Safe With Him (3 page)

“You sound surprised. You think I can’t have a brother or is it the fact of Marco being
my
brother?” he asked, a little too harshly, as he turned back to look at her.

“That Marco is even related to you at all,” she stated firmly, and then turned to put the DVD back on the table. “I mean, he’s always so nice and…and…so not cop like.” She turned back to face him.

What the hell,
he thought,
is ‘cop like’ or as she put it, ‘not cop like?’
When she said nothing but just stood there with a straight face, staring at him, he had to ask. “What the fuck does
not cop like
even mean?”

She shrugged her shoulders and crossed her arms under her breasts, which only caused them to rise, and his heart skipped a beat. “You know. Not being a cop; not acting like a cop,” she stated bluntly.

“Grab some plates.” He instructed her, pointing to a set of cabinets as he turned back to the stove, but he just couldn’t let her comments pass. “Explain to me how a cop acts,” he demanded as he turned back to look at her.
Fuck!
She was leaning on the counter, reaching up in the overhead cabinet, and that little bit of space between her T-shirt and jeans just got a whole lot bigger. He could see part of a smooth flat stomach and all of a sudden, his hand itched to slide across and then down. He growled as he jerked his body back around to face the stove.

“Oh, believe me, it’s not an act. They do whatever they want, whenever they want. Laws be damned,” she declared flatly.

“They serve and protect,” he retorted. What the hell kind of cops had she met? He wondered.

“Yeah. They serve themselves and protect each other.”

He jerked back around the same time she turned with plates in one hand. “You do know I’m a cop, right?” he proclaimed, slightly shocked.

“Damn!” she hissed as she remembered and the plates slipped out of her hand and hit the floor.

“Well, shit.”

“Damn!” Bree repeated as she squatted down to pick up the plates off the floor. How could she forget he was a cop? “It’s that dang being all nice crap he’s pulling,” she mumbled under her breath, and then looked up as he bent down in front of her grinning.

“Sorry,” she whispered softly to him. She would apologize for dropping the plates, but she would not, however, apologize for stating the truth.

“Why don’t you go on and sit while I fix the plates?” Draco told her as he took the plates from her hand and stood back up, holding a hand out to her.

She put her hand in his so he could help her back up, before she thought about what she was doing. When his hand closed around hers, she felt a little tingle in her stomach, but when she tried to pull her hand back, he tightened his grip. Not enough to hurt but just enough so she couldn’t pull her hand away, then he lightly tugged until she stood back up. He still didn’t let go of her hand, and instead he led her to the small kitchen table, pulled out a chair, and moved to where she would have no other choice but to sit. She sat down and only then did he let go of her hand after he gave it a light squeeze.

She watched as he walked back to the counter, picked up the plates that she hadn’t even noticed he had sat on the counter and dropped them in the sink. He then turned back to the cabinet and got two more plates while she was rubbing her hand back and forth on her leg, trying to get the tingles—that were now not only in her stomach but also in the hand he had held—to go away.

He walked back to the table and placed down a plate piled high with whatever he had said it was. It smelled amazing. Then he set a second plate across from her and reached his hand toward her. “Fork,” he stated. She looked at it for a beat before it registered what he was saying, and she took the fork from his hand, making sure that she was careful not to touch him.

She watched him sit, take a bite from his plate, then he looked up at her. He had that damn sexy grin going on a-freakin’-gain. “Dig in, it’s not poison.”

“Oh.” And then with a slight jerk, like she was coming out of a trance, she ‘dug in.’

“Oh My Damn!” Her eyes closed and she gasped around a mouthful, chewed, then swallowed. “This is really good. I mean really,
really
good.” She praised and then took another bite. “Mmmm.” She couldn’t stop the moan, and she heard his fork hit the table. She looked over just as he jumped up and walked away.

“You want something to drink?” She heard him ask, sounding surly, as she turned around in her chair to see him standing in the open refrigerator.

“Uh…sure,” she said a little baffled.

“Beer?” he shot back, sounding as if he was in pain.

“No…uh, thank you, I don’t, uh…drink,” she stammered.

He jerked around and just looked at her like she had just grown two heads. “You what?”

“I don’t drink,” she stated matter-of-factly, because she didn’t. Never had, never wanted to. She knew all too well what alcohol and drugs could do to a person.

