Safe With Him (30 page)

She kissed him so deep, for so long, that she didn’t feel Draco slide the towel off of her until he broke the kiss, flipped her off of him, and started kissing his way down her naked body.

Draco lay awake long after Bree had fallen back to sleep. He remembered when he was just a kid, before he found out the awful shit about his father. When he was still his
dad,
how he and Marco would sit around the dinner table while his mom and dad would only speak in Italian. How they taught Marco and him how to speak it. But mostly, he remembered how it made him feel. It was the few times that he felt like a part of something, part of a family. Sharing in a language that no one else knew, or that he didn’t think no one else knew. Made him and his family…special, loved. It happened every night, for an hour and a half exactly. It didn’t matter what any of them had planned before or after dinner, they had to be at the table at precisely six in the evening and were not allowed to get up for any reason until seven-thirty, on the dot. Draco never minded. He enjoyed the time spent with just his family. Until he found out the truth. His
father
was training him and Marco. Learning Italian was so that no one outside the
family business
could understand what the hell they were saying. The night his mom took him and Marco away from all that shit he had vowed he would never speak Italian again. Now it seemed he had been…to Bree. Holding her in his arms while she slept, she made him want things; things he didn’t think he would ever want. Like a home. Not just a house, but a
home,
and a family, with…fuck him…kids? Hell, he couldn’t even think of a time in his life where he had ever imagined himself with kids. Now, with Bree in his life, in his bed, his arms, yeah, he could imagine a little redheaded girl running around. He smiled for a second until another thought popped into his head. His gorgeous little girl and…boys.
Oh, hell no!
No boy was getting within a hundred yards of his daughter. Maybe they needed to have a couple of boys first. Yeah, give her a few big brothers that would kick some guy’s ass if he tried to mess with their little sister.

“What…” he growled, felt Bree stir…
the fuck?
He finished the thought silently. He was actually getting pissed about kids that didn’t even exist.
Damn, woman, you are driving me in-fuckin’-sane.
He gave Bree a quick squeeze, kissed the top of her head, closed his eyes and before he fell asleep he whispered softly into her hair.

“Ti amo, Breezie.”

              Bree woke the next morning sprawled across Draco. She slowly and carefully moved from over him and when he didn’t wake up, she gingerly scooted across the bed, crept across the floor and quietly opened the closet door.
Good thing he has a huge walk-in closet
, she thought as she slipped inside, grabbed some clothes, and dressed as quietly as she could. When she was dressed, she peaked back at Draco, who was still sleep, so she tiptoed out the bedroom door and headed to the kitchen. She might not be the best cook in the world, but she figured she could find
something
in the kitchen she would be able to fix.

After searching the refrigerator and freezer, she found eggs, a pack of frozen bacon—
how hard can it be to fry bacon
—and a loaf of bread. She placed everything on the counter and it was just sitting there…mocking her. “You can do this,” she mumbled aloud. After all, she had scrambled eggs before. “Have you ever seen Draco eat scrambled eggs?” she asked herself, trying to remember. She stood there staring at the carton of eggs, biting at her bottom lip. “Well, no, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t, right?” she answered herself with another question. She took a big breath, then blew it out. “Let’s do this!”

Ten minutes later she was standing on a chair with the broom in her hand, waving it back and forth in front of the shrilling smoke alarm. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”

“Breezie!” Draco bellowed as he came barreling down the steps and into the kitchen.

She glanced at Draco when he made it to her, trying to look innocent. “Oh, hey. Did I wake you?” she yelled, franticly waving the broom back and forth.

“What the hell are you doin’?” He wrapped one arm around her middle and reached up to the smoke detector with the other.

“I’m trying to get this thing to shut…” she paused in her speech as the alarm stopped, “...up. How did you do that?”

Bree stood on the chair, looking down at Draco as he just stared up at her, face blank, before he plucked her off the chair and sat her on her feet. Without saying another word he went over to the security box and punched in his code, opened the back door, and opened the back porch door…wide. After he walked back in the kitchen, he opened the kitchen windows too, before he moved to the stove. He just stood there, hands on his hips, staring down at the smoke rising from the pans. He shook his head and reached up to flip on the exhaust fan. Only then did he turn his head in her direction and stare at her, face still blank.

She wasn’t sure if he was pissed, or if he was getting ready to do one of those grumpy pacing things around the room. She tilted her head and smiled. “I was fixing breakfast in bed…for you.”

