Page 60 of Almost Yours
When I emerge, he’s sitting on the edge of the bed in just his boxers, scrolling through his phone. He’s all lean muscle and solid lines, tattoos stretching over his arms and across his chest. He looks up, catches me staring, and the way his eyes darken sends heat rushing straight to my cheeks and settling somewhere much lower.
“You look good in my shirt,” he says, voice low.
I tug at the hem. “It’s comfortable.”
He sets his phone on the nightstand and pulls back thecovers, patting the space beside him. I slide in, the sheets cool against my bare legs, the contrast enough to make me sigh.
He lies back next to me in a careful manner, leaving space until I close it myself and shift closer. That’s all the invitation he needs. His arm comes around me, pulling me in until my cheek rests against his shoulder.
“Is this okay?” he asks quietly.
“More than okay,” I tell him, listening to the rhythm of his heart beneath my ear.
We don’t rush anything. We just breathe. His hand traces slow, absent circles on my back as I sink into him.
“You know,” I say after a while, “I used to imagine what it would be like to fall asleep next to you.”
His arm tightens, just a little. “Yeah?” he says. “And how does reality compare?”
I smile against his skin. “Better. Warmer.”
He presses a kiss to my forehead, and I can feel him smiling. “I thought about it, too. Even when I tried not to.”
The confession hangs between us. I trace my fingers along his chest, following the lines of a tattoo I can barely see in the dim light.
“What else did you think about?”
He chuckles, the sound vibrating through his chest. “Well, for starters, I thought about whether you still sleep like a starfish. You used to fall asleep during movies and somehow end up with your limbs in four different zip codes.”
I gasp, playfully smacking his chest. “I did not!”
“Oh, you absolutely did. Remember when we fell asleep watching that horror movie at Wes’s house? I woke up with your foot in my face and your arm hanging off the couch.”
I bury my face in his shoulder. “That’s a gross exaggeration.”
“I have witnesses,” he says, grinning down at me. “Beau still talks about the time you nearly karate chopped him in your sleep when he tried to wake us up.”
“Oh my god,” I groan. “Please tell me you’re making this up.”
“Scout’s honor,” he says, raising three fingers. “Though to be fair, I was never really the Boy Scout type.”
I laugh, too tired to do more than nuzzle closer to his chest and let his warmth pull me under.
I don’t remember when my eyes drift shut, only that sleep comes easily.
twenty-three
. . .
Rowan
Saturdays have a different rhythm now. Violet’s been staying over every Friday night for the past month, which means Saturday mornings start with the scent of her shampoo on my pillow and the sound of her bare feet padding across the floor. She always steals my side of the bed, hogs the blanket, and leaves her cold toes pressed to my leg like I’m her personal space heater. And I let her. Gladly.
The hardest part is waking up with her curled into me, her ass fitted perfectly against my cock, and choosing—every single time—not to touch her. Every weekend, it’s the same exquisite torture. I wake up hard as steel and aching for her, but I don’t move. Instead, I stay still.
I count my breaths, like that’s going to do anything to take the edge off. I memorize the warmth of her, the weight of her trust, the way she sleeps like she belongs in my bed. And then I pretend like I don’t want to press my mouth to the back of her shoulder and bite down just enough to leave something behind—something that saysIwas there.
I’m not a sadist, but I’d be a damn liar if I said I didn’t want to mark her in some way. My fingerprints on her hips. Mymouth at her throat. Something I could look at later and know I put it there.
