His Cocky Valet (Undue Arrogance Book 1) by Cole McCade

Author:Cole McCade [McCade, Cole]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-05-10T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINE

ASH WOKE BEFORE THE DAWN, when the sky was just beginning to lighten with wan color and the crickets had stopped their singing, but the birds hadn’t yet started their counterpoint harmony.

He couldn’t say what woke him. He was sore and tired and warm and safe, sheltered against a hard mass of muscle that made him feel so very small, tucked close against Brand’s sleeping form.

Ash didn’t remember passing out, last night. Only that there had been a quiet haze in the aftermath, dazed and gasping and aching, while Brand gently separated their bodies, carefully tended to the hurt and ache inside Ash, then cradled him close with lips pressed into his hair. Ash must have dozed off like that, curled up naked in Brand’s arms.

And Brand was still here.

He must have stripped some time after Ash had fallen asleep, leaving him shirtless and shoeless, naked save for the slacks Ash could feel brushing against his legs under the covers. His head rested against the pillow, his darkly ashen golden brown hair spilling across the pillow, his eyeglasses laid aside on the nightstand. Even in sleep there was something fierce and sharp about his features, brooding and dark.

Ash lingered, letting himself just look at him, taking in the way his lips parted on sleeping breaths, the way the moonlight pooled in the hollows beneath sharp cheekbones while shadows retreated to gather under the stubborn line of his jaw. Starting just at the base of his throat, above his collarbone, was the jagged line of what looked like an old scar, snaking diagonally down the hard-cut planes of his chest and vanishing beneath the duvet; Ash touched the scar lightly, tracing the subtly different texture, the slick waxiness of something old and long-healed. It had to be old, to be so smooth—and Ash wondered if it was from the car crash, so long ago when Brand had once been young.

He’d never seen Brand so still, before. So unguarded. Even when the man was quiet he was a bastion of tense activity ready to spring into motion at any moment. Ash liked this, he thought. Seeing Brand this way. Knowing him this way.

Even if it never should have happened.

He bit his lip, guilt washing through him. He was a selfish fuck, wasn’t he? Thinking about turning over a new leaf and then immediately turning around and doing something like this. He shouldn’t be here, tucked into Brand’s arms like this, abusing the man’s loyalty.

Taking advantage of the paycheck that bound Brand to him, if only for the sake of his livelihood.

Swearing under his breath, Ash closed his eyes, then gingerly shifted to extricate himself. Slowly, he eased himself out from under the heavy weight of Brand’s arm, slipping a pillow into his place so as not to disturb the man, and started to swing his legs out of bed.

“If you are going to practice stealth, young Master,” Brand murmured at his back, velvety with sleep, making him freeze with his stomach plummeting, “you need a good deal more practice.

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