He looked down at the pans and shook his head again before he looked back at her. “How is it, you downstairs unsupervised, causes alarms to go off?”

She flopped down in the chair she had been standing on. “That’s not funny.”

He grinned. “You’re so fuckin’ hot you set alarms off everywhere you go?”

She narrowed her eyes and crossed her arms at her chest. “I was trying to do something nice.”

He laughed…at her! “You think burnin’ down my house is nice?”

“Don’t be such a drama king. It was just smoke, not a flame in sight.”

He was still chuckling as he crossed to her. “Drama king?”

“Well, you’re definitely not a girl, so I can’t very well call you a queen.”

“No, definitely not a girl,” he agreed as he bent, grabbed her around the middle and picked her up. Her legs encircled his waist as he carried her over toward the stove. He kissed her quickly and sat her on top of the counter next to it.

Draco took a step over to the stove and looked down at two of his brand new fry pans. He picked up one of them and tried as hard as he could to figure out what it was that she had been trying to cook, but finally had to ask. “Baby, what the hell is this?”

“Fried eggs,” she answered, but for the life of him, he could not find anything resembling an egg in the pool of black liquid.

“What were you fryin’ the eggs in?”

“Butter.”

“How much butter did you use?” He tilted the pan to see…yep, the bottom was completely burnt.

“Just a stick.”

“The whole damn thing?” He took the pan,
eggs
and all, and dumped it in the trash.

“Uh…yes?”

Shaking his head, he picked up the other pan which had a big chunk of…black. “Wanna share what this was?”

“It’s bacon.” She huffed at him.

Grabbing a fork, “Bacon?” he questioned as he stuck the fork in the chunk, or at least tried to. The top might have been burnt to a crisp but it seemed the inside was still frozen. “Did you thaw it?”

“Thaw?”

“I take that as a no.” Again he looked at the bottom of the pan, which was also burnt, so like the first, he chucked it in the trash as well.

“Dra! You just threw away your frying pans.”

“They’re burnt.”

“I messed up your pans?”

He moved to her, stepped in between her legs, and kissed her quick. “Baby, you can’t cook for shit.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll replace them.” She looked around the room for a second like she was lost, then looked back at him. “Today if you take me to the store.”

He turned toward the refrigerator. “Can’t buy them at any store around here. I ordered them.”

“Oh, okay. Well, then, I’ll pay for them. Just tell me how much.”

He had his head stuck in the refrigerator, looking for something easy that he could help her cook. “‘Bout three hundred for the both,” he answered absently.

“Dollars?” she screeched. “Were you high?”

He jerked his head out of the fridge and looked at her. “What?”

“High, as in stoned. As in you
had
to have been stoned out of your mind to pay three hundred dollars for frying pans.” She tilted her head at him. “Haven’t you ever heard of
Walmart
?”

Grabbing the milk and butter out of the refrigerator, he turned to her. “Gonna pretend I didn’t just hear you ask,
a cop
, if I was high. Seein’ as that shit’s still illegal in the state of Virginia.”

“So you paid three
hundred
dollars on pans? On purpose? Seriously?”

He went to the cabinet, pulled out the flour container. “They’re
All-Clad
, or they were. Can’t buy that shit at Walmart.”

“But three hundred
dollars
?
As in U.S. dollars?”

“Bree…” he said while pulling sugar and spices out of another cabinet.

“Okay. Okay. I’ll drop it.” But he heard her mumble to herself, “Three? Hundred? Dollars?”

After he sat everything they would need on the counter on the other side of the stove, he went back to her and stood in between her legs. “You like pancakes?” he asked her, his lips close, but not quite, touching hers.

She grabbed two hands full of his hair and pulled his lips to hers. He sunk into her so deep he forgot all about his damn pans, the smoked-up kitchen, everything except…her.

A little later, Draco tried his damnedest to be patient with her. But, after she had spilled the flour, dumped way too much sugar in the bowl, had egg shells in the batter, and now, when he told her to add a
little
butter to the pan, she again threw the whole damn stick in it with the burner turned on high, causing the hot milk that was already in the pan to splatter on her.
That’s it!
He pulled her back away from the stove and turned her to face him. “Bree, you see that?” He pointed at the microwave.

“The microwave?”

“Yeah. That you can use all you want.” He pointed at the stove. “See this?”

“Yes.”

“Don’t fuckin’ touch it,” he leaned into her, “for any damn reason.”

