version of the scent in the lab. Formulas drifted through my head. Ones I tossed away, and ones I could keep.
I’d just closed my eyes against him when I remembered I needed my antibiotics.
I moved quickly to a standing position, and the whole room whirled in front of me, giving me two or three Dawsons before they settled back down into one. I landed on my butt on the bed, and Dawson’s soft chuckle followed me, burying itself into my veins.
“Just lie down, Vi,” he said. “Don’t try to be a superhero tonight.”
“I need my antibiotics,” I said with my eyes closed, trying to calm the swimming sensation in the pit of my stomach.
The laughter disappeared, replaced with worry when he spoke. “Why do you need your antibiotics?”
“Guy threw up on me at the bar.”
I still had my eyes closed, so I could only imagine the shock on his face that filled the silence of the room.
He came closer, tugging at my braid with a gentle hand.
“You’ve had quite the day,” he said softly.
I opened my eyes. I was sitting eye level with his bare stomach. The softly tinted hair that started below his belly button leading down beneath the waistband of his gray sweats was right in front of my lips. My core lit up, making it difficult to resist the urge to kiss it. Lick it. Follow the muscled indentations littering his stomach and chest to where the delightful V pointed.
I turned my gaze upward and found his eyes full of heat. Full of the same desire that curled through me. Had always curled through both of us when we were together.
He was an unknown accelerant, lighting me up.
I felt more from not touching Dawson than I’d ever felt while touching Silas. It was unfair. Cruel. To know that this was possible but to not be able to have it.
Even though I was almost positive he felt it too, he ignored it as he always had by stepping backward. He went to the door.
“Tell me where they’re at. I’ll go get them,” he said.
By the time he returned, I’d curled back up into his bed, and sleep was already pulling me under. He shook me gently, watched while I downed the medicine with the water he’d brought with him, and then sat down in the desk chair.
I wanted to say he could sleep in the bed with me. I wanted to be flippant and coy like I used to be when we were younger. I wanted to pat the bed, have him join me, and tangle our toes together. But the grown-up part of me knew all the reasons we weren’t supposed to be. The same ones he’d always listed off.
So, I just let the departing alcohol tug me into a sleep that was deep and solid with a feeling of safety washing over me.
♫ ♫ ♫
When I woke to my alarm going off from the pocket of Jada’s jacket, Dawson was gone. No sign of him anywhere. Only the scent of him remained. The old ache I’d tried to bury in a life without him turned into a new one. What would it be like to wake up with not only the scent of him surrounding me, but also his arms? The heat of that thought was enough to make me want to linger there. To see what would happen if he came back and I was still tangled in his sheets.
I knew I had to pull myself from the temptation, but when I moved, my head protested. Pain from the hangover and the tender bump on the back of it radiated over me. A thick coating lay over my tongue as another stark reminder of last night. Momentary guilt hit me. My dad was an alcoholic. I’d definitely enjoyed my buzz the night before. The escape. But I knew it wasn’t something I could make a habit of. I couldn’t afford to become him anymore than I’d already been by getting in a car I couldn’t drive.
I crawled out of the bed and dragged myself to the window, and in the gray shadows of dawn breaking over the ocean, I could see Dawson’s expensive sports car was no longer parked outside.
I pushed aside the disappointment that he hadn’t waited for me to wake and left his room for my own. I showered, headed downstairs, got breakfast ready, and then waited for Tami and Saul to show up. The couple of hours they worked at the