Chapter 11 #2
She turns down the covers of her bed and slides beneath them and after standing on the other side of the bed, staring down at her, finally he lets out a sigh and follows.
He’s right.
Her bed is not that big.
Full-sized, clearly made for one person, barely enough room to leave any space between them.
“So,” she whispers into the dark, “as torturous as you expected?”
“Way worse,” he murmurs, turning to face her, bracing his head up on his hand, looking down over her upturned face.
“Sorry.”
Xavier lets out a quiet laugh. “No, you’re not.”
“No, I’m not.”
“I’m not either.”
“You do love being right.”
“I do.”
He collapses down to the pillows and buries his face in her neck, hiding from it all.
“If we’re going to suffer, might as well do it right,” he says, his mouth nearly pressed up against her ear, a strong arm reaching around her waist and pulling her in close. “We can at least have this, can’t we?”
“We can.”
“I was right about something else.”
“About what?”
“How good you’d feel curled up against me.”
Groaning, she nuzzles her face against his shoulder. “You can’t just say things like that.”
“What, you want me to lie? These curves have been murdering me since the day we met. I’ve thought about them way too much.”
With the slightest pressure against the firm planes of his chest, she pushes him onto his back, resting her chin at his sternum as his hands slide down from her waist to her hips, fingertips tantalizingly close to drifting lower and starting something they both agreed not to.
“I’ve thought about you too, you know?”
“Yeah?”
“About what it would feel like to have your hands on me, about what it would feel like to have you . . .”
“What did you think about? Was it what I told you when we were texting? That I could die between your thighs?” he asks, lifting his hands from her, skipping over more dangerous territory, his hands landing on the backs of her thighs.
“Yeah, that’d be a hell of a way to go.” Her legs shift against each other with a groan, his grip firm against her hips, his thumbs pressing into the warm skin just above the elastic band of her pajama shorts. “Easy there.”
“Sorry,” she says and she looks away from him, her bottom lip caught between her teeth.
“What? You shy all of a sudden? You weren’t shy just a little bit ago.”
“It feels different now.”
“Knowing that we’ve both felt this way the whole time?”
“Yes, and knowing that we both knew it was wiser not to.”
“And yet here we are,” he says.
“We are.”
“I’m really happy we are.”
“Me too,” she says. “This is weird, right, that we can talk about it like this?”
“Weird, maybe, but I’m not surprised.”
“No?”
“Nah, you and me? We’re two sides of the same coin. Makes sense that we feel comfortable pushing past the awkwardness.”
“I don’t feel awkward,” she insists.
“What do you feel?”
“I feel safe, here with you.”
“You are,” he assures her.
“And I feel wanted.”
“You are.”
“And . . .”
“What?”
Loved.
She shakes her head, then lets it rest against his chest, up against his heart. He doesn’t push for an answer, just wraps his arms around her tightly. She didn’t say it, but she didn’t have to. He heard it anyway. It’s there between them, unspoken, but present.
It should hurt. It does hurt, more than anything he’s ever felt before, but there’s something else. There’s a peace there too, because he loves her and they have tonight. So for now they can rest in each other’s arms. And no matter how much he wants it to be different, that has to be enough.
They barely move in their sleep and wake up in nearly the same position they drifted off in.
The only difference is his hand found purchase against the rounded rise of her ass that he wished he’d spent more time exploring the night before.
He’s half awake, completely aroused and happily trapped by the weight of her body.
He could move, could try to inch away from her and leave her sleeping peacefully, but .
. . he doesn’t want to. This is . . . this is good, despite the pins and needles in his arm where she’d pillowed her head for the last however many hours, and the way her hair is tickling his skin and is .
. . somehow in his mouth and nose and . .
. everywhere. Her legs are twined with his, her feet tiny ice blocks against his calves.
Who cares though? Now that he knows the feel of her against him, the way her body shakes under his hands and his mouth, the way his name sounds on her tongue when she’s crying out in pleasure, he’d happily wake up every day not being able to feel his arm, suffocated by her hair and his legs freezing. Absolutely worth it.
Bianca stretches against him and he lets out a groan followed by a sharp hiss as her hips collide gently with his. It wasn’t painful, exactly, more excruciatingly perfect.
“Sorry,” she mumbles, as she shifts her hips away from him.
She rolls over onto her side of the mattress, pressing a hand against her face before blinking at him sleepily.
There’s some golden light shining through the curtains drawn in front of the windows, casting muted shadows over her, golden skin and frizzy curls and half-lidded eyes . . . bedroom eyes.
Yeah, he wants to wake up like this every damn day.
