Page 54

“I’m the kind of cold only shoulders can cure.”

I freeze, feet from her closet door.

Pitifully, she pretends to sneeze.

“Dece…”

Dismally, she coughs like an orphan child.

“Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

Soft, she begins, “For years, I’ve fallen asleep each night by thinking up different scenarios in which we’re forced to share a bed. I hug one of my pillows, close my eyes, and pretend the squishy thing could ever be you. Whenever I roll over, putting the pillow to my back, I picture you settling in around me and pulling me close to your chest. Often, the reasons we’re forced to share a bed are tame enough. Only one room left at an inn somewhere. You couldn’t stop yourself from comforting me after a nightmare. You carry me to bed after I accidentally fall asleep elsewhere. You tell yourself you’ll only lie down with me for five minutes, but that turns into ten, and that turns into hours… But, sometimes, the reasons are depraved, pure illicit fantasy. You kidnap me. Or pick me up off the side of the road. Or even purchase me.”

I swallow. Hard.

“One way or another—every single night for years—I have ended up in your bed, and you’ve held me, and wanted me, and loved me, and that’s how I fall asleep.”

Breath becomes difficult to obtain.

Her voice caresses my back, desperation heavy in her words. “I don’t want to pretend tonight. I’m sad and cold, and I know you’re hurting, too. So can’t we hurt together? Please?”

My jaw locks, but I risk turning to face her.

At the first glimpse, want overwhelms me, and I have to pull my attention off her glistening blue eyes. In the moonlight, they glow. Icy and deep. A siren call.

A swear slips through my brain, because I’m not even wearing a shirt right now. I’m in a pair of gray sweatpants, and that’s it. Who knows what she’s in under her comforter. Who knows how much of my skin might mingle with hers. Who knows…what might happen.

Fist clenching, I remind myself that—actually—I do possess control of myself, my anger, and these other emotions. So I march to her bedside and grunt, “Scoot.”

Awe fills my perfect girl as she makes room for me, discarding the pillow she was hugging in favor of inviting me to take its place. When she pulls the comforter aside for me, I discover she’s wearing precious little.

I mutter a curse and refrain from watching her shimmy back a few inches, as though it matters, as though I don’t lie down and pull her right back where she was.

She squeaks.

I fill my hand with her hair and settle in around her. So small. Soft. Warm. Wonderful.

Her hands bunch against my chest, little fists pressing in tight to create a pillow for her face. Her breath runs between her fingers—damp and shaking—to tickle my chest hair.

Lifting my hips, I adjust myself, trying to get comfortable when her legs are inches away and—

She abandons inhibition.

In a moment’s time, she dissolves. Her legs claim one of mine as their own, thighs cradling as our calves mingle and her arms unravel to find places to hold me. Stretched against me, her cushioned body meets firm planes and general bulk. Her nose and lips nestle against my skin as a little, pleasingly desperate noise leaves her.

Within my brain, swears create a symphony, tangling with words like perfect and heavenly and mine.

All. Mine.

Frick everything.

She’s mine.

I let my hand wander from her hair to flatten down her back, and her spine arches, pushing her body deeper into me, involuntarily lifting her face from my chest.

More curses make a home in my head.

I peer down. Her dazed little eyes open, looking up at me.