She thought about it. Her legs. The distance to the bedroom. The cold floor versus the warmth of his arms.
"Not particularly."
"Then stop complaining."
She wanted to protest that she hadn't been complaining, she'd been observing, but the effort required seemed monumental. Instead, she let her head drop against his shoulder and closed her eyes.
His condo was dark except for the kitchen light they'd never turned off. She heard the soft scuff of his feet on hardwood, the subtle creak of a door opening, and then the mattress was beneath her back—impossibly soft after the unforgiving table surface.
I should leave.
The thought surfaced automatically, conditioned by years of practice. She should get dressed, thank him for the evening, and retreat to her camper where everything was hers and only hers. Where she didn't have to worry about morning breath or awkward post-coital conversations or, worse, the expectation that this meant something.
She should definitely leave.
She started to sit up.
A massive arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her back down.
"Stay."
It wasn't a request.
"Tarmek—"
"You're exhausted." His voice was a rumble against her ear, his body curving around hers like a shield. "Sleep here."
"I have a perfectly functional bed in my?—"
"Stay."
She could fight him. She could probably slip out of his grip and retrieve her clothes and escape into the night like she always did. But his arm was so heavy around her waist. And his chest was so warm against her back. And she still didn't have any heat. And some treacherous part of her didn't want to leave.
That was the terrifying part. Not his insistence—she'd dealt with clingy lovers before. No, the terrifying part was her own reaction. The way her body relaxed into his hold instead of tensing against it. The way her mind, usually so quick to calculate exit strategies, went quiet and still.
She fit here, in his bed and wrapped in his arms, like a puzzle piece clicking into place. Like coming home after a long journey, except she'd never had a home to come back to.
"One night," she heard herself say.
"Fine."
"I mean it. This doesn't mean?—"
"I know what it means."
Did he? Did she?
His arm tightened fractionally, pulling her closer. His breath was warm against the back of her neck. His heart beat steady and slow against her spine.
Just one night,she told herself.In the morning, I can go back to normal. Back to distance. Back to safe.
But as sleep pulled her under, she couldn't quite remember why safe had ever seemed appealing.
She woke slowly,in stages.
First an unfamiliar warmth, the kind that came from another body rather than piled blankets. She was surrounded by it, cocooned in heat that made her never want to move.
Then the scent. Clean and masculine, something woodsy underneath the faint lingering chlorine of arena ice. It was everywhere—the pillow, the sheets, the air itself.
