Free Hell Without You by Ranae Rose Page B

noise came within minutes. Had he really started sleepwalking again already?
    She’d barely swung her legs over the edge of the mattress when another sound stopped her just as her toes brushed the carpet.
    Her own bedroom door creaked faintly, shuddering in its frame as if it’d been bumped.
    Carefully, she approached it, her heartbeat ringing in her ears as she opened the door an inch, then another.
    Donovan was in the hallway, but he wasn’t sleepwalking. Instead, he lay in front of the door, curled at the threshold with a pillow tucked under his head. He’d put on jeans.
    “What in the world are you doing?” She swung the door all the way open.
    “I can’t sleep in there. This is the only way I’m going to get any rest. Just go back to bed.”
    “Are you guarding me?”
    Silence.
    “Yeah,” he said eventually.
    There was no reason why his reply should’ve been a surprise – after all, he didn’t lie.
    “Why?”
    “I can’t sleep knowing you might run away. This way…”
    This way she was trapped in her room. “No way, Donovan. You can’t sleep there like a watch dog. And I’m not going anywhere, by the way. I’m worried that you’ll wander off, remember?”
    “Now you can check on me if you want. It’s a win-win situation.”
    “No, it’s crazy.” In the span of a single moment, fatigue crashed down on her, tangling with pure exasperation and rushing through her system. She was so tired – physically and mentally. She couldn’t argue anymore, couldn’t lie awake all night thinking neurotic thoughts. “Get in here.”
    Slowly, he raised his head from his pillow.
    “You can sleep in your room, or you can sleep in mine. You can’t sleep in the hall.”
    He stood, tucking his pillow under his arm and striding into the room like she’d just suggested the most reasonable thing in the world.
    Given the circumstances, maybe she had.
    “Don’t even think of curling up on the floor. Get in bed.” Mustering all the bravado her tired body possessed, she peeled back the blankets and slipped into bed, careful to keep to one side.
    He climbed in, apparently possessing no more qualms over the sleeping arrangement than he did over wandering the house naked in her presence.
    “Just don’t take off your pants,” she said. “I have to draw the line somewhere.”
    “Deal.” He turned onto one side, his weight causing the entire mattress to shift.
    Ignoring the butterflies in her stomach, she squeezed her eyes shut, resigned to the fact that she’d be breathing in his scent and basking in his body heat all night.

CHAPTER 6
     
     
     
     “Yes. God, yes!” Clementine clutched her cellphone, abandoning the job listings she’d been perusing so intensely just ten minutes ago.
    Leaving her laptop on the counter in the reception area of the garage, she strode into the work area, where Donovan lay on a wheel board, half his body under an old El Camino.
    The garage was divided into two halves – Donovan’s half, where he did repair and body work, and Mike’s half, where a paint booth served as his main work space. According to Donovan, his garage was the only one in Willow Heights to offer painting services. Mike wasn’t really an employee, but a specialist who worked in Donovan’s garage and therefore surrendered a portion of his proceeds to the shop. They had their own spaces, their own tools, and Clementine had to admit that Donovan seemed to be running a pretty smart operation – there didn’t seem to be any lack of work, anyway.
    “Do you have a minute?” she asked, shoving her phone into her jeans pocket.
    He pushed himself out from under the car, a wrench in hand.
    Her body temperature rose by a few degrees at the sight of his fist wrapped around steel, grease stripes black and familiar against his skin. For a second, she could almost taste Dr. Pepper on the tip of her tongue, then – even more disturbingly – could almost taste him.
    “What is it?”
    “I just got a call from a firm