Her eyes are wide, but I shrug.
“Because apparently that’s a thing your friends do around here.”
That startles a laugh out of her. “We’re what?”
“Married. Apparently, I’m your husband who’s pretending to be your bodyguard because you’re a reclusive author and I’m protecting your identity from a stalker.”
“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. Who told you that?”
“Chase,” I grumble. “It’s possible he had a hand in creating the fabrication though. He loves small-town gossip.”
She laughs again, and it’s a balm to my weary soul. “Welcome to small-town life.” Her gaze drops to her fingers that are playing with the hem of my shirt—the same one she’s been clutching all night.
“Okay,” she finally says, then drops her hand to the bed, severing the connection my skin is burning for.
“Okay?”
“You can stay. On the couch. But Valen?” She looks up at me, vulnerable and brave at the same time. “If it’s too much. If I’m too much and you need space?—”
“You’re not too much.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes. I do.” I brush a strand of hair from her face. “I’m not going anywhere, Honeybee.”
The nickname slips out without thought, and her eyes glisten.
I don’t know why I called her Honeybee, but my whole being longs to remember everything.
Wrecks chooses that moment to army-crawl up the bed, interrupting our moment by shoving his massive head between us before licking Clover’s face.
Fucking disgusting.
Our moment is gone, but her laughter makes up for it as I extract myself from the bed before I do something monumentally stupid—like kiss her.
Because I want to. More than I ever recall wanting anything.
But not like this. Not when she’s still vulnerable from a nightmare. Not when I’m supposed to be protecting her.
Not yet.
But soon.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CLOVER
Three days of living with Valen Stone, and I’ve learned several important things.
One, he’s a morning person. An aggressively cheerful morning person who wakes up at five a.m. and does push-ups in my living room like some kind of fitness magazine cover model while whistling an ear-piercing tune.
Whistling!
The grumpy, straight-faced bodyguard has turned into a whistle-while-you-work wake-up call.
Two, he cannot cook. At all. The man can apparently disarm a bomb but burns toast with alarming regularity.
Three, he sleeps in boxer briefs and nothing else, which is information I accidentally learned one night while trying to sneak into the kitchen for a drink and now cannot unknow. Ever.