“Dra!”

“Bree, I’m serious. I kinda figured you didn’t cook much by what you had at your place, but fuck, baby, you really can’t cook for shit.”

“Just because I don’t cook like you doesn’t mean I can’t cook, or use a stove.”

“Yeah? How do you fix pancakes?”

“The microwave,” she mumbled so low he could barely hear her.

He cupped his ear. “What was that?” He couldn’t resist teasing her.

“I said the microwave. And they’re good. Probably just as good as yours and all I have to do is take them out of the freezer and pop ‘em in the microwave. Thirty seconds later…bam! Pancakes.”

“You think your frozen pancakes are just as good as mine?”

“Probably.”

He grinned at her. “Wanna bet on that?”

“Uh…bet? Like money?”

He shook his head in the negative, still grinning. “Money’s too simple. Something more…I’m thinkin’,” he ran his eyes down the length of her, then back up to her eyes, “fun.”

“Fun, uh, like the loser has to…hummm…do a strip tease?”

He hadn’t thought about that but, watching Bree dance and strip? “Fuck. Yeah,” he readily agreed.

“Okay. Bet,” she agreed, and she stuck out her hand to shake on it.

He grabbed her hand and gave her a tug. “We don’t shake on it.” She fell into him, and he kissed her. He picked her up and sat her back on the counter before he set out to make the best damn pancakes he had ever made.

*  *  *

Bree sat at the table with a stack of pancakes in front of her. She didn’t need to taste them to know how good they would be. Just looking at them she could tell. She looked up at Draco sitting across from her, watching her with a cocky, smug grin on his face. He knew. He knew before he made the bet.
That’s okay,
she thought,
I bet I can wipe the smug look off his face.
She picked up her fork, then slowly cut into the stack, and brought a piece
slowly
to her mouth. She paused before the piece of pancake touched her lips. “Smells good.” She smiled at him.

“Bree.”

She pulled the fork away from her mouth. “What?” she asked
innocently
, with a slight tilt to her head.

“Quit stallin’ and admit your defeat.” Even his voice sounded smug.

She smiled, shrugged her shoulders, and again brought the fork to her mouth
slowly
, before she slipped the fork between her lips. “Not bad.”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Not bad?”

“It’s actually pretty goo—” She grabbed her throat, eyes widened in a shocked expression. “Cinnamon…” She wheezed. “Did you add cinn—” She held her breath.

“Breezie?” Draco jumped up from the table and in a flash jerked her up into his arms. “Cinnamon? Bree, are you allergic to cinnamon?”

She closed her eyes and let her body go limp. “Breezie!” She heard Draco yell as he shook her.

She opened her eyes and looked straight at his face. “Not looking all that smug now, are you?” She moved out of his arms and sat back down at the table…giggling.

He stood there, looking dumbfounded for a beat before he narrowed his eyes at her. “That shit was not fuckin’ funny.” He huffed.

“Yeah,” she continued to giggle, “it was.”

Still standing in the same spot, he ran his hands through his hair. “Breezie, you scared the fuckin’ shit out of me. You ever pull some shit like that again, I’ll…” He trailed off, at a loss.

She looked up at him, waiting for him to finish. When it seemed he was done, “You’ll what, Dra?” she asked around her giggles.

He took a step toward her, leaned down with his face close to hers. “Just don’t fuckin’ do any shit like that again.” He moved his face even closer, their noses touching, “fuckin’ ever.” He finished before he moved back to his seat and with a jerk he sat, and just scowled at her.

“Don’t look so smug when you already know you’re going to win the bet before you even make it.”

“A sure thing, babe. Only bets I like to make.” She watched that cocky, smug, grin return to his face.

“Careful…
babe,
” she warned.
Oh, this is so not over!

Draco sat at the table and watched Bree devour her plate of pancakes. He was still half-pissed, only because she had scared the life out of him, but he had to admit, though he would never tell her, she was good. In fact, if she had pulled that shit on
anybody
else, hell, he’d still be laughing his ass off. But it was
him
she pulled that shit on, so the way he figured it, she owed him one damn good strip tease. “You gonna admit defeat?”

“I don’t welch on a bet. Even if I was set up,” she flashed a mischievous grin at him, “by a cop.”

“Set up? Didn’t force you to bet and the strip tease was all you. Now admit it, Bree, those,” he nodded his head at her almost empty plate, “helluva lot better than frozen.”