I brushed my teeth with what now seemed like my toothbrush which was cozily resting next to Lee’s.
I tried not to think of my day’s plan of not ending up in Lee’s car, company, condo or bed, all of which I’d failed to do. I tried not to think of Tim Shubert, dead and smelly and left to rot in his house while his neighbors worried about him. I tried not to think of Rosie or Duke in a similar position either now or later. I tried not to think of Tod and Stevie’s car, which I had left outside a crime scene. I tried not to think of what a fuck up I was or how Lee could move around in these situations so casually, without blinking an eye.
I got undressed and put his t-shirt on. It was huge on me and had a Night Stalkers insignia emblazoned across the chest. Too big, I was going to get tangled up in it the way I slept but I wasn’t going to tell Lee that.
Plus, it was a fucking cool shirt.
I walked into the bedroom, about to dump my clothes on my bag, which I’d left on the floor, when I saw my bag was missing.
“Where’s my bag?” I asked Lee as he walked into the room, coming toward me. I dumped my clothes on an armchair.
“Judy unpacked you,” Lee replied, still coming toward me, he grabbed my wrist and walked me toward the bed.
“Judy?” I asked, not paying much attention because I was thinking of being “unpacked”, my clothes hanging next to Lee’s. My undies in a drawer. My toothbrush next to his. My body in his bed. How did this happen so fast? It had only been two days, for God’s sake! Whatever happened to taking it slow?
“My housekeeper.”
“You have a housekeeper?” I was shocked he had a housekeeper. I was shocked that I was kind of living with a man who I didn’t know had a housekeeper. I was shocked that I was kind of living with a man, period, dot, the end, much less that man being Lee.
He pushed me gently and I fell back on the bed and finally realized where I was and what he was doing.
“Lee –”
Then he moved fast, he pulled my wrist over my head, leaned into me, I heard a snap and ratchet, then I heard another snap and ratchet.
Then I was handcuffed to his bed.
“What the hell!” I yelled.
I was on my back, my left arm over my head and cuffed to one of the slats in the headboard of Lee’s mission-style bed. Lee was leaning over me.
“I’m goin’ out and I’m makin’ sure you don’t do anything stupid.”
“You can’t leave me handcuffed to your bed! What if there’s a fire, a break in?”
He shook his head, pushed away from me and got off the bed.
“I won’t do anything stupid,” I told him, my voice just this side of seriously pissed off saying clearly that the first stupid thing I’d do when he let me go was kill him.
He came back, leaned in and kissed my forehead.
“I know.”
Then he walked across the room, turned off the light and was gone.
Fucking, fucking Lee.
*
Normally, I could sleep just about anywhere, crash on someone’s couch, in a double bed with four other people (mainly because my activity cleared the bed), in the back of a van.
I was learning I had a great many life skills I had not known I possessed, such as running away when people were shooting at me, holding my own when I’d been kidnapped and not throwing up when I found a dead body.
Unfortunately, those new life skills did not include being able to sleep while I was cuffed to Liam Nightingale’s bed.
I found a somewhat comfortable position and tried to sleep but I was spitting mad and every time I closed my eyes, all I could see was Tim and his brains that were no longer contained in his body.
What seemed like hours later, I heard the door open and my body tensed. I kept myself perfectly still and listened as someone walked through the house. They didn’t turn on any lights and they were quiet as a cat, the only noise a barely distinct rustling. Then, that someone walked into the bedroom, I heard something fall on the chair, then the whisper of movement of the sheets, then hands at my wrist, the smell of leather, spice and tobacco and when I was released from the headboard, I knew it was Lee.
No sooner was I released, I rolled away, toward the other side of the bed and freedom.
I got a roll and a half in before an arm hooked around my waist and I was stopped.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m getting a taxi home,” I said between clenched teeth.
“No.”
“Then, I’m sleeping on the couch.”
“No.”
Great. We were going to go through this rigmarole again.
“I’m sleeping on the other side of the bed.”
“No.”
“You’re an asshole.”
“Maybe.”
Shit.
Lee settled in, tucked my back to his front, his arm wrapped around my waist.
I laid there wondering if I should flip over, knee him in the ‘nads and take off.
Then, for some reason, the vision of Tim floated into my head and my body started trembling, like, a lot. Full-on human earthquake.
“Shit,” I whispered and Lee turned me to facing him and wrapped both his arms around me, tight.
I pressed into his warmth and tried not to cry.