After brushing an imaginary strand of hair off his face, I pulled him down until he was settled with his head resting on my chest. His fingers toyed lightly with my nipple in what almost seemed like a self-soothing gesture. It was sweet, and it made my heart beat frantically against my rib cage.
“Night, Link,” I whispered.
“Good night, Elias.”
I sighed, closing my eyes. I truly was exhausted, but I wasn’t quite ready to fall asleep yet. Not with the warmth of Link’s body soaking into mine and the weight of his head resting over my heart.
Eventually, his soft tweaking of my nipple ended, and his body went slack against mine, his hand resting over my pec. Unable to stop myself, I tilted my head down, burying my nose in his curls, and inhaled his spicy scent.
I fell asleep to the soft sounds of Link’s breathing, the scent of his hair, and the comfort of his body.
Link
The only reason I woke up was because of the sun shining through my window curtains. It blinded me, warming the skin on my face. When I could finally open my eyes all the way, I noticed that I was at the very edge of the bed, scarily close to falling off.
Furrowing my brows, I turned my head, only to see Elias completely starfished, his arms and legs spread out as far as humanly possible. He was taking up the rest of the bed entirely. I couldn’t help but smile at how his hair was sticking up in all different directions, some of the strands sweeping over his forehead. His head was lying back against the pillow, tilted toward the ceiling, his mouth wide open as he snored softly.
I’d never found him so attractive.
One of his feet was all the way on my side, pushing me to the edge and acting as a boundary I couldn’t cross over. I tried to nudge him, gently pushing his leg in the other direction while hoping it’d trigger some sort of reflex to make him move.
Finally, after some more probing, he groaned and pulled his leg back into a relatively normal position. He looked so sweet and comfortable, I almost didn’t want to bother him.
Just as I scooted closer to him, he made some sleepy noises and rolled onto his side, facing me. I waited until he settled down to get closer, stopping when I was right in front of him, his body heat radiating into me. At some point during the night, he’d kicked the blankets off himself, forcing all of them on top of me. Looking over his peaceful, sleeping face, I trailed my gaze over the curve of his eyebrows, studying each hair in them before traveling down the slope of his nose and across his perfect cupid’s bow.
On one side of his upper lip, the color arched further up than the other, breaking the societal ideathat symmetry was needed in order to be beautiful. Elias was beautiful. He was perfectly imperfect, and to me thatwasperfection.
His scent seemed to be ten times stronger this morning—the scent that had changed so much, but I’d begun to follow on instinct. My alpha forced a low, rumbling growl.
His eyebrows knitted together just before his eyes opened, blinking a few times. “Mm, Link?”
“Morning.” God, he looked hot.
“What time is it?”
I peered over his shoulder to look at the alarm clock. “Almost noon.”
“We don’t work, do we?” His voice was raw and thick, deep with sleep.
“Nah, I would’ve woken you up earlier if that was the case.”
He closed his eyes, stretching his body and yawning almost directly in my face. He grimaced as he nuzzled back into the pillow beneath his head. “What’re you doing today?”
Shrugging, I shifted even closer to him. “Maybe we should go out and do something.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Got any ideas?”
“It’s too early to have ideas.”
Lifting an eyebrow at him, I wrapped an arm around his middle, tugging him into me. His skin was so fucking warm. “I don’t think noon is very early.”
“You know what I mean.” He groaned, reaching up to massage his pec. “Ugh, before we figure any ofthat out, you’re gonna have to do something about this. Or else I’m going to be walking around with a suspiciously stained shirt.”
I was already shifting down before he’d completely finished his sentence. “You know I’ve got that covered.”
Elias tangled his fingers in my hair. “For me, Link. Be a good boy and empty my chest, but I haven’t even gotten a chance to shower, so I don’t want any funny business.”
