by Flora Burgos
everything else. Regardless, he made her snort out a soft laugh.
Claire replied, “Ya know, maybe I should ask her for tips on packing more, and next time, you can carry everything in for me!”
Devon still walked to the back door and pulled out Claire’s suitcase and then shut the driver’s door to her car when she had cleared it. His manners were ingrained in him.
He further puzzled Claire when, as they approached the front door, he moved ahead of her and opened it for her as well, saying, “Give me your purse, and I’ll put everything down for you in your room. Unfortunately for you, my services do not include unpacking, but you have plenty of time to get down to that.”
The living room was dimly lit, and there was a movie playing on the television. Cole and Courtney were curled up on the sofa, clearly settled in for the long haul, and Clint was in the recliner, leaving only the love seat—gulp—for her to share with Dev. Her palms tingled in anticipation.
She sat and scooted all the way against the arm, returning the trio’s greeting while trying to pretend like she was engrossed in what was happening on the television screen.
She refused to even look his way when Devon made his way back to her on the couch, and it wasn’t until he threw his arm around her neck and pulled her back into his chest that she was able to take a breath and relax. As
odd as it was, the mix of confusion and lust was a strange relief.
He rubbed his nose against her hair and murmured in her ear, “You changed shampoos.”
Claire found herself whispering back, “Does my hair stink?”
His chest moved up and down before he softly responded, “No way, baby. Smells good, like always, just making an observation.” He wrapped his arm around her and laced their fingers together.
That throwaway comment combined with the heady feeling their intertwined fingers caused her, had her heart beating faster, this time not with anxiety but instead with a surge of warmth. Devon was doing his thing, that thing where he calmed her with his presence.
Claire drifted off and didn’t hear the movie when it came to an end, or when another was started.
She slept through everyone saying good night to Devon and making their way to bed.
She slept the whole night through, with no nightmare or so much as a random wake-up.
For days, this became a thing. Once all the work was done and the day was drawing to a close, whether he had dinner with his parents or at the La Barron table, Devon always found his way to Claire’s side and always maneuvered it so that he was sitting next to her, arms around her and holding her snug to him when she drifted off.
After the third time this happened, Courtney woke Claire up as she stated, “This is ridiculous. We know you
sleep better together because we all witnessed her nightmare last weekend, and Katy says they happen almost nightly, but sleeping sitting up on the couch every night has to be taking its toll on you both. Devon, you need to carry her to bed, and both of you get some rest. Little sister’s orders.”
Devon was trying to let Claire sleep and muttered to his sister in frustration, “We’re fine, Firecracker. Go to bed. I got my girl taken care of.”
Claire was awake, though, and she said, “Dev, I’m so sorry. Go on home and get some rest.”
He met her eyes steadily and firmly said, “Not a chance.”
She held his eyes for a few seconds and then pulled out of his arms, saying, “Fine. Stay here or come with me, but Court’s right. This is crazy. I have a perfectly fine bed to sleep on.”
Devon measured her while thinking, and then he shrugged his shoulder and stood, took Claire’s hand, and led her to the bedroom she was currently using.
Once in the room, Claire started to doubt herself, and it must have shown on her face because he put both of his hands to her cheeks and whispered, “Sleep, baby. I’m not trying to get anything from you that you aren’t prepared to give me. Just let me hold you and know that I am helping you in some way, you’ll make me sleep better, too.”
“Devon, that’s the dumbest thing ever. You can’t take care of me just because. What about you? Don’t you
want to sleep in your own bed and not have to deal with me?”
He watched her closely for a minute and then rocked her world when he asked, “Did you ever think that maybe you help me sleep without nightmares as well? Haven’t had a single one in all the nights you’ve slept in my arms.”
That cracked her shell, and she melted into him and asked, “Really?”
He smiled. “Really. Now, do you have a side? Because I sleep by the door, so that may be an issue for you.”
“No,” she said softly and then, lifting her head, she tried to read his eyes, both of them solemn in the moment and giving nothing away.
He climbed into the bed and lifted the covers to the other side to let her slide under them. Once done, he pulled her body back into the curve of his and wrapped his arm around her, a hand sliding non-threateningly under her shirt to wrap around her bare midriff. He needn’t have worried, though. The moment he had a hold of her, she was once again drifting off to the land of peaceful dreams.
Chapter Five:
The end of her two weeks came quickly. Every day, Clint made more and more progress, even though he still spent a lot of his time in the chair.
This was how he conned her into giving him another month. Four more weeks of sleeping next to Devon. The hot ex-mercenary who was slowly staking his claim to her heart.
Sean and Katy came down to make sure she truly wanted to stay. Neither commented on her new roommate. When Katy didn’t mention it to her after her second night there, Claire decided to call her on it and stated boldly, “I know you want to ask. What’s holding you back?”
