Chapter 3
Cole
I finally woke up with my brain a little bit clearer than it had been for a while.
My head still hurt like a son of a bitch, but I didn’t feel like I was about to cough up a lung anymore.
I automatically reached for the bottled water at the bedside.
As usual, there were two full bottles there ready to be consumed, along with a dose of fever reducers and cough medicine.
I was sweating like a pig, and I had a feeling my fever had broken, but I slugged down the pills with the water for my damn headache.
Fuck! I wanted to get healthy again as quickly as possible.
I hadn’t been sick for over a decade, and that inconvenient cold had been nothing compared to this damn flu.
The virus had kicked my ass, and I didn’t like to admit that anything was capable of kicking my ass.
It probably would have been even more miserable if it hadn’t been for Lauren Collier.
I hadn’t wanted her here, but she had kept me hydrated and shoved my meds into me as soon as they were due.
I dropped the empty water bottle onto the table and looked around the room.
Was she still here?
Hell, I wasn’t even sure how long I’d been sleeping.
My memories were a little fuzzy, and all I could recall was a succession of waking, drinking, taking meds, and falling back to sleep again.
Reese had been here at some point to check on me, but we hadn’t had much of a conversation.
The lights were off except for the small bedside lamp, but I still scanned the room, and my eyes landed on a small figure napping in the big recliner not far from my bed.
I recognized her immediately.
It was Lauren.
Her position in the chair didn’t exactly look comfortable, but she was definitely asleep.
My eyes scanned her body. She was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of shorts.
My shorts and my T-shirt.
I recognized the old workout shorts that I hadn’t worn in years and the T-shirt with a logo of one of the companies I was invested in.
I should probably be annoyed that she’d gone through my clothes, but I couldn’t work up a single ounce of irritation at the moment.
Yeah, I was an asshole, but I couldn’t deny the woman who had taken care of me something clean to wear to sleep.
It was dark, so I couldn’t see what the weather looked like outside my bedroom windows, but I could hear the winds howling, so I assumed that we were right in the middle of the big storm system that had been coming our way.
Hell, Lauren looked better in those shorts and that T-shirt than I ever had. They were big on her, but she’d probably look sexy in almost anything she wore.
I wasn’t even going to try to deny that Lauren Collier got my dick hard.
Unfortunately, she was exactly the type of woman that I’d probably be trying to get into my bed if the circumstances were different.
There wasn’t a single thing about her that I didn’t like.
I was a big guy, and I appreciated a woman with curves.
I also liked intelligent women.
And she had the sexiest dimples I’d ever seen.
However, I didn’t do relationships.
I fucked.
And I hadn’t even done a one-nighter for a long time.
Lauren was absolutely off-limits for me.
She wasn’t a woman I could screw to scratch an itch.
She was under the protection of my cousins, and my Aunt Millie adored Lauren like an adopted daughter.
Generally, I didn’t give a damn what anyone said or thought about me, but Millie had been good to me since I’d returned to Crystal Fork.
For some reason, I really didn’t want to hurt her.
Not to mention the fact that there was no way that Lauren was going to have a fling with a guy who was suspected of murdering his father.
Yeah, she was one of the few people in Crystal Fork who didn’t look at me like I was a hardened criminal, but that didn’t mean that she liked me or wanted to fuck me.
Very few people actually liked me.
I wasn’t exactly a likeable guy.
Honestly, the fact that Lauren had never looked at me like she was afraid of me had probably ramped up my attraction to her even more.
She obviously didn’t believe that Asher and I had killed my father all those years ago, and that had made me like her as much as I was capable of liking anyone.
So, I’d drawn the line at trying to seduce Lauren Collier.
Hell, I wasn’t sure when I’d decided to grow a few morals.
I certainly hadn’t learned them from my scumbag father.
I definitely hadn’t found them during my career as a billionaire tech mogul and investor.
But for some fucking reason, I didn’t want people to talk shit about Lauren because they suspected that the local murderer wanted her.
She didn’t deserve that, and the talk around town might bother her, even if it didn’t bother me.
“You’re awake,” Lauren said sleepily and rose from the chair. “How are you feeling?”
“Better,” I grumbled. “Is it still Saturday night?”
My gut clenched as she sat on the edge of the bed and smiled at me.
Those damn dimples got to me every single time.
“It’s Sunday night,” she corrected. “You slept all last night and all day today. It’s almost midnight.”
“Shit!” I growled. “I lost a whole day.”
“That’s not unusual. I think you had a pretty high fever. You were a little out of it.”
“You’ve been here with me this whole time,” I told her. “You’re going to end up sick, too.”
She shook her head. “Reese swabbed your throat to do a flu test. It was positive. I got the vaccine this year. I couldn’t afford to be down with the flu earlier in the winter.
I was too busy with work. The shot was a good match with the circulating virus this year.
It’s pretty effective. I haven’t gotten sick, and I’ve been exposed. The flu is rampant in town right now.”
