This should be good. Itisgood.
And even though he never heard my promise, I know I need to do everything I can to keep it.
“I don’t know what to do with my hand,” I murmur, and Tristen’s chuckle vibrates through my cheek.
“Wherever it’s comfortable, bubs.”
Setting my palm against my own leg just feels wrong. Weird. So, I move it to his shoulder, which feels like more of a stretch than it should.
Why is this so difficult?
“Bubbles,” he says in the soft, commanding tone that has me peeking up at him with a fluttering in my stomach. “My chest and stomach are okay to touch.”
I blow out a long breath and flatten my palm against his sternum, right in the space between the two.
It takes a long moment for my body to release the stiffness, but when it does … it’s like a sip of blueberry tea.
Warm. And nearly peaceful.
For a moment, he makes me forget where we are. Why we’re here. What’s happening outside of this tiny bedroom that saw too many shitty nights when I cried myself to sleep.
It makes me feel like maybe I can keep my promise after all.
“Thank you,” I whisper to the dusk-filled room, too nervous to say it much louder.
He takes a moment to respond, and I know that he understands that I don’t just mean for letting me touch him.
“I meant it when I said we’d figure it out together.” His grip on my knee and the back of my neck flexes. Not tightly, but enough to know he’s there and I… I really like that he is. “I should be thanking you.”
My brows pinch. “Why?”
He just snorts. Turns his head into mine and presses his lips to the hair covering my forehead.
My breath hitches and my face flames.
“For letting me be with you. That’s why.”
The backs of my eyes burn fiercely, and I blink hard when my vision goes watery.
“Can I … can I kiss you?”
Thundering below my ear grows louder as I trail my hand up his torso, the feel of his muscles ripping through his tank top like a featherlight touch. Almost as if his body is caressing me back.
I touch the base of his neck, fingertips dipping in the space between his collarbones where the moth lives, just in time to feel him swallow.
“Always, bubbles.”
The rumble of his certainty has me finally sliding my head back to find his hooded gaze already darkened and on me.
A chill races down my spine and my lips part with my breath. When I dart my tongue out to wet them, his gaze drops and his length flexes beneath my leg.
I … I like that.
It feels like I shouldn’t like it. That my stomach shouldn’t be flipping around, and my heart shouldn’t be sputtering over its next few beats.
It shouldn’t feel safe, but it does.
He does.
