Chapter Thirteen
Audra didn’t respond at first. Mostly because far too many reactions to that stipulation rattled through her. Anger. Frustration. A bone-deep weariness that made her just want to sink to the ground and give up. Luckily, she was used to that feeling. She’d been fighting it for years now.
What she didn’t know how to fight was the other emotions battling for space inside her.
Relief. Pleasure. Copeland would be by her side and that meant—
Nothing. It means nothing.
“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?” she asked, trying to sound casual. Trying to fight away all the reactions and just deal.
“No, I left you alone yesterday. That’s when you tripped and hurt yourself. I left you alone at the hospital. I’m not being metaphorical. I’m being literal. Twenty-four seven or the deal’s off.”
That did nothing to ease the mix of emotions. He couldn’t possibly do that, and she shouldn’t want him to, but she kind of did.
She’d been denying her wants her whole life, so why stop now?
She turned to face him, taking a deep breath meant to center, calm.
She was used to dealing with Rosalie’s ridiculous stubbornness.
She could deal with his. She fixed him with the same older-and-more-with-it-sister glare she used on Rosalie.
“Copeland. You cannot be by my side twenty-four seven. You have a job, for starters. Not to mention all the private parts of a person’s day.”
He shrugged. “I’ll figure it out. Now, let’s get some sleep. It’s been a long day. Days.”
He was starting to poke at her temper. I’ll figure it out, like she didn’t have a say, when all she had were says. “You’re not in charge of me.”
“The hell with that,” he retorted, without much heat, but a lot of conviction.
“Someone ought to be. So while we’re at it, you’re going to have to tell Rosalie.
Maybe you’ve got a few days, because she’s so far away, but this is going to get back to her.
Too many people know. Too many things have happened.
You really want her catching wind of this from someone else? ”
It was awful. Both prospects. Really awful because he was right. Hawk would no doubt mention something to his wife, and while Anna wasn’t going to call up Rosalie on her honeymoon, there was just too much of a chance that it all got back to Rosalie sooner rather than later.
“Are you trying to make me cry?” she demanded, because she’d just gotten a handle on it, and now he was making it worse.
“No, and I’d really prefer it if you didn’t.”
She managed a watery laugh at that, blinked back the tears. “Yeah, I’d prefer that too.”
“Come on,” he muttered. He moved to her side, wrapped an arm around her so she’d lean on him more than put weight on her ankle. They walked like that in silence to the stairs. She tried to reach for the railing, but Copeland stopped her.
“You’ve got to give that ankle a break.”
“You’re not going to carry me again.”
“You keep being so very wrong.” And then, just like last time, he picked her up before she even had a chance to talk him out of it. Just an arm under her shoulders, another under her knees, and easy as you please, just up the stairs. Like she didn’t weigh a thing when she most decidedly did.
He didn’t stop there. He walked her all the way to her room. Then he very carefully set her on her feet and crossed over to flip on the lights. He surveyed it with those cool, detached cop eyes.
“Decent-sized bed,” he commented. “Going to share it or am I sleeping on the floor?”
She gaped at him. Her mouth hanging open like a fish. “What?”
“Twenty. Four. Seven. I’m sleeping in this room with you.” He patted his side. “Armed.”
“I have a gun up here.”
“Great. Two’s better than one.”
“Copeland.” She knew there should be a reasonable spate of refusals to bring up, to get through to him, but all her brain seemed to come up with was: what?
“You’re going to have to save us both time and energy and stop trying to argue. This is the deal struck.”
His deal. His decision. As if her life was his to determine, when she’d been determining everything for her entire adult life, if not more.
It was his job, sure, and at the end of the day, as ridiculous as he was being, she knew she needed help. She knew whatever was going on was beyond what she knew how to handle or stop.
But she hardly thought that extended to sharing a room, to losing all her privacy and agency.
She could tell him all that, but it wouldn’t change anything.
If there was anything the past few days had taught her, it was that there was no getting through to him, no winning this.
He’d find a way. He had every single time, no matter her objections.
It infuriated her. She usually got around everyone with a sweet smile and doing what she wanted anyway. She usually convinced everyone she was so fine, so with it, so…good that she didn’t need overbearing determinations.