“Ever?” He was still looking at her like she was crazy.

“No, not ever.” She shrugged her shoulders as she turned back around in her seat so she wouldn’t have to see him looking at her like that. “Don’t like the effect it causes,” she mumbled low as she picked her fork up and continued eating.

Three different drink cans were placed in front of her. “Cool,” she breathed as she reached for the Mountain Dew in the middle, then looked over at him as he was sitting back down and reaching for the Coke can.

“My favorite,” she told him with a smile, then asked, “Can I use a glass?” She started to stand but before she could, he jumped back up and returned with a glass.

“Thanks. I don’t mind a can drink, but I don’t like drinking it straight from the can.” She began to explain to him as she poured the drink into her glass. “It makes the drink
taste
like the can.”

They both ate in silence for a few minutes before he spoke again.

“Winter, right?” She heard Draco ask.

“What?” Bree asked back just a little confused.

“Your last name,” he stated.

“Oh, Winters, with an ‘s’ yes.” She clarified.

“But your name isn’t Bree?” he asked back.

“Yes, it is,” she answered slowly. Didn’t she already tell him her name?

“You said everybody calls you Bree, like it wasn’t your name, but what you go by.”

“Oh, well, yes, it’s what I go by.”

“So Bree is short for…” He said it like it was a fill-in-the-blank.

He just isn’t going to let this go
, she thought. “Breezie, Agent D, with an ‘ie’,” she told him reluctantly.

He stared at her for a beat. “No shit?” When she just shrugged her shoulders, he added, “Your name is Breezie Winters?” Then damn it, he just had to add that sexy grin.

“What can I say; my mother always was the sharpest marble in the bag.” Shrugging her shoulders again, she added, “Still better than Stormy.” Right before he busted out laughing.

“You’re shittin’ me? Your brother’s name is Stormy Winters?” He gasped out through his laughter. She smiled back at him, only because she couldn’t help herself. Damn, the man had a great laugh.

“You didn’t know?” she asked.

“No, I just assumed Storm was some kind of nickname.” He chuckled.

“You should know better than to assume, Detective Holmes.”

“Vittore.” He corrected.

“What?” she asked.

“Detective Vittore,” he said back again, like that cleared everything up.

When she didn’t say anything only continued to stare at him, he added, “My name.” Did she ask for his name, no! She did not! Wait…what?

“I thought Draco was your name. I mean, that’s what you told me.”

“It is. Uh…Detective Drakon Vittore…my, uh, name. Draco is just a…uh, nickname,” he told her, then added, “I blame my parents and their Latin Greek heritage.” He finished again with that little hint of a blush.

“What?” she asked a little confused.

“Drakon is Greek, meaning dragon. Draco is the Latin form of Greek Drakon.”

“Oh,” was all she had to say. Really, what could she say other than that was a cool as hell name, if you didn’t count the ‘detective’ part at the beginning. Yeah she wasn’t going to tell him that. “Cocky enough already,” she mumbled to her plate, then jerked her head up when she heard him chucking again.

When she thought he wasn’t going to say anything else, “Do you mind?” she asked, motioning to the radio that sat on the counter.

Again he jumped up and switched the radio on, and she was blasted with Poison’s
Nothin’ but a Good Time
for a beat, then the volume was turned way down just as he muttered a “sorry.”

“You like 80s music?” she asked a little surprised. He didn’t look the type. Okay, that may not be true, it was just that she didn’t
want
him to. But this song, yeah that fit his type, with that sexy grin, and cocky attitude. And that body with all his maleness in all the right places, and she hadn’t even seen all his places…places she would like to…

“…but some I don’t,” he was saying.

Oh crap!
He had been talking and she hadn’t heard a thing he said, something about not liking some. Some…what, music? Or was he talking about something else now? “Oh,” she said as she stuffed a fork full of food in her mouth.

*  *  *

Draco took another bite and thought she was driving him completely insane! With that talking/mumbling shit that was just too cute. And did she have to walk around in those sexy as hell clothes, teasing him with just hints of damn skin? Skin he wanted to touch and taste so bad he itched?

Then she insulted him twice, in his damn face! Once saying his own brother was too nice of a guy to even be related to him, then that shit about cops.
What the fuck was that all about?
He wondered and not for the first time.

