“I hope the television doesn’t bother you when you sleep,” she eventually says.
My brows lift. “Sleep?” I ask.
“I mean… you’re staying, aren’t you?”
“Is that what you want?” I ask.
“I’d be telling you to take a fucking hike if it wasn’t,” she says, and I chuckle softly.
A beat of silence passes between us that she fumbles with the remote, and when she sets it down, she says, “Stay.”
It’s the third time she’s said it to me, and I’m a fucking puddle every time it leaves her lips.
“It doesn’t have to be anything. I know that. I’m okay with that,” she goes on. “I just… I need…”
My eyes meet hers, and I notice the sudden solemness resting within them, the need and loneliness that maybe she’s too fearful to admit.
“What do you need, Bonnie?” I ask.
Her hands cricket together as she peers toward the ground. A twinge of pink rises on her cheeks, and I slowly step up to her, knuckle tracing her jaw.
“Tell me,” I whisper.
“I want to feel safe,” she admits. “I don’t want to feel like I’m alone. I don’t care if it’s nothing. And I know that that’s a lot to ask, but last night… what you said about touch and intimacy… I don’t think I’ve ever known intimacy like that.”
“Never?” I ask.
She shakes her head slowly. “The last person who made me feel anything was Kelsey, and she…” Her voice drifts, and I reach for her hands, hoping like hell I can give her some kind of comfort.
“Any touch I’ve ever felt has always expected something in return,” she says instead, lashes lifting to mine. “I just wonder what it feels like without those expectations. I want comfort and hugs and touch that’s more than casual sex or basic friendship.” She slumps into my embrace, her forearms resting on my chest. “I think I just want you.”
The very last thing I should be doing is this.
I should tell her right here that I’m not the person she thinks I am. I shouldn’t want to spend the night here. Getting to know her more and more will only make the truth so much harder to say out loud. I should text Zeb and tell him to come back and stay with her. I shouldn’t let her keep thinking I’m someone that I’m not.
Still, when she smiles at me, I forget everything.
Love her.
Love her the way you won’t get to after tomorrow.
Love her for one more night. Do anything she wants. Be who she needs you to be.
It’s only one more night.
It’s fucking selfish what I’m about to say.
“I can do that,” I whisper. I press my lips to her forehead and entwine my fingers with hers, pulling them up and around my neck, and then I pick her up around my waist to carry her back to the bed.
“I love it when you hold me like this,” she says as her forehead hits mine, thighs squeezing around me. “I lose my fucking mind every time.”
“I think I’ve only held you like this twice,” I say, amused.
“And I’ve lost my shit both times.”
I snicker as we hit the steps and when I lay her down on the mattress, it takes all of my internal strength not to bend between her thighs and taste her.
I don’t.
