“You don’t—”
She shakes her head to cut me off.
“I do. I was being silly.” She looks around as she speaks, peeking at me a few times as she lets out her thoughts. “You invited me to your home, and I’m treating it like leprosy. I’ve dealt with people telling me how I should feel about things left and right, especially after Mom passed. Everyone expected me to just crumble or something and always told me I should take time to do this or that to feel this or that, but our relationship differed from what I guess a lot of people had. We had so many memories that the last few months with her were just the icing on the cake. We were both happy when the pain was no longer an issue and we got to enjoy each other and just be. Something that many couldn’t understand. So, I’m sorry for assuming you might, I don’t know, break apart the second I sat in a place I thought she would have been or touched something that was hers. I just… I….” She looks up at me and bites a bit of her inner lower lip before blowing out a steady breath. “I like you. A lot. And I don’t want to stop… whatever this is between us. At least not anytime soon.”
She’s quick to add on the last part, and that damn blush I adore creeps up from under her shirt.
“Me either. Now come snuggle with me and tell me what the hell is going on with this movie. I’m completely lost.”
She snorts. “No clue. I don’t even know what I picked. I just chose the first one that came up.”
I chuckle as she settles against my chest, and I kiss her forehead. “All right, my turn to pick, then.”
I pick up the remote and start flipping through what’s available on the streaming services, not ignoring at all how she sighs into me and settles more of her weight against me. And the feeling I’m getting? Not weird at all. It just feels right.
I’m just about to nod off, joining Diana in slumberland, which she went to about thirty minutes into the movie, when she jolts against me and then does it again.
“Diana?” I ask softly as I rub her arm in concern. I would hate for her to be having a bad dream, especially if she’s in my arms and on the couch. She could jolt enough to fall off and hurt herself.
My couch, while comfortable, is still just a couch. It’s not big enough for the two of us to really lie down on it, hence why she’s curled on my side while I’m slouching down a bit. She’s been sleeping on my chest for almost twenty minutes now, and her steady breathing and weight against me slowly started to drag me off too. Having her in my arms is relaxing, and the cares of the world seem to float away with her here.
But not if she’s about to hurt herself.
“Karter,” she yells as she jolts up.
I hold on to her arm tight to make sure she doesn’t do anything like stand. She just woke from a deep sleep, and one step could have her falling or hitting something.
“I’m here.” It’s all I say, but it brings her face to mine before she flings her body over me, curling her arms around me quickly and holding on tight. I reciprocate easily, holding her as she squeezes me almost to the point of being too much.
“Shhh, it’s okay. You just had a bad dream. It’s okay.” I’m making a guess, but it seems to fit, as she nods, but then she shakes her head.
“You didn’t see me. You couldn’t. You just walked on by.”
“Shhh, shhh, Babygirl. That’s not true. I see you. I always see you.”
Another shake of her head, but this one has her lifting enough to put some space between us so I can see her face.
“I was in a glass box in the middle of the hospital. Everyone just kept walking by me. I kept screaming for someone to help, but no one saw me. Then you were there, and you walked right up to the glass. I thought you were going to help, but then at the last moment you turned and walked off. I—”
“Shhh.” I still her lips by placing my finger against them. “I’m here, baby. I’m here. And I’d never not see you. Never not help. It was a dream, nothing more.”
She sniffs and runs the back of her hand under her nose. Not the sexiest thing, but one of the cutest.
“Do you believe me, Babygirl?”
She stills, another sniff, and then a single nod.
I gift her a smile as I push her hair back from her face, looking over every part of her to make sure she’s really okay. Minds are fucked-up things. I know better than most. I’m not going to hold it against her for doubting me, even if it was just in a dream. But hopefully, one day, she’ll know that I could never just walk away. Dream or not, Babygirl is mine. She just needs to catch up to the fact.
“You up for another movie, or do you want—”
Her lips are on mine before I can finish asking if she wants to go home. Which is good because that is the last thing I want.
I wrap my arms around her, pressing her into me as I feast on her mouth.
When she comes up for air, I look into her eyes and try to see the answer to the question I want to ask, but I’m scared of what she’ll say. What she’ll deny me.
So I don’t ask. I don’t give her the out that a gentleman would. I’m a biker through and through, and bikers take what they want. Well, maybe not all of them, but Hounds definitely do.
