“Stop being so fucking bossy,” she countered, but settled back down.

“Not gonna happen,” I said, squeezing her once before settling back.

Thirteen

Alex

I woke up cold.

That was how I knew that I was alone. Breaker's huge body had been like a furnace all night. A warm, snuggly furnace. If someone would had told me that Bryan Breaker: six feet-something of ruthless contract muscle and very rough sex-haver was a full-contact sleeper, I would have said they were crazy.

But that was before he ripped off his towel (hot), then ripped off my tee (even hotter) and hauled me against his body, completely trapping me with both his arms and one of his legs, and not letting me so much as twitch all night.

I thought I would feel claustrophobic. I had never slept in the same bed with someone else. And even though I had always slept on a tiny twin size, I always had plenty of room to roll and move around when I got restless. Which was frequently.

And I was never a deep, deep sleeper either. Every yell on the streets below my apartment and every beeping of a locking car woke me up. As did my usual nightly bad dreams.

But I slept through.

For the first time in I can't remember how long.

Part of it was likely due to the utter silence of Breaker's secluded house.

But that didn't explain why there weren't bad dreams.

I was trying really hard to not focus on that little fact.

How I slept through Breaker sneaking out from underneath me? Yeah, that was a complete mystery.

I pushed myself up in bed, wiping the sleep out of my eyes. I made my way over to his dresser and grabbed a new tee, slipped into it, and scurried to the bathroom.

After some rummaging, I found an extra toothbrush and went to work on brushing them as well as frantically trying to finger-comb some semblance of order to my hair. Given the only option being hand soap, I forewent washing my face and made my way out to the living area.

Only to stop dead at seeing Breaker with his strong back to me, a pair of gray sweatpants low on his hips, standing at the sink... washing dishes.

Washing. Dishes.

The site was so unexpected and strange that I felt a strange laugh escape my lips.

At the sound, Breaker's head turned over his shoulder. “What's funny?”

“You wash dishes?” I asked, stepping into the living room.

“How else they gonna get clean?”

“I don't know. I figured badasses didn't have to do stuff like that. That the dishes came alive and washed themselves out of fear of retribution or something.”

At this, he snorted, his eyes getting warm. “There's coffee.”

Okay. This was weird.

Not weird in a bad way.

Weird in a weird way.

Because it was so normal. It was the way countless people probably started their mornings. Doing banal chores. Sharing a smile. Offering each other coffee. It was positively... domestic.

At that, I laughed again.

Because men like Breaker should never be described as domestic.

I walked over to the coffee machine, pouring myself a cup and topping off his. Like a ritual.

Meanwhile, I had never topped off someone else's coffee ever before.

“You hungry?” I asked, feeling uncomfortable with the silence.

“You cook?”

“I can burn some toast,” I offered, going to grab the bread and putting two slices for myself into the toaster.

“Sure,” he said, drying off the potato skillet from the night before.

I stood watching the little crinkled metal coils heat up, feeling the urge to fill the silence. Which, in the past, was weird for me. But since I met Breaker, I couldn't seem to keep my mouth shut. “Where did you learn to cook?”

I felt rather than saw Breaker pause. “What?”

“Where did you learn to cook?”

“My mom.”

At this, I felt my head turn. “Really?”

Breaker picked up his coffee cup, leaning his hips against the counter, watching me. “Yeah. Really. She would let me pitch in when I was little. Before she died.”

Another dead mother. We were a sad pair.

“How old were you?” I asked, skipping over the condolences. No one wanted to hear that shit.

“Ten.”

Damn. Ten. That sucked. I got six extra years with mine.

“Was your dad in the picture?” I asked, knowing I was prying, expecting him to shut me out. That's what people did. That's what I did.

“If by 'in the picture' you mean around to beat the ever loving shit out of me everyday, then yeah.”

I felt myself wince at that.

I had been slapped by a foster parent or two. I knew how humiliating and powerless that felt. I couldn't imagine how it felt when it was an actual parent hitting you. When it was their blood in your veins. When there was no hope of ever getting transferred out.

Besides, I was now familiar with how it felt to have a grown man's fist hit you. And it wasn't fun. My jaw hurt when I opened it. Just a twinge from the pretty blue bruise I had marring my skin, but still, it hurt. And that was just one punch.

“Was he a drunk like Shoot's dad?” I asked, hoping that was it. Otherwise, what excuse could there be?

“No, doll. He was just a dick. Before it was me, it was my mom.”

“He beat your mom?” I asked, my voice sounding weird. Weak.

“Yeah.”

That's why. That was why he freaked out about not hitting me. Not because he was just a noble guy. A decent person. Because he had watched his father wail on his defenseless mother growing up. And when she was gone, he was the stand in.

Crap.

I had been kinda insensitive telling him to get over it.

But how was I supposed to know?

“How did she die?” I asked. I was curious and he was, apparently, really forthcoming about his past.

“Lung cancer,” he said easily. “She didn't smoke. But Pops did.”

Oh god.

Okay.

My story was starting to sound less horrific than his.

Not that it was a contest. But if it was... he would win. Easy.

I felt tears sting the backs of my eyes and felt a wave of horror wash over me. That wasn't me. I wasn't the crying kind of girl. I was the put your chin up, throw your shoulders back, and pretend nothing got to you kind of girl. I wasn't going to cry for little ten year old Breaker while big, manly, reasonably well-adjusted Breaker stood a few feet from me.

His eyes warmed for a second watching me. Like maybe he knew what I was struggling with. Then, his voice a little amused, “Your toast is burning.”

I whipped around, hitting the buttons and, sure enough, they were blackened. But salvageable. I rummaged around for a knife and scraped the char off over the garbage before buttering them.

“Thanks babe,” he said easily, taking a triangle and biting into it.

I hadn't thanked him for dinner.

Shit.

Okay.

I needed to like... muster up some basic social skills or something.

I munched on a piece of toast, looking out the window into his backyard. “So, um, like...” oh my god. I needed to stop mumbling. “What do you... do?”

His head tilted to the side. “What?”

“When you're not... working? What do you do?”

He shrugged. “Workout. Watch movies. Go out with Shoot or Paine.”

A part of me realized that going out with Shoot or Paine (whoever the hell that was) involved all three of them taking off in different directions with different women. I pushed down the weird twinge of jealousy.