Page 114 of Falling in Love with A Tiny Bat

The hand-holding is interesting.

But I’m allowing it.

Together, we make it from my bike garage toward the house while he aimlessly pushes hair away from his face with his shaking free hand.

“Are you good?” I ask, casting a glance back at him.

His eyes jet toward mine, and heat fills his face. He wets his lips. “That was…a unique experience.”

For both of us.

I’ve never ridden with a passenger before.

Having someone gripping me from behind for dear life was a whole new level oftouch.

He could have taken advantage of the situation before I ever started the engine. It would have been so easy to play copping a feel off like an accident. I probably would have believed him, too, and been too startled to realize whether or not he’d said he was sorry.

The fae can only apologize if they mean it, after all.

It would have been so, so very easy…

And, yet, he didn’t even put his own hands on me.

He spread them for me and told me to place them wherever was most comfortable.

In some ways, pulling his body to mine did worse things to my brain than his misplaced hand might have.

We’ve never been so close for so long before.

Even sleeping together, I might mess with his bunny ears for a moment or hug him for a minute, but I always squarely distance us before I fall asleep watching Ash through the bars of his crib.

Now that I’m thinking about it, Alexios has never abused sharing a bed, either.

Maybe he can’t. Maybe it’s all tied up in his consent promise.

Or maybe consent and care and kindness and consideration never needed to be a promise for him.

Maybe they are just who he is.

Shaking my head free of stupidness, I grip his hand tighter and stop on my porch, beside my swing. “Was the experience a uniquegoodor a uniquebad?”

“A uniquemay we do it again sometime? A uniquewere you serious about teaching me how to drive?”

I scan him.

He is physically trembling.

“Those were both questions, so they don’t hold you to any truths. Did you like riding a motorcycle, or not?”

“I did not hate it.”

Well. That certainly doesn’t mean he liked it.

His lips part again, and he murmurs, “I…enjoyed being close to you.” Losing much of his tenderness, he cocks his head back and lets a foul expression twist his lips. “Even if you said that I did not need a helmet because flying off the vehicle would hardly harm a faerie.”

“Alana met Cael when she hit him with her car. She told me he was totally fine.”

“Survivingsuch an impact does not mean it did nothurt.”

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