She looks at me then and I see something in her expression that wasn’t there before. Not forgiveness exactly. But maybe... understanding? Or the beginnings of it, anyway.
“We should sleep,” she says finally, finishing her chicken. “It’s getting late. And it’s been a long day.”
“It certainly has.” I take our empty plates to the kitchen, and clean them with the melted snow water.
When I return I find her already lying in her sleeping bag on the far side of the sectional. She’s moved my own sleeping bag to the opposite end. This morning, we’d left both sleeping bags in the center of the sectional after getting up.
Wants to make sure I take the hint.
I slip inside it and close my eyes. Still, I’m aware of every movement she makes, every rustle of fabric as she settles in.
This morning we woke up tangled together.
I’m wondering if it will happen again.
Hoping it will even though I shouldn’t.
It won’t.
I can’t sleep.
The fire burns low between us.
With a sigh I get up and feed it more wood. Then I return to the sleeping bag.
Outside, the storm continues its relentless assault.
I close my eyes and concentrate on her steady breathing, letting it lull me toward sleep.
Tomorrow the storm might very well break.
And we might get communications back.
And this strange suspended reality might end.
But tonight, on Christmas night in a chalet buried by snow, I let myself have this.
The closeness.
The impossible connection to someone who sees the real man beneath the billionaire facade.
The man I’ve spent ten years trying to forget I could be.
11
Sorrel
Iwake to pale light filtering through the great room windows and the immediate awareness that I’m alone on the sectional.
Thank god.
Unlike yesterday morning, there’s no tangled limbs, no shared body heat, no waking up practically wrapped around Gregory Falk like he’s my personal space heater.
He’s already up, adding logs to the fire with his back to me, and I’m sprawled across the leather cushions with the cashmere throw tucked around me like a cocoon.
No awkward untangling. No lingering touches. No confusing feelings about how comfortable it felt to sleep pressed against him.
Just... normal.
