Page 59 of Roping My Rival

“I thought I might need to get you some oxygen or something. You were puffing pretty hard. You okay?”

Physically yes. Mentally…hell fucking no.

“Yeah.”

He tosses the cloth on the floor and pulls the covers over us both. “I don’t know about you, but that was the best sex I’ve ever had, and it feels like my eyelids are made of concrete.” He pulls me back against his chest as little spoon and arranges me to get comfortable. And I don’t complain one bit.

Warren’s arm draped over me, his warm breath on the back of my neck, and his leg wedged between mine feel like heaven. I should freak out and put distance between us, but I can’t.

Not anymore.

His chest already moves in the quiet way one has in sleep. Knowing I’m already in too far to change my attachment to him, I slide my hand over his, where it rests on my stomach. Even as he falls asleep, he splays his fingers so I can slide mine between them, and he kisses my neck in the darkness.

Part of me wants to cry or just rage over how good it feels to have someone hold me and worship me the way Warren did tonight. But I’m tired. From life, travel and rodeo, and mostly from fighting Warren.

Eventually, I fall asleep with him and hope I didn’t just make my life harder than it already is.

The clock on the side table reads a few minutes after 4 A.M.

We’ve shifted in our sleep, and now I’m draped across his chest like a favourite blanket. Warren’s fingers lazily dust up and down my spine, and before I can think better of it, I press a kiss to his chest.

“Sleep okay?” he murmurs.

“Yeah…you?”

He remains silent for an extra beat, then clears his throat. “Yes…Did you know you talk in your sleep?”

Squeezing my eyes closed, I pray to god it wasn’t anything to make him think less of me. I can do that while awake just fine.

“No. Sorry if I kept you awake.”

His fingers never stop moving: up my spine, into my hair at the base of my neck, and back down again. It makes me never want to leave this bed if he’d just keep doing that.

“The talking didn’t keep me up. It was what you said that kept me awake for a while.” His fingers stop in the hair at the base of my neck and stay there. I’ve never been one to cuddle, but I wish he’d not stop while I dread what I revealed in my sleep.

“It was probably just a bad dream,” I rasp.

“You kept saying, I’m sorry, Darla, it’s all my fault. Multiple times, Dane. I had to calm you down.” His lips press a kiss to the top of my head, still resting on his chest. “What happened to Darla?”

She trusted me, for starters. Everyone who knows what happened to Darla is now dead…except me and Darla. I could lie to him, and I should. Maybe he’d not be so quick to care if he knew the truth. Once he knows, I might never get to wake up like this again.

“It’s okay to tell me.” His voice cuts through my thoughts. “But if you don’t want to, I understand. You just seemed…you were so upset. It was hard to see you like that, and I couldn’t understand why.”

“Why are you so good, Warren? You don’t know a thing about me, and you’re upset because I’m distressed in my sleep.”

Another soft kiss to the top of my head.

“I learned to be good, Dane. I wasn’t when my dad found me, and I carried a lot of guilt for things that weren’t my fault. Maybe that’s what you’re doing, too.”

“What could you possibly feel guilty for?”

Warren’s fingers drift back down my spine, and my traitorous body melts into him more. I’m so fucked.

“My parents were heavy alcoholics.” Warren’s voice is soft as he speaks. His lips in my hair as he moves his fingertips down my back. “We often had no food because they just drank all the time. I…” He blows out a shaky breath. “I got caught shoplifting when I was twelve. A pack of bologna because I just wanted something other than stale bread and plain pasta to eat. I loved bologna, and I wasn’t very subtle. I thought because I was a kid, they’d just let me walk out.” His laugh is humourless. “They didn’t. They called the cops, who then got child services involved, and they removed me from my parents that night. It’s my fault they were charged with child abandonment and have criminal records.”

The click of his throat as he swallows feels amplified in the quiet of the dark room.

“Where did you go?”