“No, I wanted to race cars.”
The snort he lets out has my lips curling. “Race cars?”
His skeptic tone just makes my grin grow.
“Yup.” I peek at him with one eye. “But then someone saved my life, and I felt like I owed the universe something in return.”
“Oh.”
The room falls quiet, the barely noticeable beep of Charline’s heart monitor bleeding in from the distance.
It’s not quite loaded, the quiet, but there is a thickness hanging around our heads. The weight of something not yet spoken.
There are so many things that it could be that I can’t even begin to start figuring out a way to break it open. To find the level ground where the switch is flipped and Emmett spends more time smiling than frowning. Or, at least, doesn’t feel the need to hide beneath that hood.
How do I tell him he can come out now?
His touch on my cheek slows, then stalls, and when he doesn’t take his hand away, I peek at him.
Eyes closed, lips slightly pursed, his features softening.
“Sleep tight, baby,” I murmur soundlessly and close my eyes, too.
Chapter 57
Emmett
It’s hot.
My entire side is damp with sweat, my leg bent and too warm.
Grumbling, I go to kick the blankets off, but they don’t budge.
I’m too groggy to realize why until the entire bed beneath me shifts and something lands on my thigh. Pulls my leg higher. Makes my knee brush against something stiff.
I crack open my heavy lids even though it feels like they’re glued shut and Tristen isright there. His chin taking up my view, his plump lips parted.
“You’re quite the cuddler,” he rasps and my stomach flips.
“I’m sorry, I—”
His arm tightens around me when I stiff arm him, prepared to propel myself across the bed, his palm pinning my hood to the back of my neck.
“Stay.”
Just one word. One quietly whispered command and I crumble. Back to the foundation of his chest. The safety of his embrace.
I feel nearly weightless as I press my cheek to his chest, his heart thundering beneath me. His life pounding back against the pressing silence.
Fingers curl around my knee, holding my leg across his waist and I swallow against the feel of his hardness beneath my thigh.
My stomach turns for the briefest moment, a voice in my head that doesn’t belong to me threatening to surface.
But this bubble that we’re in feels too delicate. Tooimportant.Not that I could explain why it is or how I know.
I just feel it.
Deep down inside me.
