Page 15 of Sheltered By Love

She catches me looking and snatches up a pillow to cover herself. “You’re in my bedroom!”

“There’s been movement up here. I thought someone was inside the house,” I say.

Her cheeks are bright red, and the words come spluttering out of her mouth. “You, you, can’t just come into my home without warning. What are you some kind of pervert?!”

I growl a curse and show her my phone and the alert. “I’m not a pervert. You got a cat and it set the sensor off.”

Her eyes slide to the door. “I don’t have a cat. I’m allergic to them.”

I’m too pissed to humor her, so I just jab my finger toward her bed. “Quit lying. I saw it hide under the bed.”

Her eyes narrow. “Please leave. You’re dripping all over my floor.”

I look down at the water on the hardwood floor and glare at her. “Get rid of it. Now. I don’t want to come over here again for a dumb animal.”

“No one asked you to,” she says.

Just when I think this couldn’t have been any more of a gigantic waste of my time, a weird-looking cat with long ears limps out from under the bed.

Her eyes widen, but she drops the pillow and picks the fuzzball up quickly as if she thinks I’m going to harm it.

I squint at it and shake my head. “Is that a Rabbit? You have a rabbit in my house?”

Her lips press downward in displeasure. “Roger’s not usually upstairs, but he was scared by the thunder.”

My eyebrow cocks. “Roger?”

She answers casually. “Roger Rabbit.”

I can’t believe this. Does she really think I want to know her pet's name?

“I don’t care what his name is. It’s a rodent. If it gets loose it’ll chew on the wiring.”

This conversation would be a hella lot easier to have if she wasn’t standing half naked in her bedroom.

“He’s not a rodent! And he’s usually outside most of the time. I just bring him in at night. He was probably having binky time, that’ll be why he was running around up here.”

I cock my head at her, sure I misheard. “Did you say, Binky time?”

A tiny smile appears on her flushed face. “It’s when he runs around and jumps a lot. It’s why I didn’t want heat sensors inside the house in the first place.”

“You want to be less secure? Because of something that belongs in a pot?”

She glares at me and carries on stroking it between the ears. “Do we really have to talk about this now?”

I throw up my hand. “Fine. We’ll talk about it tomorrow. But I’m not compromising. It’s heat sensors or cameras. You choose.”

She looks horrified. “There must be another option?”

I’m so pissed off I speak without thinking. “Unless you want to move out, no there isn’t.”

She collapses on the edge of her bed and stares up at me. “Are you trying to scare me, or do you want a new tenant?”

I wince and run my hand over my head. “Just get rid of the rabbit and I’ll keep watch on the house from next door.”

Her face falls. “I can’t get rid of Roger,” she mumbles.

I didn’t think she’d back down, but neither am I.

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