Shameless - Sybil Bartel Page 0,48

Shade settled behind me with pure dominance. “That’s because you haven’t had great sex.” Pulling me even closer into him like we’d shared a bed a thousand times before and this was as natural as breathing, he swept his hand down my thigh before gently pushing it forward to make room for his leg to tuck into me. “Relax, woman. I told you, I’m not going to fuck you.”

“Gee, how reassuring.” Desperately trying to put some indignation into my tone instead of letting out a desire-laced moan, I held my body stiff even though all I wanted to do was melt into him. I’d never slept next to someone as muscular as him. His sheer size alone was making me salivate to both taste his spicy musk-scented skin and bury my head into the crook of his neck until his heartbeat soothed me to sleep.

And I never slept.

Well, not very much.

Every time I lay down, my brain waged a mutiny, sending thoughts faster than I could process. Everything became magnified, and I all I wanted was morning to come. The counselors at rehab said it was anxiety. Whatever. I hated sleeping. I also hated those racing thoughts. Which was why cocaine and downers had become my best friends. Speed made my thoughts too scrambled to hold on to, and valium made me not give a shit about them.

“Never doubt an Italian, princess.” He brushed my hair off my shoulder. “Now go to sleep.”

The intimate gesture throwing me, I almost wanted to laugh at his command. “If only it were that simple.”

“It’s exactly that simple.” His deep voice rumbled up from his chest and tickled my back. “Close your eyes.”

“And what then? I’ll magically fall asleep?” With him next to me, maybe I would.

“Nothing magic about it. I ran you, fed you, and you had an adrenaline rush back in Jacksonville and on the road coming up here. You’re tired. I saw the exhaustion in your eyes in the kitchen. Now you’re safe, and you’ve got a warm body at your back. Close your eyes. Sleep will come.”

He was right, eventually it would come, except if history was any indication it’d be fleeting and short-lived and I’d be left feeling groggy until I mainlined caffeine, but I still liked the dominant way he put everything. I foolishly let myself feel special that I was center of his attention right now, but that didn’t change the one thing that he couldn’t do for me, that no shrink in the entire state had been able to cure me of. “Sleep.” Or rather, sleeplessness. “The elusive equalizer.”

His hand absently brushed over my hip. “You normally have trouble sleeping?”

I liked this.

Me and him. In the dark. Our bodies intertwined like we knew each other. He was right, he did make me feel safe, and his body was definitely warm. Warm enough that I’d forgotten about the snow falling outside that made me feel trapped. But despite all that, I didn’t want to talk to him about why I’d always had trouble falling asleep.

It seemed selfish to mention I always felt alone. That despite all the partying, I had no one I confided in. No one I thought I could rely on. No one I could call in the middle of the night if I wanted to feel sorry for myself. I didn’t even think anyone would truly mourn my loss if I died, except maybe my stepmother, but only because she’d probably feel like she’d failed. And my father? What a joke. He’d turn the whole thing into a media storm for company exposure.

Whatever.

I didn’t want to think about this.

Inhaling to clear my thoughts, brushing off Shade’s question even though I’d started us down this path, I shrugged.

Taking it as confirmation, Shade pushed. “That why you turned to drugs?”

If I didn’t want to talk to him about sleep, then I sure as hell didn’t want to wax poetic about the joys of cocaine. “Why does anyone do drugs?”

“No fucking clue. Whiskey’s where it’s at.”

I smiled in the dark. “I would’ve pegged you as a beer man.”

“You got me pegged, woman?”

Not even a little. “Yep.”

He chuckled. “You’re a shit liar.”

Quickly becoming addicted to his voice and his presence, I ticked off what I knew about him. What anyone would know if they spent two seconds with him. “You’re dominating, controlling, and impatient. You do this job not because you have to but because protecting comes naturally to you. Probably because you had to protect someone before