Page 80 of Silver-Tongued Devil
Maybe Blake got it, because he said, “I’m a slow learner, I guess. I should take off. It’s been a long day.”
Dakota said, “There are stairs to your bedroom. A lot of them.”
“Yep.”
She hesitated, looking at Russ. He said, “I thought you were sticking around to watch the ball game, Blake.”
“And if you go home, you’ll have to get your own ice,” Dakota said, then thought,Well, that was lame.
Blake scratched his cheek. “That’s true.”
Russell pulled himself up from the table. “Game’s on right now. And if all this dancing around is because Dakota doesn’t want to ask you to spend the night in front of me and you don’t want to say it either, you can both stop. Last I checked, everybody here was full-grown, and everybody had a real bad day, too. I suggest you quit pussyfooting around, Dakota, and ask the man to stay with you. He needs to be sitting down with that leg up, and putting some ice on it, too. He might as well do it watching baseball with me, and then he might as well go to bed with you. He’s going to want to make sure you’re feeling OK, and you’re going to want him to, so just go on and ask him.”
Blake was laughing, and if Dakota had been the blushing kind, she’d have been doing it. “You’re invited,” she said, knowing she sounded stiff but unable to change it. “No obligation. If you’d rather go home, that’s fine.”
“Now, darlin’,” Blake said, “why ever would I rather go home, especially when I’ve got my toothbrush and everything, thanks to Jennifer? I’ll be out in one minute, Russ,” he added.
Russell nodded and took off with Bella, as always, right behind. Blake waited until the door shut, then said, “Ground rules.”
“What?” All the warm fuzzies she’d felt with him since the night before vanished. “You don’t get to set rules.”
“Sure I do. Surewedo. Every game needs rules. Here’s my Rule One. Tell me the truth. I’m a lousy guesser. If you want me to go home, say, ‘Blake, honey, I’m real tired. I almost drowned today, and I don’t feel like spending my night helping you out with your bad knee and bad dreams. Come back when you’ve got something to offer.’ And I’ll say ‘OK’ and go. I’m not what you’d call sensitive. I can take it.”
“I’m not going to say that.” She’d started on the dishes again, and she’d started to smile, too. “What, I only want you if you can perform? And who says you’re not sensitive? Who was that guy holding me today so I wouldn’t be scared?”
“Nah. The holding was for me. And what do you mean, ‘if I can perform?’ I can perform fine. Just because I don’t do it when a woman’s in a hospital bed coughing her lungs out, that doesn’t mean I can’t.”
She was laughing. “I take back the ‘not sensitive’ thing. Your knee hurts, though.”
“In case you didn’t notice, that isn’t the essential equipment.”
“All right. Now I know. I probably do feel too bad tonight, though. I just want to lie down again, but I’d rather lie down with you.”
“See, now? How hard was that? Now tell me what I wasn’t supposed to say to Russ.”
She started to wipe the counters. It was too hard to look at him, even now, and say this. “He doesn’t know about Steve. About what he did to me. I don’t want him to.”
“I’m going to ask why not,” Blake said, “You can tell me it’s none of my business if you want. If it’s because you think Russ would think differently about you, I think you’re wrong.”
“I don’t think so. At least I hope I don’t. But I think he could try to kill Steve. And I mean that.”
“I think you’re right. I know I want to.”
“So don’t say anything.”
“I’ve got it.” He reached into the freezer and pulled out a new ice pack. “You going to come lie on the couch with me?”
“I’ll be reading a book if I do. I’m not a baseball fan. Not a football fan, either, I hate to admit.”
“There won’t be a quiz,” he said.
Blake didn’t make it through the whole game. Maybe because he could tell Dakota was tired.
All right, that wasn’t it. It was because he watched it lying on the couch with her basically on top of him, and how could a man take that for very long?
He’d started out all right, lying down, his bad leg propped on a pillow on the coffee table, and Dakota sitting up beside him, resting against his good knee. But then she seemed to get tired, because she was sliding on down so her back was against his front and her head was on his chest. He had to do something with his hand, so he rested it on her belly.
Unfortunately, she’d changed before she’d come out to join him and Russ, and she had her hair loose and was wearing this soft little black cotton dress that he guessed was a nightgown. He could feel that belly button ring right through it, and it was riding up enough that he could see a whole lot of toned brown thigh, too. She was reading her book, because she was turning pages, and Blake had to watch the game, and even comment on it to Russell.
