Page 33 of Little Nightmare

She was propped up like a queen in the middle of the bed, three pillows stacked behind her—purple and silk, of course. The light from the TV flickered across her pretty face.

Her bone structure was something sculpted out of a fairy tale, her jaw was firm yet just feminine enough when she smiled that it was sometimes hard to breathe. Her lips were full and swollen like she’d been chewing them, and her hair was pulled back into a messy bun on her head. As if the TV could get any louder, a tire commercial came on making the walls shake. “By all means, add the surround sound, I think you forgot it.”

She looked around expectantly. “Shit, we have surround sound in this room?”

“I was kidding.”

"I like noise. I can’t sleep without it.”

"And here I thought your own snoring would do the trick,” I teased, leaning against the doorframe. “I’m serious, you need to rest.”

“No.” She waved the remote at me. “What I need is to not be attacked in my own house on campus while my bodyguard plays with his yellow ducky in the shower.”

I rolled my eyes. “It’s purple and it’s a soap container.”

“Still a duck.”

“You done?”

“No.” She yawned. Her eyes darted from the TV to me then back to the TV. “You know you can stay.” I could hear it in her voice, the subtle tremor—she didn’t want to admit it, but things felt real and she was shaken up.

Maybe I was being an asshole, but I wanted her to genuinely ask. “What part of I can’t fall asleep to noise and TV did you not get?”

She swallowed and looked down at her lap.

It wasn’t a suggestion.

I fought hard enough for air just standing next to her let alone having to lay next to her in a bed and share an intimate space with her. I had boundaries, and it seemed like she wanted to jump over every single one of them.

"Fine,” I barked out. “I’ll lay on this side.” I pointed to the right of her. “It’s closest to the door.” I pulled out my gun and placed it on the night stand then started peeling off my shirt.

I didn’t realize what I was doing until it was too late.

I wasn’t the type of guy who made mistakes, but I was currently half naked in front of her, just hesitating. Do I put the shirt back on and apologize, or do I just commit and take it off?

Putting it back on meant I was hiding something, so I roughly peeled the rest of it over my head and tossed it onto the floor only to pick it up, fold it neatly and set it on a chair and crawl into bed. “I sleep naked, so this will have to do. I get hot. No touching. No heavy breathing. And if your foot as much as points itself in my direction—either one of them—I’ll start cutting off toes until you wake up.”

She snorted out a laugh. “Wow, and kids are scared of the boogie man. I think I’d take a monster under my bed any day of the week.”

"You mean you don't like the one in it?”

Her eyes flickered to my chest. “That’s a lot of knife wounds for a living breathing monster. You sure you aren’t a ghost?”

I ran a hand over the rigid scars. “I’m sure the person who gave them to me wishes I were.”

“Who gave them to you?” She asked.

"It’s not a bedtime story, Raven.”

"It’s still a story,” she pointed out. Her eyes were so expectant, so large. How the hell was she born into this family? She deserved so much more than the bloody future she had.

Why the hell were they trying to killherof all people?

She was hard to deal with, but she wasn’t a threat.

I mean, she’d been hard to tame and literally nobody wanted to guard her, but it was more or less her tongue that got her into trouble not her ability to take a man down.

It dawned on me in that instant.

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