Chapter Twenty-One
A man shouldn’t care about your ‘body count’ unless you’re secretly a serial killer.
- Gwen Goode, refusing to kiss and tell
My heart stumbled in my chest as I listened to Graham quietly locking the door, as I heard his muted footsteps carrying him deeper into the foyer. I told myself to move. To run upstairs and hide in my bedroom like a coward. But I was still standing there, frozen, when his hand located the switch and light flooded the room. I blinked against the sudden brightness.
When my eyes adjusted, they instantly locked on Graham’s. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, wearing his typical getup of boots, dark wash jeans, and a leather jacket, and looking up at me with an expression I couldn’t for the life of me decode. The strap of a leather duffle dangled from one of his broad shoulders. In his left hand, he held a set of keys; in his right, what appeared to be a bundled sleeping bag, the kind you’d take on a camping trip.
“What are you doing here?”
He didn’t answer my whispered question. He set down the duffle and sleeping bag, shoved the keys into the pocket of his jacket, and began to climb. I watched him coming at me, my hand tightening on the railing to hold my ground, eyes never shifting away from his.
“Graham, I asked what you—”
“Sleeping here,” he informed me, coming to a stop on the step below mine. With our natural height difference, this put us almost perfectly at eye level.
“What?” I breathed.
“You can’t sleep at my place. So, I’ll sleep here.”
“Here?”
“There are about a dozen empty rooms to choose from. I’ll be far enough away to give you your space, let you get some rest in peace. Close enough to cover you if anyone makes a move.”
“We...” I said weakly, holding tighter to the railing. “We’re in a fight.”
“Don’t give a shit,” he clipped back.
“You don’t give a shit?”
“Nope. Not one shit.” His eyes narrowed dangerously. “You want to be pissed at me, be pissed. Hell, I’m pretty fucking pissed at you, too. But I’m here. Told you before, I’m not letting you run from this. That goes both ways. Means I don’t run either, even when you’re a bitch.”
“Did you just call me a bitch?”
“Yeah, because you’re being one.”
“And you’re a dick!”
“I can be, yeah. Especially when you piss me off, which you’re liable to do seeing as you’ve got a temper and can be stubborn as hell when you set your mind to it.”
“I do not have a temper!” I yelled, directly contradicting my own words as anger coursed through me in a hot current.
“Babe, you’re a redhead,” he said, as if this explained everything. “You’ve got a temper. So do I. We’re naturally going to butt heads. Luckily, I’m guessing the makeup sex will be off the charts, seeing as regular sex is already fucking dynamite, so I don’t foresee that being too much of an issue longterm.”
I blinked, momentarily dazed by the intriguing concept of makeup sex with Graham. Then, scowling, I forced myself to focus on being pissed at him. “Longterm? We can’t even make itone daywithout fighting!”
“Then stop fighting with me.”
My head nearly exploded off my shoulders. “You’re unbelievable!”
“Maybe. Or, maybe you’re so used to people fucking you over, you can’t see what we’ve got is worth fighting for. Maybe you’re so braced for getting hurt, you’re determined to keep me at arm’s length like the parade of guys who came before me.”
“Parade? There weren’t that many guys!”
“Even one was enough,” he gritted out, jaw locked tight, as though the memory of me with other men caused him physical pain. “Point is, I’m not them. Don’t treat me like one of them. Definitely don’t expect me to respond to your bullshit like one of them. You push me away, I’m telling you right now, I’m not going.”
Goddess, he was so damned bossy.