Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(65)

“That won’t work, ever,” she informed him. “It’ll just piss me off. So, this compulsion to protect me, it’s because we had sex, right? So now you think you’re somehow responsible for me?”

His fingers tightened. “Don’t start, Lily.”

“That’s stupid, you know. And wrong. Antique bullshit.”

The dim room seemed suddenly smaller, hotter. She shoved his hands off her shoulders and tried to stare him down. But she was falling in, getting lost in the fathomless darkness of his hooded eyes.

“Let’s not go anywhere near that,” Bruno said.

“Sorry, but I’m no better at keeping my mouth shut than you are,” she said. “You’re letting out a really scary god-king-of-theuniverse vibe, and it bugs me. Being bullied does not make me shiver with sexual excitement, Bruno. It just makes me say sarcastic things, which then escalate to screaming obscenities until the offending behavior stops.”

“Oh, man. I’m in for it then,” Bruno said. “Lucky me.”

He’d retreated behind some wall in his head. She hated the way it felt. So conscious of herself as a woman, and yet so incredibly alone.n>

“You can’t make these decisions for me,” she told him. “I owe you my life, and I’ll be grateful forever. But as soon as you turn your back, I’ll be out of here, like the whack job that I am.”

“So I just won’t turn my back on you,” he said. “Ever.”

She clenched her jaw until it throbbed. “You are hopeless.”

“And you are tired. You should sleep,” he said. “We can’t resolve this argument tonight anyhow. Go on, lie down.”

She glanced over at the bed and bit her lip.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “You get it all to yourself.”

Dismay congealed in a cold, gluey lump in her belly. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been counting on physical intimacy. Anything would do. A hug, a back rub, a cuddle. Or anything else he could dream up. Sign her up for that. She was strung out on the way he made her feel. Had been for weeks, ever since she’d started, well, stalking him.

“Where are you going to sleep?” she asked.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said gruffly.

“As f*cking if! That’s ridiculous! There’s only one bed! As tired as you are, you’re sleeping in a straight-back chair? Am I so scary?”

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Pretty much.”

“For God’s sake, Bruno! Relax! Your virtue is safe with me!”

“Virtue, my ass. Somebody stays awake. It ain’t gonna be you.”

Lily tried for a reasonable tone. “I’m not going to be able to sleep if you’re sitting on a chair, clutching your gun and glowering.”

“I’ll clutch and glower quietly.”

She shook her head. “I won’t lie down unless you do. That’s final.”

He shook his head, frowning into the fire. She put her hand on his shoulder. His muscles jumped and twitched beneath her hand.

“Please, Bruno,” she whispered. “Please, rest, too.”

He rubbed his eyes. “Fine, whatever,” he growled.

So it was that half an hour later, they were both stretched out on the bed, fully clothed but for their shoes. Bruno had insisted that she lay inside the comforter with himself outside of it, leather jacket draped over his shoulders, his back to her.

She stared at the bulwark of his shoulder. He wasn’t asleep. He was motionless, but she sensed the frantic mental activity in his head.

She was beyond sleep. Punch-drunk. Weirdly, she no longer really cared what he thought of her. Why stress about it? She had nothing to hide. He knew things about her no one else knew, not even Nina. Things she hadn’t even known herself, until she seduced him. Like that she was a wild hellcat in bed with him, for instance. Wow. Who’d have guessed? Hard to reconcile with her self-image. Lustful Lily, sex maniac. And the fact that he thought she was a fruitcake, and therefore, no longer eligible for wild hellcat sex. Damn. That really stung.

She didn’t want to think about it, but the thoughts were thinking her. Howard had been diagnosed as schizophrenic. She’d known he was crazy for years. His madness was part of the landscape of her life.

But where did that leave her with these knife-wielding assassins? If Howie’s Magda story was bullshit, then what reason could there be for those guys to chase her . . . unless there was something that she didn’t remember? Had she somehow manad to piss off dangerous people . . . and couldn’t remember why? Say, blackouts? A split personality?

No. Not possible. That was absurd. Howard was crazy, but not her. Not logical Lily. No woo-woo crapola for her, thank you very much.

Right. Crazy people never allowed for the possibility of being crazy. That lack of mental flexibility was a hallmark of craziness.

And oh, man. If she stayed on this train of thought any longer, it would take her over the broken railway bridge and dump her in the abyss. She had to derail, or she’d have to metabolize all the sleep-killing fear and dread chemicals now dumping into her blood.

So she did the one thing that she knew would wipe her brain squeaky clean of all thought, rational or otherwise.

She reached out and touched Bruno’s shoulder.