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He reached into the bathroom and flicked off the light, while I laid down on the pillow like when he’d mentioned sleep, he’d been issuing a command.

In the murky darkness, I watched him stride across my room. A stormy hulk of energy. Like a thunderous storm cloud that was my greatest sanctuary.

He was halfway out the door when the plea sneaked out of my mouth. “Stay with me?”

He froze. A stake of rigidness speared through him before he finally turned to look back at me.

“Lena…” It was his own plea.

“Stay with me,” I whispered again, though that time, it was my own command. “It’s been a really long day.”

Wonderful and terrifying.

Uplifting and devastating.

Freedom whispering all around me while the truth of who I would always be…who I’d chosen to be…warned that it would forever keep me chained.

Then I attempted to inject something logical into it. “Besides, you know you’re just going to end up on my floor, anyway.”

I could hear the thud of Trevan’s gulp, and he looked to the blank wall as he wavered in the doorway.

A quiet, tremulous intensity radiated from him.

In it, I felt every question woven between us thrum with intensity.

“Please,” I murmured.

He roughed a big hand through his hair before he finally gave.

“I’ll grab my pillow and blanket.” He ducked out and returned ten seconds later with them plus a high dose of doubt scored onto his face.

My stomach twisted, and I forced a smile through the severity that blasted the air. “It’s ridiculous for you to sleep on the floor, Trevan. You can sleep with me. This bed is giant. There’s no reason for you to be uncomfortable.”

His attention dropped to the floor like a rock hitting hardwood. As hard as my name dropped from his mouth.

A low, resounding clank.

“Lena.”

I didn’t forgo all the deceits and pretenses. Decided just to lay the truest, rawest pieces out. “Please, Trevan. I’m so tired of being alone all the time. I just…I want you to lay beside me.”

After this evening—the fear and the questions and the truth that someone was coming after me? After the strange interaction that had transpired between me and Trevan? His arms holding me high? Tight against him?

I wanted this. Needed this.

His warmth and his arms, if he’d allow himself to even get that close.

“Damn it, Elena.” He wavered then gave. “Just this once.”

He shuffled over to my bed, and I scooted over to make him room.

He stood looking down at me like he thought just standing there made him guilty of a mortal crime, while I shifted around and wiggled under the covers.

I held them open for him. “Climb in, big boy.”

He sent me a scowl. “Big boy?”

It was strange that in the whirling severity, I would find a giggle. “What, are you going to deny that you’re big now?”