Page 43 of Ruthless Sin
I close my eyes against his hand.
The heat between my thighs is the last thing before sleep takes me.
10
NICO
I don’t remember falling asleep.
That’s the first thing. Not her, not the warmth pressed along my back, not the pale early light in the room. The first thing is that I slept through. I haven’t done that in years.
I slept through the night.
The second thing is her.
She’s curled against my back. Her knees are tucked behind mine. Her forehead is at my spine. Her breath moves the fabric of my shirt with every exhale. She’s still asleep.
I hold still.
Don’t you fucking move.
My arm is across her waist, hand flat on the mattress. At some point in the night I reached for her in my sleep. She’s beside me under the covers now, even though she fell asleep on top of them.
Neither of us did that.
We both did it anyway.
My back aches pleasantly in a way it hasn’t since before Moscow. I should move my arm.
Her breathing shifts. Deliberate.
Let her.
I stay still and keep my breathing even. My arm is loose across her waist.
She takes a long time.
The room gets a shade lighter. Then, slowly, she shifts her hips a quarter inch.
My whole body goes rigid.
The arm wants to tighten. The hips want to follow. I’m not going to take what I’m being offered before she offers it.
I can be still.
I will be still if it kills me.
My hand curls into the sheet. I make it flatten.
“Cara.”
She goes quiet. Doesn’t answer, doesn’t move. Her pulse is against my arm, elevated, and my own pulse answers it in my throat.
“I’m going to move my arm,” I say. “Slow. You don’t have to do anything. Giving you space.”
I don’t want to give her space. My throat closes around how much I don’t want to. But she’s young. She woke up in a bed that isn’t hers with my weight against her. She gets to decide.
I start to lift my arm.
