The Stillness Of You

Smashwords
Edition

Copyright ©
2013 Julie Bale

All rights
reserved.

ISBN-13:
9780988138544

Cover art and
design by Patricia Schmitt/Pickyme

Copy editing by
Rachel D’Amario

This book is a
work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments,
organizations, or locations are intended only to provide a sense of
authenticity, and are used fictitiously. All other characters, and
all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination
and are not to be construed as real

No part of this
book may be reproduced, scanned or distributed in any printed or
electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in
encouraging piracy of copyrighted materials in violation with the
author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

For permission
to use any part of the material in this book, contact me here:

[email protected]

No one expects
to meet the person who will change your life on a Wednesday. Maybe
a Friday or a Saturday, but not the one that’s halfway between work
and freedom.

No one expects
it, but it does happen. It happened to me and he didn’t just change
my life, he saved it.

Georgia

Ben Lancaster
walked into my life with no warning, just after three o’clock on a
sunny afternoon. He’s lucky it happened in Old City, Philadelphia
and not somewhere in Texas, because in Texas people have been shot
for a lot less.

In Texas
you don’t just walk into someone’s house unannounced expecting a
smile or a handshake. I know this because one of the guys at Oak
Run, a hospital I’d stayed at, told me his uncle was in a federal
penitentiary for doing just that. Some homeless man wandered into
his house and the uncle blew him away with a shotgun.

But on that particular afternoon I was standing in
the corner of my brother’s loft, there where the lighting was
perfect, staring at a blank canvas in front of me. To say I was
having issues was an understatement, and the fact that I had been
staring at the damn thing for nearly twenty minutes could have
accounted for my late reflexes, because I didn’t hear him walk in.
I didn’t hear anything until he spoke.

“Hey, sorry to
bother you but is Matt here? I was supposed to hook up with
him.”

His voice
was low, hitting a timber that no guy had a right to hit.
Especially when he’s standing in the middle of my brother’s loft
and I’m looking back at him wearing nothing but my white boy briefs
and a threadbare white tank top with no bra. The fact that he could
probably see my nipples through the tank top didn’t bother me so
much. It was more the idea that he had been staring at my ass
before I turned around and let’s face it, half of my butt was
hanging out.

Sue me, but
hey, I wasn’t expecting company.

I think
most normal girls would have screamed, but since I’d spent six
months in the aforementioned Oak Run, I was used to strangers and
besides, when you’ve stared into the belly of a monster not much
scares you. But still, his surprised dark eyes settled on me and
even more surprising, a curling heat pressed low in my
belly.

He wasn’t
like any of the inmates at Oak Run. Hell the fuck no. He was
leagues above them.

I grabbed my
robe from the floor where I’d flung it nearly half an hour earlier
and shrugged into it, trying my best to act like it was no big deal
to be caught in my gitch by some hot, random guy.

“
Who the
hell are you?” The words shot out of my mouth as I stared across
the open space. “Haven’t you heard you of a doorbell?”

Oh.
Right. The doorbell wasn’t working.

“I’m sorry, the
doorbell wasn’t…”

“I know,” I
interrupted rudely.

His voice
trailed off and silence fell between us as a smile gently lifted
his mouth. “Matt told me to swing by and I just figured he would be
here alone.” He shrugged and winked. “Though I did knock.”

“
You
knocked.” Unbelievable. What the hell. Had I doubled up on my meds
this morning? Taken klonopin instead of lithium? My eyebrow shot
up. “And how did you make it past the doorman?”

His smile
widened and dimples appeared. Adorable dimples. Hot effing dimples.
“Autograph?”

Who the
hell was he? I sure as hell didn’t need a name to answer that
question.

He was at
least six foot four, with wide shoulders and an impressive chest
that his black T-shirt did nothing to hide.
Foo
Fighters
spread across his
pectorals in white, and a wide, weathered leather belt didn’t do
much to hold up the pair of worn and equally weathered jeans that
covered his long legs. It was hot as sin out there but he wore
boots, Docs by the look of it.

He had
thick dark hair the color of fresh espresso that was long, just
touching the tops of his shoulders. It waved across his forehead
and over slid over his ears. It was kind of messy, but it was the
kind of messy look that a lot of guys spent a good amount of time
trying to achieve. I somehow doubted this one wasted money on
products or time in front of the mirror. He was too self-assured.
It fell off him in invisible waves.

His eyes were
as dark as his brows, his chin and cheekbones strong and shadowed
with stubble. His mouth had a sensual curve to it, one that should
have looked out of place on such a masculine guy, but somehow it
didn’t.

I was guessing
he was a few years older than my twenty, so I pegged him at maybe
twenty-four?

So, who
was he? He could have been a model or an actor. He was that good
looking.

