“Just after five.”
She blinked, stunned. “You let me sleep all afternoon?”
Asher’s smile was hesitant. “You needed the rest.”
She had needed it, if only to escape the grief that was still clawing at her over losing Michael. But sleep was only temporary relief. Sooner or later, she had to wake up.
Just like sooner or later, she would have to deal with all of the arrangements and adjustments that would now need to be considered not only for her friend but for the kids who’d just lost their only port in a storm.
And then there was Asher and her.
Eventually, they would have to decide what things might look like for them moving forward from today too. Whether that meant together or on their own, she wasn’t ready to contemplate.
His brow was knit as he looked at her from where he stood, just inside the room. “I thought you might be hungry, so I made you something to eat.”
She didn’t know if she was hungry or not, but the fact that he had thought to take care of her warmed her when all she’d felt before was aching cold. “Thank you.”
She couldn’t look at him now the same way she had before. Cain’s revelation, and Asher’s own confession afterward, had cast him in a different light. As a man Asher was now less of a mystery than when she first met him, but even more complicated than she ever could have imagined.
Her feelings for him were complicated too.
Her love hadn’t dimmed, not even after Cain had given her more than enough reason to doubt Asher. To despise him, even. But she couldn’t stop loving him, not even before she knew the full truth from Asher himself.
Asher, she thought, her heart aching for everything he had endured.
As for his name, the epithet he’d kept all this time, she understood now that it wasn’t a badge of pride as Cain had assumed. Asher had kept his derogatory name for the same reason he kept the memories of all the Hunters he’d been forced to execute—as yet another reminder of his remorse, his penance.
Cain had totally misunderstood Asher.
So had Naomi, until today.
She glanced at the pile of splintered wood that lay on the floor of the bedroom. “What happened to your beautiful headboard?”
He shrugged, his mouth pressed in a flat line. “After you found Michael . . . feeling your pain and fear through your blood . . . knowing I was miles away and couldn’t do anything to help you if you needed me?” He abruptly stopped speaking and let out a low curse. “It tore me up, not being able to be there with you.”
“Oh, Asher.”
The hand-carved piece she’d seen him labor over for days and which had obviously been a project that he’d been perfecting for far longer than she knew was completely destroyed. The center of it looked as if it had been smashed with a sledgehammer.
Or a Breed male’s driving fist.
“It’s just a slab of wood,” he said. “Maybe I’ll make another one someday.”
Naomi got off the bed and walked up to him, laying her palm against his cheek. It astonished her, how much this man meant to her after only a few short days and nights together. How deeply would she tumble if they had forever?
She went up on her toes and pressed a kiss to his lips. She intended it to be only a small kiss, but she didn’t realize how much she’d been missing his contact until his strong arms wrapped around her, holding her close to him.
They kissed for a long moment, tenderly, apologetically. When Asher finally released her, his irises were glittering with flecks of amber light. He wanted her, but he was holding that need in check, if only barely. Naomi felt it too, the yearning to lose herself in something good after all of the bad they’d been through today.
But she couldn’t indulge in her own needs or desires.
Not when there were still things to be done back in the city.
“Come on,” he said, taking her hand. “Once you get something in your stomach it’ll be dark outside. We can head in to Vegas and start looking for Tyler and Penny and the rest of the kids.”
“Thank you.” She twined her fingers through his as they walked, grateful beyond words for the fact that he understood without her even saying so. “What did you make me to eat? It smells delicious.”
She stared in surprise—and amusement—when she saw the feast he’d prepared. Waiting for her on the table was a large bowl of canned chicken soup, cooked chicken breast on a plate of salad, a bowl of cereal and a cup of fresh fruit, plus the entire loaf of French bread they’d brought home from the grocery store the other night.
