Just Kidding (SWAT Generation 2.0 #1)(36)

I protect what’s mine.

Oh, boy.

He tapped my nose with his finger, then turned back to the screen.

“See,” he said. “I’d lock their asses in, too.”

I watched as the mom on the screen threatened to lock whoever was in the basement in, then gasped and jumped as the door slammed in her face.

Seconds later she was tumbling down the stairs.

The big man next to me tensed.

“Fucking hell,” he said when she finally landed.

A ball came rolling across the floor after that, and I moved closer to Dax.

He pulled up his arm and tucked me in tighter to his chest, his hand going to my shoulder and squeezing it lightly.

Comforted in his arms, I nearly missed the next thing that happened as the mom ran up the stairs.

Seconds later the light burst and the screen was plunged into darkness.

“Fuck,” I breathed, legs tensing.

Dax was still fairly relaxed next to me.

That was until a few scenes later when she lit up a match and started shining it around.

“She’s gonna see a fucking face,” he said.

The match went out.

She lit another one.

That match went out.

She lit yet another one.

That’s when there was a loud clap that nearly sent me straight off of the couch.

I screamed and covered my face, completely missing the rest of the scene as I covered my head and prayed for it to end.

“It’s over,” Dax whispered.

I lifted the blanket from my head where it was tucked into Dax’s shoulder, then looked at the screen.

“I’m going to have nightmares,” I informed him.

He chuckled then.

“If you do, I’ll come sleep with you and make sure nothing touches your foot that’s hanging off the—” I slapped my hand over his mouth so he couldn’t finish that sentence.

“Don’t you fucking dare,” I growled.

His lips turned up into a smile against my hand.

I pulled it away before I could allow my fingers to explore his lips, then turned my face back to the screen.

I didn’t move out of his hold, though.

I stayed exactly where I was, head on his chest.

He’d moved the laptop to the outside of his thigh so he could see but didn’t make a move to dislodge me in any way.

I felt things inside of me start to flutter with excitement at how close I was.

The movie played away, and each time that I got scared, his arm would squeeze around me tighter.

It was at the point that the end was near that I realized that his hand was resting perilously close to my goods.

Not that he knew that since the blanket was wrapped around me still.

But I could feel the heat of his hand as it pressed against my mons.

I licked my lips and tried not to breathe. Because if I breathed, it might dislodge his hand, and I really wanted his hand where it was.

Any moment he was going to move it because the movie was over.

Any minute…

“Hey,” I croaked. “There’s a Conjuring Two!”

Why did I sound so excited to get the shit scared out of me again?

Because anything, even being scared out of my mind, was preferable to leaving his arms.

Anything.

By the end of the movie, I was so scared that I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I wouldn’t be getting a wink of sleep.

Dax, being the sweet man that he was, walked me over to my door and waited until I walked inside.

When I had the door open, I turned in the opening and surveyed him.

His eyes were sleepy again. But his hair was no longer a mess. At some point during our night, he’d gone into the bathroom and had come back out with it combed into a semblance of control.

“Thanks for the dinner and the company,” he said, his eyes going soft. “Today was… bad.”

Bad.

That one word summed up the death of eight people perfectly.

It had been bad.

Really bad.

And without the quick thinking of the SWAT team and them helping clear the mass casualty car wreck, additional wrecks were avoided.

My hand curled into a fist as I stared at the man’s worn face.

Even tired, he was sexy as hell.

“You’re welcome,” I said, a small smile kicking up the corners of my lips. “I…I wasn’t sure that you were going to want me there tonight. But I’m glad that you did.”

He brought his hand up and trailed the knuckles of one huge hand down the apple of my cheek.

Then he was gone, leaving me watching him go.

***

I went to bed in his sweatshirt.

I woke up with it pulled up to my face and inhaling his scent.

The darkness was still in full force, so I knew that it wasn’t time to get up yet.

So what had woken me?

It took me a long minute to orient myself, and when I did, I realized that I could hear singing coming from the window that led outside to the shared back yard of Dax and me.

Curious now, I got up and made my way to the window, barely parting the blinds in order to see out.

I saw the flickering of a candle, or a flame of some sort, before it’d flick out.

Over and over and over again.

That curiosity got the better of me and I exited my bedroom and went out to the living room that would lead to the back yard.