SOPHIE BLINKED AWAKEAND STRETCHED, breathing in the familiar scent of her laundry detergent and feeling the heavy weight of her down comforter. She remembered Emerson waking her twice, asking her to tell him her name and birthdate before he let her go back to sleep. He’d grimaced the first time she told him, but given the forehead kiss when he tucked her in, it wasn’t the weirdest thing that had happened.
She still wasn’t exactly sure what happened there. When he started leaning in, she’d froze, not sure what to do. She’d seen the confusion in his expression as soon as he realized what he was doing. The forehead thing had been a passable save—okay, it was still weird but kind of sweet too. If it left her wondering what it would be like if he really kissed her, that was her problem—not his. And more proof that she ought to make time to date. Having romantic feelings about the first guy to pay any attention to her in a while wasn’t smart. Her experience, or lack of, with men was pathetic.
She hadn’t deliberately set out to be the world’s oldest virgin; it just worked out that way. She sat up and hugged her brother’s shirt around her, feeling the familiar sense of loss settle over her. When she was a teenager, it had been almost impossible to date with Noah around. Nothing killed a budding romance faster than an overprotective brother with a reputation of hitting first and asking questions later. He wouldn’t have hurt the guys who worked up the nerve to ask her out. At least she didn’t think so, but none of them stuck around long enough to find out.
Everything changed after Noah left for university anyway. She didn’t want to date. She didn’t want to be around anyone. She had a hard enough time forcing herself to go to school. Knowing her brother would kick her ass for skipping when he got back was the only thing that got her out of bed some mornings. Then he didn’t come back and her world went completely off its axis.
She wasn’t going to think about any of that now.
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up, pausing for a moment to see if she felt any dizziness. When she didn’t, she stood. The clock on her phone read three fourteen. It had to be the middle of the night and not the afternoon, but she felt too awake to go back to sleep. And she had to pee, which meant she was going to have to leave her bedroom.
After Emerson left her alone, she’d stripped off her yoga pants and bra. She tugged the pants on but figured she could make it to the bathroom and back without her bra. She’d be hard pressed to find a less revealing garment than the uni T-shirt. It was like Noah was still trying to cockblock her love life even from the grave. Or he would be if the thing with Emerson was romantic, which it wasn’t. Forehead kiss notwithstanding. If anything, he’d stayed with her out of some misguided sense of responsibility. He’d get up in the morning, see she was okay, and hit the road.
She tried not to let the thought bug her. She wanted him out of her hair. She’d wanted him gone as soon as he pulled into her parking lot. She tiptoed across the floor and opened the door as quietly as she could. If her insistent bladder hadn’t forced her from the room, she could grab a book and wait it out until morning, but that wasn’t an option. The more she thought about it, the more she had to go. And she had to pass the couch and the man sprawled across it to get there.
Emerson lay on his back, his arm flung over his head and his feet sticking off the end of the couch. He was about a foot too tall to fit comfortably on her furniture and she wondered how he’d gotten comfortable enough to fall asleep. By morning, he’d probably have pins and needles in his feet from lack of blood flow. The thought should make her feel guilty. Or it would if she wasn’t distracted by the bare muscular chest clearly visible even in the dimly lit room. He’d covered himself with the throw she kept on the couch, but it was barely long enough to cover his stomach and legs. At least it wasn’t cold in the room.
The back of his forearm rested against his forehead and even at rest, she could see the definition in the muscles of his arm. Whatever else he did, the man worked out enough to keep his body in spectacular shape. She didn’t need to see his narrow hips and the strong thighs hidden under the blanket to know they were as toned as the rest of him. It was better not to give her overactive imagination any more material to work with. Her captor slash caregiver was way too distracting already.
Stubble shadowed his angular jaw and his lips parted as he exhaled in his sleep. She caught herself leaning in closer to him in a way that wouldn’t get her anywhere she wanted to be. Emerson Southerland didn’t look like the kind of man a woman played with—not that she had any idea how to even go about doing that. She had a feeling anything that happened with the man taking up way too much space in her home would be serious business. She didn’t have room in her life for that.
