Orion inhales sharply. Sass, the brave little idiot that he is, decidesnowis the time to show affection and leans down to groom a patch of Orion’s chest hair like he’s smoothing out a luxury carpet.
The reaction is instant.
Orion convulses as if someone plugged him into a wall socket.
“WHAT THE—WHAT—IS—ON—ME?!” He shouts, thrashing as Sass just happily continues his spa treatment.
I lose the battle with my sanity and start laughing so hard that tears start streaming down my face.
“This,” I choke out, “is exactly how he woke me up the first night I brought him home.”
Orion sits bolt upright, eyes wide, chest hair damp from the world’s gentlest grooming session.
“He licked my nipple,” he whispers, horrified.
Sass meows proudly and flops against Orion’s stomach like he didn’t just scar my best friend.
“Yeah,” I say, wiping my eyes, “it’s affection. He thinks you’re family now.”
“Family?” Orion sputters. “Lucian, he was trying to EAT my nipple.”
“He was grooming it.”
“That’s WORSE.”
I reach out and take Sass back, scooping him against my chest. He settles instantly, rubbing his face against my jaw with a little cooing noise that could cure seasonal depression.
Orion stares at the cat like he’s seen God and didn’t like what He had to say.
“You let him do that to you?”
“I didn’tlethim do anything,” I admit. “But after he woke me up by grooming my chest hair, I bought sleep shirts. There’s no universe where I would let that happen to me again. I didn’t think you’d end up in bed with me, so I didn’t think to warn you.”
Orion visibly shudders. “I’m never sleeping without armor again.”
“You could just sleep on the pull-out bed you started the night in.”
He opens his mouth, shuts it, then crosses his arms and levels me with a stare I’ve only seen him use in the interrogation room.
“To be clear,” he says, jabbing a finger at me, “I only got into your bed because I thought you were dying.”
I blink, clearly confused. “What do you mean you thought I was dying?”
“I thought you were choking,” he insists. “You were making a creepy noise, okay? Like—like you swallowed a ghost or something. I couldn’t tell if it was medical distress or you trying to summon demons.”
I scrub a hand down my face. “Okay, Dumbass, the most logical answer is that it was a nightmare.”
“Yes,” he says, aggressively pointing again, “I figured that out once your fluffy trauma therapist over there climbed onto your neck and started purring like some kind of emotional defibrillator. But untilthathappened? I thought I was going to have to watch a YouTube video on how to perform CPR.”
I stare. “…So your solution was to climb into my bed?”
He glares. “I was trying to be there in case you—I don’t know—had another nightmare. I didn’t expect to wake up being groomed like a prize show pony.”
Sass chirps happily at being part of the retelling and boops Orion’s arm with his head.
Orion flinches. “No. Absolutely not. Your cat already tried to exfoliate me.”
“He likes you,” I say.
