Page 111 of Ask Your Mom If I'm Real

I backed away. “No.”

And I wouldn’t.

Anleigh liked her space.

We’d tried the co-sleeping thing once, but she got irrationally irritated when I touched her in the middle of the night accidentally.

Or, I might add, she crept onto my side and touched me.

“I can put some sheets on the other guest beds,” he offered. “Or you could stay in bed with me.”

My heart started to pound, and I turned around.

Chapter

Fourteen

Nice until proven naughty.

—Jeremiah to Merriam

JEREMIAH

The look on her face sent my heart racing.

“It’s my fault that she whispers,” she said quietly.

I reached forward and caught her hand, guiding her out of the bedroom.

“Should we leave the door open or closed?” I asked.

“Closed,” she said. “She’ll come looking for us when she wakes up. But I also set an alarm for a couple of hours from now so I can go check on her fever.”

“Good.” I paused. “I did, too.”

She smiled up at me and fell into step with me as I guided her back to the bedroom.

Her hair was still wet, and I had the insane urge to wrap my hands around it and braid it for her so it didn’t get crazy when it dried.

I imagined that she usually put some sort of product in it to keep it looking so good, but she’d only come in with the clothes on her back.

Tomorrow, I’d go downstairs and get all her shit from her car that my grandmother said she put in there, but for tonight…

“Can I braid your hair for you?” I asked.

She looked at me, startled.

“You know how to braid hair?” She blinked.

I grinned. “Not well.”

Her face split into a sweet smile as she said, “Sure.”

I walked to the bathroom and got the hair ties that I used for when the nieces stayed here and wanted their hair done, then came back to find her standing in front of the bed.

“I don’t know where you want me,” she admitted.

I sat on the bed, widened my thighs, then said, “Lean against it.”

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