That was when the dam broke and Katy started rambling, “Oh my God! Thank you! I have been waiting ages for you to say something, and the silence was killing me. So, he was here when you got back, and you two have been sleeping together for the full two weeks? What the heck? How do you not tell your own flesh and blood something like that? I had to hear it from Courtney.”
Claire could see that Katy wasn’t really angry, and she followed her cousin’s near shout with a whisper. “He keeps the nightmares away. He holds me all night. And he said I take his nightmares away, too. I, well, I have feelings for him. We kissed a couple of times but nothing hardcore.
I think he’s taking his time with me because I’ve been kinda lost lately.”
Katy lost her breath with a whoosh and stared at her cousin in silent disbelief before breaking it with, “No nightmares?”
For the first time in a long, long time, a genuine smile curved Claire’s lips when she said firmly, “None.”
The radiant smile that beamed from Katy’s face was breathtaking. She could see in that moment how frightened she had been for her.
“And you’ve kissed? When? How? Did you start it, or did he?”
She had never had this before. Someone around her age who would ask questions and genuinely care about the response to something as common as kissing a guy for the first time. So, even though she knew her cheeks had to be fire-engine red, she filled her cousin in on the two weeks she had missed and about the kiss. The kiss.
“It just kinda happened. We were goofing off, lying in bed the other night. He put my arms around his neck and tried to tickle me. We were trying to be quiet because everyone had already gone to bed. I went to put my face into his chest, and somehow my mouth hit his and we were kissing all of a sudden. It got a little heated, and he pulled back and then gave me this super sweet, soft kiss a few times, just brushing lips against mine. Then it was over, and I was curled into him and our legs were all wrapped up, which is a new one because we have never slept like that before. Honestly, we usually end up with his
arm around my waist and me facing the opposite way. I don’t even know how it happened.”
“And since then? Have either of you made a move since then?”
; “Well, yeah, but we haven’t had sex yet, if that’s what you’re asking. Although, I am certainly open to the possibility.”
Katy watched her. She watched her for so long that it got awkward and Claire had to nudge her and ask, “You alright?”
“You look happier. You’re sleeping, you have a light in your eyes that I haven’t seen since the day we met, and you hugged me and shocked the crap out of me. You’re healing. It makes me so happy.”
“Every day, I can breathe a little easier, but I am always terrified that when Devon isn’t around, I’m going to lose it all. He’s my shelter. Not a fair expectation of him, I know, but he keeps all of the other stuff away and gives me nothing but the light.”
Tears welled up in Katy’s eyes, and she smiled so brilliantly that it was hard not to smile with her. Claire leaned over and hugged her cousin. “I don’t think this battle is over, but with you all on my side, there’s no way I can lose.”
Chapter Six:
Claire had been staying at the La Barron home for four and a half weeks, every night spent in Dev’s arms, stolen kisses and snuggling commonplace, but she still had not given in and made the first move, a move which Devon had clearly left in her court.
She was taking her time and determined to make sure she was on the right track with her emotions before she gave in to baser needs and they crossed that line.
So, of course, that was when Devon had to put her to the test. Walking into her room and pulling his shirt and pants off, he was stiff with tension when he laid down beside her. He didn’t speak as he pulled her to him and buried his nose in the curve of her neck, before softly explaining, “I’ve got to fly out tomorrow.”
Claire went solid and asked, “How long will you be gone?”
Doing his best to reassure her he took her hand and tugged to get her to turn and face him, “Honestly? I don’t know. It could be a few days and it could be a few weeks. I won’t know until I get there and get an idea of what’s going on.” He kissed her forehead, each cheek, her nose, and slowly, her lips before going on, “And I am really going to need you to promise to stick around for a while longer.”
At this point, she had no plans to return to Katy and Sean’s house in the near future. Taking care of Clint had been giving her a purpose, and lying in Devon’s arms every night had given her a respite from the demons that were always just that close to taking over her life.
Devon was holding her in bed for what would be the last morning they woke up together for the foreseeable future. They were both relishing the time, and neither wanted to make the first move to leave the bed.
Devon’s phone ringing brought them back to the reality of the situation and had Claire cringing while Dev put it to his ear.
His responses were abrupt. “Got it.” – “Copy.” – “Affirmative.”
Once he was done, he none too gently tossed his phone to the nightstand on his side of her bed and pulled her closer, groaning into her hair. “Fuckin’ Chief. He’ll have a car here within the hour, so I have to shake a leg, baby.”
The mellow, calm feeling that had been her home for the last month evaporated instantly. Dread had her stomach whipping and moving with the tide of her emotions, and cold consumed her chest.
She desperately tried to play it off, and she succeeded, because when he met her eyes again, he searched and couldn’t find anything but the same bitterness he was feeling with the situation. Taking in a deep breath, he kissed her lips softly before he let her go so he could climb from the bed and start gathering his clothes from the floor, where he had dropped them the night before.
He stopped her when she moved to get out of bed and requested, “Stay like this for me? I want to carry this image right here with me until I get back. Can you do that?”
