“Come on, I need this job.”
He snorts, rubbing her arm and marveling at how the urge to jump out of his own skin slowly fades.
A stretch of comfortable silence is broken by her soft yawn. “I’m so tired, and you’re so warm…I’ll just rest my eyes for a while.”
The last thing he remembers before sleep takes him too is how good it feels to have everything he wants right here in his arms.
Chapter 15
The thing about cuddling is that Addison has never done it. The desire to fit herself against her husband and leech off his warmth, or to find safety in his embrace, simply never occurred to her. The idea itself had always seemed indulgent. They didn’t have that kind of relationship, despite her wishing it could have evolved in that direction. She had seen it happen before with the other couples in the community. In time, they grew to love each other, even becoming affectionate, and she assumed the same would be true for her.
How wrong she was.
Once it became clear that her marriage was a practical relationship and nothing more, her desire for something deeper faded quickly. It was nothing but a waste of mental resources to dwell on what she couldn’t have. She didn’t crave this type of closeness or long for it. Never felt like she was missing out. Not when being left alone felt like a positive instead of a negative.
It is surprising how quickly her view of such things can change in the right circumstances. How quickly deprivation can turn into hunger once someone offers safety and security without expecting something in return.
She is jolted from sleep beside Wyatt in the early hours of the morning. The hazy memory of drifting off beside him last night begins to overtake the scrambled images from leftover nightmares. They still burn her retinas like a brand, holdingon tightly to every horror she manifested under closed lids. The rotters, the abandonment by her husband, the pain from the other day that left her with an awful sense of emptiness, wrapped in guilt.
The only thing she wants is to wake Wyatt and ask him to hold her again. To find comfort in his touch, the way she did last night, when it was the only thing that could soothe her. She doesn’t dare ask. Didn’t even mean to fall asleep here instead of going back to her room with Emma, but here she lies in the predawn glow streaming through the windows, wishing for the kind of relationship with him that she had long since given up on.
It’s nothing but the trauma of her situation, she tells herself, rolling onto her back and inhaling deeply. A temporary weakness. A reaction to loss. To entertain such foolishness will only break her heart later if she lets it.
“Are you alright?” His rough voice cuts through the effort of her shuddered breathing, thick with exhaustion.
“Just a nightmare, that’s all.”
The urge to scoot closer to him almost overtakes her. She looks up at the ceiling again instead and picks the rational option of keeping her hands to herself. Hell, she should leave now and forget they got this close to begin with. Pretend she never crawled into his bed and let him hold her while she cried. Pretend she doesn’t remember how steady his arms felt around her. But she doesn’t do that. Instead, she waits, heart pounding, to see if he might kick her out, ignore her, or do some secret third thing that’s selfish to want.
“Come on, then.”
When she glances at him, his arm has lifted as if to encourage her closer, the invitation casual but clear. “You don’t have to. I’ll be okay.”
The fact that neither of them has made a move to leave this bed is proof enough that they both know she’s spouting lies.
“I’m not getting any sleep before the sun comes up with you shaking like that. The whole bed is shivering enough to feel like a damn earthquake.”
There’s a gruffness to his tone that doesn’t quite fit with the gesture. It would be enough to make her retreat both emotionally and physically if she didn’t already get a glimpse into the soft heart under all that prickly armour. He’s trying for her, and she won’t reject the effort. His lifted arm may as well be a cure for the virus, for how badly she wants to accept, and so she decides to be selfish this once.
He is tense when she moves close to tuck herself against him, as if they didn’t do the same thing the night before. As if he’s afraid of doing it wrong. Maybe this is a mistake, she worries, but then his arm curls around her like a heavy, grounding weight, careful but firm, and his heart thumps under her ear, betraying how nervous he is. That alone eases the tightness in her chest. Her eyes slip closed, and she inhales the scent of him, letting herself nestle along his side until they’ve melted together and his strength starts to ease her tremors.
This is where she wants to be. Maybe she had been missing out after all.
“I didn’t realize I was shaking. It’s getting colder overnight.”
“You’re like one of those icebergs up in Alaska,” he mumbles, hissing when she pushes her bare feet against his warm ones, but he never moves away, so she tucks them closer to steal his warmth. “You shoulda said something.”
“I didn’t want to wake you.”
“I was awake.”
“Because of my nightmares? Was I too loud?”
“No. Because of my own.”
The admission hangs between them, though he doesn’t elaborate on what haunted his dreams. As much as she wants to ask, she fears pushing too quickly. He is talking to her, offering pieces of himself, and that’s progress enough on its own. “Will you tell me about Alaska? Why did you go there? I wonder if it’s as beautiful as Sedona? How many bears did you see?”
“So that’s a no when it comes to going back to sleep?”
