I shucked off my gray T-shirt, placing it within reach, and pulled the blanket over my chest. I ran warm when I slept. I hated waking up with a wet shirt clinging to my skin.
Settling back against the pillow, I stared up at the worn slats of the ceiling. My ears strained to hear anything coming from her bedroom, but there was only silence.
I threw an arm over my face, letting out a sigh. The mere thought that she was thinking about me enough to leave me a pillow and blanket had my heart skittering like a freaking schoolboy.
I had a feeling staying here would be a huge mistake.
Mercifully, sleep overtook me soon after I closed my eyes.
But as I started drifting toward a dream, I was woken by her scream.
12
Skye
Iwincedatthestingof pain searing across my palm, and the involuntary scream I’d let out.
Blood welled, and I mumbled a curse. I didn’t even have time to reach for a towel, when the bedroom door flew open.
Fox stumbled in, panic stark on his face. I froze as he frantically gazed around the space until he settled on me, standing in the corner by the dresser.
His eyes were squinty…eyelids heavy with sleep that he was trying to blink away. Fox slept deeply. I was surprised my scream—which was more of a shocked yelp, really—had woken him.
“I’m sorry,” I said in a rush, embarrassment heating my face. “I was…I mean, I couldn’t sleep so I was organizing my stuff in the dresser and the mirror that was leaning against the wall wasn’t secured and it fell.”
Fox blinked again. His gaze shifted to the mirror that was face down on the dresser. Only the top quarter had hit the edge when it fell forward. One large shard had broken and was laying on the floor. If the resthad shattered too, the glass was safely trapped between the mirror and the dresser. I carefully scooted the mirror back; it was small enough to lay completely flat on the dresser top and not expose any of the broken glass.
“You’re bleeding.” Fox’s voice was deep and raspy.
I swallowed hard, feeling the wet warmth starting to roll down my arm. “I’m okay,” I muttered, grabbing the end of my shirt and using it to stanch some of the flow.
I hadn’t heard him approach, but a gentle hand grabbed my elbow.
“Let me see.”
I closed my eyes briefly. “It’s fine.”
“Skye.” My name was a low, near growl that had my stomach tightening. “Let me see.”
He wasn’t going to leave me alone until he was sure that I wasn’t going to bleed to death. That guilt I often felt when around him stirred awake.
Slowly, I let go of my shirt. Ignoring the gruesome bloodstains on my favorite, most comfy sweatshirt, I held my hand out. His fingers were soft as they touched my skin, and for the first time since he stumbled into my room, I really looked at him.
My breath caught.
Fox was close. The closest he’d been since we ran into each other that first day.
But this time, he didn’t have a shirt on.
I’d seen Fox’s bare chest before, but this was different. When we were teenagers, he had been in shape, sure, but now his chest looked as if it had been chiseled by the very gods themselves. He was all lean, hard planes of muscle, from his sculpted biceps to his abdominals.
Bulk wasn’t the only thing he’d added to his physique.
Fox was covered in ink. It was both beautiful and jarring. I’d never known that he had an affinity for tattoos—not like this.
They started above his elbows and crawled up his shoulders and over the expanse of his chest. There was so much of it to look at that my eyes didn’t know where to land first. It was all black, bold ink in different patterns of geometric shapes and lines. There were some decipherable images hidden in the knots of intersecting shapes, like something that needed to be studied closely before all the secrets were revealed.
“You don’t need stitches.” His voice made me jump.
