Love Game

The thought tightened the knot in my stomach. I needed to go to sleep. I needed to not get involved. I needed to not care...

“If you want to talk,” I said slowly, “I’m here.”

Shit.

Daisy’s eyes widened and softened until they were liquid bronze, and then she quickly looked away. “That’s awfully nice of you, Kai,” she said, trying for her usual bravado. “First the candles, now a friendly ear? What gives? The rain making you sentimental?”

“Must be.” I leaned my palms on the table. I gave her one of my grins; the kind that the press ate up with a spoon and had landed me on the cover of Sports Illustrated. It didn’t work on Daisy.

Is that why I like her so damn much? Already?

Her not putting up with my bullshit, and not falling into my bed five minutes after meeting me weren’t good enough reasons to be this attracted to a woman this fast. But her sitting on my giant couch, scared shitless yet brave, stunningly beautiful, and a hundred other better reasons tried to crowd my thoughts.

Daisy cocked her head. “Kai? You’re staring.”

I blinked, fought for something to talk about. Keanu yawned and settled himself at Daisy’s feet. “How long have you had this ugly mutt?”

She laughed. “This ugly mutt is a purebred Siberian Husky. They’re descended from wolves. I mean, all dogs are, in theory, but the Husky is only a few genomes off.”

“How did you end up owning an almost-wolf?”

“A friend of my parents bought Keanu from a breeder but then decided to retire in Paris. Parisian apartments and Huskies don’t mix, so now he’s mine.”

“I would have thought that Huskies and Hawaiian heat wouldn’t mix either.”

“They’re adaptable to climate,” Daisy said. “But I keep his fur short and make sure he’s cool enough. I take care of him and he takes care of me.”

“How?”

“He protects me,” she said. “In general, he’s a good guard dog. But at night…he protects me from intruders. And that’s important.”

Something happened. Something not good.

It was on the tip of my tongue to ask, but I had a feeling I wouldn’t like the answer. I had a feeling I would hate the answer. That I’d want to kill someone. That I’d listen to the story now, unable to prevent whatever happened then, and the helpless feeling would drive me crazy. Because she drove me crazy. Daisy Watson whipped up my emotions and made it impossible to let me talk myself out of feeling…things. If she told me something terrible had happened to her, it’d fuck me up and I didn’t need or want that.

I cleared my throat. “You take him everywhere?”

“I don’t go anywhere without him,” Daisy said, raising her eyes to mine. “Or more like I can’t go anywhere without him. Not without feeling scared and helpless at night. The nightmares…they’re so bad. It’s ridiculous.” She shook her head. “Anyway, I sh

ould go. Let you sleep.”

She started to rise, and I should have let her. But hearing her say she felt scared and helpless threw my own precautions out the window. I sat down beside her on the couch.

“Tell me.”

“No… You don’t want to hear it.”

“I do. Even if it pisses me off and I want to murder someone, I want to hear it. I want to hear it if it helps you to tell it.”

Our eyes met and locked. My arms itched to hold her. To comfort her. Protect her. I’d never held a woman if it wasn’t going to lead to sex, and that had never bothered me before. It bothered me now.

Daisy must’ve seen something in my eyes that said she could trust me, and holy shit, that was a first too.

“I was housesitting my parents’ condo in San Francisco,” she began. “They have a really nice place in the Marina District, which is where a lot of rich people live. My parents have money. I don’t,” she added. “It’s silly, honestly. They’d bail me out of trouble if I needed them, but I don’t want to need them. That’s why I took Jason’s offer when I’m only the—”

She bit off her words and looked away.

“When you’re only…what?”