NFH 02 Perfection (38 page)

He didn't give her a chance to speak
and that was probably for the best since he'd left her
speechless.

"I love you, Zoe, and I want to spend
the rest of my life with you and I swear if you tell me some
bullshit like it's only because of the baby I will pull this truck
over and give you the spanking you have coming," he said, making
her eyes tear up, not because she actually thought he'd hurt her,
he wouldn't, but because he made her feel loved.

No one ever took care of her before
the way he did, or looked after her or just made her smile. The few
times she'd had a boyfriend none of them ever defended her the way
he did. Most of them simply ignored it or dumped her.

As difficult as it had been the first
time she trusted Trevor, she realized she was going to have to do
it again and risk her heart, because she knew there would never be
another man that made her feel the way he did or loved her as much
as she hoped he loved her.

"At this point I don't know what the
hell to say or do to show you how much you mean to me. I tell you I
love you and you play it off. I tell you I want to buy you a house
where we can raise our family and you ignore it. I know tonight was
not the best first date, but you know what?" he asked, pulling onto
their street. "I don't care if no one knew we were together for the
last couple of months and I could care even less if they have a
problem with it."

He pulled into their driveway and
threw the truck in park and killed the engine, but he didn't make a
move to leave. "I don't care what I have to do, Zoe. I'm not
letting you go. I've fucked up big time and I'm sorry, but there's
nothing I can do to change the past. I won't sit here and lie to
you and tell you that I'll never screw up again because we both
know that I will, but I will never hurt you on purpose, Zoe. You
have to know that."

Trevor sighed heavily as he rubbed his
hands down his face. "I'm not going to push you tonight, Zoe, but
you need to understand that I'm not letting you go. Not now, not
ever. I'll let you return to your apartment if that's really what
you want, but you should know that if you move out I'll just buy
the building or the one next to it and if you quit your job and go
somewhere else I'll just follow you there, too," he said calmly,
which was a little freaky, she had to admit.

"Oh my god, are you talking about
stalking me?" she asked, trying not to smile. It was really sweet
in a Bradford kind of way.

"Yes, but if it comes before a judge
we'll just call it a little misunderstanding," he said with a
shrug.

"And you really think the judge will
buy that?" she asked, reaching for her door because she was
exhausted and even though she was trusting him not to break her
heart, she still needed a little more time to adjust to this and
figure a few things out.

"Probably, they bought it the last few
times so I have no doubt they'll buy it this time."

She was about to ask what he was
talking about, but then decided it that it was probably for the
best that she didn't know.

Chapter
32

"What the hell is wrong with me?"
Trevor asked no one in particular in the dark living room, but Toby
felt the need to answer him by licking his toes, again.

With a small sigh he pulled his foot
back only to have Max take that as his cue to renew his earlier
attack. He winced as he gently pulled his foot away from the
playful pup and sat up, dropping his head back and wondering why
he'd let Zoe push him away again.

Well, at least she wasn't sleeping in
her own apartment tonight. That was progress, he thought as the two
pups worked as one to pull his blanket away from him. To make them
happy he made a half-hearted attempt to pull the blanket back, but
after a minute he let them win. Of course if he hadn't snuck into
her apartment four hours ago and shut off her heat she'd probably
still be there "thinking".

For a solid week he'd forced himself to
give her space so that she could "think." Although he was allowed
to check up on her, bring her food, help take care of the dogs and
take her to the doctor's to get her stitches out they hadn't talked
much. Their conversations were short and sweet and did nothing to
ease the nagging feeling in his gut that she was going to leave
him.

If his uncle hadn't suspended his ass
for a week from work for the incident at the bar he would have
asked for the time off to help take care of Zoe. His uncle gave her
a paid week's vacation so that she could catch up on some rest.
Granted, he could have really done without the lecture, well, more
like yelling when his uncle dropped by to tell him he was
suspended.

Of course his uncle hadn't known the
reason behind the fight and he hadn't told him because he didn't
want to embarrass Zoe again. He allowed his uncle to rant about not
acting like an idiot, especially when he had a baby on the way and
that he was lucky that there were plenty of witnesses willing to
state that they saw Hank put his hands on him first. After his
uncle ripped him a new one, Jared went next door and from what he
could hear, fussed over Zoe for the next hour.

His uncle was kind enough to stop by to
see him on his way out to tell him that he'd kick his ass the next
time he got into a bar fight. Then again his uncle had stopped by
the next day with a six pack and a grunted apology for threatening
to kick his ass. As it turns out his uncle overheard the real
reason behind the fight when he walked to the coffee truck and
heard Hank retell the tale with a few added choice words about Zoe.
If his uncle hadn't fired the man on the spot, he was pretty sure
he would have landed his ass in jail that night after he hunted the
bastard down and beat his ass into a coma.

As much as he'd love to go pay that
asshole another visit he had bigger issues to deal with, like the
stubborn woman currently sleeping in his bed. If he couldn't fix
this and get her to talk to him soon he was afraid that he would
lose her for good and he wouldn't be able to handle
that.

Which is of course is why he decided to
take matters into his own hands.

First he'd shut off her hot water,
hoping she'd come to him to fix it since she was a little bath
addict. Had she? Nope. There'd been no knock on his door or yelling
his name through the wall. So, he'd been forced to up his
game.

He kidnapped the dogs.

