He was not in the mood to deal with his family, not tonight. As much as he loved them and appreciated everything they’d done for him since he came back broken, sometimes he wished that they’d forget about him. He didn’t need or want their pity. He was fine, more than fine, no matter what any of them thought.
He sure as hell didn’t need anyone to fix him.
Chapter 6
8:30 P.M.
“What now?” Danny asked, sighing heavily when he realized that it wasn’t one of his family members stopping by with some bullshit excuse so that they could make sure that he was taking care of himself. It was his pain in the ass neighbor, no doubt coming back to-
“I wanted to thank you for everything that you did for me last night,” Tinkerbelle started, instantly making him frown.
“Last night?” Danny repeated, sure that he’d misheard the small woman standing in the hallway, still wearing the towel that he’d given her a little over an hour ago wrapped around all those surprising curves that she’d somehow hidden from him.
“Yes,” Jodi said, pushing back a strand of hair curled from her recent shower, “I’ve been thinking about this all night and-”
“All night?” he found himself muttering, not entirely sure where she was headed with this.
“I just wanted to stop by on my way to work and thank you for everything,” Jodi said, finishing with a firm nod as she turned around and started to head down the hallway towards the front door when she suddenly stopped and turned right back around. “I almost forgot,” she said, walking over to him and-
Forced him to blindly reach out and grab hold of the doorway before his knees gave out and dropped him on his ass from the weight of the cotton towel that she’d tossed over his shoulder.
“Thanks again,” Tinkerbelle, now butt-naked, said with a polite smile as she turned around and headed for the front door, leaving him holding onto her towel as his mind raced to figure out what just happened even as his gaze fell to that delectable, softly rounded ass that he’d give anything to-
“I forgot my keys,” Tinkerbelle said with a self-deprecating laugh as she turned around and headed back to her door, where she knocked.
“Is there someone inside?” he asked, praying that there was someone behind that door to come save him.
“No,” Tinkerbelle said with a shrug as she continued to patiently stand in front of her door, waiting for it to magically open.
Danny rubbed his hands down his face, telling himself that this wasn’t happening to him, not tonight. Tinkerbelle went ahead and knocked on her door again. Praying that whatever fucked up side-effect the medicine had on her was short-term, he dropped his hands away, grabbed the towel off his shoulder and prepared himself for a wrestling match from hell.
8:45 P.M.
“I don’t want it!”
“Too goddamn bad!” Danny snapped, making quick work of wrapping the towel around the stubborn woman who was driving him out of his fucking mind.
“You’re going to make me late for work!” Tinkerbelle snapped, once again trying to push past him and walk towards the front door, but before she could make her way past him, he had his arm wrapped around her and was carrying her back, unfortunately, to his apartment where he could keep an eye on her.
“Uh-huh, that’s nice, Tinkerbelle,” Danny said absently, wondering if tying her to the baseboard would constitute kidnapping.
“That’s not my name!” Jodi snapped, wiggling in his arms, desperate for freedom so that she could make another run for the front door where she would no doubt give the neighborhood a show that they would never forget.
“Stop squirming,” Danny said through clenched teeth, praying that she would stop rubbing those damn curves against him with every wiggle so that he could focus on figuring out how he was going to get her safely back in her apartment and out of his hair. He wanted his solitude, needed it desperately and as soon as he figured out what was wrong with her, he would have it.
“What the hell is going on here?” a man suddenly demanded, drawing his attention to two large and familiar-looking police officers who didn’t look happy to find a half-naked Jodi in his arms.
Aw, shit…
“Greg!” his unwanted bundle cried, sounding relieved, really relieved, which probably wasn’t going to help him in the long run.
For a moment, Danny considered placing Tinkerbelle back on her feet to make it easier for the very pissed-off-looking police officers to slam him to the floor and read him his rights, but then he realized that his unwanted load would take advantage of the situation and make her escape. So, until they ordered him to put her down and raise his hands above his head, he wasn’t releasing her.
“Can you please tell him to put me down so that I can go to work?” Jodi asked, sounding completely rational at the moment, which actually terrified him.
“Work?” the officer that he was assuming was Greg repeated back slowly as he shared a look with his partner that Danny couldn’t read, but one he was more than willing to interpret.
He was about to become big Bubba’s bitch. He was holding a woman who hated him and happened to be naked, out of it, and most likely this cop’s girlfriend and his only defense was his cousin’s wife’s fucked-up cooking and Benadryl. Oh, yeah, his ass was going away for a long time for this one, which wouldn’t be so bad once he thought about it.
