to sleep in. I tried that long-sleeved one on while you were in the shower, and it’s actually not half bad.”
I licked my lips, because that was actually a really good idea.
Spotting the long-sleeved shirt he’d spoken about, I picked it up and threw it over my shoulder.
Then I went to my box and started to go through it for some underwear.
Grabbing the first pair I saw, I scrunched them up in my hand and walked back to the bathroom where I quickly dressed behind the sheet.
All the while, I felt completely exposed.
That, and I felt like his eyes were on me.
But I still didn’t think he could see anything.
Maybe he was just looking?
I didn’t know.
But by the time I was done and walking back out of the ‘bathroom’ it was with my cheeks so hot that they felt like they were on fire.
And only once I’d turned the light out and headed toward the bed did I realize that I was going to have to sleep next to him all night.
Logically, I’d known that we were going to have to.
Also, logically, I knew that likely he didn’t have any feelings for me whatsoever. Not like I had for him.
Which meant that sleeping next to him should be doable.
It was a big bed. We wouldn’t have any problems at all.
At least, that was what I kept telling myself.
Moving to where I knew the bed to be since all the lights were out, I held my hands out in front of me, stopping once I felt the upright post of the bed.
I shifted my hands lower and started to feel the bed so that I could climb into it.
When I found the corner of the mattress, I hiked my knee up and planted it into the soft sheets and started to climb up, only to realize once I was hovering half on, half off, that the side I was getting into was where Saint was already laying.
Shit!
“Move over,” I urged, not wanting to move for fear that I’d fall flat on top of him.
“No,” came his rumbled reply.
I growled. “Why not?”
“Door’s on this side,” he said, sounding gruff. “Sorry, honey, but I’ll be sleeping on this side. Even if you have to walk farther to the bathroom. Just climb over.”
His ‘just climb over’ was punctuated with him reaching down and wrapping his arm around my waist, dragging me up his body, and then easily rolling me over onto the unoccupied part of the bed.
I sat there, breathlessly, as I tried to process what just happened.
For a single instant in time, I’d been lying on top of him.
I also could’ve sworn that I’d felt something distinctly erect while I’d been there.
Biting my lip and feeling what felt like a band of heat along my back where his arm had been for a few short seconds, I slowly crawled under the covers and tried to settle.
It was only as I was wiggling for the fourth time that I realized that there were too many pillows around me.
Slowly I started to pull them off one by one.
Once each was gone, I’d try to settle in. When that didn’t happen, I’d get rid of another one.
It went on like that for a minute at least before I finally found the perfect number—two.
Only, as I got settled, I realized I was missing something.
I sighed.
“What?” he asked, sensing the change in my mood.
“Nothing,” I grumbled.
It wouldn’t do to tell the man that I slept with the same stuffed animal every night since I was old enough to steal it from my brother.
He moved, re-situating himself in the bed, and I felt him facing me.
“Tell me,” he ordered.
He was so close I could practically feel the heat rolling off of him.
Even though I knew that he was on top of the covers using a blanket he’d pulled out of the linen closet, I still felt it.
“I sleep with a stuffed animal,” I admitted. “Have for a very, very long time. I’m just… I use it to prop my head up at night. It’s weird, I know.”
There was a long moment of silence and then he said, “Not weird.”
I felt a little bit better about his easy, no-nonsense words.
“’Night, Saint.” I paused. “Oh, and I snore.”
CHAPTER 5
Indoorsy.
-Wine glass
CAROLINA
Day One of Quarantine
I woke practically wrapped around Saint Nicholson.
He was as far as he could be away from me, yet, even then I was still wrapped around him.
Or, more accurately, his arm.
I had his arm in a death grip and I