to a rather confused Madelyn.

“We got stuck,” I tell her as Hadley unlocks the brakes and wheels me out and down the hallway to the suite doors. Madelyn uses her key card that Jacobs provided her to open the double doors for us.

“Colin told me that there was an extra room in the suite. Would you mind directing me to it so I can set up my supplies?”

“Down the hall, it’s the door on your right.”

“Thank you, Mr. Brass. Once you’re ready, I’ll set up your seat in the shower stall, and we’ll get you cleaned up before bed.”

“Very well.”

First of all, this Madelyn bitch better stop giving Wade
fuck-me
eyes before I murder her. Second of all, Wade just told me that he’s in love with me. Hearing those words, especially from a man who I haven’t slept with, was . . . freeing. I’ve had multiple men tell me that they are in love with me after they’ve had their dirty way with me, but this is entirely different. I don’t have a single thing to compare it to.

As much as I don’t believe in the notion of love, I can see it in the way he looks at me, and now, I can feel it. He says my name differently since the accident, and I know that I’m safe with him because I trust this man. I don’t know how he dug his way into my heart, but he’s taken it as his own just as I have captured his.

It terrifies me knowing that I would do anything for him. The fact that I would lay my bare heart in his hands is beyond frightening, but he knows that. He understands my soul without my having to confess my fears. It’s taken me years to face my demons that live deep inside of me, but I believe that I can with his help.

“Hadley?” his voice breaks me from my thoughts as I go through the clothing hung up in his closet for an outfit for each of us to wear. I walk toward his and Madelyn’s voices and find them in the bathroom. She has his shower seat set up, and he’s refusing to move.

“I do not need, nor do I want your assistance in this.”

“Mr. Brass, I’m only trying to do my job.”

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Thank fuck,” he says through his gritted teeth. “I need you to be the one to do this, Hads. I cannot—”

“Okay,” I tell him before he works himself up over a shower. “Madelyn, I’ll take it from here, but stay in the room in case that I need you, please.”

“Of course,” she says as she walks out of the bathroom and into the bedroom Wade and I shared before I left.

“You’re lucky that I happen to love your stubborn ass,” I say as I go to pull his shirt up and off of him, but he doesn’t move.

“What?” I ask as I take in his bewildered expression once I’ve gotten his shirt off.

“Say it again, Hadley.”

“Say what? That you’re stubborn?”

He shakes his head and chuckles. “No, gorgeous. Do you even realize that you just said that you love me?”

My hands still on his chest as I gaze into his eyes. “I did?”

He nods and pulls me closer to him until I fall onto his lap.

“Risk or regret. You chose risk whether it was an unconscious decision or not.”

“I’m scared to love you,” I say honestly. “But I’m also terrified that you’ll leave.”

“I have nowhere to go.” He gestures to the wheelchair that he’s currently seated in.

“I like my odds right about now.”

“I’m sure you do. And I hate to ask you to help me with this but I’d rather be ass-naked in front of the woman I’m with instead of another.”

“You did it for me when I was ill, Wade. I don’t mind.”

“This isn’t going to be a one-time thing, though, Hads.”

“Then you’re lucky to be stuck with me.”

I would much rather be the one to help him in the shower than have Madelyn accidentally choke on his cock. After a few minutes of struggling and trying to figure out how to get him undressed and seated in the shower, we finally manage to get it right.

He’s naked in front of me, and he’s hard. Absolutely solid. His cock is just as gorgeous as I remembered it to be.

“Can you tell that, uhm, that you’re hard?”

“I can. By some miracle, I didn’t damage the nerves in my lower back.”

I watch him as I strip out of my tent dress, bra and panties before turning the shower on. “I’m glad.”

The water hits my back and his front, warming us in the glass-encased stall.

“I want you, Hadley. Now that I can’t have you . . . it’s killing me.”

“I’ll hurt you if I do anything. You’ll need to get your doctor’s approval before we attempt anything.”

He leans forward and pulls me to him. I move between his legs and cup his face as he looks up at me. “I should have given you what you wanted while I was able to.”

“You are what I want, Wade. Screw the circumstances. If you did this any other way, you know for a fact that I would have left as soon as you slept with me.”

He drops his head in defeat. “Now I’m concerned that you’re going to run because I no longer have the ability to.”

“Just because you can’t, does not mean that I can’t. Between the two of us, we’ll figure it out as soon as Dr. Heath says it’s safe for you to do so.”

He rests his head against my bare breasts and breathes in deeply. “Thank you for coming back.”

“You wouldn’t have been able to keep me away.”

He’s unbelievably vulnerable when it’s just the two of us. He’s terrified. I know that he is. He’s petrified that he won’t be able to stand or walk again. That he won’t be able to surf or be in control of his world any longer.

“I need to tell you something,” he says against my breasts and rests his hands on either side of my hips.

I grab the body wash and loofah and start to rub down his back, “What is it?”

“My mother, Lillian, is flying into Sydney as we speak. Isla went to collect her at the airport. I want you to be the first woman that I introduce to her.”

My hand pauses as I wash over the licks of his tattoo. “I’d love to meet her. Does she know that I’m here?”

“She knows all about you, gorgeous,” he says as he raises his hands to rest on my waist.

“You’ve spoken to her about me?”

“From time to time, yes, when I needed her advice. She was the one who pushed me to seek help for my addiction when I was younger, and I wanted to know what she did for me that helped break its hold on me. I wanted to know what I could do to break you of it.”

I move the loofah up over his shoulders and down his chest as he speaks.

“Oh.”

“You know, I’m more than capable of washing myself, Rye.”

“Oh,” I say again and hand him the loofah. “I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing to me. Your touch soothes me. Please, continue.”

He digs his strong, agile fingers into my skin, forcing me to remain in my place as I find it hard to breathe. I’m unquestioningly frightened for him. I manage to swallow the lump in my throat and continue to wash his pristine body, careful not to open any of the shallow cuts that mark his skin, or apply too much pressure to his bruises.