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“Watch me,” I said.
I’ve accepted the fact that I’m getting older. But my body seems to be taking it badly.
—Ellodie to Quaid
ELLODIE
“Me first,” he growled as he pushed past me into my apartment.
I watched him go down the hallway, surprised as he stalked through the house with efficient, long strides.
My gaze went to his backside as he moved his way through my place, and I watched as those magnificent muscles pushed him through every single room until he was standing back in front of me.
Pulling me gently inside by my wrist, he closed the door and then stated, rather simply, “I’m staying here with you tonight.”
“I’m sorry, but what?” I asked, looking at Quaid like he’d lost his mind.
“I’m staying here tonight,” he repeated. “Unless you want to come to my place.”
I tilted my head up to look at him. “Where is your place?”
I may have asked the question as if I was considering it, but I didn’t plan on actually going there. It was to buy me time to figure out a way to get out of this.
I could not have this sexy beast of a man in my apartment while I slept. I just couldn’t.
I’d die of sexual overload.
“It’s a new build in the Melissa area.” He expounded, “I have one set of plates. Four forks. Four spoons. A steak knife. A sectional. One bed, and a really fuckin’ awesome shower.”
“You almost had me with the shower,” I lied. “But I’m not sharing a bed with you.”
“There’s the couch,” he offered.
I thought about it long and hard before answering.
Honestly, he wasn’t going to let me stay here by myself. I could read that by the set of his shoulders, and the way he crossed his arms over his chest, as if he was readying for a fight.
“I want to stay here tonight and think about how this is going to work logistically.” I paused and really looked at him. “You really think he’s going to try again?”
Maybe if I bought myself time, I could figure out a way to have him under the same roof as me without throwing myself at him.
“Yes,” he confirmed with very little hesitation. “I think that he’s going to try again. And the bad thing is, I think you need to keep your dating profiles up. Keep accepting dates… but string it along. Get to know them first. Don’t accept any actual dates, though. Maybe as you get to know them the guy we’re looking for will show his hands, use some of the same mannerisms as he did before when you were talking to him. You can’t really change your personality, and that sounds like he’s allowing it to bleed into his conversations with these girls.”
My shoulders drooped. “You can have the bed.”
“I will not sleep in the bed while you sleep out here. That’s non-negotiable.” He dismissed my offer.
“I really meant something more along the lines of, we’ll both sleep in the bedroom but separately. I have a pullout oversized chair in there. It’s actually pretty comfy.” I looked at him. “Is that okay?”
“Perfectly,” he agreed. “I don’t have to work tomorrow. You don’t either, correct?”
“No.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “But I have an online class I have to take around eleven. I could skip it, but it’s the review before the test on Friday.”
“Then that works.” He braced his feet apart, as if ready to hit me with another surprising verbal blow. “I have to go back to work for three more hours. Go get changed, you’re doing a ride along with me.”
So that was how I found myself in the front seat of Quaid’s police cruiser, riding along with him, while he did his job.
At first it was a little boring.
