Longest Night by Kara Braden

Author:Kara Braden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks, Inc.
Published: 2014-05-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

October 28

Standing in the bathroom, Cecily splashed water over her face and tried to push away the surreal feeling that had crept over her. Her nightmares were nothing new. Fragments of imagery clung to her day and night, and she never went twenty-four hours without waking in a cold sweat at least once. When Ian had stubbornly insisted on sharing the bed for sleep, she had expected this. Feared it. And now that it had happened…

Nothing.

Ian had safely pulled Cecily out of the nightmare. She didn’t miss the fact that he had awakened her from the other side of the room, intentionally visible and recognizable in the light of his cell phone. And then he’d treated the whole incident as nothing remarkable. No awkward questions, no demands that she share her fears, no crushing insistence on cuddling or any physical contact at all, in fact. He hadn’t even commented on her reaction to his travel invitation, though he had to know it wasn’t normal for a grown woman to avoid other people the way Cecily did.

This could work, whispered the little voice in the back of her mind, the voice that had been silent for seven years.

Hope felt alien to her, but in a good way. She didn’t try to hide from it. Instead, she allowed herself to acknowledge that Ian might be just as strange as Cecily was, in his own way. And he might be just what she…if not needed, then at least wanted.

She went back into the bedroom and found Ian under both blankets, pillows stacked under his head. His bared arms were visible, hands tucked behind his neck, his posture lazy and casual. His pajamas were draped over the side of the bed. Deliberately, he’d placed a zigzag fan of condoms on the corner of the mattress, where Cecily wouldn’t miss them.

“Not bored already, are you?” she asked as she pulled off her heavy sweatshirt.

Ian’s eyes dropped to watch Cecily’s fingers, and his lips curled up in a sly, satisfied smile. The subdued firelight brought out gold highlights in his hair, now that it had dried from the melting snow. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and his blue-gray eyes seemed darker. “Not anymore.”

Cecily’s heart started to pound at the look of obvious desire on Ian’s face. She had to turn away. She hadn’t been self-conscious about getting undressed in front of someone for years. High school locker rooms, university, the Marines… Any hint of body-shyness had been long since cured, except for the scars she’d gotten seven years ago.

She tossed the sweatshirt aside. Cold air slithered over her bare arms, and she told herself she was keeping the T-shirt on for warmth, not to hide. Sometimes, she could almost believe her own bullshit, though tonight wasn’t one of those times.

“I take it you have some ideas, then?” she asked to hide her own embarrassment.

“A list of them,” Ian confirmed.

Cecily grinned as another layer of tension melted away. He rid herself of her jeans as quickly as she could, stripped off her socks, and got under the blankets.

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