Chapter 6 Lex
LEX
I stared up at my ceiling, my covers thrown to the side. Even with my window cracked, I was too hot, and my skin felt stretched too tight over my body. I itched to go on a run, and I wasn’t exactly an athlete.
I glanced at my clock. It read twelve-thirty. It would start blaring in exactly five hours and thirty minutes. Tomorrow would be rough.
Lifting my head, I dropped it back to the pillow a handful of times. As if I could knock myself unconscious with down feathers.
There was no way sleep would come. Not when I knew that West was just on the other side of the wall.
I let out a low growl, annoyance flaring to life again. He just had to come back and be all gorgeous and broody and…let me step in and protect you.
I squeezed my eyes shut and let out a long, slow breath. I’d deal. He’d find whoever was doing this, and then he’d be gone again. I’d go back to a series of bad dates and singing about him to strangers on the internet. God, that sounded pathetic.
Pushing myself to a seated position, I swung my legs over the side of the bed. Maybe tea would help. I had some Sleepytime somewhere in the kitchen.
I slid my feet into my slippers and started for the door. Opening it slowly, I listened. I heard nothing but the faint hum of the refrigerator. I padded silently into the living room, carefully giving the couch and the man on it a wide berth.
“Can’t sleep?”
West’s raspy voice made me jump.
“Shit. Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”
“I wasn’t sleeping.” West sat up in one fluid movement, his gaze sweeping over me. His jaw hardened. “You couldn’t wear actual pajamas?”
I glanced down at my sleep shorts and tank top and flushed. But that was quickly followed by a burst of anger. “I’m sorry you find my legs disgusting, but this is my home, and I wear what I damn well please.”
I stalked past West, but he snagged my wrist, pulling me to a stop. “Shit. Lex. I didn’t—I don’t find them disgusting.”
I glared at him.
“I don’t. I like looking at you too much. I always have.”
My breath hitched. Suddenly, the fingers wrapped around my wrist burned, heating me from the inside out.
West’s eyes flared, and he instantly released me.
I didn’t know what to do. Frozen to the spot, moving closer or farther away, both seemed like a terrible idea.
“Sit.” The word wasn’t a question but a gently given command.
My body obeyed on instinct, sinking next to him on the couch.
West’s gaze swept over my face as if he were trying to memorize it. “I’m sorry I’ve been an ass.”
I leaned against the cushions, pulling my knees up to my chest. “Why do you do that?”
“Apologize?”
I shook my head. “Any time you get too close, you do something asshole-ish.”
His brow arched. “Asshole-ish?”
“You know what I mean. It’s like this reflex to push me away.”
West swallowed, shifting so he faced me. “I had to.”
I stared at the face I could’ve drawn from memory, letting my silence ask the question.
West let out a breath that felt like one he’d been holding on to for years. “You were four years younger than me, Lex. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. The last thing you needed was to get mixed up with me.”
My heart hammered against my ribs.
“Every time I came home on leave, you were a little more tempting. But I couldn’t go there. I still can’t.”
I understood when I was sixteen and he was twenty. But now? We were both adults. “Why not now?”
The words were out of my mouth before I could stop them. Braver than I was.
West’s dark brown gaze heated, glowing in the low light. “You’re a client. I’d be fired faster than you could blink.”
My mouth dropped open. “Oh.”
“Yeah.”
My hold on my legs tightened. “You could always quit this assignment.”
He chuckled. “And then I’d have to go back to Portland.”
“Damn.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
We sat in silence for a while, letting each other’s presence wrap around us like a blanket.
“I’m scared,” I whispered. It was the first time I’d said it aloud. But West had always been the person I could tell everything to.
“Come here.” He tugged me against him, lying back on the couch. “You’re safe, Lex. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”