Yeah, now that she mentioned it, I did remember Reese doing that test.
I’d fallen back to sleep before she’d gotten the results.
“That’s good,” I said, feeling weirdly relieved. “But you don’t look good. You have dark circles under your eyes. Have you slept?”
She shrugged and put the back of her fingers to my face. “Here and there. I’m not going to die from losing a little sleep, but thanks for reminding me that I look like crap. Do you want some water? I think your fever broke, but you should probably still take the pills for the body aches.”
I frowned at her. “I’ve had so much water that I’m pissing way too often, and I took the ibuprofen already. I didn’t say that you look like crap. I said that you didn’t look good. You look tired.”
She reached up and rubbed the back of her neck. “I guess I’m just not used to sleeping in a chair. All of the other bedrooms are upstairs, and I didn’t want to be that far away in case you needed something.”
I tossed back the covers. “I’m sweaty, but the other side of the bed is clean. Sleep.”
Her eyes widened as she looked at the large space on the other side of the bed and then back at me.
I smirked at her as I added, “I’m not going to rape you and slit your throat. I’m not sure I’m strong enough yet to find a place to get rid of your body right now.”
She sent me an annoyed glare. “That wasn’t what I was thinking about,” she said in an irritated voice. “I’m not and never have been afraid of you, Cole.”
Instinctively, I knew that, but I still wondered about something…
“Is that right?” I said as I raised a brow and locked eyes with her. “Then I wonder why you always make it a point to leave my company like your ass is on fire.”
“Did it ever occur to you that you’re not the best conversationalist?” she shot back. “You’re grumpy, surly, and not exactly a fun guy to be around.”
“And I’m also the man who’s been accused of murdering his father for over two decades,” I replied.
She folded her arms over her ample breasts. “I don’t believe that. I never have.”
I shrugged. “Prove it. Sleep with the devil, Lauren. Crawl under the covers and get a decent night’s sleep.”
“Is that what it’s going to take for you to believe me?” she asked softly.
No.
It wasn’t.
I already knew that she didn’t believe that I’d killed my father.
She’d never looked at me like she suspected it one single fucking time, and I knew what those looks were like because I saw them often enough from many of the people in Crystal Fork.
I was challenging her because she looked exhausted, and she needed to sleep all night in a comfortable bed.
I wasn’t going to need her tonight because I was sick, but I was good at reading people, and something told me that Lauren wasn’t going to retreat to one of the guest rooms upstairs yet.
She’d stubbornly sleep in that damn chair if I couldn’t get her into the bed.
Hell, maybe I was twisted because I wanted her to sleep in my bed, even if touching her was completely off-limits. I wanted to know that she was getting the sleep that she needed.
Those dark circles and the exhausted look on her face were there because she’d been taking care of me .
“Fine,” she huffed as she broke eye contact and stood.
I watched as she strode to the other side of the bed, slid between the covers, and pulled the comforter over her body.
She made a production out of fluffing her pillow before she finally settled onto her side and let out a small moan that made my dick twitch.
“This is probably the most comfortable bed I’ve ever been in,” she said with a sigh. “Wake me up if you need anything or if your fever goes up again.”
I turned onto my side and watched as she quickly fell into a deep sleep.
No fear.
No apprehension.
Okay, I’d known that she didn’t suspect me of murdering my father, but that kind of trust was a little…disconcerting.
Was she really that innocent?
It was never, ever safe to climb into bed with any guy that she didn’t already know intimately.
Granted, I was weak from the flu, but still…
She’s thirty-one years old, dickhead. She’s not an innocent virgin. And you’re the one who dared her to crawl into your bed. Leave it. Her choices mean absolutely nothing to you.
I’d gotten exactly what I’d wanted.
I just hadn’t expected Lauren to toss me her trust that wholeheartedly or that easily.
I trusted no one except my older brother, Asher.
The two of us had been through hell and back together, and I’d learned early in life not to trust anyone except my brother.
Someone who trusted on instinct like Lauren was a unicorn in my world.
And honestly, I really had to doubt those instincts of hers.
I definitely wasn’t a trustworthy guy.
I was a cold, calculating bastard who had made financial success my entire world.
I’d never made the time to give a shit about anyone except Asher.
After I’d made it out of my childhood alive, I’d never wanted to be vulnerable again, and caring about anyone else would make me vulnerable.
Not once had I met anyone worth letting my guard down. The walls I’d meticulously built during my childhood had stayed firmly in place.
It was better that way.
I continued to watch Lauren sleep. She looked like an angel with her thick, abundant, blonde hair scattered over my pillow.
I smirked. Interesting, right? The devil and an angel in the same bed?
I stayed in the same position for hours.
Hell, I’d had all of the sleep I needed over the last thirty plus hours.
For some reason, it seemed more important to watch over Lauren for a while, the same way she’d watched over me.