He pressed a reverent kiss to the nape of my neck. “I would tell you if I could.”
To be honest, I wasn’t sure that I wanted to know. Being in the know all the time wasn’t always good for the nerves. I was healing well. Eating well. Sleeping better with every night that passed. That was what I needed to be focused on.
Not whatever danger may have been looming on the horizon.
“All right,” I said softly as I laid my head back against his chest, “I can jive with that.”
“That’s my good girl.”
I wasn’t sure how long we stayed like that. Me, in his arms, enjoying the way he felt against me. He had a heat to him that wasn’t overbearing, and I enjoyed it. Most men were furnaces, and I couldn’t stand to be held by them for more than a few minutes, at best. But Doc didn’t have that burning body temperature that fucked with mine.
I felt my eyes closing before the sounds started back up.
“Oh fuck!”
“Take it for me.”
“Jesus. Yes. Yes. Oh fuck.”
I groaned. “Goddamn it. Being smushed closer together in a house means—whoa!”
Something slipped over my head, and in a heartbeat, I couldn’t hear anything. I whipped around, my eyes wide as my hands came up to figure out what in the hell plunked over my head. My hands smashed against the padded band over my head. They patted down to the rounded things that encased my ears completely.
Headphones.
I had headphones on my head.
And when I looked up at Doc, I found him smiling down at me, with a pair of headphones on his head as well.
He reached up to his and pressed something before reaching out to press mine. And then…
“Can you hear me?” he asked.
His voice filtered through the headphones, and I couldn’t help myself. Tears laced my eyes as I stepped forward, pressing my hands against his chest. Just to feel him. Just to be near him.
“Yeah, I hear you,” I said back.
His smile beamed. “Good. I figured these might help.”
“They’re just so loud.”
He grinned. “We’re loud.”
I rolled my eyes playfully and shoved at him, but he grabbed my wrists and pulled me flush against his body. His body felt like home, and his smile felt like the heavens opened up and graced me with its presence, and I found that I didn’t want to relinquish him.
His hand slipped down to my lower back. “Getting cheeky now, are we?”
He chuckled as he banded his arm around my back and pulled me even closer. “Something like that.”
He took my hand within his free one and held it up.
The music started playing through my headphones.
My jaw dropped. “Can you hear?—?”
“Yes,” he said as he dropped a kiss to my forehead, “I hear the music, too.”
I rested my forehead against his chest as he draped his arms around me, our bodies swaying to the soft music coming through the headphones. I didn’t want him to go to church. I didn’t want him to leave me. I wanted to crawl into bed and bury myself in him until the hell was over and the world was safe again.
