Knocking softly, he opened the bedroom door. “Mon?”
She was thrashing in his blankets.
“Hey,” he said softly, crossing to her. She was damp with sweat and all tangled up. He freed her from the blanket, and watched, heart in his throat, as she rolled onto her side and curled up in a tight ball.
He settled the covers over her again, folding the top edges down by a good margin so she wasn’t too hot.
Then—because she was asleep and he was human—he leaned in and brushed his lips against her temple. Still an electric jolt all the way down to his toes, even after all this time.
“Josh…” His name slipped across her lips on a whisper, and he reared back like she’d slapped him.
She didn’t move, though. Didn’t get mad at him for kissing her. She murmured his name again, and he realized she was asleep.
Leave, he told himself.
This was an invasion of her privacy.
But she was in his bed, wearing his clothes, and saying his name. He wasn’t a good enough person to fucking leave.
He sank to a squat at the edge of the mattress and just looked at her. Her brows were pulled into a tight furrow. He smoothed it out with his thumb.
“Leave him alone,” she mumbled before rolling onto her belly and nuzzling her face into his pillow. “He’s…don’t…he’s mine.”
How can I be yours, he wanted to demand.If you didn’t fight for me? How can I be yours if you told me to go?
* * *
All night long,Monica kept trying to snuggle into Josh’s back, but he was never there. She could smell him, though, as if he’d just slipped out from under the covers. White bar soap with a touch of citrus. That washerJosh, and he was in bed with her. She could feel his nearness, hear his voice, but no matter which way she twisted or turned, all she found was his pillow.
Her dreams slid from private cuddles to darker fights. Her father’s threats were a recurring nightmare, her brain insistent on playing it out every time. Showing her all the other, better ways she could have handled his demands that she get an annulment.
Those were familiar.
The joy of snuggling with Josh was new and unexpected after all this time. She much preferred those brief slices of joy in her long night of disturbed sleep.
As bright light tried to drag her out of slumber, she thought maybe she’d finally gotten her arms around his big, strong torso. But his torso shouldn’t feel like the edge his mattress…the edge of which, she was trying to wrap her arms around like her life depended on it.
She rolled over, trying to be casual, just in case he was there—which he wasn’t. The door was closed, and bright, cool light was pouring in through a high window.
Her heart pounded as she flopped back on the cheap, stiff mattress. His voice had felt so real, but now she couldn’t remember a single thing she thought he said to her.
Just a dream.A complicated, weird dream, triggered by the scent she’d searched for on his clothes last night. The same scent that would swirl around them in his shower back in California, as he worked a bar of soap between his hands, lifting the orange grease cleaner off his skin.
A deep pang of longing shot through her. For those two fools, and how much they wanted each other.
She’d never found that again, so of course she tried to grind up against his phantom body. His actual mattress.
He’d changed up his laundry soap routine, but not the way he scrubbed after a long day in the garage.
Now a new wave of heat rolled through her as she pictured Josh alone in his shower here, just his hands and sudsy streams of water. Dark strands of hair plastered to his body and—
Oh my God.
She leaped to her feet, to get away from the soap scent and her reactions, but immediately regretted it when every muscle in her body shrieked in protest. Wincing, she leaned against the wall, then gingerly opened the door.
Josh wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
She took her morning painkillers, then grabbed her bag and, after debating whether or not to do this to herself, took advantage of Josh’s ancient but clean shower. She gave herself full credit for ignoring the bar of white soap on the ledge, and using her own body wash instead.
