Safe With Him (11 page)

Bree woke up dreaming of bacon. She inhaled deep, then her eyes popped open. She lay there for a beat, inhaled again. She wasn’t dreaming. She really could smell bacon. She sat up, stretched, felt a slight pull in her back, but nowhere near what she thought it would be. She got up, wondering why she could smell bacon so strong in her apartment, and then she remembered…Draco.

After he announced he was staying with her, “to keep her safe,” she got ready for bed, and to her absolute surprise she slept…great! Even knowing there was a
cop
in her apartment, she had slept better than she had in…ever?

She ran into the bathroom, did what she had to do, then went into the kitchen. When she hit the small bar that separated the living room and the kitchen, she looked across it and saw Draco. His back was to her, doing something at the sink, and then he turned to face her. “Hey, gorgeous. You sleep good?” He grinned one of those sexy grins of his.

“Uh, yeah fine. We need to, uh, talk about…” she started as she watched him move around her small kitchen doing… “What are you doing?” she asked instead.

He turned around to face her. “Fixin’ breakfast, or,” he glanced at the clock, “I guess it’d be lunch now.” He turned back to the stove.

“Why? How? I mean where? It smells like bacon, but I don’t have any bacon. Where did it come from?” she asked, confused.

He stepped over to the bar, leaned over the counter and before she could even think, he kissed her lips softly. He went to the refrigerator and pulled out a carton of eggs, holding them up. “How do you like your eggs?” he asked with a gleam in his eye.

“Uh…scrambled with cheese,” she answered hesitantly.

“I got Storm to pick up a few things that we needed,” he stated.

We needed?
She thought.
We? What the hell?

She plopped down at one of the two bar stools, watching him move around her kitchen cooking, like he had been right there, doing it for years. She let her mind, or rather her heart, take this in, picturing what it might be like if this was real and they were…a real couple. And the “we” that he so causally spoke of was real, and his sending Storm to pick up a few things they needed was nothing out of the ordinary. She sighed, liking the feel of her pretend “we” while watching this man, this incredible sexy man, move around in her kitchen.

She was so lost in her little daydream she didn’t even realize he had been talking until he was leaned over the bar again, just inches from her face. “Baby?” His voice finally registered. When her eyes focused on him, “Where’d you go?” he asked, smiling at her.

“I, uh…was just thinking.” She started then remembering what Storm had said about Draco not being boyfriend material and
all those women
. She also remembered what Draco had said last night about having sex with her, and the way he said it, like he knew it would happen. Because that was what he did. He had sex with women and then moved on. “I’m…uh…not like…well, I’m, uh…not.” She tried to explain but stumbled over her words while her brain was trying to process him being so close to her.

She took a breath, then stood and started pacing around her small living room. When she turned back to face him, he was still leaning over the bar, arms folded, watching her. “I’m not a fuck and fly kinda girl.” She spat out quickly.

She watched the grin on his face drop and his countenance get tight. He straightened his body and started to move toward her, never taking his eyes off of her. “Look, you seem to be a nice guy. It was really nice of you to stay here last night, although I think it was unnecessary. I appreciate it, but I’m not like that. I told you last night I don’t go around having sex with guys.” She was rushing the words out, and the whole time she talked he was steadily walking toward her so when she finally got it all out, he was standing right in front of her.

“What the fuck?” he growled low. She looked up, saw his jaw set tight, his eyes glaring at her.

She couldn’t stop herself from taking a step back. “I’m just saying.” She tried to move past him toward the kitchen. She had only taken a step or two when he reached out and grabbed her arm and spun her back around to face him. She couldn’t help but notice he had moved, so when he grabbed her arm it was the arm without the bruises, and even though he held her arm firm in his hand, he did not hurt her.
This is nice,
she thought.

“What the fuck are you sayin’?” he hissed.

“I don’t do that F and fly thing.” She jerked her arm away and again started to the kitchen.

He didn’t grab her again, but she knew he watched every move she made as she went to the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of Mountain Dew. She then turned to see him leaning on the opposite side of the bar, still watching her. Trying to appear nonchalant, she leaned back against the counter and took a sip.

“You want to explain that to me?” he asked calmly.
A little too calmly,
she thought.

“Just because I don’t have that kind of experience, doesn’t mean I’m stupid. You don’t have to participate in an activity to know what the details of said activities are,” she stated, also calmly, or at least she hoped she sounded as calm as he did.

He just stared at her, saying nothing for a beat or two that seemed much longer. “You wanna tell me what the fuck kinda activities you think I want to participate with you in?” he finally snapped out, not sounding calm anymore.

She took a breath, then let it out in a huff. “You pick a girl up, take her back to her place or a place that’s not yours, have sex with her and then leave, in other words,” she narrowed her eyes at him, “a Fuck and Fly!” she snapped back at him.

In a flash he rounded the bar and had her backed up into the corner in between the two counters, placing his hands on either side of her, boxing her in. He leaned down, his face so close to hers she could feel his breath on her lips. “Have I given you any indication that that’s what I want with you?” he growled.

“Uh, no, but…well, yes…” she said and watched his body actually jerk.

He took a step back, then two, then turned and walked to her door. He reached for it, then paused with his hand on the door knob. “Fuck.” She heard him hiss, then he spoke again, with his back to her. “I’ll be in the hall until Storm gets back.” He opened the door and walked out, pulling it shut behind him.

She stood there just staring at the closed door. “What the heck?”

Draco stepped to the side of her door, leaned against the wall, then slid down until his ass met the floor. He was pissed, but something more, a something he didn’t want to admit.