When she went down for her mid-morning
nap he snuck into her apartment, lured the dogs out with a pair of
his boxers and as soon as his boys latched on, he dragged the
growling pups as they did their damndest to rip his underwear
apart. For four hours he waited for her to come looking for the
boys and just when he was sure that he had her where he wanted her,
the damn dogs demanded a walk, wrecking all his plans. After their
ten minute walk through the slush he wasn't too surprised to find
Zoe waiting in the hallway for the boys. That failure caused him to
go a little further.

He kidnapped her.

Okay, so kidnapping might be an
exaggeration, but he'd made damn sure that she wasn't going
anywhere until she talked to him. Not only had he stolen the spark
plugs out of her car, but he also placed her car on cement blocks
and stolen her tires, just in case she had a set of spark plugs
lying around the house somewhere. When that plan obviously failed
he snuck into her apartment and shut her heat down.

Now that had definitely worked because
not even an hour later she came knocking on his door, wrapped up in
a blanket, shivering. Of course being the good landlord that he is
he went and had a look and wouldn't you know it? The heater was
broken. He came back and explained it to her as he generously
offered his own bedroom.

After a slight hesitation she accepted
his generous offer with a small smile and he patted himself on the
back for another fine job. That is until she shut the bedroom door
in his face and proceeded to take a long hot bath without him and
he'd been forced to sleep on the couch with the two
traitors.

"Why can't I catch a break?" he
grumbled.

"Trevor?" she said, sounding unsure.
"Are you awake?"

"Yeah, are you okay? Is it the baby?"
he asked, getting to his feet to make sure she was okay.

"No, everything's fine. I was wondering
if we could talk," she said hesitantly.

"Yeah, of course we can," he said,
sitting down and gesturing for her to join him and prepared himself
for a long night of arguing and pleading. He'd do anything to make
her see how important she was to him.

Anything.

So when she sat down, straddling his
lap he was admittedly a little surprised, pleased, but surprised.
He gently gripped her hips while she adjusted herself on his
lap.

"Is everything okay?" he asked
quietly.

Her shrug wasn't exactly
helpful.

Sighing, he leaned back and waited
patiently while she drew shapes over his bare chest and stomach.
After a few minutes she looked up as she chewed her bottom
lip.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"I can't cook," she blurted
out.

Fighting back a smile he said, "I, um,
sort of figured that out, baby. If it really upsets you I'm sure we
can find a cooking class that you can enroll in."

"I guess," she said, going back to
tracing shapes on his skin.

"Is something else bothering
you?"

"I also don't like sports," she
admitted with a tiny shrug.

"Then we won't sign you up for
football," he teased, earning a cute little glare.

"I'm also not pretty and
I--
ow
! What the
hell was that for?" she demanded and he was tempted to slap her ass
again.

"You're beautiful, Zoe, and you damn
well know it," he bit out.

"I'm plain, Trevor," she said
simply.

"No, you're mine and that's all that
matters," he said, leaning forward to steal a quick kiss. "And if
anyone says anything different I'll beat the shit out of
them."

She sighed heavily as she shifted on
his lap and he did his damndest to ignore it. It had been a week
since he touched her. Seven nights and days filled with ice cold
showers. It wasn't exactly his favorite pastime, but she needed
time and he was going to make sure he gave it to her.....as long as
they were beneath the same roof that is. The minute she tried to
leave all bets were off.

"Is something else bothering you?" he
asked, running possibilities through his head when she gave him
another shrug. A thought occurred to him, one that actually
frightened him a little and made him realize that he had something
to tell her, something she probably wasn't going to want to hear,
but had a right to know.

"Zoe, I have to tell you something," he
said, his hands tightening around her hips to stop her from running
away from him.

He planned to keep her right where she
was until she calmed down, even as he prepared himself for the same
look of disgust he saw on his father's face or the look of pity on
his mother's when they were told. No matter what he wouldn't allow
her to leave until he explained things to her. He didn't want her
to worry about their baby, but he also thought she should hear it
from him before one of his meddling relatives let it
slip.

"Trevor, what's wrong?" she asked,
reaching up to run her fingers through his hair, pushing it off his
forehead and reminding him that he needed another haircut. Then
again he might keep it the length it was just so she could run her
fingers through it. He loved the way she touched him even when she
was only offering comfort.

Taking a deep breath, he forced himself
to meet her eyes. "I have to tell you something because it might
affect the baby one day, but I don't want to freak you
out."

"Okay," she said slowly, eying him
warily, "but you do realize that there's no way I can't freak out
after you start off like that? Now you've got me thinking you have
some freaky disease or something."

"No, it's nothing that bad," he
promised. "It's just that......" He hated telling her this, hated
anyone knowing for that matter. "I'm dyslexic," he admitted softly,
forcing himself to hold her gaze.

When her brows arched up in surprise he
knew this was going to be bad. Maybe he should have just kept his
mouth shut and-

"And?" she asked.

"That's it," he said, frowning when her
expression didn't morph into disgust or pity.

She rolled her eyes. "I already knew
that," she said, scoffing as she went back to tracing shapes on his
chest.

"You knew? How the hell did you know?"
he demanded, wondering which bastard in his family had ratted his
ass out.

"It wasn't too hard to figure out,
Trevor," she murmured, looking totally enthralled with what she was
doing.

"What the hell does that mean?" He'd
been careful, very careful. He'd never read anything in front of
her, never wrote anything more than his name or a word or two in
her presence. There was no way she could have found out without one
of his interfering relatives clueing her in. "Who the hell told
you?"