She stared down at her feet, turning them left and right. “We are all allowed to have a vice. Quirky socks are mine.”
They cheers’d to that.
“What’s your guilty pleasure?” she asked in a mock-conspiratorial tone.
“Dark-haired journalists who bust my balls.”
“Hah, I wouldn’t quit your day job for stand-up comedy just yet,” Neve said after a short silence. After another sip, she set her glass on the nightstand, drew back the comforter and burrowed underneath. “Oy. What a day.”
He tensed. “What are you doing?”
“What’s it look like I’m doing? It’s nap o’clock. You’re... uh, well... welcome to join the party if you don’t mind dimming the light.”
Tor crossed the room and tugged the blinds back shut. The world disappeared and he was alone in an alternate universe comprised solely of a big bed and Neve Angel.
Chapter Eleven
A cool lick of air brushed Neve’s cheek as she stirred awake. The floor creaked and creaked again as if someone stealthily tiptoed across the old floorboards. But it couldn’t be Tor because he was here. Right here. A shiver ran up her spine before she slit one eye open. Her goose bumps were caused less from unease and more from something warm and molten.
Cheese and rice, how long had she been getting her cuddle on with Tor Gunnar? He was sprawled on his back, his face more relaxed than she’d ever seen in waking. In sleep, her own hand had found its way to his chest and currently rested over his heart, her head nestled in the crook of his shoulder. His blond spikes were mussed on top. And there was the matter of the tiny mole dotting the left side of his bottom lip.
She’d never noticed that mark, had never trusted herself to stare long enough to register all the little details in his face. To do so would be like staring straight into the sun. Even now, if she closed her eyes, this image, his face in repose, was probably seared on her retinas for all time.
“I’m not drooling, am I?” he rumbled. Not opening an eye.
“No. No.” She moved to draw back her hand and crawl to safer territory on her side of the giant bed. At the very least she should apologize for being all over him like a human barnacle.
Instead, he took her wrist and stopped her retreat, then slid his hand down until their fingers laced.
They were quiet, in bed and holding hands as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if beyond the drawn curtains a world didn’t exist that was black-and-white, where he wasn’t a head coach and she wasn’t the tough-as-nails reporter.
“You’re an octopus when you sleep,” he murmured. “An octopus genetically mutated with a honey badger.”
“It’s a bad habit.” Her nose wrinkled in embarrassment. “Breezy used to hate sharing a bed with me when we were younger. It’s annoying.”
“Not to me.” His Adam’s apple rose in a heavy bob.
She lay on her hip, her thigh casually slung over his waist. The evidence of just how much he didn’t mind her unexpected cuddling bored into her inner thigh.
His body went rigid as if he registered the hard-on at the exact same moment that she did.
“Neve.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t want to make this weird.”
“Too late.” She dared wriggle a fraction closer. “Don’t tell anyone but... I think we’re mutually weird.”
“Speak for yourself.” He squeezed her hand and finally opened one eye. His pupil was large and dilated in the room’s shadows. “You talk in your sleep.”
“Sometimes.” Her cheeks heated. “I didn’t say anything terrible, did I?”
“My name.”
Shit a brick.She could never remember her dreams. Hopefully, she didn’t tack on anything dirty.
“But then you said, ‘Hold the pickles.’ So I don’t know how to take that.”
“Pickles?” Her mouth twitched. “Maybe you were making me another sandwich.”
A chuckle rumbled deep in the back of his throat. “Flattering.”
