Page 24 of His Sassy Little

After breakfast, Rocky left and Tanner took her hand in his, leading her to the bedroom. She thought for a minute that he was taking her there to make love, but instead he led her through the bedroom and into the attached bathroom. Tanner wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her closer, placing a soft kiss on her forehead.

“I need to take care of you, Baby.”

Her only response was a hum as he lifted her nightshirt and fell to his knees in front of her. Tanner grabbed the hem of her panties and pulled them down her legs, but he didn’t linger or stroke her skin as she expected. He was almost clinical again, like the other night in the shower.

When she was completely naked, Tanner turned toward the tub and adjusted the water. As it filled, he added bubble bath, then rummaged around in his cabinets. Bringing out two bags from their recent trip to the toy store, he showed her the variety of bath toys. There were swimming mermaid dolls, tub crayons, light up water fish, even a hoop that suctioned to the tile wall and balls for bath basketball. Arabella was stunned by the selection as she’d never had that many toys for a bath. Not even when she was a young girl. She’d also never been given a bath as an adult as James would never have done anything like this. She wasn’t sure what to expect.

When the tub was properly filled, Tanner once again took her hand and helped her into it.

“It’ll be slippery from the bubble bath so be careful.” His concern for her had warmth flooding her veins. It made her feel special, cherished, precious.

When she was settled in the bath, she leaned back and just enjoyed the warm, soothing water for a minute. It wasn’t long before Tanner was putting the toys in the bath and Arabella couldn’t hold back her desire to play with them. She’d never thought of herself as a really little type. More of a Middle, honestly, but bath time was proving to be one of the best experiences she’d ever had.

Tanner didn’t just sit and watch her play either. He was in the water up to his elbows swimming his own mermaid in a race with hers. He challenged her to a basketball contest - which he won because her aim was shit – and used a crayon to draw a heart with their initials on the tile. They played until the water started to cool.

“Time to get clean before it gets too cold.”

Arabella reached for the washcloth only to have her hand brushed away as he picked it up himself, wet it, and squeezed some body wash on it. Then he proceeded to clean every inch of her body. She couldn’t help the deep groan that escaped from the sheer luxury of it. She determined right then that baths were the absolute best.

“Would my Little Hurricane be interested in a nap?” Like his words had conjured it up, a yawn escaped her, “I wasn’t expecting to find you up so early this morning. I called pretty late last night, so you must be tired.”

“I really am, Daddy. I had a bad dream.”

Tanner pulled her towel covered body closer and placed another kiss on her forehead. “You get them pretty often, huh?”

“Yeah, but this one was different.”

“How so?” His hand ran a slow path up and down her arm, giving her the courage to tell him.

“Mostly, I dream about the past. My time with him,” she couldn’t bring herself to say his name. “But last night…” Arabella really wasn’t certain telling him that she’d dreamed about his death was such a great idea, but she’d already started down this path, “Last night, I dreamed you got hurt because of me being here. It was way scarier than dreaming about the past. Daddy, I don’t think I could handle it if anything happened to you.” Her words tumbled out in a rush as she tried to say them all before her courage failed her.

Tanner cupped her cheek, tilted her face so she had to look him straight in the eye, and rubbed his thumb over his favorite spot on her cheek, “Nothing is going to happen to me, Baby. Trust me.”

Arabella could only hope he was right.

Chapter Nineteen

Tanner, Arabella and Rocky settled into a routine. Tanner continued to spend nights watching Brian so he could spend his days with his girl. As much as he wanted to be there for nights too, he still had a job to do. His entire system rebelled at the thought of that scumbag finding Diana again so he’d be damned sure that Brian was never unsupervised.

In the last week of constant surveillance, it still seemed that nothing was happening. The guy never left his apartment, Pup had found out he’d taken leave from his job citing a “family emergency”. Best guess was that he was using the time to search for his wife. If it hadn’t been for that and the close call a little over a week ago, Tanner would swear the man didn’t give a shit his wife was gone. Clearly he did, however, why else would he have shown up at that hotel?

Rocky was keeping Tanner up to date on Arabella’s nightmares. They worried Tanner because they were so frequent–practically nightly. He’d attempted to talk to her about them again but she still didn’t want to talk about it. Tanner was determined to break through that wall. Arabella needed to talk about them in order to heal. That was something that would happen in time, he was sure.

Tanner had just woken from his now customary nap with Arabella’s bottom nestled snugly against his erection. At times like this, it was hard to care that there was an outside world that consisted of more than the two of them. All Tanner wanted was to wrap himself up in Arabella and never let go. There was an outside world, however, and today he had to take care of some of the responsibilities of that world.

When Arabella stirred, wiggling that delectable bottom against him, Tanner decided those responsibilities could possibly wait just a bit longer. He skimmed his hand up her naked torso in a direct line to her breasts, while nibbling on that spot on her neck that drove her crazy. When she moaned and turned toward him, Tanner decided that the outside world could definitely wait.

Tanner had Arabella wrapped around him, their sweaty bodies slowly cooling and drying. He was loath to move, but knew he needed to get them in a shower and talk to her about his plan for today.

“Come on, Baby. Let’s get cleaned up.”

“Mmmmm. Comfortable.” Her voice was muffled, her face buried in his chest, but he still understood.

“Me too, Little Hurricane, but we have things to do today.” He ran his hand along her back and felt the full body shiver it elicited.

“Awww, what things? Aren’t you still on vacation?” Her hand–which had previously been rubbing circles on his pecs–slowly started to drift downward. Tanner felt his resolve slipping and reached to stop her before she could completely crumble his will power.

“At the tattoo parlor, yeah. I still have books to do for the bar and the club. No rest for the wicked, right?”

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