Page 92 of Promise Me Not

So I say nothing else. I climb under the covers, sitting up slightly from all the pillows. A sigh leaves me instantly, my smile wide and turning on Mason.

He chuckles, gazing at me with a gleam in his gaze. “Yeah, Cam’s bed is like this back home and at the dorm, too. She has a pillow topper on her mattress andstillsleeps on top of a down comforter while covered in another. Girl’s a brat with a bad night’s sleep.”

Something hot spears my gut, and I flick my frown away before he sees it.

So he’s not only been in Cameron’s bed…butallher beds.

What does that mean exactly?

I did hear she had a crush on him growing up. Did something happen between them?

Is something going on with them now back at Avix?

Oh my god, Payton, why do you care?

“We used to pile in each other’s rooms every weekend, trading off houses each time, for movie nights and pizza. Hers was everyone’s favorite.”

I look over to find him studying me with a hint of a grin on his lips, like he knows what I was thinking, liked it, and that’s why he explained, but that’s weird, right?

Mason shifts, facing me as much as possible, so I make it a little easier on him and turn onto my side. He smiles down at me and laughs lightly.

“What?”

“You look cute like this, all snuggled up and shit.”

I roll my eyes at his teasing and settle farther into the blankets. “I would be so much more comfortable if I didn’t have a tiny human hanging out in my body.”

Mason grins, his eye falling to the large lump of blankets. He stares for a few moments, and then his hand disappears under the comforter. He doesn’t just lay it there, though. He slides it farther down until the hem of my shirt is in his hand and he’s pushing it up, the heat of his hand pressed directly to my taut skin.

A soft current courses through me, his touch like a tame note of electricity. I pull in a shuddering breath.

I can’tseewhere he’s touching me, the blanket still up to my chin, but his callused fingers leave a trail of warmth everywhere they go. He slides his hand from one side to the next, to the top and back down, pausing when he feels a small protruding point.

His eyes pop up to mine, nothing but the light he forgot to turn off in the bathroom cascading over us. “Does it hurt?” he wonders.

I shake my head. “Getting a little harder to breathe now that I’m so close, and my back hurts as much as my feet, but that’s just what happens at this point, I guess.”

Mason nods, then asks, a little more hesitant this time, “Are you afraid?”

A rush of sadness falls over me, and I look down for a moment, Deaton’s soft curls and infectious smile slipping into my mind. A weight falls on my chest when I realize I haven’t thought of him much this past week. I wasn’t asleep long enough for him to visit me in my dreams, but he will.

He always does.

I don’t realize a small grin is pulling at my lips until I look up to find a matching one on Mason.

“I don’t think so,” I finally answer.

“That’s good,” he whispers, and I can see exhaustion setting in.

We’re quiet for a few minutes, and when he shifts again, his gaze finding mine in the low-lit space, a small smile curves my lips. His words from earlier are like a warm blanket in my mind, and I tuck my hands under my cheek, staring up at him in the dark.

Not many people at my age know what it feels like to have something, orsomeonein my case, that you love taken from you. It’s a fucking nightmare that gives you legitimate nightmares.

It’s like being carved to the bone with a fillet knife, but instead of leading you to the good part, all you get is the bad.

The empty.

The bloodcurdlingly bare.

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