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Not only do her questions burst the bubble of hopeful thoughts, but they also initiate a tightness in my chest that spreads up into my throat. “Our parents . . . they died. I was a teenager.”

“Oh my God. I’m so sorry.” Her hand slides across the empty space between us, reaching for me hesitantly. Her warm fingers brush against mine, and I accept the small but intimate gesture.

“Theo did what he could to provide for us,” I muse, staring at the ceiling but seeing my brother struggle in the early days when we were completely lost at sea with no direction. “We made it through all right.”

“That’s still such a huge loss, especially at a young age.”

She doesn’t need to tell me about it. “Anyway, I’m sorry I didn’t have a happy story to tell you.”

“That’s okay. It’s your story.” She gives me the sweetest smile, disarming me even more and soothing the tightness in my chest that comes with thinking about my past. I can’t help but admire that about her, the way she seems to actually care about people.

A sudden, almost violent yawn makes me chuckle. For something so small, she makes a lot of noise. “Not all stories are happy. I mean, the stories I write have to end happily, because that’s what readers expect,” she adds.

“They don’t want reality,” I murmur, remembering what she said earlier.

“Exactly.” Somehow she manages to yawn louder, stretching while she does. “I guess I’m sleepier than I thought.”

“Get your rest.”

Within minutes, June’s soft snoring tells me she fell asleep quickly. She trusts me enough to sleep beside me, which is pretty odd. She gets attacked, kidnapped, traumatized, and I’m basically still a stranger, yet she is snoozing away as if I weren’t a man who kills people for a living.

I wish I could go back to not caring, but this short time with her has reminded me of a lot of things I pushed far into the background. The simple pleasure of connection, the reward that comes from allowing myself to be vulnerable.

What are you going to do with that when she’s gone, asshole?

The time will come too. Soon she’ll go back to her old life, and I’ll return to mine. There is just no way we could ever be together; our lives are too different. She would leave eventually. Everyone does. I need to put an end to the connection that’s growing, no matter how uneasy the idea makes me while I stare at the ceiling, waiting for sleep, knowing it will take its time to show up if it does at all.

My body goes stiff with surprise when June works her way over to me and curls up with her head on my shoulder and her body molding itself against mine. The scent of fresh shampoo in her hair is a soothing balm that lets me close my eyes, and soon the rhythm of my breathing matches hers before I follow her into a deep sleep.

Chapter Nine

June

Shit. Shit, double shit, triple shit. Shit a million times.

When in the hell did I wrap myself around the pile of muscle next to me? Did I stay this way all night? My head on his chest, my arm flung over his torso, one leg hitched up and almost wrapped around his.

The worst part? I’m more comfortable than I’ve been in forever.

But completely mortified. Like, if I could disappear off the face of the earth this very minute, I would gladly take the option. If an alien spacecraft landed outside and offered free anal probes, I’d happily volunteer. I’ve embarrassed myself before, but this is on a whole other level.

I can’t wait to tell Emily about this. She is going to lose her shit when I explain everything to her. Right after she kills me for disappearing, of course.

I’m afraid to move, almost afraid to blink in case it wakes him up. The only thing to do is somehow magically unstick myself from his body without jostling him. Like the game Operation, where you can’t touch the metal bits with your tweezers while you’re performing surgery or else a loud buzzing noise will scare you half to death. Or maybe that’s just me.

I’ve always hated that game.

This is the real-life version, with a real, live man who served as my body pillow throughout the night.

Get it together. You can handle this. If he survived the night with me wrapped around him, he’ll survive me unwrapping myself now. Still, I’m holding my breath as I slowly lift my head, then raise my arm and leg. Suddenly I’m a spy whose entire life depends on getting out of this situation without being noticed.

Maybe I should write a book about that.

Only, in my book, the guy my heroine is trying to escape from wouldn’t already be awake. “Good morning.” There is laughter in his voice, something smug and knowing. “Did you sleep well?”

Maybe my heroine will have to kill the hero for being such a smart-ass. “I guess so,” I mumble, rolling away and sitting up.

“You’re a big cuddler, aren’t you?”