Page 82 of Need Him Like Oxygen

On a gasp, my coffee cup slipped from my hand, splashing hot liquid over my feet, porcelain shattering around me.

“Cin?” Dav called, voice tight, likely having heard the crash.

“Dav?” I asked, ripping at the locks to pull open the door and glower at him. “What the fuck?”

“Good morning to you too, love,” he said, head tilted to the side, looking at me. “Did I scare you?”

“Don’t be stupid,” I said, even though my chest and throat still felt tight.

“I would have called,” he said, pushing his way in, even though I hadn’t moved out of the doorway. “But I didn’t think you’d pick up,” he said as he reached out, tucking some of my hair behind my ear.

That little touch seemed to ease the tension in my chest and throat, letting me breathe again.

“I wouldn’t have,” I agreed, stooping down to gather the pieces of my cup. “Joel is going to be pissed at you.”

“The kid? Why?”

“Because he scrubbed the shit out of the floor last night,” I told him, tossing the cup fragments and reaching for the paper towels as Dav dropped a bag on the counter.

“He was still here when you got back?”

“He cleaned up then crashed on the couch. Then made me watch almost a whole season of Buffy with him.”

“He seems like a good kid.”

“He weighs all of a hundred pounds, but he rushed in here to crash a lamp against that asshole’s head while he’d been choking me out.”

“You didn’t tell me that,” Dav said, his gaze sliding to my throat.

There were some bruises there if you looked close, but that Chet Wheaton guy knew what he was doing, putting pressure in the carotid instead of just choking me with pure brute force.

“I didn’t think there needed to be a blow-by-blow,” I said, shrugging, as I wiped up the coffee. “What’s in the bag?”

“Breakfast sandwiches. Did he do anything else to you? Aside from your cheek.”

The cut from his ring had been pretty superficial, despite how bad it had bled. It was just an angry scratch now, likely sealed after a full day, and nothing but a memory in a week’s time.

“I’m fine.”

“And that’s not what I asked,” he said, digging into the bag to pull out two foil-wrapped sandwiches. “Bacon or sausage?”

“Is that even a question? Bacon,” I said, holding a hand out, and he slapped a sandwich into my palm. “Why are you here?”

“You’re pleasant this morning,” he said, voice as calm as ever, unfazed by my attitude. “I am here because I figured you got enough sleep now, and we can hit the streets.”

“Excuse me?” I asked, pausing before biting into the bacon, egg, and cheese on a bagel.

“Find out who Chet worked for.”

“Um, no,” I said over a mouthful. “Absolutely not. This is my problem.”

“And, yet, here I am. You can tell me no all you want, love, but I’ll just follow you around then.”

“You’re a pain in the ass,” I grumbled, even if some part of me was pleased at the prospect of not having to do this by myself, of there being someone to have my back if things went sideways again.

“I can tell everyone that you’re my bodyguard, if that makes you feel better,” he invited, looking pleased at the prospect.

If there was one thing you truly had to respect about Dav, it was his unshakable comfort in his own masculinity. He never felt less than when he let a woman take the lead.

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