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Her head tilted to the side. Her hair fell over her shoulder. “I plan to stroke quite a few things.”
Sweet hell. “Careful.” A rasp of warning. “You don’t want to push me too far.”
“Why? You gonna let that control break and do something other than watch me?”
Yes.
“Ground rules,” she repeated. “No sidelining. If things get dangerous around us, you don’t get to go all controlling and try to tell me what to do. I only agreed to leave today because I had things to handle.”
It was hard to concentrate on what things she might have done when she was only partially wrapped in a sheet as she stood in front of him. “I’m not going to let you be in danger.” That was his one rule. “You’re protected. That isn’t up for debate.”
“You’re an arrogant asshole, you know that?”
“It’s been mentioned a time or twenty.”
“Have you ever thought that, oh, I don’t know…maybe I don’t want you in danger, either?”
He frowned. “Why would you care about what happens to me?”
“Because I just do!” Her delicate nostrils flared. “You don’t face danger alone. I don’t face danger alone. There. Done. Got it?”
He got that there was always a way around rules. You just broke them. And he also got that he needed to circle back to something she’d said before. “What things?”
“Excuse me?”
One tug, and he could have the sheet on the floor. Do. Not. Tug. “What things did you have to do today?”
“Oh, I had to handle the little matter of arranging a meeting with a convicted serial killer. You were suspicious of Everett Thomas. So was I. You wanted to get in the room with him. So did I. I pulled strings, and voilà, we’ll be meeting him tomorrow morning at nine a.m.”
His back teeth pressed together.
“I have connections. I used them. I couldn’t very well battle the blaze at your bar.” One hand rose and curled around his forearm. “Though I wish I could have. I’m very, very sorry about LeBlanc’s.”
Her touch had warmth pouring through him. Her eyes shined with her sympathy. She actually seemed to care about him.
What the hell was he supposed to do with that?
But then she pulled her hand back. “Ground rule one. No sidelining. I don’t sideline you. You don’t sideline me. We don’t ditch each other in dangerous situations.”
“I was protecting you.”
“What if I wanted to protect you?”
He frowned at her. Who the hell would want to protect him?
“You have a tendency to see fires and rush right into them.” A shake of her head. “Super bad trait. Without me at your side to hold you back, who knows what madness you could face?”
“I rush in…” He stopped. It wasn’t like he rushed into every dangerous situation he saw. And as for the fire, he’d rushed in once before. He’d done that?—
“For me?”
He stared into her eyes.
“You rushed into the fire all those years ago in order to save me. You didn’t know who I was. You rushed in because you heard someone screaming for help. You can play the villain all you want with the rest of the world, but villains don’t run toward the fire when they hear a scream. Villains stand back, and they enjoy the blaze. Heroes are the ones who help.”
He’d never enjoyed the flames. “That’s too one-dimensional. Sometimes, you can save one person and then turn around and cut the heart out of someone else.”
Her eyes widened. “Ground rule two. No heart cutting. You don’t cut out my heart, and I won’t cut out yours.”
