I lick my lips. “Oh.”
“Just…sleep with me. Tonight. I can almost guarantee I’ll snore.” His gaze softens as he turns my head with gentle fingers. “But I’d like to have my arms around you while I torture you with sleep deprivation. Please, Lanie?”
I swallow beneath his fathomless gaze, wanting to pull away from his intense study but at the same time unable to make myself, because I want what he offers, too.
“Okay.” I bite my lip, rising on legs long gone to sleep with lack of circulation.
He draws me along the hall, his shoulders tight beneath the weight of my gaze. I squeeze his hand, conscious of the pensivestorm in the air between us. Cord might say we’re just going to sleep, but this feels like a whole lot more. He stops in the doorway of his bedroom, reminiscent of the first day I arrived in his house. My wolf blanket is laid out across his bed when I peer inside.
“Thank you.”
“I cleaned it again. You seem…attached to it.” He stands back so I can brush by him to enter the room, clenching the lintel above his head in a white-knuckled grip, his fingers slipping from my grasp.
“Cord?” I glance over my shoulder when he doesn’t follow me.
His expression remains shuttered as he drops his hands, slipping past me. Memories of the last time we were together in this room assail me. Him, too, I think, as he swallows, his gaze coasting over my body before he meets my eyes and flicks the light off. Under the cover of darkness, I crawl into his bed.
The smoke-and-leather scent of him surrounds me as he shucks off his shirt.Coming in here was a mistake.My fingernails bite into my palms as the mattress depresses beneath his weight as he finds where I’ve curled on one side of the bed.
I want to stay. I want him to want me.
And I want to be free.
I slip beneath the blanket he holds up, settling beside Cord but not touching him. Air escapes me as I lie as still as possible, unwilling to unleash the predator in him that I glimpsed that night. A part of me craves that, the darkness in him that showed me a sexual partner I’d never experienced before. But also, I want the man who loved me back at the mountains, who worshiped me that night.
His formidable control lasts all of a moment before his arm slides beneath me in a quick movement, crushing me breathlessly to his chest.
“There’s no world I can be in and not want to touch you,” he breathes, pressing his lips to the top of my head.
I squeeze my eyes shut, my heart aching in my chest.Hope. The dangerous glimpse I thought I saw in him before. Maybe I’mstupid for letting this start up again but…I don’t want to let him go, either. I trace the hard muscle beneath my cheek, swirling patterns on his smooth skin. Cord’s hand comes down hard on my wrist.
Shock rips through me as I jerk in his arms. My eyes fly to his face, though I can only see a sliver of glittering eyes in the shadow. Cord stares down at me. “Sleep, Lanie.” His voice deepens, and he kisses my temple chastely.
His fingers around my wrist loosen to press gently over my hand on his chest instead. I sigh into his embrace as his other hand tangles in my hair, holding me to him. Our breaths fall in time with each other, the night slipping away.
Safe.
My head thumps with an ache that comes from somewhere outside, thankfully. Or maybe not so thankfully, as the thumping continues. I prop my forehead on something hard that smells faintly of salt and smoke. Grit clumps my eyelashes together. I swipe at them with the back of my hand.
“Morning, babe.” Cord’s fingers turned circles in my hair, which I just know will resemble an eagle’s nest.
“You’re still here?” I stretch, discovering our legs are tangled, and I have no objection to that predicament. “This is new.” Not that I’m objecting. I’m also impressed my brain is working this morning, at least somewhat.
“I spent too many hours in the office when I should have been spending that time with you. You are what matters.” His voice is filled with lazy contentment. His warmed touch trails along my spine to rest in a natural place at the small of my back.
“It’s nice to wake up with you. I don’t think I have, before.” I try to think back, but my caffeinated brain refuses to function on cue.
“Maybe that night on your doorstep.” Cord’s chest rumbles beneath my cheek.
I frown, propping myself on his chest. Deep azure eyes gazeback, drinking me in like a starved man. “I didn’t sleep then. I don’t think.”
“You snored. It was cute.”
“Cute?” I squawk, swatting at him.
Cord catches my wrists easily, rolling us to pin me beneath him. My breath stutters, everything dozy about my few waking moments sluicing into overdrive as my body heats, ready for him.Dammit, he’s already trained me to want him.
“Cute,” he murmurs, dipping his head. Cord’s mouth hovers over mine for a long moment—a moment he gives me to protest, to wriggle out from under him.
