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I should. I don’t.

“Theo…” I say his name like it’s supposed to clarify something, but my brain’s static and my body’s staging a coup.

“Pretend I’m conducting an experiment,” he pulls me in closer, a punctuation to the end of his sentence. “Testing a hypothesis about proximity and body heat.”

His body is a furnace against my too-cold skin.

All at once I am warm, overwhelmed, thoughtless.

And I guess that was the whole point?

“I thought we had a two foot buffer zone rule?” I yawn, already sinking into him.

He makes a sound that is half scoff, half laugh, and obliterates any last thought I had about him disliking me. “You were shivering. I’m a solution-oriented person.”

“Congratulations,” I mutter. “You can add ‘human space heater’ to your CV.”

His body rumbles with a laugh, and the movement sends a ripple through me—small, involuntary.

He presses his thumb into the muscle at my hip, like he’s confirming a theory. I jolt at the intrusion. “You’re sore,” not a question, just data collected and filed. “Pretty sure I predicted this exact outcome.”

I make a noise that’s supposed to sound dismissive and fails spectacularly. “I’m fine.”

He hums that knowing sound that usually precedes him proving a point. “That’s an objectively false statement.”

“Theo—”

“Roll over.”

I blink at the wall. “Excuse me?”

“You’re not exactly projecting ‘deep REM potential’ right now.” His tone is easy, clinical, like this is a practical suggestion and not an act of emotional warfare.

“I’ll survive,” I say. “Statistically speaking, no one’s ever died of sore adductors.”

“You’re not fooling anyone. Least of all me. Though I’ll give you credit for the data-driven defense.”

I twist enough to look at him, and he’s smirking in the dim light—just barely—but his eyes are soft, not teasing so much as patient. Waiting.

His hand tightens at my hip, and a sound escapes before I can stop it—a low, painful groan that earns me what’s definitely an I told you so look.

“Come on,” he says, undaunted and with zero sympathy. “I promise to stay away from the adductors and stick to non erogenous zones.”

I roll my eyes at that.

Maybe it’s the warmth, or the exhaustion, or the way his voice dips into a register my sanity has no defense against, but I turn over onto my stomach.

He starts with my shoulders, thumbs pressing into muscles that haven't unclenched since we got here. The pressure isn’t gentle, but it’s controlled—just enough to toe the line between pain and release.

“You’re holding half your stress right here,” his fingers dent my traps on either side.

“Only half?”

His laugh is pleasantly distracting.

My muscles melt under his touch. My pulse finds a new rhythm. I’m not used to being touched like this—with intent, but without demand. It feels a little too good. I breathe through it anyway, because I can’t think of a single reason to ask him to stop.

I’m too aware of everything: the rhythm of his breathing, the press of his fingertips, the faint pull of fabric when I move. The way I wish there was no fabric between us. The room feels warmer with every pass.