I looked at him in outrage. “I’ve kept my eyes above the waist like a civil human being.”
It always seemed rude to stare at his body when he couldn’t help it with his shift. So even though I had actually seen all of him a thousand times, I never really registered what he was packing.
“You can touch it. If you want.”
Iwhat?
“Declan.” My face flushed, my hand lifting reflexively from my lap at the suggestion. I had never wanted to shake hands with something more. Hadn’t he said words about mates touching each other? That must have been it. Even if we were fake mates, my brain tried to check this box. “That thing could start a girthquake.”
His wolf whined and broke the snake charm that held me captive. Panic washed over me. I needed to sleep, actually sleep, not flop around thinking about his dick.
“I need to get you pajamas if we’re doing this.” My pack had to have something. Anything. I would make him wear the bag if I had to. “Sleeping, I mean. In a bed. In a bed together. One bed.”
Goddsdamnit. I knew how words worked. They just failed me when the brain fog rolled in. That was it. How did I hear his wolf’s tail wagging furiously when he wasn’t sporting it? I ripped something out of the bag and shoved a bunch of cloth over his head with more force than was necessary.
Somehow he stood in one of my nightgowns and his nose twitched. “What is this?”
I smoothed it down, a futile gesture to make it lookless ridiculous. “You don’t seem to have any nightclothes.”
He shrugged. “Well, I don’t. I don’t sleep in clothes.”
I blinked hard at that statement, even though it made sense for a shifter. He couldn’t be naked while I was in his bed. I couldn’t handle it.
“It’s something.” Anything to keep my sanity intact.
It had frills and a ‘v’ neckline that showed off an indecent amount of his chest. The floral fabric stopped just above his knee, his nicely rounded calves bare. I would manage his pecs. I had to. Except he stuffed it against his nose, inhaling deeply, clutching it as if he was suddenly in love with it.
“Thank you, Honey.”
Okay, it wasn’t as chilling as I hoped when the ruffles flirted with his lean biceps and thighs. I shook myself. Closing my eyes. I didn’t care. I took up an extra blanket to cocoon myself as Declan eased himself onto the other side of the bed.
“Comfortable?”
I was already sweating, so… no. “Perfectly.”
He settled in behind me and I had to poke an arm out for some sort of ventilation. Declan took that as permission to grab my hand, threading his long fingers through mine. My wrist flexing to tug it back only adjusted his grip tighter. I huffed. There was no winning an arm-wrestling match with a shifter.
As we settled into sleep, in the most awkwardposition possible, my eyes roved over his vast collection of romance novels, which reminded me that inexperience didn't exactly equate to innocence.
I had never slept sowell. I snuggled down into the mattress, dreams reaching back for me. A small tightening of my blanket and I pushed back into the weight covering me like a balm. My hips moved on their own, chasing a fragment of sleep and a bone-deep pleasure making me desperate. Declan moaned behind me and I bolted straight up. Looking down, his eyes were still closed, his cheeks flushed, my nightgown stuffed in his mouth.
The boundaries of our friendship slowly tightened like a noose. I had never left a bed so fast, or been so grateful for a washroom door. I stretched out and applied a warm compress to my wrists and knees, not thinking, praying he was still asleep on the other side.
Luckily, my potions hadn’t blown up in the mishap, so I was feeling relatively normal as I made my way into the kitchen.
This was what I was here for, Declan’s distractions aside. Not Ned’s distraction though. He flopped his big block head on my thigh and let me stroke his petal-soft ears. His sneeze marked the end of him deigning to consoleme.
Anise padded into the kitchen to find me at the dark, scarred table. I had lit the stove, but only to make tea. The warmth of the cup kept my hands limber. The ever-shifting patterns of the light spattering through the lace curtains and across the table helped me wait.
“Tali. No feast for me to try?”
No borrowing trouble today. I wouldn’t strive or pre-empt. “I’m here to learn.” So what if her kitchen felt cluttered and disorganized to me? There was clearly something I was missing here and I was going to find out what it was.
She let out a small laugh before her face turned somber. Anise made herself a cup of tea and joined me at the table. “I have to apologize about the room.”
Here we were more equal. As the morning light hit the hills and valleys of a face creased with living, I recognized more of myself than I was comfortable with. Those etchings of worry were only a few years away for me. The way she clutched the cup shadowed how we both held a knife. The correct way.
I could have accepted her apology and moved on without further comment, but what Declan said about his mom touched a very raw nerve for me. More than needing a mentor, I couldn’t paper over the pain I felt from her. I know she would have walked down that mountain too.
