“Hmm, can’t I? Are you sure that’s not what you need?”
“It’s not.”
“Maya, come here. I want to check on you. And I can’t do it with you all the way over there.”
“Oh, okay,” she grumbled as she stomped over to him.
But she was careful to go nowhere near his balls, stopping just next to his knees. To her shock, he grasped hold of her hips and moved her forward.
“You’re brave,” she grumbled at him. “I’d stay well away from my knees if I was you.”
“Is that a threat?” he asked mildly as he grasped her chin, holding her head steady as he wiped at her cheeks gently.
Darn it.
Why did he have to be so sweet right now? She wanted to hold onto her temper, instead it was fading away, like water down the bath drain when you pulled the plug.
“No, of course not. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
“I know you didn’t, Bébé,” he said soothingly. “I’m not mad, okay?”
“I can’t believe I burst into tears like that,” she grumbled. “So ridiculous. I hurt you and thenIcry!”
“You’ve had a bad day. A lot has happened.”
She nodded. Was he going to say anything about her crying over a missing toy? Or the way she’d talked before? Or how she’d stomped her foot, and he’d called her naughty?
She braced herself, ready to deny everything and anything. But all he did was put the tissue down and move his hands back to her hips.
Probably holding her still so she didn’t kick him again. She couldn’t blame him for that.
Although she also couldn’t deny how nice it felt to have his hands on her hips, warm and heavy. Yep. It was almost drugging her, it felt so good. She could feel herself start to sway.
“You’re so tired, Bébé, aren’t you? You need to go to bed.”
She nodded, then tensed as she remembered that she couldn’t. “I can’t.”
“You can’t sleep without your toy?” he asked.
Shit.
“Of course I can,” she said with a scoff. “That would be silly to need a toy in order to sleep.”
“Is it? Some people need eye masks or ear plugs, other people might need music or a nightlight. Is that really all silly?”
“But that’s different. It’s not a toy.”
“Who cares what it is,” he said in a calm voice. “If it’s what you need, it’s what you need.” He leaned over and grabbed his phone off the small bedside table.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Getting Butch to grab it and bring it over here.”
She reacted on instinct, smacking the phone out of his hand. Thankfully, it landed face-up or she would have been even more horrified than she already was.
“What was that about?” he asked in a quiet voice.
But she could hear the stern warning in his voice. Yep, she might be in trouble here. She attempted to take a step back. But it was like her body had decided that she’d had enough. The world started to spin and she just knew she was about to collapse.
