With dropped shoulders, Drustan released a sigh loud enough for the camera to pick up and slowly sat down on the side of the bed I wasn’t on. I had to force myself to breathe through my nose as I watched Drustan slowly, carefully, lie his massive body on top of the covers next to me.
He fluffed my other pillow and everything. As if he’d done this a thousand times. One ankle crossed over the other, one large hand tucked behind his head, while the other rested on hisabdomen. His feet, obviously, hung off the end of my king-sized bed.
Drustan was a big man. Taller, wider, larger, everything. The visual of seeing Drustan lay next to me, even as I was bundled underneath my covers, was eye-opening. I had already understood that, as a relatively tall woman.
Lying side-by-side like this?
It was both terrifying and thrilling to witness.
He stayed there, blinking up at the ceiling. Could he see perfectly in the dark? Were his siren senses that much better than my human ones? I sped up the video, noticing that he stayed there in my bed, silent, unmoving, staring at my ceiling in thought for another hour before I shifted.
I backed it up and hit play at a normal speed. Flopping over again, I was now facing Drustan, who looked over at me as I mumbled nonsense and settled again.
The way he stared at me, watching me sleep, should have made my skin crawl. And yet, it didn’t. Instead, I felt this burning awareness in my core. Drustan hadn’t tried to harm me once during his entire visit. He snooped, read my book, and lay in my bed. But he never touched me.
That is, until I touched him first.
Gasping, I watched as my hand reached out toward him, still fully asleep. I rested it on him. Drustan watched the whole thing, not moving a muscle. His gaze lowered to where my hand rested on his stomach, not flinching when my hand balled the fabric of his shirt into my fist.
When I softly tugged in my sleep, he sighed again, before grasping my wrist and gently removing my hand from his shirt. I made a weird sound, but it didn’t sound clear in the video. I rewound a couple of seconds to hear it again, turning up the volume.
When Drustan slowly removed my hand from his body, I…whined. Still fully, completely asleep. Iwhinedwhen he pulled my hand off of him.
His mouth twisted at the sound, and a deep pinch formed in his brow. My hand wrapped around his, and I sloppily tried tugging him toward me again. Drustan gently removed his hand from my grasp, and I whinedagain. I flopped over, giving him my back, but I didn’t still. I was restless, my legs kept twitching and adjusting. As if I couldn’t get comfortable.
As if something was wrong.
“Shh,” Drustan shushed as he leaned toward me, hovering his hand over my bare arm, before he hesitated and rested his hand on my waist, which was covered by my blanket that he was lying on.
My body stilled, and the rise in my chest indicated that I was sinking into a deep sleep again…but my hand still snuck out from the covers and grabbed the one he had resting on my waist.
Drustan dropped his head but didn’t remove his hand. His shoulders rose. He looked like he was taking a deep breath as he closed his eyes and frowned at the covers between us.
Suddenly, his hand was sliding around my waist over the covers—no—wait—I rewound the video, watching our hands, to see thatIwas pullinghisarm around me.
“Alright, alright,” Drustan whispered, scooting closer to my body.
I rubbed my eyes, blinking at the computer screen to make sure I was truly seeing this. Drustan was spooning me over the covers, while I snuggled into his warmth. Hiswarmth.
Thewarmth I’ve been dreaming about.
I gasped and slammed the laptop closed.
“Jesus,” I wheezed, standing up from my desk quickly enough to almost tip my chair over. I paced my bedroom,rubbing my hands through my hair, gripping the roots in anxiousness as I processed what I had just watched.
How many times had Drustan done this?
Were my gummies really that strong? How did I not wake up to a killer snuggling up with me? Why did I keepreachingfor him in my sleep? Why was he snooping through my things and soothing me in my sleep?
Why would I do any of this, Vanessa?
My knees buckled. He was serious. Drustan genuinely believed that I was…
I slapped my hand over my mouth and screeched. My nervous system was shot. I needed to release some pent-up emotion to help me think through this. I fell to the floor and curled into a ball. With both hands over my mouth, I squeezed my eyes shut and screamed.
I screamed and screamed until my body started to relax. Holding my jaw with my hands, I slumped against the foot of my bed, breathing.
Thinking.
