I stood to my feet and started walking out of the bathroom. “I’ll find you something to wear and set it on the sink.”
He hesitated a moment, then stated, “Thank you, Gwen.”
“You’re welcome.”
The shower turned on inside the bathroom as I rifled through his drawers. I found a pair of underwear first and then searched for his pajama pants. Everything was so perfectly in place inside his chest of drawers that it didn’t take long.
I returned to the bathroom and set the clothes down but didn’t dally in there. I rubbed my forehead and went to lie on his bed, trying to understand what had made him so violently ill. Vampires didn’t get sick…but I had no clue what the fuck he really was. I stayed on ‘my side’ of the bed as I slipped under the covers and turned on my side, facing ‘his side,’ and waited for him to finish.
I listened to every sound. The water splashing against his skin. His contented groans at being clean. The towel that scrubbed along his skin as he dried off. The brush of clothes being pulled up. His feet walking over the tile. The sink turning on as he brushed his teeth. The drip on the floor from his hair still being wet. An anxious sigh as he hesitated behind a wall next to the bathroom door. The crack of his neck when he finally decided to enter his room again.
He stepped into his bedchambers while he pulled his hair up into a bun at the top of his head. His body visibly relaxed seeing me lying in bed—and the fact I still had my pajamas on.
I flicked a finger at ‘his side’ of the bed, and stated gently, “Sleep, Bel. Neither one of us is in the mood for anything more tonight.”
He grunted. “I’m fine now, Gwen. Quit worrying.”
But my lover didn’t argue for more either—confirming my assumption—while he went to his bedroom door and used his thumbprint to bring down the steel security to cover the wooden entrance. He even took a long pull of whiskey straight from a decanter before he snuffed out the fire and turned out the light.
He tapped on his cell phone, and then set it on the nightstand. “My alarm is set for the meeting tomorrow morning.”
“Thank you. I left my cell phone in my room.”
Bel crawled into bed, stuffed his legs under the covers, and rolled onto his side. His chilly blue eyes stared into mine in the darkness, neither one of us hindered by the dark. With the quirk of one of his brows, he asked, “Do you plan to sleep over there all night long?”
I lifted my own eyebrow. “Do you want me to?”
His lips thinned. “No.”
“You want me to sleep next to you?” I asked, trying to keep the shock from my tone. “Are you sure? You never want to start out sleeping next to me.” Even if he didn’t mind it by morning when he was half-asleep.
Bel’s words were soft. “Tonight, I think I do.”
“Okay,” I responded gently. I scooted under the blankets until I was next to the heat of his body, so much heat I shivered in pleasure and relaxed even more. My head sank into the edge of the pillow next to his, our faces close together. “Better?”
“Much.” Bel wrapped an arm and a leg over my body and pulled me snug against his muscled frame. His lips quirked up at the edges, and he kissed the tip of my nose softly. “That’s even better, though.”
I snickered and ducked my head under his chin, pressing the side of my cheek against his warm chest.
Bel ran his fingers up and down my back in the quiet, and asked, “You’re really not going to ask any questions?”
I shook my head as much as I could. “You’ll tell me when you’re ready to.”
“You are…an interesting creature, Gwen.”
I snorted on a laugh. “Pot. Kettle.”
His chuckle was deep and quiet. “Touché.”
I tapped my fingers against the smooth skin on his chest. “I actually do have one question for you, and it doesn’t have to do with what I witnessed in the bathroom.”
Bel hummed softly in thought. “All right. Ask.”
“When you were crowned king, you stated you were from Ota’ano.”
Harmony had gotten back with me. We’d been right about the name. But neither technology nor vampire historian (multiplehistorians), knew of a place called that. I had even researched it for most of the night, waiting for Bel to return to his room.
More than muddled and flabbergasted to even ask this question—about a place I never believed existed—I continued, “Is Ota’ano a city in…S’Kir?”
