Mr. H.O.A. by Carina Taylor (readera ebook reader .TXT) 📗

I would have laughed, given the fact that it was my dad that he was worried about, but he sounded gravely serious. With great effort, I turned and looked at him. His arms were folded across his firm chest.

"Bane, I'll be fine. You should practice worrying less. That scowl is going to give you wrinkles."

He unfolded his arms and leaned forward to plant his hands on the bed as he bent down to speak to me. "You. Are. Not. Sleeping. In. Here."

My breath caught as I stared into his hazel eyes. I could smell the mint on his breath as though he'd just finished brushing his teeth. His lips looked soft next to the scruff on his face.

"I don't think I can move. Why don't you try again tomorrow?"

I closed my eyes, and lay there, appreciating his scent and his weight leaning on my bed. I was afraid if I opened my eyes, I was going to lean forward and plant a kiss on those lips.

My bed shifted as he stood back up.

I kept my eyes closed.

"Well, I, for one, couldn't live with myself if you got murdered in your sleep."

"I appreciate that, Barty."

Something hard latched around my hips, and I yelped as he jerked me off the bed.

"What are—"

Bane spun me around and dipped down, wrapping an arm around my legs and tossing me over his shoulder.

"This is not funny, Bert."

"Do you hear me laughing?"

I pressed my hands into his back, trying to gain some leverage to push myself back up. I smacked the back of his head. He reached up and pinched my butt, then carried me out of the room and across the house.

Hard shoulders are not comfortable. I'd never known how uncomfortable they could be. In all the movies (and romance novels I'd recently read), it always sounded romantic when the heroine was swept off by the hero over his shoulder.

The movies lied. Bane's shoulder bone dug into my hip bones, and any time I smacked his back, he pinched me.

Finally, he tossed me onto something soft—the master suite's bed.

I jumped up, standing in the middle of the bed. "What are you doing?"

He placed a hand on his hip. "Protecting you."

"You can't go around carrying people! And—and—and pinching them!"

The corner of his mouth twitched. It was too much. The last of my resolve went out the window.

I picked up a pillow and smacked him in the face with it.

"Nola," his serious voice barked.

I smacked him again. "I wasn't going to be murdered in my bed, you overbearing oaf."

"Nola!"

I smacked him in the stomach. He probably didn't even feel it with those abs. "I'm not a child!"

"Well, you're sure acting like one!"

As fast as a snake, he struck out, sweeping my legs out from under me. I landed on my back on the bed as he wrenched the pillow from my hands.

He pointed a finger at me. "We are going to talk about this tomorrow. After you've had some sleep and some time to think about it."

"Where are you going to sleep?"

He shrugged. "On the floor."

He headed to the bedroom door, shutting and locking it before he disappeared into the master bathroom.

I lay there, staring at the bathroom door, breathing heavily. One would have thought I was the one who carried him all the way across the house, not vice versa.

"Oh, by the way, all your laundry is in the laundry room still," Bane's voice called through the wood. "You should probably think about folding it sometime."

"Go eat lemon."

"Nah, thanks, I got my fill of that tonight already."

I groaned in frustration. How could someone that attractive be so frustrating one moment and so kissable the next?

One moment, I was telling myself that I should ruin things by kissing his nice lips, then the next, I was hoping I could smother him with a pillow.

A couple of minutes later, he stepped out of the bathroom and stood there staring at me. He still wore the charcoal sweats, but his shirt was gone.

The scenery was improving.

"You're seriously going to sleep on the floor?"

He shrugged. "I don't trust that guy. He's not what he pretends to be. I want you to stay where I can keep you safe."

I bit my lip to keep from laughing. He wasn't necessarily wrong. "Well, you can't sleep on the floor. It just doesn't make sense."

"How so?"

"I remember you saying that you slept on the right side of the bed."

He smirked. "And I remember you saying that you slept in the middle."

"Well, I could get used to the left side. Besides, have you seen this thing? It's giant. I can't even touch the edges when I sprawl across it." I demonstrated by flopping backwards across the bed.

"Fine. You get the left side; I get the right side. Are you a light sleeper?"

"Nope."

"Okay, well, I'll wake you up if Sally decides to murder us in our sleep."

"Actually, you know, if that happens, I think I'd rather keep sleeping."

Bane flipped off the lights and came to sit on the bed next to me. He grasped my shoulder and pushed me over to my side of the bed.

"You don’t like to snuggle?" I teased.

"Not with you." He fell back against his pillows.

Ouch. Nothing like a leading suggestion only to be shot down. I was glad it was dark, otherwise he would have seen the embarrassment on my face. I wasn't really trying to make a move on him, I simply wanted to break the ice.

Make it less weird that we were lying in bed together.

Make it less weird that he'd carried me through the house.

Less weird that I could feel him breathing next to me.

Well, now he'd made it weird.

I sat up and snagged the extra pillow from behind his head with a jerk. I laid it on the bed between us.

"In case you get any ideas." I flopped onto my side, facing away from him.

"You think a pillow will stop me? And you wonder why I was worried about you sleeping on that end of the house with a strange