He never had to explain his actions to anyone. He never had to justify himself to anyone. Not in a good number of years, and he sure as fuck wasn’t gonna’ start now. Yeah, he would admit he pulled a ‘fuck and fly’ a time or two. Well, hell. Quite a few times if he was being honest, but he’d never wanted a relationship. Everyone who knew him knew that.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he groaned. Storm knew that, and he would bet anything her brother had said something to her about it. But didn’t she get it, she was different? He didn’t think of her like that. She was Bree. Didn’t she know he didn’t have women in his house, he didn’t cook for them and he sure as fuck didn’t let them move his shit around in his own damn house?
Didn’t she
? Hadn’t her brother told her that too? “Fuckin’ hell,” he groaned again as he stood up and walked back into Bree’s apartment.

She was sitting on the sofa, heels in the seat, arms wrapped around her drawn up knees. Her head turned to look at him, confusion written all over her face. “I’m sorry, if I hurt your feelings,” she whispered softly, and, fuck him, that was the something he didn’t want to admit.

He walked over to her, sat on the other side of her and for a minute just looked at her. She was the most gorgeous woman he had ever seen. “I don’t bring women to my house,” he told her simply.

“Yeah, I get it, that’s what makes the ‘fly’ part a lot easier,” she continued speaking quietly. He tried not to let it bother him that she didn’t ‘get it’…yet.

“No, baby. Except for Ellie, no other woman has been in my house,” he whispered softly, adopting her quiet pattern of speech, as he rubbed her cheek with the back of his fingers, looking her in the eyes, “until you.”

Bree’s breath caught. He couldn’t mean…?
No!
“It’s because I’m Storm’s sister. That’s what you said, that you were just helping out a friend’s sister.” She was still whispering, not wanting to hope for more and not wanting to admit even to herself what “more” would mean.

“I know what I told you. I also know that if that were true, if that was the all of it, you would’ve been gone after you walked out of my bathroom. I sure as hell wouldn’t have cooked for you,” he admitted softly.

“You cooked…for me?” She thought he had cooked for himself and only asked her not to be rude, because, yes, she would admit, he was a pretty decent guy.

“I like to cook, but, baby, I do not cook like that for just myself,” he confessed with a sheepish grin.

“Wh-why?” she asked, confused.

“Bree,” was his only reply.

She met his eyes and waited for him to finish, when he said no more, “Why?” she repeated about the same time she heard her door open and in the blink of an eye Draco had pulled out a gun—that she didn’t even know he had—and had it pointed at the door, while he was moving his body in and over hers. In that same amount of time she watched his face go from soft to…hard and blank, was the only way she could describe it.

“Damn, man.” She heard Draco huff out. She looked around him to see Storm had walked in. It dawned on Bree then, that when Draco sat down beside her he did it so he would also be facing the door, and when the door opened he had moved so his body would block hers from whoever came in. Was that him watching out for her, or was that just the cop in him? Or both?

She watched Draco walk to her door, then turn back to Storm. “The food’s ready. Make sure she eats. I’ll be back before you go.” And he was gone. Now she was more confused than ever with Draco.

She watched as Storm walked into her kitchen, grabbed some plates, filled them, walked to her, and held one out to her. When she took the plate, he sat in the chair by the sofa and started eating, never even saying as much as a hello to her.
Okay, add Storm to that ‘confusing male’ list
.

She studied her brother, noticing he didn’t look pissed, but he did look preoccupied;
extremely
preoccupied. She had seen the look on his face before, quite a few times over the years, but never to the point where he didn’t so much as speak to her. “What the heck?” She got no response, no reaction, no…nothing. Storm just sat there eating like she wasn’t even in the room. “Storm,” she called, and…nothing. “Storm!” she repeated loudly.

He blinked, then looked at her. “Oh, sorry, Ree. Got shit on my mind. Do you need somethin’?”

“You want to talk about it?”

“No. I’m good.”

“Okay, well, then let me ask you this. What’s going on with you and the cops? Since when did you start hanging out with, and referring to cops, as your friends?”

“I thought you and Draco had moved past all that.”

“I’m not asking about me. I’m asking about you. We’ve always avoided cops. Then one day they just walk into your place like they do it all the time.”

“I told you. We’re friends.”

“That’s my point, how long have you been friends with cops?”

“I don’t know. A while. Maybe longer.” He jumped up and went back into the kitchen. “You want somethin’ to drink?” He stood there, staring into her refrigerator.

“I already have something. What I
want
is for you to explain what’s going on with you.”

“Told you. Got shit on my mind.” He turned from the refrigerator empty handed, but didn’t make a move out of the kitchen.

“Like?”

Storm tilted his head back and growled to the ceiling, “Nothin’ you need to worry about.”

“Storm!”

“What?”

“Look at me, and tell me what’s going on with you all of a sudden being all buddy-buddy with those cops. Is it just those two or do you have more
friends?
”

His eyes shot to hers, ignoring her question entirely. “Are you workin’ tonight?”

“Yes, of course I’m working.”

“You’ll have an escort to and from,” he stated firmly.

“We are sooooo
not
going there again.”

“Ree, you
will
have an escort either with you or followin’ you. That choice is yours, but that’s your only choices. No fuckin’ compromise.”

“You know who that guy was, don’t you? You’ve known since I called and told you about him coming into my apartment. That’s why you wanted to take me to work.” Her voice got louder and louder until she finished on a shout. “You know!” When he said nothing and wouldn’t look at her, she lowered her voice. “Explain.”

Storm moved his hands threw his hair, to the back of his neck, before jerking them back to his side. “I don’t know him. I only know of him, and the man he works for.”