Page 96 of The Little Shop of Curiosities Cursed Object 1, The Music Box

“I have no idea,” he murmurs, his smile fading as he looks at me intently. “Are you okay, Prickles? You don’t look too good.”

“Rude.”

His mouth twitches. “Can I come in?”

“If you don’t, I may just fall over on the doorstep,” I reply, and sway on the spot with the effort of holding myself upright.

He reaches out to steady me, and the moment his hands are on me, a strange feeling washes over me. It reminds me of when we were at Tris and Danny’s flat-warming party, and his touch drowned out the emotions of everyone else that I was feeling.

It’s similar now. A blanket of pure contentment and peace steals over me, and I sag against him, my eyelids heavy.

“Prickles?” he rumbles. He backs me up, kicking the door closed so he doesn’t have to let go of me. “What’s wrong?”

“So tired,” I whine in misery.

With one arm banded around me to hold me upright, he settles his other in my hair and gently massages the back of my skull the way he did when I had that excruciating psychic headache. Maybe this is similar; after all, the headache and the sleeplessness were both caused by the dreams.

For a moment, we don’t move. He just continues to flex those clever fingers against my scalp, and I wonder if I’m drooling on his shoulder. If I am, I’m too shattered to even be embarrassed by it.

If I were a cat, I’d be purring.

As it is, I let out an unintentional and pathetically needy moan, which is possibly the human equivalent of a purr.

I feel him chuckle against me.

“Come on, Prickles. Let’s get you into bed.”

“This is not the scenario I envisaged when I thought about you saying those words to me,” I murmur. Apparently, I now have no filter either.

“Good to know.”

Again, too drained to be mortified.

“And don’t think we won’t be revisiting that comment when you’re more coherent,” Sam says as he helps me back up the stairs.

“Where are we going?” I mumble.

“To your bedroom.”

“This is not how that sentence was supposed to go either.”

“You need sleep, baby,” he croons to me.

“This is really a very disappointing fantasy.”

When we reach my bedroom, he steers me to the bed and peels me out of the duvet. I fall gracelessly onto the mattress, then he settles the covers over me.

“Don’t stop touching, isss nice,” I slur sleepily. “Makes it all stop.”

“Makes what stop?” He strips out of his coat and kicks off his shoes before climbing onto the bed beside me.

“Everything,” I sigh, my eyes drifting closed. “Is your mum okay?”

“We’ll talk about that later.” He wraps his arms around me and pulls me close.

“Will you stay with me?” I mumble. “Don’t want them to come back.”

“Who?”