She nodded and said nothing as he left, only smiled and watched him go, carrying his boots in one hand and the other aimed at the doorknob. He winked at her and stepped through the jamb, reaching behind him to pull the door closed.
Chapter Seven:
Claire lay in bed as the cold enveloped her whole body, and she started to feel a little shaky. She was trying to convince herself that he was only leaving for the day to work on his family ranch and would be back, but she couldn’t pretend hard enough to convince herself.
A hot shower did little to calm her frayed nerves, so she forced herself to get dressed and head to Clint’s room to help him get loosened up, knowing he was going to be tense and in pain until she got there to assist him.
When she walked into the room, she was shocked to see him already covered in sweat and trying to work the limber back into his damaged body. “S’up, Claire-Bear? I figured you two would be sleeping in before Dev heads out on this mission.”
“Ma-mission?” Claire asked in disbelief. “He said he was heading out to handle some unfinished business. He didn’t say anything about a mission. Isn’t that the dangerous stuff?”
Clint watched her carefully, saying, “Well, it can be. I don’t know what exactly the job entails for him, but Dev has been in some pretty hot situations and always manages to get out in one piece. You don’t have to worry about him. He’s not as dumb as he looks.”
Seeing that he was not helping the situation any, he changed the subject, saying instead, “Hey, how about we see if I have it in me to walk to the kitchen? Then you
can make us both a cup of Joe and I can do some PT where people actually come around?”
Claire’s mind was whirling, and she could feel the panic closing in on her, her fight or flight responses kicking in and her body being unable to keep up. She knew that if she didn’t do something to occupy her time, she was going to faint or throw up. Neither sounded particularly entertaining, so she instead nodded and helped him up, and together they made it to the kitchen with no calamities.
Clint sat at the table and regaled her with some stories of their antics overseas. One involved smoking hash in Amsterdam, and one of the others involved having too much to drink and getting questionable tattoos from a hole in the wall tattoo shop in Beijing. This thoroughly distracted her, and she started trying to guess what three grown men could possibly tattoo on themselves and be embarrassed about. When he turned red after she asked him if they were unicorns, she cheered and demanded to know where on their bodies they got them tattooed.
This was when Courtney and Cole came in from morning chores and joined in, Courtney on the teasing and Cole on the getting made fun of. If Courtney knew where the tattoos were, she wasn’t letting on.
They kept her occupied until it was time for bed. Courtney went as far as walking her to her door and offering to come in and chat with her for a while, but they were all tired, so Claire declined the offer and instead went straight to bed, trying to block out her mind and racing thoughts while reaching for sleep.
The nightmare started the way they always did. She was happy and living with her grandparents and, for once, felt like she was going to have a normal life. Her mother and father had disappeared after getting a payout from his parents, a payment they made so that they could keep Claire safe from whatever her parents were caught up in this time, and she knew she had a little while before they came back around sniffing for more money.
She was lying in bed while the man who fathered her own father read her a bedtime story when she started to smell smoke. She tried to get her grandfather’s attention, but he kept reading, her interruptions going unacknowledged. No matter how loud she screamed, he didn’t falter and she couldn’t move from where she lay, cuddled into her covers.
Looking to her bedroom window, she could see that flames were starting to lick up the frame and the material of the curtain was curling in on itself before melting away from the flame. The heat was intensifying, yet still her grandfather didn’t seem to hear her increasingly louder cries of desperation.
As the fire spread to the wall, she tried to jump up once more from the bed to pull him from the room and found her body frozen, completely paralyzed.
&
nbsp; She started to scream in terror as she realized that she couldn’t escape and was doomed to die alongside the only people who had ever cared for her.
Somewhere in the dream, a shrill sound started to obscure the roar of the flames growing stronger and stronger as they charred and destroyed every inch of her
bedroom, her grandfather not even noticing the flames that devoured their way up his slacks.
The shrill sound came again and this time ripped her from the nightmare. She was gasping in air trying to catch her breath when she fumbled for the phone. Grabbing it, she yanked it to her ear and gulped out, “Hello? Hello?”
“Shit, baby. Breathe. Come on, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Fuck me, Claire. Calm it down. Get that breathing under control for me. Come on. I need to hear your voice, baby. Right now.”
Claire sighed out his name in relief, “Devon.”
“That’s it, baby. Slow that breathing down for me.”
Holding the phone to her ear in a death grip, Claire struggled to get her breathing back under control.
“There ya go. That’s my girl. Fuck me, baby. Are you OK?”
That tone of voice, the one he used when they were lying in bed, blocking out the world, that’s what finally calmed her down enough to speak. “Hey, Dev. What are you doing up this late at night?”
He laughed softly. “It’s only nighttime for you, babe. It’s daylight here, or well, I assume it is. I haven’t left the bunker since I got in. But I’m at least a few hours ahead of you here, and that makes it daylight.”
“But that’s insane. Did you not get any sleep? You’re just, what, going to stay up for twenty-four hours straight?”