Chapter 9
Oh, God…
What the hell happened last night? Jodi found herself wondering as she came to the realization that she had her face plastered against a very firm chest. Deciding that she’d die of mortification later in the privacy of her apartment, she bit her lip, squeezed her eyes shut and slowly shifted until she found herself turned around, facing away from what she now realized was Danny, fast asleep.
Swallowing, Jodi reached up and placed her hands on the arm trapping her and tried to push it away when she suddenly found herself pulled back against him. He shifted in his sleep, somehow managing to pull her closer as he placed his hand against her stomach, holding her against him.
This was definitely an awkward situation, she had to admit, and one that she had absolutely no experience in dealing with.
When Jerry used to spend the night, he hogged the bed and would try to spoon her, but it was always so uncomfortable for both of them that he usually gave up after a minute and turned over, shoving her aside in the process.
Not that she ever complained. Well, except for the way he hogged the bed and ignored her.
She had actually been relieved that she didn’t have to spend the night in his arms.
Moments like this, when she looked back on the way things had been with Jerry, she felt foolish.
There had been so many signs that he hadn’t been right for her, that he’d never loved her, and to be honest, she hadn’t loved him or liked him all that much.
He could be rude, condescending, and dismissive and if she’d been thinking at the time, she would have realized why she was with him.
Because no one else had wanted her.
They all saw her as a little sister, someone cute and sweet to spend time with when they were feeling homesick or their girlfriends were busy.
They didn’t see her as a woman, as someone worthy of spending time with, someone worth the risk of losing their hearts.
Jerry certainly hadn’t wanted her. The only thing that he’d wanted from her was her money and what she could do to help his career.
He’d used her, made her feel worthless, and when he was done with her, he’d made damn sure that she knew that he’d never really wanted her.
No one wanted her.
There really was nothing like an extra-large helping of self-pity to start the day, Jodi thought with disgust as she made another attempt to push the arm holding her away.
Wow, this thing was huge, she mused, biting her lower lip as she tried to pick it up again only to give up with a grunt when that manacle he had the nerve to call an arm tightened around her.
The man that had professed to love her more than anything hadn’t been able to stand touching her and the one that she’d been contemplating killing, not that she would ever admit it in a court of law, couldn’t seem to let her go.
Then again, he probably didn’t realize who was in his arms, which would explain why he was holding her like he never wanted to let her go and why that frighteningly large appendage between his legs was pressing rather insistently against her backside… and part of her back.
That really couldn’t be normal, Jodi thought, struggling against the urge to wiggle against it to get a better idea of just how big he was, but that kind of seemed rude.
If she had to venture a guess, she would have to say that he was a hell of a lot bigger than Jerry.
She frowned at that thought and sighed. A roll of lifesavers was bigger than Jerry, so that really wasn’t saying all that much.
She really should be getting up, but she couldn’t figure out how to do it without it turning awkward.
Then again, she really didn’t think there was a way to get out of this bed or this apartment without things getting a bit awkward.
With that in mind, she grabbed hold of his arm, opened her mouth to wake him up and gasped when she registered the feel of firm, warm lips pressing against the back of her neck.
“Go back to sleep, Tinkerbelle,” Danny said sleepily, making her realize something very important.
Danny Bradford, who was still pressing the sweetest kisses against the back of her neck, knew who he was sharing a bed with. Which meant…
Okay, she had absolutely no idea what that meant because she couldn’t exactly think straight with that battering-ram digging into her back and those warm lips pressing against her neck, sending delicious tremors down her spine.
She’d never been in a situation like this one, where a man seemed more than happy to have her in his arms. Usually, when a man pulled her in his arms and kissed her, his expression turned horrified when he realized that kissing her was like kissing his sister.
Not really a flattering comparison, but one that she was used to, nonetheless.
“Ummm, what exactly happened last night?” Jodi found herself asking, proud that she sounded unaffected by his touch, at least, in her mind, she did.
“My asshole brother gave you medicine,” Danny said, accompanying the words with another press of his lips.
“Oh,” Jodi mumbled, struggling to remember what happened last night.
With a frown, she looked down at her arm and sagged with relief.
The hives, or whatever they were, were gone.
Left in its place were pink streaks covering almost every inch of exposed skin, but she was surprisingly okay with that.
A sudden thought had her trying to sit up, but the arm locked around her waist kept her in place.
“I gotta get to my apartment and put the food away!” she explained, reaching down to grab his arm and push it away even as common sense kicked in and she realized that whatever had been left out was probably ruined by now.
Another kiss. “It’s all gone, Tinkerbelle.”
“That’s not my name,” Jodi said absently with a frown, wondering how all that food could have disappeared in one night. “Did you throw it away?” she asked, hating the idea of wasting all that food.
“No,” Danny said with another kiss, making her wonder if he was even aware of what he was doing.
“My brother and uncle consoled themselves with all that food after you kicked their asses,” he said, chuckling and she would swear to her dying day that she could actually feel him smiling against her skin.
“I kicked their asses?” Jodi asked, sure that she’d misheard him about both counts because there was no way humanly possible for two men to eat all that food she’d cooked in one night.
“Yes, you did,” he murmured, adjusting his hold on her as he shifted behind her to bring her body back against his.
She opened her mouth, not exactly sure what to say to get herself out of this situation, when Danny cut her off with another one of those kisses that she was secretly starting to like and a murmured, “Go back to sleep, Tinkerbelle. You were up most of the night.”
