Wicked Flower (24 page)

She went downstairs and when she
crossed into the kitchen, she noticed movement from the back porch which she
hadn’t seen before. The porch light was off but aptly enough, moonlight shone
down on Stefan as he sat in one of the rockers.

Quietly, she opened the back
porch door and went outside to check on him. Her heart broke for the worry he’d
kept hidden today. If things hadn’t been so non-stop, she would have reminded
him again how she sometimes bruised Gina too because her skin was just at that
stage where that happened more easily now. But every little thing that could
happen had. Just like the other day when he’d been here with Gina on his own
and she and Will had gone to Daisy’s. Dani felt horrible for making him believe
Mrs. C would bounce back and be good as new. The frown he’d gotten when she
showed him the special place in the pantry where a months’ worth of protein
shakes was stocked made her cringe now. But liquid nutrition was better than
nothing.

Was it really a good idea for her
to be here, with her heart breaking for him so strongly? They still had their
agreement in place. It was sort of going unspoken, but while under Gina’s roof,
they were still holding to being nothing more than friends.
And
not the kinds with benefits.

So why was she deliberately
searching him out?
 

She couldn’t stop thinking about
him and how around his mom, Stefan was a beautiful and dutiful creature. Who
was she to limit him to pleasantries in his own home? But he’d done it, because
she’d asked. A thought nudged her. Stefan didn’t strike her as the type of man
to cower to anyone’s demands.

Dani could watch this moonlit
porch and the shadow of him resting peacefully in the rocker, without needing
for anything.
Poor baby.
Having to watch his mom
unable to eat and not having the experience of knowing it was just a passing
thing that really would get better. Dani’s fingers ached to take his curls and
move them here and there, off his forehead so she could … plant a kiss there.
Sleeping Superman
.
Watching Stefan deal with it all today, his helpless looks marring that
handsome face, had left Dani heartbroken. Her energy spent, she could close her
eyes and fall asleep standing and be dead to the world for the next twenty-four
hours.

If he wasn’t
lying right there.

Should she wake him up though to
sleep inside? Not yet, he looked too peaceful and the night was a perfect
temperature. She sat down in the rocker beside him, wanting some of that peace
too.

“Mom?” she heard him say. He sat
up so fast. Her hand flew to steady him before he fell out of it and her heart
trampled over itself when she saw his brow crinkled in a tight squint.

“Um, no.
Sorry, it’s me.
I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
All the times she’d seen him
in those white shirts he favored so much, and the way they fit him so well,
leaving little to the imagination.
She was overwhelmed now at the sight
of his bare chest combined with the exhaustion that had him fumbling with the
chair pillow with those tattooed hands.

“Is my mom okay?” he asked,
obviously disoriented.

“Hey, looks like you fell asleep
out here. And yes, I just checked and she’s asleep.” His face relaxed. “Sorry I
woke you. I’ll go back inside now.”

 
“No,” he grumbled out.

She swallowed.

“I should go,” she said. A bird
called from one of the surrounding forest trees.

She watched him hold one of the
quilts from the couch and wished she could cuddle up with him right now.

He seemed to have gotten his
whereabouts straightened back out and his hand came out from under the small pillow
folded behind his head. He rubbed his chest like he’d forgotten she hadn’t seen
him like this before. Or maybe he just hadn’t expected her to have a reaction
under their platonic clause. Neither she nor Stefan would ever win an award for
diplomacy. They both sucked at sticking to agreements.

But all her eyes were capable of
in that moment was following his hand and the colorful ink that coated his arms
and shoulders. He rubbed his bare chest back and forth, split down the middle
with two firm and equal sides of broad muscle. There was golden tanned skin.
And there was the coating of black hairs over each side of his perfectly
chiseled, tattoo free chest. Her gaze dipped to where the ink picked back up at
his side, over his ribs. Something wicked looking wound down into his lounge
pants. Why did he keep rubbing at his chest like that?
So
oblivious that her body and soul were turning to mush and fire all at once with
each of his strokes.

“I shouldn’t have come out. I’m
sorry. I’ll let you sleep. It’s a nice night out for that.”
 

A moment later, catching her just
as she’d have been out of his sight, he responded with a softer voice, still
deep, like dark honey dripping from barbed wire.

“Don’t.”

She hovered there, feeling the
sting of what he didn’t say.
Stay with
me, Dani. I need you tonight.
Maybe it was only what she wanted to hear.
He’d done a stellar job of keeping things neighborly. That was his super power.
Inhuman amounts of self-control.

“Don’t leave?” she asked for
clarification. He could have easily meant don’t come out here again.

“Turn around. Look at me.”

His voice gave her no choice but
to obey.

But what she saw broke her heart
all over again. His hands weren’t rubbing through his chest hair anymore, they
were at his temples, trailing down his nose and wiping under his eyes. And then
they were folded, just like his arms, over his smooth abs. His rugged beauty
slapped her senses awake. Dani stopped herself from crawling up his body and
cradling his head in her arms. It would have been tricky in the rocker but she
had no doubts he could have held her steady.

He studied her, she felt like a
sneaky little lab rat, playing with her life and his.

“Don’t what, Stefan?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” His eyes
turned shiny and she nearly ran to his side because she knew what that meant.

He pulled his lips in together
and inhaled through his nose. She did the same and took in the scent of nature
cooled by the night.
Still sweet but more delicate.
He
shook his head like he was aggravated.

“I’m trying real hard to do what
I’m supposed to. For you, your baby, my mom. Fuck, it’s hard, sweetheart.
Harder than I thought.”

