Frank would only have more ammunition, and she was so freaking tired of having to defend herself.
"I was having a bad dream when I was woken up." Close enough to the truth without giving too much away.
His big hand blazed heat against her back. "Would you like a drink or something?"
"You're not my servant, Connor." She scooted back on the bed and leant against the head board. "But, thank you."
He lingered at the foot of the bed. She'd never get back to sleep now. He ran a hand over the top of his head and watched her. From the looks of him, neither would he.
Since he's already here …
"If you want to keep me company for a while that's fine." She bit the inside of her cheek.
Connor crawled up her bed to the other side and leaned on the pillows next to her. Her whole body went warm. What had she been thinking?
Company?
The bed dipped towards him. It wasn't company she wanted from him.
"Do you have bad dreams often?"
This was a terrible idea.
She shifted her legs and drew up the covers so she was under them and he was on top. It didn't seem less intimate. "Sometimes."
"What happens when you do?"
"I'm a grown up, so I survive them. But if I can't get back to sleep I watch T.V. or read."
She turned to look at him. "What about you?"
"What about me?" He squinted slightly.
"Do you have bad dreams?"
"I don't dream." He propped up on his elbow and even though she sat and he didn't, he still seemed too close. "I'm far more preoccupied with what goes on when I'm awake."
Her skin rippled with awareness. Yeah, there'd been a lot to be preoccupied with while they'd been awake together. What happened in her office …
Images flashed, hot and pulsing, and filled her with need. She still couldn't believe she'd not only allowed that but virtually begged for it.
In her office.
At her work.
"You mentioned your Mom was a single mother?" The question blurted out, but then there's nothing like talking about a dude's mother to keep thoughts platonic.
He rocked back on his elbow, his lashes lowering, getting a little guarded. She'd seen his reaction at her office when they'd talked about this. A wicked little part of her wanted to see him like that again. Vulnerable and exposed. Less a caricature of the man he obviously thought he had to be.
"Yes?"
"She still around?"
He scooted a little higher, no longer so lounging on her bed. "She is."
"You see her much?"
His jaw worked. Would he stop talking now? Like that first night when they'd met, and he'd been so silent and sullen. Except she'd allowed him to stay in here to keep her company.
"When I'm not on assignment."
Of course … He'd already been assigned to her for a month. A wash of guilt ran through her. She'd thought of her own lack of privacy when visiting her dad, but not of there being family of his that may be missing him. "Being on assignment must make it difficult to see family?"
"I don't usually take assignments myself anymore." He stared at her harder, almost expectantly.
Her skin prickled. He didn't? Then why the freaking hell had he now? Her lungs grew tight. Her room didn't seem big enough.
Tension poured thick between them.
She couldn't take a breath that wasn't filled with the scent of his cologne. Couldn't think above the sound of his breathing. Couldn't see anything outside of his expression.
Why was he here?
"I wouldn't stop you from seeing your family, if you need to take some time off for a visit."
He blinked, and the tension thinned. "As I told you before-you won't be getting rid of me easily, or at all."
Her heart rushed. He didn't say that as he had the last time, this time there was a thread of something else-warm and almost like this was where he wanted to be.
"I could go with you." She sucked in her breath.
His eyes went heavy lidded again, and something about the way his lashes lowered over his eyes made the rushing of her heart more of a flutter.
What was it about him that made her blurt things out before she'd finished thinking them through?
"If you wanted to visit your mother, I could go with you, like you came with me to my Dad's today." She broke away from his gaze and looked at hem of her pajama top.
"You want to come with me to see my mother?" His voice dropped low, and so rich it was like the vibration reached into her belly and hummed there.
"I mean this is just your job, but you're a person with a life." She picked up the edge of her top examining it at though it had come unstitched. "It's not like I do much on weekends."
Other than work.
"But, Charlie." The rumbling texture of his words sucked her gaze back to his. "My mother lives in Leavenworth, I always stay at her house for the entire weekend." His lips pressed together, hinting at more of a sense of humor than she'd given him credit for. "But if you want to come stay with me, I can make it happen. It's quiet-secluded-intimate." His lips twitched higher. "And since she spends most of her time in her button shop, it's also private."
Her lungs went tight and itchy, her pelvic region heavy. She had a moment of seeing just that-the two of them cloistered away in a picturesque retreat.
But this was reality, and a kind suggestion didn't mean she'd gift wrap herself for someone who could very well be the enemy.
"What is a button shop?" She focused on the question. She'd never heard of one.
"A shop that sells buttons." His attention fell to her pajama top. "Like these." His index finger flicked over a button below her bust. "Unicorns … well she'd appreciate these. The two of you would get on fine."
Her face flushed hot. She didn't admit she'd bought the pink, pale blue, and purple pajama set she wore now, when she'd seen them online. Didn't admit that is was the unicorn buttons that made them so irresistible.
She never expected for someone to see her in these.
"How does someone end up owning a button store in Leavenworth?"
He took a breath and held it for a while. "The only vacation we ever took was the Christmas we stayed in Leavenworth, and she was more excited about that than we were. She said in another life she'd have lived there." He stared at the button on her ribs, brushing it again. "So when my sister moved out, I gave her a nudge and put a deposit on an empty store for the Button Shop she'd joked about."
His hand slid from her button, and splayed on her ribs, but his expression had gone far away.
"She's lucky, you know."
He glanced up at her. "Who?"
"Your Mom, she's lucky to have you for her son."
His brow wrinkled, strangely defensive for a recipient of a compliment. "Just looking out for my mother."
"That's not what I meant." Charlie rolled to her side, almost losing her nerve when they came eye-to-eye. "I don't mean because you look out for her, or protect her physically, or financially, or however you think you're supposed to." She reached out and rest her hand on his chest. If she pressed her hand flat she'd probably feel his heartbeat. "I meant she's lucky to have family who value her dreams."
He frowned harder, staying silent. Seeming to think far too long about something so simple.
She fought not to look away. What was going through his head?
"What about your dreams. What are they?"
She took a quick breath. "I only have the sleeping kind of dreams."
"Huh." His attention focused deeper on her. "I'd have sworn you'd have said something to do with Halifax."
It was her turn to frown. Why didn't she say something like that? She swallowed. Maybe because it hadn't been a dream, just the thing she'd always known she had to do. The path paved from the time her father first sat her beside him at his desk, like his mini-me.
"Pretend for a minute there's no Halifax, what do you do, Charlie?"
Her mind flashed back to the last time she'd been free enough to play and pretend-and dream. "There's nothing. Just silly things."
"Like what?"
She stared at him, and wiggled her legs under the blanket. "It's not even a thing, not really."
"Then there's no harm saying-if it's not a thing." He leveled her with a look that reminded her he'd once been a detective, that maybe he was far more crafty than she'd let herself believe.
"Fine." She took a deep breath. "When I was a kid before my mom left, she'd sometimes take me to this French Café nearby called Mon Petit Patisserie, where they served miniature everything, and tea in actual china cups." Her hands made the shape of teacup and for a moment she felt one hot in her palm. "When she left, Dad would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I'd say ‘CEO of Halifax like you, Dad', and he'd pat my head. Then I'd hide in my room and pretend to work at Mon Petit Patisserie. I loved that place so hard, something strange still happens to me when I see tiny food."