Page 87 of The Heir's Bargain

Despite myself, my cheeks heated, and I rolled my eyes, hoping to cover it up. "I don't know. Sleep?"

"If only it were that easy for some of us," he mumbled. However, his comment seemed directed more at himself than in response to my statement.

"So, you read to sleep?" I asked, walking forward.

He tilted his head. "Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it doesn't. If I'm interested in the book, the story keeps me up late into the night instead. Either way, the books do what they need to do."

I was at the edge of the bed when I asked, "Which is?"

"Distract me from the thoughts spinning in my head." He finally looked up, and an emotion I couldn't quite place flashed across his brown eyes. But before I could identify it, it vanished. He shifted, folding up a leg and returning his gaze to his book. Clearing his throat, he asked, "Are you going to stand there all night, or are you going to get into bed?"

I blinked.

Did his?—

No, I was definitely imagining it. Fynn's voice didn’t wobble.

Yet, I still could not move forward, as if a line had been drawn in the sand, one I was unsure I wanted to cross.

Fynn sighed as he flipped the page. "We're friends, Dani. Sharing a bed means nothing."

Rolling my shoulders back, I tried to relax my jaw. I cleared my throat and walked to my side of the bed, my feet a soft patter against the wood.

Growing up, I had seen the twins shirtless countless times when we used to train together in the castle's private training grounds on hot summer days. As a soldier, I never gave a second thought to the men in the battalion when they stripped off their shirts.

This should have been no different.

But then why did my fingers tremble as I grabbed the duvet and flipped it over? As the cotton rubbed against my overly sensitive skin when I slipped between the sheets?

Why was I cognizant of how loud my breathing was?

Or how loud each turn of the page of that damned book was?

I took a quiet breath and exhaled softly.

Friends. Just friends.

Chapter 21

FYNN

I had flipped through eight pages of my book yet hadn't comprehended a single word.

I think someone died on the page, but I couldn't even explain why or how.

How could I when Dani was lying next to me?

The only thoughts that came to my mind as Dani slipped beneath the comforter were the exact things a friend shouldn't have been thinking about. How would her short black silk slip feel beneath my palms? Would it be like water running down her smooth skin as I grabbed her waist and explored her body? How would it feel as I cupped?—

Fuck.

I flipped the page, the parchment coarse against my fingertips and nearly ripping from the book's seam. I scanned the words, but they were no more than splotches of ink. As if the book were written in the ancient language of the gods, I couldn't comprehend a single sentence while my attention kept returning to Dani.

Her chest rising.

Her legs sliding beneath the sheets.

The cotton duvet shifting when she turned to her side.

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