Chapter 16
New Year’s Eve had been brutal for Brock. As hard as he’d tried to pawn off a security gig in Vancouver onto one of his brothers, he couldn’t. Chase was on an assignment, and Stewart needed two guys, one of them needing to be Brock. So he dragged Rex along and left Heath to keep an eye on Krista and another eye on Slade.
But it was an assignment he wasn’t looking forward to. Some local celebrity’s twenty-something daughter was the target. Threats had been made on her life. Everything was supposed to go down on New Year’s Eve at her parents’ annual party at their yacht club, so they’d hired detail and upped the security.
The party had been boring as fuck, in Brock’s party-hating opinion, and he was beginning to think nothing was going to happen until around one forty-five all hell broke loose. A smoke bomb went off, making the entire place a foggy mess of screaming bodies. Shots were fired, and Rex had been knocked to the ground and nearly trampled by the half-drunk mob of Richie Riches clambering over him to get out.
Thankfully, no one was severely injured. The daughter had been a decoy target, and the assailants were actually after her father, who unfortunately sustained a gunshot to the arm, though it wasn’t fatal. They made a weak attempt to kidnap his daughter but were unsuccessful. The whole thing, upon later reflection, seemed incredibly disorganized, so between the security teamand Brock, and eventually Rex who was a bit bruised—both his ego and his limbs—they brought down the three kidnappers and had them in custody by two o’clock.
But Brock was exhausted. The paperwork, the cleanup, the reiteration of his account to the police seemed endless. By the time he and Rex checked into their hotel at six in the morning, he had a splitting headache and was dead on his feet. Neither of them moved or made a sound until noon, and even then it was just a series of grunts and grumbles coming from his wounded little brother as his injuries caught up with him.
He and Rex were forced to head straight to Stewart’s for a debriefing once they got off the ferry. Then Stewart’s wife insisted on feeding them dinner, so by the time Brock got home, the lights were out and Krista was in bed. He welcomed the idea of crawling under the covers next to her lithe, warm body and smelling that incredible scent as he drifted off. It’d become so much easier to fall asleep and sleep well since she moved into his bed. Her scent, her warmth, her presence, they all made him feel … complete.
Was that the word? He didn’t know.
But what he did know was that he liked having her in the house, liked having her in his bed and would do everything he could to keep her there.
Desperate not to let the creaky bedroom door wake her up, he took forever and a day to open the damn thing, his eyes zeroing in on her petite frame beneath the covers. She’d started grumbling the other day how it was no longer comfortable to sleep on her front, that it put too much pressure on her belly and she would wake up achy and uncomfortable. It seemed she’d found a solution, and that was his pillow, which she was hugging like a life preserver or some giant teddy bear.
Brock quickly showered off the day, didn’t bother with boxers and slipped into the cool sheets, taking a deep inhale as his head hit his one pillow. He’d been right. It was honeysuckle. She had the body wash, shampoo and lotion in all the same scent, and it drove him wild every time he smelled it.
He was just drifting off to sleep when a fist landed square in the center of his back.
Groaning, he rolled over, coming face-to-face with an angry angel. “What the fuck was that for?”
“You’re taking up over half the fucking bed.” She growled.
He inched over just a bit. “Better?”
She glared at him in the dark, her little button nose wrinkling. “No. You’re enormous. Easily taking up seventy percent of the bed and probably eighty percent of the covers.”
Brock rolled his eyes. He was too tired for this shit. But he also didn’t want her to go. “What do you want from me?”
“To give me space. You’re a furnace, too.”
“Do you want me to go to the other room?”
He didn’t want to, but he would. For her. For sleep.
She grew awfully quiet. “No.”
Grunting, he sat up, scooted over to the edge. Half his ass cheek was hanging off, but hopefully that would appease the mother bear in his bed. “Better?”
She nodded. “You just need to be more considerate while you’re sleeping.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake, woman, how can I be more considerate while I’msleeping?I’msleeping. I have no idea what I’m doing!” Grumbling and swearing under his breath, he pulled a bunch of covers off his side and draped them over her. “There! Better?”
She grinned. “Yes.”
That sassy little smile. Fuck. It got him every time. Even when she was being an irrational, hormonal back-punching nut job, he wanted her. He always wanted her. Never one to care about having anyone to kiss at midnight, he’d hated the idea of Krista sitting home alone the other night, ringing in the new year alone.
“How’d it go?” she asked, rolling over onto her side and propping her hand under her head.
He grunted. “How’d what go?”
“Your job?”
He lifted one shoulder. “Everyone’s safe.”
