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“Well…”
He could see Pixie’s brain cooking.
“Since we’ve decided to be friends,andyou’re determined to watch over me, don’t you think it would be better if you slept in the guest room?”
Doug could tell she was trying not to rattle him because she wouldn’t meet his gaze as she dealt.
How should he answer? Being in the same house with Pixie was certainly the more efficient way to protect her, but what if she…No.She’d promised there’d be nothing but friendship between them, so she wasn’t going to come jump his bones in the middle of the night. He had to start trusting her if they were to move forward as buds.
“Okay.”
Her eyes flipped to his. “Okay? Just like that?”
He sighed. “It might take me a while to trust somebody, Pixie, but we’ve been around each other a bunch now, and so far you haven’t abused that. I’m…taking a chance here, that you’ll stick to your room while I stay in mine.”
Pixie rolled her eyes. “Puh-lease, Doug. I’m a freaking girl scout when it comes to honor and all that stuff. I’d never betray you like that. Also, for your edification, I haven’t gone off script to doanythingthat spontaneous in sixteen years.” Her gaze narrowed as her head tipped, speculatively. “Except go out withyou. And I’m putting that down to a knee-jerk reaction to first the school shooter, second, the fact that you work for my sister, and third, because you’ve proven during our times together that you are a perfect gentleman.”
“So I’m harmless is what you’re saying,” he chuckled, laying his first card down on the grid while trying to take that as a compliment.
Pixie scoffed, taking her turn. “I don’t think anybody would ever say you’re harmless,” she countered. “You’re a cop and a highly trained SWAT member. But honorable?Yeah.That’s a word that sums you up, nicely.”
Doug didn’t immediately debate that, even though not many people had ever called him nice things. Still, if that’s how Pixie saw him, he’d try like hell to live up to her expectations.
As they filled in the grid on the table, Doug did a quick, self-assessment. He was surly, antisocial, and a difficult team player, but his honesty? That had never been called into question. Not once since leaving the den of iniquity where he’d spent four horrific years, had he played by any rules other than the straight and narrow. Nothing would change that, now.
“Okay, Pix. You win. I’m a good guy. I’ll stay in the guest room,” he conceded.
“Great. Now let’s count our points,” she responded impishly. “Because I’m pretty sure I beat the crap out of you again.”
Two hours later,Doug lay in bed, one arm thrown across his face. He wished he could sleep, but it had been a long time since he’d been able to relax in any place other than his own home or at his uncle’s, and he was having a hard time letting go. Pixie was only one thin wall away from him, and if he breathed deeply,he imagined he could smell her elementary school scent. It was both comforting and…not.
Doug squirmed on the too-comfortable mattress, and for the first time in his adult life, he wondered what it would be like to go to sleep surrounded by someone’s fragrance.No.That wasn’t exactly true. He wondered what it would be like to be surrounded byPixie’sscent.
And just to pull the tail of that fucked-up tiger even harder, he allowed his mind to go a step further. What would it be like to have her warm little body snug up against his while they slept?
He waited for the nausea that would normally accompany such a thought, and when it didn’t come, he took a deep breath and let his brain go deeper still. What would happen if he had an arm around her as she lay next to him, and his hand moved up to cup her…
He sat bolt upright.
Okay.DEFCON l.
His breathing was coming far too fast, in a cadence he knew signaled the risk of hyperventilating.
Shut down. Shut down.
He forcibly backed away from his thoughts and moved directly into the breathing exercises that Will had taught him.
In through the nose…out through the mouth.
In through the nose…out through the mouth.
A few minutes of those drills eventually did the trick, bringing him down off the precipice. But sleep still eluded him.
It was going to be a long fucking night.
Sometime in thewee hours of the morning Doug must have fallen asleep, because he awoke just before dawn to hear theshower running. He stretched and…Fuck. He needed to use the facilities. But that would have to wait, since there was only one bathroom. Pixie said that Fleet and Talia had an addition planned, with construction starting next month, but that was in the future, and right now… Doug groaned. He’d clearly filled up his water glass one time too many last night, and it was visiting him now.
He tried to ignore the urge by counting the sixties-speckles on the ceiling above his head, but nothing. The more he attempted to put off the inevitable, the more insistent it became. He rolled from one side to the other. He jiggled his legs.
