Page 62 of Rules of Association

“Then what should I be?” she asked.

Squeezing her tightly, I bypassed the guest room she usually stayed in and went straight into mine. “Just be okay.”

Chapter Sixteen

CECI

Connor’s bed smelled so good. Like sandalwood, body wash, and that cocoa butter pomade I swear he usedeverywhere. Once, I made him give me a bottle of it, but I’d stopped using it after I caught him rubbing it up and down his defined abdomen in a way my mind wouldn’t let me unsee. I still hadn’t forgotten the way the muscled ridges glistened. After that, I couldn’t look at the stuff the same.

Now, I snuggled into the scent of it and the warmth of his deep green sheets.

Connor’s house I was no stranger to, but Connor’s bed was new. I’d sat in it before, of course. Had laid in it even while we watched movies or just talked. But I had neversleptin it. Not in the intentional way that he had laid me down last night and tucked me under the very same warm cloth as him. And now, as I came awake slowly and began to blink my eyes open, I realized that half of the warmth I was feeling was due to the large chest snuggled up close to my back.

Last night was tough. I hadn’t been able to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes the darkness would start to feel like the cellar and I would have to open them again, changing my position to retry. It was way later when Connor finally wrapped an arm around my middle and dragged me into his body. Tucking me in closely, he dropped his full lips to the shell of my ear, speaking in such a clear voice I couldn’t imagine he had gotten much sleep, either.

“Sleep, baby,” he’d said. And suddenly I couldn’t sleep for a different reason.

Apparently, the situation had loosened Connor’s tongue. And his hands. He was never really shy with touching or contact in general. But he had never been so handsy either. Now, as I laid tucked up under him, the hand that had rested flat across my abdomen last night had drifted upward in his sleep and was now holding onto my ribcage.

I didn’t even want to believe that was his thumb grazing the underside of my boob, but I think it was time to face reality and call a spade a spade.

Con was feeling me up in his sleep.

Okay maybe that was a little drastic. His hands had yet to venture anywhere untoward, but for some reason thealmostplacement of them seemed even more suggestive than the real thing. And let’s not even get into the rock-solid form that was pressed up against my back.

He was like brick. A warm kind of brick that molded into me like a protective shield and breathed heavily onto my neck every so often and moaned sometimes in his sleep and HOLY HARD! I think he was waking up! Whatever was pressing into my ass told me he or his body was coming alive to the morning.

It was time for me to get the hell out of here.

My first attempt to dislodge myself from Connor’s iron grasp was unsuccessful. As soon as I moved even a little bit, that roaming hand moved to circle my side even more, his dangerously boob adjacent thumb going into a red zone that made me squirm and caused his morning salute to grow more prominent against me.

What even was that thing? A fucking pipe?

Oh no. I was not doing this with him. Not when every new terrain of his body was making me fucking burn in places Connor Ferguson was not supposed to make me burn. Not when the memory of his soft, attentive,lovinghands from the night before were burned into the back of my consciousness already.

Actually, I was actively trying to forget it. I wasn’t ready to unpack the weird feelings those hands produced in the bottom of my belly. Or the way his voice had been the only thing to get my stupid legs to move out of that damn cellar last night.

I know all of that resulted from our friendship. Our trust in each other was one of my most valued treasures. It’s why he was the one I called when I knew good and well any one of my brothers and sisters would have done the same for me. They would have beat down that cellar door for me just as Connor had been on the verge of doing. But the difference was, Connor was the one I wanted.

But now it was time to go. I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. He had been so nice to me. So sweet with me. So gentle even when I know he knew I didn’t need gentle. I appreciated it, but I didn’t want him regretting it or growing tired of me.

Ceci fatigue was real, and Connor was the last person I wanted getting it.

I needed to get up.

Using both of my hands to wrap around his thick wrist, I pushed to dislodge myself from his body. His hand moved but not off of me, instead it moved down.

Down,down, down. Toward the only place that could possibly be worse than my boobs. I squeaked in sheer terror that my best friend was about to get a handful and jerked my hips the other direction in a desperate move to avoid that kind of touching.

In a twist, my butt went flat on the bed and suddenly I was looking at the ceiling, breathing heavily and letting my mind wander to thoughts like, what if I just let him…

Time to go, Ceci!

Con was holding onto my hip now, his band of an arm slightly looser as it slung across my lap. But it was heavy as fuck. And he was grumbling likeIhad inconveniencedhimin some way.

“Hands off you big fucking bear!” Huffing and puffing, I finally batted his arm away, freeing myself.

Swinging my legs over the side of his bed, I quickly hopped out before Grabby could get his ahold of me again. Padding out of his dark room and into the guest room I liked best. I peed, brushed my teeth, and dug out some clothes I left here from one sleepover or another. One glass of water and a stolen banana later and I was out the front door.

---