He rubbed at his eyes several
times and cleared his throat. She expected to see bruises under his eyes when
he finally pulled his hands away but he’d done a good job of avoiding those the
past few days somehow. Still, he looked dead tired.

If he wasn’t who he was, she’d
have rolled onto that chair alongside him without a second thought. Something God-given
about Stefan was exactly that inviting. Unfortunately, there was nothing either
of them could do about the obstacle of whose roof they were under.
Or the fact that she carried a child, by another man.
Strangely enough, that hadn’t seemed to bother Stefan until the night at
Mario’s.

If he’d talk to her about it, she
could clear things up.

Dani pulled her rocker closer to
him and sat down, not wanting to upset him but desperate to make things better
for him.

“I can’t sleep inside. I’m going
crazy in there.”

“I understand. Lucky it’s such a
nice night.” They could talk. She could tell him about her plan to wait for
Thom’s return and then the best way to transition Gina to Nashville. “
Wanna
talk?”

“I suck at talking and I feel
like shit. Believe it or not, I don’t want to be an asshole to you.”

At that, she sat stiffly with her
back against the chair and her arms tucked to her sides. She crossed her legs
at the ankles. With their chairs lined up side by side, her feet stopped right
around where his knees started. “You’re great at talking.
Maybe
not about anything serious.
You and Will both.
Great at getting laughs.”

“You like Will a lot, don’t you.”

“Who doesn’t like Will?” she
said.

He nodded, still looking tired
beyond his years, which she’d figured to be thirty-eight, give or take a few
months,
she supposed he could be thirty-nine already. Apparently
Dani was too tired to sleep as her brain seemed stuck on autopilot with Stefan
its only passenger. She wished he didn’t seem so distant.

“
Wanna
know a secret about your buddy?” she asked, hoping to entice him away from his
worry over Gina.

“If you’ve got one of those on
Will, I’ve really pushed the two of you together way more than I should have.” He
rubbed his arms. “Oh shit, here, have the blanket,” he said and started to
strip it from his body to hand her.

“No please you keep it. I’m hot
from running around inside.” No she wasn’t but she’d catch fire if he took that
blanket off himself right now.

She watched Stefan’s brow crinkle
like his head was hurting. Studying his features was doing nothing good for her
pulse.

“I think Will and my sister had a
real moment the other day at her apartment,” she shared. “You saw them, right?’

Stefan’s one eyebrow hiked up.
“You didn’t see anything. Will doesn’t have
moments
with women. Not anymore.”

Aside from the need to point out
he’d just called her a liar, Dani didn’t want to agitate him anymore. She knew
something Stefan didn’t but would keep it to
herself
.
She thought Will may have picked up one of those fancy Keurig coffee makers, in
red, at another of their
Taggert’s
trips. Her guess
was the next time she visited
Daisy,
it’d be on the
counter. Stefan would apparently never believe that though. Why
was it
so hard for him to believe Will might like Daisy
back? It saddened her that the reason could be he didn’t believe in love.
Lust and pleasure?
Relocating his mom’s entire household?
Yes. But those weren’t necessarily permanent things.

“All I’m saying is Will’s a great
catch. And now I’m going inside.”

Stefan let out a loud breath and
fanned the blanket away from his body like he was hot and uncomfortable.

Her traitorous eyes followed his
movement.

The hairs that blanketed his
chest so expertly disappeared, giving way to a smooth and outlined set of abs,
although not so ripped she could count them. The dark hairs picked back up just
below his belly button. There was no trail but a soft dark patch, shadowing the
space above his lounge pants. Black and soft looking, the pants and his body’s
fur captivated her. She remembered his offer to hold her the night of her contraction
scare and wished he’d invite her again. Dani’s throat burned and she had to
make herself look down at her socks to keep from staring and imagining and
aching.

“I wish I could tell you why I
know that about Will, sweetheart.”

So easily he slipped into his
super hero suit.

“Bro code?” she got out.

A sleepy grin broke through his
pain at that. “Yeah, something
like
that.”

“You love him.” Dani could see it
every time the two overgrown boys were together.

“I do, like a brother. I’d be
nothing without Will Cordero.”

Dani sensed there was so much
more behind what he’d shared. She longed to ask him. “What makes the two of you
so close, if you don’t mind me asking?” She scooted back into the comfort of
the second rocker chair since he’d been the one to keep their conversation
going.

In the cutest way she’d ever
seen, his eyelids slid closed and his head began bobbing.
God,
to be that confident.
If their roles were reversed, she didn’t know if
she could be as trusting, letting him watch her in a moment like this. His brow
furrowed but not in a frown. He’d found some inner groove and looked like he
might have forgotten she’d asked him a question.

But then he opened his eyes and
found her again. “Know much about the inner workings of a band?”

Did she?
“Not a
clue, sadly.”

He warmed. “Well, if you’ve ever
found yourself listening to a song and you just settle into that deep,
comfortable head bobbing groove, that’s because the bass player and the drummer
are feeling each other. We call it the pocket. Without Will, it’d be impossible
for me to be able to play bass and sing. And that’s just musically. Let me tell
you, that guy right there, he’s the most forgiving mother fucker I know.”

Stefan sat up straighter, pulling
his legs to his chest and wrapping his arms around his knees. She couldn’t help
but smile.

“What’s that pretty smile for?
Hmm?” he asked.

Dani’s face immediately flushed.

“It’s a bit late for blushing,”
he said with a hint of his usual teasing. She doubted he wanted to tease her
but he probably couldn’t turn it off completely. That one phrase he’d shocked
her with in the stall would never leave her and she knew that’s what he hinted
at. She’d be eighty years old and using a walker and still hear the perfect,
deep vibrating timber of his voice whispering what he wanted to do to her.