But he
wasn’t. He was a guy who was seriously hot—and a hockey player for
sure—probably one of my brother Matt’s newest acquisitions. And
though there was something about him that was familiar, at the
moment I couldn’t place it.

“
Let me
guess,” I said carefully, studying him some more. The guy was
muscular, but it was more of a lean and fast kind of strong. He
wasn’t built like an enforcer. He was built for speed and scoring.
“You’re a forward. I’m calling center.”

“
You’re
good,” he answered, that hint of a smile still lingering. Along
with the dimples.

He was a
seriously hot hockey player staring at the dip in my loosely belted
robe, because his eyes definitely weren’t fixed on mine
anymore.

I cleared my
throat.

“
Sorry,
I…” He ran his hands through his hair and dragged his gaze up to my
face, his ever growing smile showing off even white teeth.
“This
is
Matt’s
place, right?” He didn’t look sorry at all.

I nodded.
“He’s at work.”

“Shit,” he
murmured. “I’m sure he told me he was on vacation this week and to
swing by as soon as I got into town.”

“Technically he
is on vacation, but he was called into the office because someone
fucked up.”

His words, not
mine.

Mr.
Seriously Hot didn’t bat an eye at my F bomb. “Do you mind if I
wait?”

Irritated, I frowned. I needed to sketch. He didn’t
understand that of course, but already the nerves inside me, the
ones that hopped and jumped whenever they felt like it, were
pulling something fierce. He was going to make things worse if he
stayed.

“
Who are
you exactly?” I asked again, crossing my arms over my chest,
suddenly feeling more than a little vulnerable. I was in my
underwear and a robe, and even though any one of my bikini’s showed
a hell of a lot more that what I was currently wearing, it was
still my
underwear.

Matt
would be pissed if he walked in right now.
It was almost like déjà vu, except I
didn’t want to go back to where I’d been before. To the girl who
was way too free and easy with her charms. The one who’d made a
habit out of screwing several of his hockey players, more musicians
than I could count, golfers, college guys—I wasn’t really fussy,
and that had been my biggest problem of all.

No, I
didn’t want to think about that. Not today. Not with Mr. Seriously
Hot staring at me in my bathrobe.

“
Sorry,”
he said quickly and moved toward me though he stopped when I took a
step back. “I’m Ben Lancaster.”

Ben
Lancaster? Holy hell. The newest superstar to come out of Canada. I
vaguely remember Matt saying something about a trade and that the
Flyers had acquired him. I would have to have been living under a
rock not to have heard the chatter about this guy, and let’s face
it, I was as into hockey as my brother. I loved everything about
the game and I knew his story. He’d been the youngest draft pick
ever and though he could have been the youngest player to wear an
NHL jersey, he’d shocked pretty much everyone by deciding to go to
college first and get his education, before diving into the
NHL.

He had some
serious skills and a lot of people, including my brother who was an
assistant coach for the Flyers, felt he was the real deal – the
future of their franchise.

“And you’re
here because…”

“I’ve just
signed with the Flyers and Matt offered to put me up until I can
figure things out.” He shrugged. “Find a place of my own.”

“
Oh,” I
managed to say. I wondered why Matt hadn’t told me Ben Lancaster
would be staying with us, but then again he’d been pretty stressed
lately. My situation was part of it, his nearly non-existent
girlfriend was another part, and well, being the youngest coach on
staff was stressful too.

“You’re staying
here,” I repeated like an idiot.

Mr. Seriously
Hot nodded but remained silent, though his dark eyes did a sweep
again, falling away from my face and heading south.

“Okay,
then.”

My voice
brought him back to me and for one perfect moment when our eyes
met, I felt his energy. It slid across the room and enveloped me
whole. It set off all kinds of things inside me and for the first
time in a long time, something stirred. Something hot. Something
wicked and sensual.

It was
that something hot and wicked that scared me because guys like Ben
Lancaster were off limits for me. First off, my brother would kill
me if I ever got mixed up with one of his players again, and after
everything I’d been through in the last six months, Matt was my
anchor. I couldn’t screw up. Not again.

And
secondly? It would be tragic for me to ruin someone like Ben
Lancaster, and that’s pretty much what I did. I ruined things. I
ruined people.

I was my
mother’s daughter through and through.

I was the
girl no one should bring home to their parents. The hot mess every
guy’s mom warned them about, and even though I was technically in
treatment and on the mend, I knew the fire was still there. The hot
fire currently buried beneath layers of medication. Sometimes when
the noise got to be too much, I felt it pulling at me desperately,
not content to rest.

And it
was so hard to push it back down. To bury it beneath the scars
under my skin because sometimes it was the only thing that made me
feel alive.

But I
did. I did it for my brother, Matt. I did it for my therapist,
Seamus. And I suppose on some level I even did it for
myself.