“Then, for now, we’re going to have to balance this taking care of each other. Take turns.”
He leans forward and brushes the softest whisper of a kiss over my lips. So fast, I barely feel it.
And yet, it shakes me to my core.
“Deal. As long as you know I’ll be taking more care of you than you do of me.”
I roll my eyes. “Fifty-fifty. And we’ll call it good.”
“I’m reading between the lines, Wren. I’m guessing you haven’t had many people stand up for you in your life. But it’s okay to let me stand up for you now, when you need it. When you feel like you do right now. Maybe fifty-fifty is a rolling average, and not every day. Today, let me take care of you more. You can figure out how to repay the favor some other day.”
“That, I can agree to.”
He climbs off the bed. “Get some sleep.”
“Where are you going?”
“To pretend I’m sleeping in one of the visitor bedrooms until everyone else has gone to bed so Grudge doesn’t tear me a new one. I’ll be back later.”
And when the door closes behind him, I can’t hide my smile.
11
CATFISH
Iawake with a jolt.
Morning comes online in my brain at breakneck speed, and every sensory input tells me I’m wrapped tightly around Wren.
A wave of panic rises through me. Not because sleeping like this with them is wrong, not because anything happened.
But because it…mattered.
Even with the sheets between us, me on top, them beneath, I can feel the warmth of their body. Their long hair and the sweet scent of the skin behind their ear tickles my nose. My arm is draped heavily over their waist, my palm flat against the blanket-covered softness of their stomach.
Spooned around them like I couldn’t get close enough in sleep, I feel their familiar shape. And my body responds to it. A slow, warm stirring in my gut. Not so much a jolt of lust.
But something quiet and tender.
Wren felt safe enough to sleep with me after I’d crept back in around two in the morning.
I hadn’t kissed them, nor had I slid my palm beneath that hoodie to reveal more of their skin because they were asleepwhen I arrived. Only stirring as I climbed onto the bed in my jeans.
But I felt every moment just the same.
And, yeah, I wanted them. Not in the usual rowdy, get-laid-and-bounce kind of way. This was different. Quiet and dangerous.
It’s the kind of want that creeps under a man’s skin and stays there.
Soft light eases through the half-closed curtains. It’s the kind of wintery morning that lays a gray haze over everything. It casts enough light that I can make out the way Wren’s hands are together as if in prayer, tucked just beneath their cheek.
Sleeping with someone in my bed isn’t new. I’ve held curves like this before. My brain knows the shape and recognizes it.
But this is Wren.
And I love it.
Even if my brain struggles to untangle how this all works for me. Even if my hands and senses have been trained by old stories, old straightness, old lovers, and old instincts.
