He froze.
“Don’t go back to the chair,” I said, my voice half a mumble. “Won’t bother you. Promise. Won’t even breathe on you, if you don’t want.”
His gold eyes rippled briefly with a lick of those liquid flames.
For a few long seconds, he just looked at me, and didn’t try to pull away. When he finally moved back, removing his wrist from my fingers, I felt myself shrinking, certain he’d go back to the chair, back to his nightmares and whatever he preferred to me.
He didn’t, though.
I watched, silent, as he walked around to the other side of the mattress. As he circled the bed, he reached back, and pulled his shirt up over his head from the back collar. He tossed it aside, his eyes back on my face as he yanked the duvet and blanket back on that side of the bed. He was still watching me as he crawled underneath and wrapped the duvet, blanket, and sheet around behind his bare back.
He remained on that side, his gold eyes faintly glowing, until I climbed under the blankets and pulled them over and aroundmy body, too. Then he slid towards me, his face still strangely blank, despite that odd, mesmerizing fire in his irises, and a faint tautness to his jaw. I didn’t move but just waited until he’d gotten close enough to wrap his arms around me.
Once he had ahold of me, he yanked me up against his bare chest, nearly rough with me for the first time.
I didn’t let myself think about why he did it.
I didn’t want to think about any of it.
I doubted he did, either, so I was surprised when he spoke, his deep voice rumbling into my ears from somewhere in his chest.
“Why?” he asked.
I didn’t raise my head. I didn’t ask him to explain what he meant.
Honestly, I didn’t really need or want him to clarify.
Words came out of my mouth once my cheek rested on his bare chest.
“You were my friend,” I said, my voice blurred.
He stiffened.
I practically felt the conflict whisper around him, something like despair mixed with anger and a harder refusal.
“No,” he said. “I wasn’t.”
I don’t know how I would have reacted to that, if I’d not been exhausted and half-drunk, with my mind dipping and roiling from the drug, or if I’d eaten anything at all. As it was, the answer to me felt obvious, to the point where I found his protests ridiculous.
“Yes, you were,” I said. “Wewere. And you ran away.”
There was a moment where he just lied there on his back, breathing.
I felt conflict on him again, right before his arms gripped me tighter. He pulled me against him, shifting his body so that every part of his side pressed into some part of me. I’d just closed myeyes against his chest when he wrapped his hand into my hair again, clutching me closer as his other hand wrapped over my arm and shoulder. I didn’t think about that either, just adjusted myself on him a little higher to make our bodies fit together better.
When he let his head fall back against the pillow, my mind wandered to the party, to how my evening started, and how he’d been dressed when I finally thought to look at him. Like every one of my friends, he’d been dressed formally, expensively, in a suit that fit him so well, it had to be tailor-made for his body.
I thought about the unlikelihood of him not having a date for an event like that, and an odd twinge of guilt hit me.
It may not have been entirely guilt.
“Who did you kick out of your bed for this?” I asked, without lifting my head. “To play nursemaid to me?” I paused, thinking about my own words. “I suppose I should apologize for that. For ruining your night.”
He didn’t answer that, either.
17
Morning
