No. Dennis had dumped my ibuprofen down the sink early into his stay so I could “feel the pain” I’d caused him.
Dennis…
My eyes flicked to the door.
Then back to the man who’d killed him—before tending to me and, apparently, making me breakfast.
My mind spun, trying to keep up.
“You’re all the way out of that shock, huh? You going to start screaming and hitting me now?” The older Hercules statue crooked his head, eyes crinkling into a soft grin. “You can if you want. Whatever you need to be okay, I’m good with it.”
Yes, I was coming out of shock. But his invitation to scream and hit him loosened the tight knot in my chest.
Almost made me smile.
Almost.
He kept watching me with that crinkled grin. “You wanna eat in bed or come out there with me? Don’t worry, I cleaned up your living room last night while you slept.”
I thought about it. Then decided to sit up and…
Discovered I was naked when the blanket slipped.
We both froze.
And this time, my unexpected savior did not avert his eyes.
A new heat lit in his blue gaze, and a new kind of heat pooled low in my stomach. The kind I used to feel when I drank with Naheem before we fooled around.
But I hadn’t had alcohol in months. Not a single drop.
“You okay?” His voice went low—gruff—and his nose flared the same strange way it had yesterday.
I wasn’t sure what he was asking.
Or why he didn’t look away, like he had before.
I sat there—paralyzed? Entranced? I didn’t know what was happening?—
And then he leaned forward.
Oh God. No. No!
Something snapped inside of me. Terror replaced fascination in a blink.
He was going to hit me. Hurt me! Just like Dennis.
I scrambled backward like a crab until my shoulders hit the wall. Trapped. With Dennis, I always went limp—disappeared into one of my two happy places at the first hint of incoming violence.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t find the switch. The one that turned me into Vacant Little Thing. It was broken. Or maybe I was broken. Either way, the panic came flooding in with nowhere to go.
Choking me, crashing through me in waves. I was trapped by this beast of a man. What was I going to do?
“Whoa, whoa. Don’t be scared.”
He jumped up, and turned toward me, hands raised, like yesterday.
“I know I look like a scary motherfucker, but I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m never trying to hurt you, I swear.”
