I sat up so fast the sheets pooled around my waist and my bedroom swam out of focus. I blinked to clear my eyesight and then palmed my mouth to stifle my surprise at finding Liam in my bed, lids still closed, black lashes fanning the sharp slashes of his cheekbones.
I glanced down at my chest—naked—then peeled away the covers to check my lower half—naked, too.Whoa. Had I sleep-stripped? Or had he stripped me, and I hadn’t woken up? How was that even remotely possible? I mean, there was no way I’d sleep through sex with Liam, not even bludgeoned or under general anesthesia would my mind not wake up forthat.
Even though his eyes remained shut, his hand drifted to my lap, then higher, to my waist, and tugged until I was horizontal again. Trying to calm my spiky pulse, I ran through my evening, trying to locate the memory of him joining me in my bedroom.
When I couldn’t, I licked my lips and asked, “Did we, uh . . . ? Did we have sex last night?”
His lids still didn’t open, but a crooked smile bent his mouth. “No.”
“Thank, Lycaon.” I sighed in relief. “Not that we didn’t have sex, but that I didn’t sleep through it.”
His lids reeled up, and his gleaming eyes flashed. “You offered.”
Of course I had. An inanimate object would offer itself up to this man. But, wait. That meant . . . “Youturned me down?”
That powered up his smile. “No, but by the time I came back here with condoms, you were fast asleep. You’re now the proud owner of the compound shop’s entire supply of contraceptives, by the way.” He nodded to my desk where a pile of black cartons sat in disarray as though they’d been chucked there in irritation.
“I could open a rival convenience store.”
“You’d be out of stock before you could even design the logo.”
I laughed. “Oh, really?”
He rolled on top of me, pinning my back to the mattress and bracketing my face between his forearms. “Really.” He slanted his mouth over mine, hovering it tauntingly close, before raising it out of reach. “I almost forgot about your rules.”
I wrapped my hands around his neck. “You didn’t almost forget about them. You slept in my bed, you seditious man.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “Are you saying that now that I broke one, I might as well break them all?”
Was that what I was saying? “Whydidyou sleep here?”
“You threatened to call off our arrangement if I didn’t hold you all night.”
My fingers froze on his blazingly warm skin, and my lips parted. “Please tell me that was a joke.”
His half-smile turned into a full one. “It was, but apparently a terrible one since you aren’t laughing.”
I smacked his scarred shoulder as he filled my bedroom with his deep chuckle. “So? Real reason? Were you expecting me to wake up in the middle of the night and ravage you?”
“I was indisputably holding out hope for that, but initially, I stayed because Lucas and Sarah don’t know the definition of fooling aroundquietly.” He dropped his voice to a whisper on that last word.
Happiness welled in my rib cage. “So they made up?”
“They made up.”
I studied those angular cheekbones that somehow looked sharper highlighted by first light, as though the male had been carved by the strongest of winds and the harshest of rains. “Doyouknow how to fool around quietly? I wouldn’t want to wake my roommate.”
The grin that struck his lips was so blinding I stacked it atop the small reel of visuals I was stockpiling of Liam for a later date when his face would no longer be the first one I’d see in the morning or the last I saw at night. The thought wrung a sad little thump from my heart.
Before Liam could get a read on my thoughts, I towed his mouth down to mine, unbuckling my thin armor and setting aside my soft shield, choosing instead to live each moment fully and without impediment.
Chapter 43
After Liam left to retrieve his son from my oh-so-sagacious parents, I reveled in the heat and scent of him on my sheets and worked from the comfort of my bed. At some point, I dozed off again and awoke to the cool pull of the full moon on my abdomen. Adalyn had likened this connection to a mating link. Perhaps, one day, I’d learn how similar the two were.
Or not.
Would it be so terrible if I never got a preordained mate?
