“A little,” I admit.
Her mouth curves. “Let’s sleep then.”
Kissing her, I sit up and peel off the condom, tying it and throwing it out. She lounges on her side and watches me.
“What?” I ask.
“You are very…hot,” she says.
I laugh, uncomfortable. “Thank you. I…wasn’t expecting that.”
She pushes herself up on her elbows. “Why’s that?”
I gesture at myself. “I’m just not…all that, you know?”
Her mouth twists in a pout. “Really? So having a six pack didn’t register with you at all.”
Looking down, I take a second. Finally, I shrug. “I have trouble sleeping, so I spent a lot of time in the gym at rehab. This is all new to me.”
“It’s nice,” she says.
I get the impression she wants to say more, but she doesn’t. In the bathroom, I wet a washcloth with warm water and clean her up. After I’m done wiping myself down, she dips into the bathroom, pushing the door shut. I sink into bed and pull the quilt up. She reappears, padding naked to me, and slips into bed, crawling into my arms with her back to my front. Her body burns in my chest, and I pull her closer, my chin on her head. This feels good. This feels right.
Ordinary, normal people doing ordinary things that feel so extraordinary.
My eyes close. She sighs, body relaxing.
“You feel good,” she whispers.
“So do you,” I whisper back.
It’s pitch black with the lights off. I glance up at the ceiling, but there’s no stone overhead. No faint rumble in the back of my mind. No creeping terror that I might blink, and somehow, I’ll be right back underground with nothing but hell coming for me. It ain’t just her chasing away the shadows, I know that. It’s being out in the sun, getting my system clean, having a job I like surrounded by people who aren’t Aiden. That’s all helping me, but this…this is different.
This is peace.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
JANIE
The sun breaks through the windows, bright gold piercing my eyelids. My bed is so warm, much warmer than I’m used to. And it smells different, a little bit like citrus and something woodsy, which is strange, because that’s not what my shampoo smells like. There’s something warm and heavy draped over the middle of my waist.
Oh God, I slept with Bittern.
The shock jolts me upright, and the weight of his thick forearm falls on me as he shifts. That’s all it takes for me to sink back with a smile on my face. I’m a bit shy over the fact that everyone on this damn ranch is going to know our date turned into a sleepover, but my head is so high in the clouds, I don’t care. I wriggle to my back, rolling to face him.
He’s awake, looking at me between cracked lids.
“Everyone’s gonna know,” I whisper.
The corner of his mouth jerks up lazily. “Yeah, they are.”
“That doesn’t bother you?”
“Nope.”
His eyes open fully, the sun hitting them and turning his irises shades of gold. There’s a lash on his cheek. It’s blond, like his hair, and I find I love the contrast of it against his deep eyes. It’s late summer, like burnt fields. Touching the lash, I lift in on my fingertip.
“Make a wish,” I whisper.
