She sighed, turned off the dryer, and set it aside.
“Good girl.” He grabbed her hand and led her into the bedroom. She froze when she saw the lights were off and the bed was pulled back.
She shook her head and felt tears sting her eyes as she tried to yank her arm from his grip. “No, please, I don’t want to sleep with you.”
“Too fucking bad, now get in the bed,” he said.
“You promised.”
“I promised not to fuck you, but I never said we weren’t sleeping together.”
“You swear you won’t touch me?” she asked.
He rolled his eyes. “I never said that either, but I’ll try to keep it as platonic as I can. How’s that?”
“No. Can’t you—”
“Stop it and get in the bed, Beth.”
She froze again. “What did you say?”
His brows snapped together. “Which part?”
“You called me Beth.”
“Yes.”
“No one has ever called me that except my mother.”
He nodded. “Good. I’ll be the only other one.”
“But I don’t want you to call me that.”
He sighed in exasperation. “You’ll get used to it. Now, do you need help?” he asked. “I have to warn you that if you do, if you keep arguing with me right now, it’s going to be next to impossible to keep my hands off of you.”
She scampered onto the bed and moved as far from him as she could. She watched him take off his watch and set it on the nightstand. Her eyes widened when she caught sight of the gun.
“What’s that for?”
“What do you think? It’s to protect you.”
“But … I don’t understand. I thought you were the boss, and this was your house.”
“I am. I’m the head of the family, but we have a lot of enemies, and I’m not going to take a chance with you.”
“You don’t usually sleep with one beside you?”
“No,” he said.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll get ahold of it and shoot you with it?” she asked.
He chuckled. “Not at all. Have you ever even handled a gun?”
“No.” Damn, she should have lied.
“Then you’d have a problem finding the safety on it, but more importantly, I don’t think you have a mean bone in your body.”
“I think I could to protect myself.”
“Maybe if you were in extreme danger, and you know you’re not.”
“But I don’t know that.”
“Beth, if I were going to hurt you, I would have already. Also, if you don’t know how to use a gun, you’re more likely to shoot yourself than anyone else.”
He lay down facing her and brought the blanket up to his hips, then tucked the pillow under his head.
“I know you probably have a lot of questions, but they are going to have to wait until the morning. By the way, where do you work, sweetheart, so I can have that taken care of? We wouldn’t want anyone to put out a missing person’s report, now, would we?”
She gritted her teeth. “Ben’s Tire.”
He laughed. “Perfect.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s one of the businesses my family owns.”
She tried not to let her shock show. Fortunately, he turned to shut off the light. Although some light came through the windows, it was still hard to see him because he was mostly in the shadows.
“Go to sleep, baby.”
She nodded and closed her eyes, and amazingly felt herself drift to sleep.
How could she be in bed with a murderer and not be too scared to sleep? Her nerves and energy were at their end, so there was nowhere to go and nothing to do but sleep.