Which is stupid.
It has to be stupid, right, to think that she and I could have more than… whatever this was?We live in the same small town, where everyone is in everyone else’s business all the time.Hell, I’m in her business, too, considering the event I have half-planned.
Still.
Sylvie’s soft, catlike snores make me smile, and so does the expanse of smooth, freckled skin under my hands.The mint and herb smell of her skin and hair, and the memory of the way she tasted on my tongue, the way she fell apart around me?—
I don’t think I’m ready to give that up.
There will be consequences.
There always are, with women, especially in a place like New Hopewell.
I should slip out of bed like I usually do and sleep in my own house, where it’s uncomplicated and easy and… I’m alone.
Alone.
Sylvie sighs in her sleep, turning slightly, her little snores turning to deep, soothing breathing.Her lips and cheeks are smushed against my arm, her exhalations somehow both tickling my skin and comforting all at once.
I don’t want to wake her up, especially since she’s so comfortable.
I don’t get out of her bed.
And I don’t go home.
* * *
I wake to full dark,my heart slamming against my chest, not sure of where I am.
Next to me, Sylvie’s stiff and she lets out a shaky breath that has me on full alert.
“What is it?”I ask, my voice groggy with sleep.
“Nothing,” she says, and it’s extremely clear from the strained quality of that one word that something is very, very wrong.
The room’s ice-cold.My breath clouds in front of my face and I gather Sylvie closer reflexively.
“Did the air conditioner… break?”I sound as confused as I feel.Usually if the AC breaks, that means you’re waking up sweating your balls off, not to clouds of frost.
I squint at the icy bay window.
It shouldn’t be that cold outside.
“You need to get your ass out of bed and fix this, Sylvie,” a high-pitched woman’s voice hisses from outside the bedroom door.
“Who the hell is that?Do you have a roommate?”
“Ah, not really a roommate.”Sylvie sucks in a breath as she throws the sheets off herself, launching out of my arms with a surprising strength.“Shit, shit, shit.”
I can’t help ogling her.Even in the dark—and with my balls near shriveled from the cold—she’s stunning.
Carnal satisfaction at the night we spent together has me smiling—right up until something crashes in one of the rooms below us.
“Hurry the fuck up, witch,” the voice outside the door says.“I need as much firepower as you can pack.”
“Firepower?”I wipe at my eyes, like that’s going to help any of this make more sense.“Witch?”
“Uh, you’re dreaming.”Sylvie tosses on some clothes, her eyes huge in her face.“Go back to sleep.”