Then that sweet ‘sorry’ of hers, which he had a feeling was more about dropping the plates than the insults she threw out at him.

When he grabbed her hand to help her up off the floor, her small hand wrapped in his felt like silk. He liked just holding her hand.
What the shit was that about
? He was thirty-four years old and he stopped hand holding at fifteen.
Then
, pulling her chair out for her. He did not
do
shit like that!

And yeah, her liking his cooking was fine but did she have to moan, with that post orgasmic look on that gorgeous face? Then she had to up all that gorgeousness and smile—right at him! The kind of smile that makes a man want to do damn near anything just to get another one of those damn gorgeous smiles.

Insane! Completely insane! That was where she was sending him.

And what the hell was up with her not drinking? Ever? He looked at her then. She was of age, wasn’t she?
Oh fuck, is she under twenty-one
? Did he seriously just offer alcohol to a minor?

“How old are you?” he barked, a little too gruffly, but shit, she had to be over twenty-one. Right?
Please, fuck, be over twenty-one,
he mentally begged.

She jerked her head up and narrowed her eyes at him. “Excuse me?”

“You are over twenty-one, aren’t you?” He damn near begged.

Looking him right in the eyes, “I will be next month,” she said so sweetly with just a slight tilt to her head.

“Fuckin’ hell!” he groaned. Then watched her lip twitch right before she busted out laughing and fuck if that wasn’t sexy too.

“Bet you’re glad I didn’t take you up on that beer, huh, Kojak?” she questioned, still giggling.

He just stared at her for a moment, then two. She was only twenty, and he was…too damn old to be thinking what he had been thinking.

“Trying to catch flies?” she asked, and when he still didn’t answer or move, she leaned over and placed her hand under his chin and pushed his mouth closed, then slid her fingers slowly back. “Relax, super sleuth. I’m twenty-six. But thanks for the compliment, even if you didn’t intend it that way.” She sat back and started eating again, like she didn’t just scare the piss out of him and turn him on at the same damn time.

Okay, I have to get this woman out of my house,
he told himself.

“Serves you right for asking a woman her age,” she said, adding a small side smile that was just cute as hell.

“After we eat, wanna watch the movie?” he asked her before he even realized what the hell he was doing.

She looked down at the DVD that was still lying on the table, staring at it hard, like it was the answer to every prayer she ever had.
Oh, hell no!
His brain screamed, while his body screamed,
Damn!
as he watched her bite at her bottom lip. He wanted to bite that lip, lick it, along with many, many other places he could list that he could lick. All damn night.

She looked back up at him. “I should really get going,” she finally said, sounding a little sad.

Not yet!
He wanted to yell, but instead he said, “Come on, you know you wanna and it’s supposed to be really good.” He picked up the box and waved it back and forth, then brought it closer to his face. “Watch me, watch me,” he repeated in a somewhat higher voice. She smiled at him, then giggled, and damn if he didn’t care if he was acting like a complete moron.

“Okay, but first I will clean up.” She started to rise from the table.

He jumped up too. “I’ll help you.”

She had her plate in hand, ready to walk to the sink when she noticed his plate. “You haven’t finished,” she said, then returned her gaze to him.

He grabbed his fork, scooped up the rest, and shoved all of it in his mouth. “All done,” he stated around his stuffed mouth, surprising himself when he didn’t spit any out.

She just smiled, shook her head, and walked her plate to the sink.

What the hell am I doing?
Bree asked herself as she bent to look under the cabinet below the sink for dish soap. She grabbed it and stood up as she heard what sounded like a low growl. She looked back over her shoulder to see Draco turning around, facing the table. She turned on just the hot water, put the stopper in the sink, then added the soap, bent to put it back and again heard that strange low growl. “What is that noise?” she questioned, looking back over her shoulder at him as he was walking up to her.

“What noise?”

“Do you have a dog or something?”

“No,” he said, looking at her again like she was crazy.

“Stop looking at me like that, I’m not totally crazy.” She turned the water off.

She walked back to the table to grab her glass and before she could get back, he had stuck his hand in the water she’d filled the sink with. “Son of a bitch!” He yelped as he jerked his hand out of the water, slinging water everywhere. “Damn, woman, are you trying to boil the skin off?” he hissed.