So he knew who I was. Andstillthought it was a good idea to have his arms around me.
“Should I have left you there?” he asked, sounding surly. Grumpy. The realisation made me smile. He was both a cuddler and not a morning person. “Let you break your nose on the floor,then left you unconscious in the hallway where anyone could see you vulnerable?”
The thought made me recoil.
“Exactly,” he muttered, feeling the flinch move through my body. Because I was pressed all up against him. Jesus, I needed to move. I had to get out of this bed and run as far away as possible. “I’m a good, selfless friend, and you ask if I’m high,” he grumbled.
“In my defence, you’re holding me.”
“In my defence, you’re a fucking furnace and I was cold.”
I snorted. “If that’s what you need to tell yourself.”
He went still. “And what isthatsupposed to mean?”
I smirked at the wall, realised I wasin his roomand then began to snoop, trailing my stare over the desk, the wardrobe, the walls painted a dark green that made the room cosier instead of foreboding. Or maybe I just found comfort in the foreboding now.
He pinched me right over my ribs.
“Clearly, you have a cuddle fetish,” I said.
“You can fuck right off.” He opened his arms and shoved me unceremoniously towards the edge of the bed. “Go on. Piss off.”
I snorted, unable to keep the smile off my face even if it felt weird there. I hadn’t felt this awake, this good, for as long as I could remember. “Kicking me out of bed doesn’t erase what happened when I was in it,” I taunted, sliding off the mattress and hissing at the cold laminate floor on my feet. I had no slippers on, no socks either.
I slid a glance at Cobra, and froze at the sight of him stretched out lazily in bed, something about it making me hot all over. A wicked throb went through me, reminding me I was healed enough for sex, if I ever wanted it. Right now, I could imagine wanting it.
“You know what’s weird,” I mused, finding my slippers discarded on the floor. “I could have sworn I was wearing these last night.”
“Hm.”
“Any idea what could have happened…?”
He stretched, resting his arms behind his head. He was fully dressed, but there was something about his body language, his languid stare, and the smile on his face that had me remembering the times I’d seen him without a shirt, with all that ink all over him. I wondered if there were more tattoos beneath his pants.
“They fell off when you passed out,” he said.
I swallowed and ripped my stare away, my heartbeat fast, a little panicked. “I bet. What happened to my socks?”
“The same fate, I’m afraid.”
I rolled my eyes and headed for the door, needing space to figure out what I was feeling and what I planned to do about those feelings. “Thanks. For the bark and the…” I flapped a hand at him, to encompass him taking care of me. “I appreciate it.”
“You can repay me by bringing me breakfast in bed,” he suggested, grinning when I whipped around to give him my darkest glare.
“Go,” I said, “and I cannot stress this enough—”
“Fuck myself with a rusty rake?” he guessed, venom-green eyes glittering.
I folded my arms across my chest. “I was going to suggest a cactus.”
“That’s a new one.”
“I’ve been working on expanding my repertoire.”
He snorted. “Nice.”
“Thanks, I worked hard on it.” I opened the door, my hand hovering on the cool handle. “Cobra.”
