Page 96 of Aria

I started timing them. Eight seconds per breath. If we slept for six hours, that would be 2,700 breaths she would take in my arms.

I tried to quiet my brain. At this rate, I would never sleep.

How could I, though?

Chelsie Combs was passed out in my bed, curled up against me like a fervent lover. We had kissed. I had sampled her sweetness. I knew the curve of her tongue and the way she arched her back when I gently tugged at her hair. I recalled the sounds she made when her bottom lip caught between my teeth.

I’d memorized the look in her eyes when she came.

Above all, I wanted to know more.

I wanted to knoweverything.

Sighing deeply, I nuzzled my face against her hair, giving her a tender squeeze. Despite my efforts to savor as many seconds as possible, sleep overcame me, and my breaths settled in time with hers.

CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE

CHELSIE

Icould have sworn I’d been awoken by the sound of giggles—giggles from a person of small and childlike stature. I felt tiny fingers playing with my hair, singing the theme toDaniel Tiger’s Neighborhood. I tried to open my eyes, but the light was blinding, as if a thousand suns had been strategically placed into the room and their sole purpose was to burn out my retinas. Pressing a hand against my forehead, I tried in vain to cease the incessant pounding.

Then I realized there was, indeed, a child beside me.

“Sam?”

Was that my voice?I sounded haggard and feeble.

It didn’t seem to faze the young boy bouncing to my right. “Good morning, Miss Chelsie! You had a sleepover again.”

I blinked half a dozen times before Sam came into focus. He was kneeling between me and… Noah.

… Noah?

…NOAH!

Shit, shit, shit.

“Daddy was cuddling with you like he cuddles with me.”

Shit.

Noah finally shifted on the bed, and my eyes panned over to him as I swallowed.

It hurt like hell to swallow.

I touched the bruised flesh along my throat, which spurred all the prior day’s events to come rushing back like a violent windstorm.

“Can we make pancakes?” Sam inquired.

Noah was staring at the ceiling with his hands behind his head. I used what little energy I had to push myself up into a sitting position.

“Pancakes sound great,” I said. My voice sounded like I’d smoked a pack a day for the last twenty years. “You know how to make them, right?”

Sam gaped at me with wide eyes and messy hair. “No, silly! I’m just a kid.”

Noah cracked a smile, also not immune to his son’s charms. “Why don’t you go brush your teeth, buddy. We’ll be down in a few minutes.”

“Okay.” He crawled off the bed on all fours and flew out the door, leaving us alone with our inevitable morning-after chat.

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