“How do you look so good in the morning?” he rasps, the words unbidden, and he screws his eyes shut, the only punishment he can enact on his runaway mouth.
Bianca lets out a soft laugh. “I look like shit in the morning.”
“You look like a goddess.”
“Your eyes aren’t even open.”
“Don’t have to look to know that.”
“I call bullshit.”
He opens his eyes at that and frowns at her. “Don’t tell me what I’m about.”
“Okay, the goddess of sleep?” she asks, softening, just a little bit.
He hums his agreement and just lets his mouth run away with him. “Cozy and soft and tempting as all hell. Could spend the whole day right here with you wrapped around me.”
The wall that came crumbling down between them the night before didn’t rebuild itself when the sun came up again. It might have been better if it had.
“I don’t want to get up yet,” she confesses. “It’s still early. Too early.”
“Come on, then,” he says, lifting his arm in invitation, and she doesn’t hesitate, just curls herself right back into his side. He secures his arm around her, unconcerned with the feeling he’s about to lose in it again, his thumb taking up a slow rhythm back and forth on her shoulder.
The seconds tick by and turn into minutes, his touch hypnotizing them both into a half slumber. He can feel her breathing slow, her body relax into his and himself drifting off.
“This is nice,” she whispers after he doesn’t even know how long.
“Yeah, it is.”
“I guess this is why people do relationships.”
“Cuddling?”
“You ever cuddle after a random hookup?”
“Fair point.”
“So people do relationships to get cuddling rights.”
“Feels like our data supports it.”
He can’t help it, he turns his head and presses his lips into her hair, half hoping she’ll tilt her face up toward his and maybe brush her mouth against the edge of his jawline and he could drop his hand to her cheek and lean down and kiss her and maybe start something that would absolutely lead to a place where they’ve agreed not to go again.
He’ll never know though because water starts banging around in the pipes in the wall behind the bed, a sure sign that Chloe is up and showering.
A good sign, as far as he’s concerned. She looked pretty destroyed last night, and getting up just to get clean is probably a good first step for whatever’s next.
“I’ll make some breakfast,” he offers, “if you wanna check on her?”
“Yeah,” Bianca agrees and with a heavy sigh, pulls out of his arms and slides out from under the covers, off the bed, padding toward the en-suite bathroom. He watches her go, biting down the groan he wants to let out as her wicked curves disappear behind the door.
Breakfast, he promised her breakfast and he’ll go do that as soon as he calms down enough to look like he’s not pitching a damn tent in his sweatpants.
There’s . . . almost nothing in her kitchen, which doesn’t exactly shock him.
The last time he was in it, he’d basically emptied out her fridge to scramble up some eggs and make some toast. But there’s coffee and oatmeal and he’s just stirring some to life on the stove while the coffee brews when she comes out in jean shorts and a t-shirt and her hair clipped precariously on top of her head, still wet from her shower.
She sends him a tight smile before heading into the other bedroom.
He assumes Chloe’s shower is done, he heard that water go off a little bit ago, and he’s proven right when they both come back out less than a minute later.
They’re about halfway through silently eating, just the clank of spoons against the ceramic of the bowls and the occasional slight slurp of the coffee, when Chloe clears her throat.
“I think I want to go home.”
Bianca’s eyes fly to his and then back to her friend. “Are you sure? You can stay here as long as you need.”
“He texted me last night. He’s going to stay with his parents in Mission Viejo for a little while. I need to get my stuff together, get organized, and I can do that best at home.”
“Okay, I’ll take you, then,” Bianca insists and Xavier nods. “But you can always come back.”
“I know and thank you, seriously, I was such a mess last night and I just needed to get away.”
“Of course,” Bianca says for them both.
When Chloe disappears, Xavier stops Bianca from following her for a second. “Do you want me to come with you guys?”
“No, that’s okay, I think . . . I think she . . . I think she wants to talk and you might . . .”
“Yeah, no problem, just . . . She’s sure he’s gone?”
Bianca’s entire expression softens at his question for a second, before she raises a slightly challenging eyebrow. “We’ll be fine, I promise. I can handle myself.”
“It’s not that . . .” He huffs out a frustrated breath. “I just . . . worry.”
“Well, you don’t have to. That’s my job.”
He hums acquiescence, but doesn’t say what he’s thinking, that she seems to worry about everyone else, but no one seems to worry about her, not really, not the way she deserves.
“If it’ll make you feel better, come with us.”
He shoots her a grin, which makes her smile in return.
“For the record,” he says, turning down the heat on the oatmeal, “it’s not that I think you can’t handle yourself. It’s that you shouldn’t always have to.”