Page 16 of The Story of Danny Rose

The last of the tension was draining out of him, and it felt so fucking amazing. I wanted him to be able to relax around me. I understood it would take time before he didn’t tense up at first, but this had to be a good first step.

I was in trouble. I remembered, two years ago, I’d thought…in another time and place, I would’ve made a move on him. Danny was the right amount of complicated and feisty for me.I was rarely interested in perfect covers and untattered pages, because I was none of those things. Give me something to sink my teeth into. Someone who had his own scars and battle tales. Someone who could understand my own journey. But that didn’t matter anymore. I was a new brand of authority figure to him now. I needed to earn his trust, not prey on him.

When the hug stopped being about calming him down, it was time to ease back. Otherwise, it would just be me taking advantage.

“We’ll put together a plan for your training tomorrow.” I nudged up his chin, not surprised to find him reluctant to make eye contact. I’d pushed him a bit outside his comfort zone tonight. “By the way, did you sleep here last night?”

He raked his teeth over his bottom lip and nodded hesitantly.

I snorted softly and shook my head, amused. “Trespassing punk.”

My reaction seemed to put him at ease, and he smirked a little.

“I’m gonna crash early tonight. It’s been a long day,” I said. “I have books in my room if you wanna find your entertainment for the night. Otherwise, I’ll just prepare the couch for you and say goodnight.”

He scrunched his nose. “There’s nothing to prepare. I have a sleeping bag.”

Fucking nonsense. In our field, few things topped sleeping on clean sheets. Sometimes, it was all I could think about when I was stuck in some godforsaken country, sleeping on a floor or in a ditch.

“You should know better than to turn down fresh linens,” I told him. Then I went into my bedroom and reopened my bag.

It was my one luxury. My bed at home with expensive linens. I’d brought extra for the twins, but since they weren’t here…

“Go brush your teeth or something.” I fanned out the bottom sheet over the couch and tucked the sides underneath the cushions.

I was going too far, I recognized. I never would’ve made the beds for the twins. I would’ve just given them the sheets. But fuck it, right? I could indulge discreetly. I missed having someone to take care of. Hell, I couldn’t remember the last time… I guessed it was about three years ago I’d had a semi-serious relationship. That sort of thing just didn’t work with what I did for a living.

I felt Danny’s eyes on me as I tossed a small pillow into a pillowcase and realized he was profiling me too.

He squatted down in front of his backpack and dug out his toiletry kit and a pair of flannel bottoms, and right then and there, I saw something. A flash of baby-blue stood out in his bundle of army green and black. He met my gaze in a fraction of a second before he hurriedly closed his backpack again.

I was mistaken, right? He didn’t have a small stuffed animal in there.

“I’m just gonna take a piss,” he muttered and walked out.

I frowned to myself and listened. A couple muted thumps across the porch’s floorboards, then down the porch steps. I had approximately ten seconds before he’d be near a window—five, if he went up the porch steps again. I didn’t think twice. I quickly opened his bag and lifted a couple tees or whatever they were, and there it was. A pastel-blue plush toy in the shape of a baby elephant. Iknewthose bloody toys. America had lost its fucking mind collecting Beanie Babies, and my sister was one of them.

She lied and said they were for the kids.

Why did Danny have one?

I buried the little elephant under the clothes and closed the backpack once more.

After fanning out the top sheet over the couch, I ran a hand through my hair and went into my room to make my own bed. Danny—elite soldier, a Green Beret—with a stuffed animal?

Connect the fucking dots for me without involving my core kink, please.

Was he selling them? I watched the damn news… I’d seen those crazy ladies making bank on toys. I’d seen the hordes of women barge into stores and rip the toys out of the hands of children.

My sister kept her collection in a glass cabinet, and no one was allowed to touch them. They had the heart-shaped red tags on and all.

I hadn’t seen a tag on Danny’s toy.

This was gonna frustrate the ever-loving fuck out of me.

“I’ve only met him once, and I’m already an admirer of that boy.”

“Danny is angry, and he is lost. That’s why I agreed to his terms, because I believe he’ll find what he’s looking for with you.”

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