It wasn’t until he’d said that, that she realized just how tired she was. She hadn’t slept well in months, not since Jerry had knocked her world off its axis. Moving in across from him certainly hadn’t helped, Jodi thought with a snort as her eyelids drooped heavily.
She should be climbing out of the bed and putting some space between her and those confusing kisses of his, but she just couldn’t seem to find the energy or the willpower to ask him to let her go, not when it felt so good to be in his arms. She’d blame it on the medicine, Jodi decided as she stopped fighting and gave in.
“You look like shit.”
“Thanks,” Danny said, plopping down on the bed next to his brother as he lazily rubbed his hair dry with a towel.
“Did you get any sleep after we left?” Aidan asked, reaching over and ran his fingers over the pink streak left behind on Danny’s shoulder. “This should be gone within a few days.”
“You mean after you and that bastard ran off like the cowards that you are, but only after you ate everything in sight?” Danny asked, tossing the towel at his brother’s face.
“Yes,” Aidan said with an unconcerned shrug as he stood and walked over to the closet. “Were you able to sleep?” he asked, throwing him an assessing glance before he turned his attention to Danny’s limited wardrobe.
“Yeah,” Danny said, not mentioning that he couldn’t remember ever sleeping so well before.
Before his career had been fucked up by a sniper, he’d managed to spend the night holding a woman a few times.
Although he’d enjoyed the feeling of falling asleep with a warm, soft feminine body pressed up against him, it had never felt as good as it had last night with Tinkerbelle lying in his arms.
Holding her had been…
Unbelievable.
Waking up to find her gone had left him reeling. He’d never expected to feel that way, especially not about a woman he barely knew, but the moment that he’d woken up to find himself alone, he’d felt…
Lost.
He’d felt like a part of him was missing, which was fucking ridiculous.
He didn’t know this woman, had never spent any real time with her, not to mention the fact that he’d spent the last two months tormenting her in the usual Bradford fashion.
So why he felt like a part of him was missing was beyond him.
Maybe he should just agree to go out with one of the women that Aidan had stashed in the other room and was trying to spring on him to clear his head, Danny thought.
Maybe a night away from his apartment with a beautiful woman that wasn’t expecting anything more than a good meal and a good time was just what he needed.
He looked down at the pillow that he’d shared with Tinkerbelle and nodded.
Maybe it was time to move on and let go of the past and he couldn’t do that by hiding in his apartment, thinking about a woman that hated him.
“Who says thank you with meatloaf?” Jodi mumbled with disgust as she looked down at the plate overflowing with meatloaf, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, corn, homemade honey butter, and a thick slice of chocolate cake with fudge frosting on a smaller plate in her other hand.
“Someone too broke to buy a decent thank you gift, that’s who,” she answered her own question with a sad shake of her head.
Deciding to get this over with, Jodi opened her door and walked out into the hallway, wishing that she could be anywhere else, doing anything else, but she didn’t have much of a choice in the matter.
Danny had taken care of her not once but twice and she had yet to thank him properly.
As embarrassed as she was about the whole situation, and God was she embarrassed, she couldn’t pretend that it never happened. Her parents hadn’t raised her that way.
She shifted the smaller plate onto her other arm, raised her hand to knock and nearly dropped both plates when the door suddenly opened and a vaguely familiar, handsome man with a beautiful brunette by his side stepped out into the hallway.
“How are you feeling?” he asked with a warm smile and real concern in his expression as he quickly looked her over, his gaze pausing on the light pink streaks marking her arms and face.
“I’m fine,” Jodi answered, forcing a smile as she wracked her brain trying to figure out who this man was.
“Good,” he said, nodding approvingly as he stepped out into the hallway with the pretty woman and made room for-
“Tinkerbelle?” Danny said, stepping into the hall with a beautiful blonde by his side, somehow making this moment more painful than that moment she’d been forced to step in front of the church and announce to a group of strangers that they’d showed up for nothing.
“Umm, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.
I just wanted to thank you for everything and, so, umm, I made you dinner, but I can see that you’re going out, so I’ll just put this back in the fridge,” Jodi rambled on, somehow managing to stop herself at the end there before she made a complete ass out of herself.
With a tight smile, she turned around to-
“You made me dinner?” Danny asked, sounding surprised.
Nodding, she turned around to answer him when she suddenly found her arms empty.
“What did she make?” the vaguely familiar man asked, stepping closer to Danny, seeming to forget the beautiful brunette by his side to peer down at the dishes in Danny’s hands.
“It’s nothing special,” Jodi said, watching as Danny tore back the aluminum foil. “It’s just a meatloaf dinner.”
“Oh-”
“-God,” vaguely familiar man said, finishing for Danny as both men stared down at the plate of food, licking their lips and looking as though they were in heaven.
She looked down at the plate and sighed. She forgot the biscuits. “Look, I didn’t mean to interrupt your night. I just wanted to say thank you for everything that you did for me. Let me just run back into my apartment and get the biscuits and I’ll leave you to enjoy your evening.”
When nobody spoke, Jodi took it as her cue to make her escape back into her apartment.
She rushed into her kitchen, grabbed the basket of biscuits, turned around and nearly tripped over her own two feet when she spotted Danny sitting at her kitchen table, digging into his food and groaning in rapture.
“This is so good,” Danny said, around a large bite of meatloaf.
A little more than stunned, Jodi opened her mouth to ask him if he wanted a biscuit when the banging started.
“You selfish bastard!” vaguely familiar man yelled as the pounding on the door continued.
“Just ignore him,” Danny said, reaching for a biscuit. “He’ll eventually go away.”
“Alright then,” Jodi said, because really, what else was there to say?