“Deal,” he murmurs, kissing the top of my head. His arm tightens around me, hand splaying protectively over my stomach under the T-shirt. “Wouldn’t let go if you begged me to.”
I settle deeper against him, listening to his heartbeat under my ear, feeling the slow rise and fall of his breathing.
The narrator starts droning on about the front line and a sneak attack that happened at night.
I don’t hear a word of it. All I hear is Silas breathing. All I feel is home.
THIRTY-SEVEN
SILAS
Morning light filterssoft through the curtains. I stretch without thinking, my limbs brushing something solid beside me.
Not something. Someone.
A sort of groggy confusion fills me as I blink against the morning haze, registering the extra weight on the mattress, a warmth that isn’t my own.
And then it all rushes back. Meeting Luke for coffee, bringing him back to the apartment…doing things I didn’t plan, spending the rest of the day curled on the couch together. It feels like a dream. A really good dream.
I roll onto my side, head propped up on my arm, and just—watch him for a minute.
He’s sprawled across most of the bed, one leg kicked out, blanket twisted around his waist, blond hair wild from sleep. His mouth is parted slightly, brows relaxed, lashes fanning across his cheeks.
God, he’s beautiful. And he’s really here. I don’t fight the smile tugging at mylips.
Instead, I lean in and press the softest kiss to his shoulder. Then another to his collarbone, following it with one on his neck. Then one just under his jaw, where I know he’s ticklish but pretends not to be.
He shifts with a grumpy groan, arm flopping up to cover his face. “No.”
“No, what?” I whisper, dropping another kiss to his forearm.
“No being cute before coffee.”
I chuckle. “I’m not being cute,hemroso. I’m being affectionate.”
“Same thing,” he says. “I’m pretty sure it’s illegal before 8 a.m.”
“Is it?”
He hums a response, but drops his arm and cracks one eye open to look at me. “You know it is, or have you forgotten…mornings are my arch-nemesis."
I grin, shifting closer until my chest brushes his side. “I remember. You used to threaten to banish me to the couch for setting the alarm five minutes early.”
“Still might,” he mumbles, but there’s a sleepy smile tugging at his mouth now. He rolls toward me, tucking his face into the crook of my neck as if it’s the most natural place in the world. His breath is warm against my skin. “You smell like me. And sex. And…home.”
My heart does something painful and perfect at once. I wrap an arm around his waist, pulling him flush against me. “Good combination?”
“Best one,” he sighs, already relaxing again. “Five more minutes. Then coffee. Then maybe I’ll let you be cute.”
I kiss the top of his head. “Deal.”
We lie there like that—tangled, quiet, breathing in sync.His fingers trace lazy patterns on my back, mine card through his messy hair. Every few seconds, he presses a sleepy kiss to my collarbone, my throat, the underside of my jaw. Small, unhurried things. Like he’s making sure I’m still real.
Eventually, the coffee craving wins.
He groans dramatically and rolls away. “Okay. Caffeine first. Then adulting.”
I watch him pad naked across the bedroom, unselfconscious and unfairly gorgeous in the slanted morning light. He disappears into the hallway, and I hear the familiar sounds: cabinet opening, coffee maker gurgling to life, mugs clinking. The rich smell of brewing coffee drifts into the room, followed by the scent of toast cooking in the toaster.
