He made a sound in his chest that I was going to hope was acceptance.
“You smell nice for having not showered,” I mumbled.
“I told you, I don’t need to sweat as much as you do, and it doesn’t have an odor.”
“Lucky,” I muttered.
His head tipped down, his chin brushing my temple. He sighed right before he lifted his arm, moving it to the side and—
I heard the zipper, then felt him shift a bit before he tugged the opened sides of the hoodie wide and wrapped them around me. Like a taco, and I was the filling.
I blinked.
Oh shit.
I was T-shirt on skin with a beautiful man.
And not just any beautiful man, but The Defender. The fuckingDefender. A gorgeous pain in the fucking ass. One who was taking care ofme.
People would pay millions for this. If I had them and I hadn’t gotten to know his real personality, I would too.
Could he really be such a dickhead when he went to this extent?
I dropped my head and even caught my breath… until my teeth chattered and I shivered again. I swallowed, deciding to try and get my mind off this, so I asked the first thing I thought of. “Are you a cyborg?”
I felt his huff more than heard it. “No.”
Turning my head a little, I lifted my hand—and I was going to blame the fever on messing around with the hormones controlling my brain—and with the tip of my index finger, I lifted his lip a little. It was firm and soft at the same time.
I tapped his canine tooth with my fingernail. It felt… normalish. It wasn’t like I ever poked at my own teeth.
Moving my hand, I nudged at a spot on his jaw with the pad of my finger, and still, he let me.
Then I gently knocked on the part of his collarbone that was exposed from his unzipped hoodie.
“What are you doing?” The Defender asked slowly.
“I don’t know, making sure you’re not.”
I heard the deep breath he let out from his nostrils. I felt the shift of his muscles beneath my legs and beside my arm. I barely heard him say, “You can call me Alexander.”
I tipped my head back. If my eyeballs weren’t so dry, I was pretty sure they might have bugged out.
Those bright eyes went squinty. “Tell anybody and—”
Oh shit, oh shit,oh shit.“You’ll render my limbs, I know,” I whispered, stunned.
I sounded his name out on my tongue. A-l-e-x-a-n-d-e-r. Huh.
It was so… so… normal.
“It’s a nice name. Very solid, very fitting,” I whispered, wondering now if this was some kind of delusion or something.
Maybe I was dead. Or I was dreaming.
“Not Alex. Not Xander. Alexander,” he muttered, already sounding like he was regretting his decision to give me that much.
Maybe it wasn’t a dream.
