“Kayden, will you stay with me? As a friend.”
Something akin to fear flashed in her eyes. Even with the new locks on her doors, she was afraid to be alone.
“Yeah, honey, I’ll stay. I’ll sleep on the couch.”
“You could. Or you could sleep with me. The bed’s big. We wouldn’t have to touch.”
He almost laughed. He could barely be in the same room with this woman without touching her. And now she wanted them to be in the samebed?
“Please,” she whispered when he still hadn’t replied. “I don’t like being here on my own at the moment. And having you close will help.”
There was no saying no to that. He turned off the light, then removed all his clothes except his briefs. When he slid into bed, he was fucking tense. Because all he wanted to do was tug her into his arms.
He heard her roll to her side. Felt her breath on his shoulder. Then her hand was on his chest. “Thank you.”
And that was enough to allow the air to slip into his chest with a bit more ease…her simple touch.
CHAPTER 23
Tilly scrunched her eyes closed, willing the nausea in her belly to fade and the dull throbbing in her temple to ease.
God, why had she drunk so many cocktails last night? Harper had been smart, just sipping hers, while Tilly had acted like a woman dying of thirst, downing everything that was put in front of her.
Dumb. So dumb.
She tried to move but stopped at the weight around her waist. Not just stopped, completely froze. Because it wasn’t just any weight…it was an arm. It curved right around her while a hand sat on her bare hip. Yes, bare hip, because the damn shirt she’d worn to bed had ridden up.
Then she started to notice other things…the thick, muscled thigh beneath her leg. The warmth under her cheek. Warmth she’d originally thought was a pillow, but pillows didn’t have heartbeats.
Oh, sweet Jesus…she was sprawled over Kayden’s sleeping body. Hisnear-nakedsleeping body.
Shit. This was not part of her stay-away-from-Kayden plan. It was nowhere near it. Her freaking thigh was wrapped around the man, for God’s sake.
It was fine. She just needed to untangle herself and get the heck out of the room without waking him. Easy.
Carefully, she started to lift her leg, only to stop. Did his thumb just graze her hip?
Her heart beat faster, and for a moment she remained perfectly still. So still, she didn’t even breathe.
He didn’t move. Maybe he wasn’t awake, which meant he’d either grazed her hip in his sleep, or he hadn’t grazed her hip at all and her hungover, overactive mind was making things up.
She tried to lift her leg again. And she did, a good inch, before that arm on her waist tightened and a deep voice pricked the silence.
“Every time you move, your breasts brush against my chest and it drives me wild, Tilly.”
Her jaw dropped.
He was awake. How freaking long had he been awake? By the sound of his voice, possibly longer than her.
She lifted her head to see him looking straight at her. And God, that day-old beard, along with the just-woke-up, mussed hair, sent an entire fleet of butterflies off in her belly.
“Sorry.” She wasn’t sure if she was apologizing for rubbing her chest against him, waking up sprawled over his body, or just this entire situation. “I should get up.”
“Do youwantto get up?”
Well, her body certainly didn’t. But that damn thing was betraying her left, right, and center.
She wet her lips, and Kayden’s gaze immediately zoned in on her mouth. God, but did that set off a stampede of need in her belly.