Between one breath and the next, he went perfectly still and opened his eyes. She let out a squeak and stepped back so quickly she almost fell on her ass. She would have if he hadn’t reached out and grabbed her arm, steadying her.
“What’s wrong? Do you need something?”
Again with all the questions. It was like he was so focused on solving problems, it was the only way he knew how to talk.
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said, turning away from his questions and his piercing gaze. It felt like the man could see right through her, making her feel vulnerable and exposed.
“It’s okay.” He sat back on the couch and waited for her to do something.
“I just need to...” She let the words trail off as she waved in the direction of the bathroom, and then she bolted, praying he’d be asleep again by the time she finished.
––––––––
EMERSON ROLLED HISneck, working out the kinks. He’d slept in more uncomfortable places, but it was definitely close. He’d spent the night alternating between having his head and neck jackknifed or having his feet hang over the arm of Sophie’s couch, but it wasn’t the accommodations that kept him up all night.
In the beginning, it was because he had to wake Sophie every couple of hours to make sure she was still okay. By the second time, he’d started to look forward to seeing her face, flushed with sleep as she blinked awake. She’d smile as if she was happy to see him, which was crazy considering he was the one waking her from a sound sleep. By the third time, she’d managed to worm her way into his subconscious. He saw her almost as clearly when he closed his eyes as when he was standing over her bed, and his thoughts drifted in much less innocent directions.
After he’d woken up and found her looking at him like he was something good to eat, there was no way in hell he could go back to sleep. She stood there with the tight peaks of her nipples clearly outlined through the thin cotton of her T-shirt and any thoughts he’d had beyond getting his hands on her rolled right out of his head. And then she’d almost fallen and he remembered why he was there and it wasn’t to take advantage of an innocent woman recovering from an injury. That didn’t mean he’d been able to fall asleep again.
He’d feigned sleep when she came out of the bathroom so he wouldn’t have to deal with the way she’d looked at him or hide his thoughts. As soon as the bedroom door closed behind her, he’d grabbed his laptop and gone to work on finishing the files for the Rockcliff account. He’d also bumped Andrews to see if he’d learned anything else about the break-in. What his tech guy found lined up with the police report. By all accounts, it looked like a burglary gone wrong with Sophie caught in the middle of it. Thank God someone, either whoever hit her or someone passing by, had a conscience and called 911. It made him crazy to think what could have happened to her, but given the information in front of him, he had to admit it didn’t look like she was the target. With the half-assed way the burglary went down, it was even less likely whoever’d done it had been after his client’s pearls.
Which meant now that his night of nursing duty was over, he didn’t have any reason to hang around. He couldn’t very well play bodyguard to a woman whose only danger was from uncomfortably short furniture. He ought to be relieved, but he wasn’t, a feeling he had no intention of looking at any closer. He got up and started looking—unsuccessfully—for something to fix for breakfast that didn’t require him to cook. Unless he was missing something, Sophie didn’t even have stuff to make coffee.What kind of person didn’t have coffee?
Tugging on his black uniform polo, he glanced over at the closed bedroom door and debated running out to the corner market to grab coffee and breakfast for both of them. He hated the idea of her waking up to an empty apartment. It was insane. She’d done it the day before the attack—presumably, unless she’d had a guy over. If she had, he wasn’t the type of guy she could call when she was hurt. Emerson didn’t want to think about it. The idea of Sophie with another man made him irrationally twitchy. He tried to convince himself it was like thinking about his sisters dating, but nothing about the woman in the other room reminded him of his sisters.
“Morning,” she said, putting an end to his rambling thoughts and looking much too fresh to have just rolled out of bed.
She’d changed into faded jeans and one of those floaty shirts with a soft pink camisole underneath. Her dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail and her cheeks were flushed. The fading shadows under her eyes were the only hint that she’d just gotten out of the hospital. Despite being woken up every three hours, it looked like she’d gotten a hell of a lot more sleep than he had.
“Good morning. How’d you sleep?”
“Good, in between being woken up. I mean, as well as could be expected. Good.”
She sounded nervous, not like she was complaining about being woken up. If the roles were reversed, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be as gracious about it.
“I couldn’t find coffee.” He motioned to the kitchen.