Why was he different?
She went into the closet, pulled out the spare pillow, some clean sheets, perhaps a little unreasonably angry at him for being that different.
She tossed everything on the ground, spurred on by fury and, if she was being honest with herself, maybe a little panic that someone had finally gotten through. “There. Enjoy.”
She went back to the closet, grabbed some pajamas. Then tried to stride out the bedroom door, but he was right there. Right behind her the short walk across the hall.
She turned to scowl at him in front of the bathroom door. She gestured at it. “Just the bathroom, warden. I need a shower.”
“I said you’re not out of my sight. I’ll amend that to give you private bathroom privileges, but that’s it.”
Bathroom privileges? How was he possibly serious? She fisted her hands on her hips. “Oh, well since I’m your prisoner did you want to handcuff me while you’re at it? Maybe shower together so I’m never out of sight?”
He studied her, something about the way his eyes changed reminding her of when he’d kissed her. Her cheeks reddened. Because that was not what she’d meant, but the image…
Jeez, she needed to get a grip. So she turned on a heel and jerked the bathroom door open. She closed it behind her, not with a slam, but with a firm snap.
She flicked back the shower curtain, wrenched the water on hot, then paused because…it was so weird that he was right outside the door, and she was going to take off all her clothes.
And if she called it weird, she wouldn’t have to acknowledge that there was something else fluttering through her as she got undressed and stepped into the hot spray. Like the idea of sharing a shower. Or that kiss they’d shared. Or mixing it all up into one very inappropriate fantasy.
Yes, it is totally normal to fantasize about sex with a bossy, overbearing detective who is only here because your life is falling apart.
She wanted to groan, maybe beat her head against the wall a few times. Instead she washed up, got out of the shower, dried off and dressed, and then decided she’d handle the rest of the night by not speaking, not thinking, not worrying.
He could sleep on the floor. She’d sleep on her bed. And that was that.
Determined, recalibrated, she gathered up her dirty clothes and opened the door to move out into the hallway.
Copeland was leaning against the wall, looking at his phone. He lifted his gaze when she came out. His eyes moved over her. Not exactly a detached-cop look. No, there was the flicker of something in their dark depths.
She could convince herself the kiss was a mistake for a lot of reasons, but it was hard to remember those reasons when she was faced with the fact that whatever she felt about him, whatever reactions she had to him, she wasn’t alone. He wasn’t immune to her.
“I’m going to run through myself,” he said. “You can head into your bedroom, but you stay there. We’re leaving both doors open.”
She wanted to have a snarky retort, but she just limped into her room, dropped the dirty clothes in her hamper, turned off the light.
She crawled into bed. Her body was fully and wholly exhausted.
Her ankle throbbed, so she took the bottle of ibuprofen out of her nightstand and took two with the water from the water bottle she kept next to her bed.
Then she flopped back on her pillow knowing that no matter how exhausted she was, everything plaguing her would keep her awake.
And not just because Copeland was currently in her shower.
Naked, no doubt. With the door open. She could hear it running.
She could hear the occasional creak of his weight shifting the old house.
She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to fight off that potential image. Didn’t she have bigger problems than an unfortunate and untimely attraction to a man who…
That was the trouble. She wanted him to be like he seemed. Cold and abrupt and cocky. And he was all those things when he wanted to be, but it was clearly an armor put on after a really awful time in his life.
He was here because he wanted to help. No doubt that was why he was in law enforcement. But she also knew, somewhere along the line, whether either of them admitted it to themselves, it had become at least a little more. And she didn’t just mean the kissing.
He returned, but didn’t flip on the light. She heard him move, the sheets rustle as he settled himself into his makeshift bed.
On the cold, hard floor. After everything he’d done to help her. She didn’t want to feel guilty. It made her really mad that she felt guilty, because he didn’t have to sleep on her floor, he didn’t have to take on this responsibility.
She knew that was rich coming from her.
“I can’t sleep with you lying on the floor,” she muttered, staring at the ceiling in irritation.
“So trade with me.”
“I’m not that big of a martyr,” she replied, though she was beginning to wonder.
“Sure about that?”