no blanket.
Standing back up, I went down the hall to her room. I opened the door, quietly closing it behind me so I didn’t wake her. She didn’t look comfortable, and I was tempted to carry her to bed, but I didn’t. Moving the coffee table, I grabbed her blanket and covered her.
And then I turned off the lights and got the hell out.
Returning to my office, I grabbed a tumbler and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue. I drank as the footage from the night slowly rewound.
When she moved from sleeping on the couch to the door, I pressed play.
Like Cole said, she wasn’t happy. I’d have smiled at her calling us assholes had it not been for the emotion threading her words.
She’s killing me.
I was about to wake her and feed her whatever the hell she wanted when it happened.
She broke.
“I’m sorry, okay?” Her crying grew louder. “I’m sorry I ran. I’m sorry I didn’t appreciate what I had before.” Her forehead hit the door with a thud. “I tried to come back! I tried to crawl back to you!”
She’d tried to crawl back to me.
Not the house. Not here.
Me.
Fuck, that went straight to my dick.
I should’ve gone to sleep. I should’ve at least turned off the camera.
I didn’t do either.
Instead, I took a quick shower and changed clothes before returning to my office and my whiskey.
And Juliet.
Juliet
Itchy, flat pillow. Neck hurting. Scrunched positioning on a lumpy bed.
I’m back home.
Still mostly asleep, I stretched and rolled.
And then I fell.
“Oof,” I wheezed. Sitting up, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes to see I wasn’t home—or what used to be home. I was on the floor of the sitting room.
Thankfully, one of the goons or Ms. Vera had moved the table and covered me with the puffy blanket that offered a bit of cushion. Otherwise, I’d have likely hit my head or hurt myself worse than I already had.
As it was, pain radiated from my hip bone.
I moved my hand around to feel for my scooter in the dark, but there was nothing.
Well, shit.
Before I could pull myself back onto the couch, the door opened, light filtering through from the hallway.
I expected one of the goons, but it wasn’t. Instead, Maximo stood in the open doorway. Wearing only a pair of low riding joggers, he was shirtless, showing off his insane muscles. Guiltily, my eyes darted up from his abs to his disheveled hair. I wondered if I’d woken him with my fall, which made me also wonder how close his room was that he’d been able to hear. With the light behind him, I wasn’t able to make out the details of his expression, so I didn’t know if he was pissed at being disturbed.
“I fell off the couch in my sleep,” I said feebly when the silence stretched. I glanced around before pointing to where my scooter had ended up. “Can you push that to me?”
He didn’t move.
“Never mind,” I muttered. “I’ll figure it out.”
I was going to climb back on the couch to sleep there for the night. It wasn’t as comfortable as the bed—especially without a pillow—but it beat the floor.
When I shifted, he finally walked toward me but stopped a foot away.
My eyes caught on his torso and the tattoos there. His arms were a mix of designs, but the left side of his torso was all Vegas. The sign. Chips. His upper chest and part of his shoulder were covered with a king—the playing card kind. A spike on the king’s crown was what stretched onto Maximo’s neck.
Hoping the poor lighting hid my inspection of his tattoos—and his cut muscles—I tipped my head back to look at his shadowed face.
“You can go back to bed,” I tried, not even sure he was actually awake. I used to sleepwalk as a kid—a side effect of stress. Shifting onto my knees, I was about to pull myself onto the couch when his hand stroked my head, his fingers combing through my hair.
My breath seized in my lungs at the unexpected and gentle touch. I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I wanted it to continue. Even as my heart raced and my palms grew sweaty, I stayed as still as possible so I didn’t break the spell.
His hand was gone just as quick, but before I could mourn the loss, he bent to pick me up. Only instead of cradling me like he’d done before, I was positioned with my front to his. He took