“Then can I have it?” She watched the chocolate intently, as though it might disappear from his hand. He put the pieces on a small plate and grabbed her bottle of water.
“You can have it when I give it to you,” he told her. “Now, stay where you are. I’ll come back for you.”
“Why don’t I just walk—”
He just gave her a firm look before heading into the living area. Right. No walking. She sucked in a breath, unable to believe everything they’d just talked about.
Take some time to think about it.
Thinking about things had always been her problem, though, hadn’t it? Or overthinking things.
“Seems I can’t leave you alone for too long,” he murmured from behind her.
She let out a small scream, jumping from the counter and turning. Except she moved so fast that she whacked her hand against the counter. She bit down on her lip to stop herself from crying out in pain.
Ouchie.
“Aww, Georgie, shit. That sounded like it hurt.” He moved swiftly around the counter a
nd gently clasped hold of her hand. He ran his thumb over her knuckles. “I’m not doing a very good job of taking care of you, am I? An injured foot and now a sore hand.”
“You’re doing a great job,” she defended him.
“Really?” He walked over to the freezer and pulled out that same bag of frozen peas he’d been using on his dildo injury earlier. He must have put them back in.
He placed them on her hand. “I need to get some of those cute icy packs. Seems like I might be needing them.”
“It’s really not that bad. I don’t know why I’m a klutz today.”
“Maybe it’s because you feel safe. I hope it is.”
She sucked in a breath. Could he be right? But she felt safe in her apartment and she was never clumsy there.
Did she, though? She hated being on her own. Sleeping was difficult, especially lately. And she was always slightly jumpy, even though Marcus had set up her security system and performed background checks on all her neighbors.
She wondered why Ed’s overprotectiveness didn’t annoy her as much as her brothers’ did. When they fussed, she wanted to whack their heads together. When he fussed, her insides turned to mush.
“I’m not used to feeling safe.”
He gave her a serious look. “Let’s change that, then.”
She really couldn’t believe he was making her sit on his lap.
The fire was roaring, some romantic comedy movie was on. But if you asked her about it, she couldn’t have told you what was going on. Because all her attention remained on the man she was sitting on.
Well, she was kind of snuggled up in beside him. Her thigh resting over his legs, her head was tucked into his chest.
She had an idea why he’d made this ridiculous rule. For the same reason that he’d made rules about hugging and kissing. Because she’d told him that she wasn’t used to physical affection. It wasn’t until she had Ed touching her every chance he got that she realized how starved for affection she was.
She’d be in heaven, if it wasn’t for one small problem.
Her stomach.
Not only had she eaten a much bigger portion for lunch than she normally would, but then she’d scoffed down three pieces of chocolate.
“You okay, Georgie-girl?” Ed asked as she shifted around.
“Fine, honey bun.”