Page 69 of Mistlefoe
But then all of a sudden I blink, and my eyelids don’t lift again. The last thing I’m aware of is something soft falling on my shoulder.
CHAPTER 24
SIERRA
It smells amazing. Line pine, cinnamon, steaming hot chocolate with little marshmallows floating on the surface. Like the warmth of a cozy fireplace and cheer and happiness. I inhale deep, trying to absorb as much of it as I can, and that’s when it clicks in my sleep addled brain.
What it really smells like is… man. Laundry detergent, clean skin and deodorant.
I keep my eyes closed, just letting my other senses paint a clearer picture. The next thing I notice is that I’m rising and falling ever so gently, which makes absolutely no sense until I finally understand why I’m so warm. It’s because I’m lying half on top of Conor. My head rests on his shoulder and I have one arm over his chest. In fact, my hand is curled around his neck. Most problematic is that I have one of his thighs trapped between my legs all possessive-like.
And I can tell this is my doing, because Conor is still out cold on the carpet, his arm trapped between the base of the couch and my back. His steady breath fans over my face, which is what buoys me every so often. His free hand holds my arm in place.
I shift my head back by minuscule increments, but my nose brushes with the beard at his chin and it makes him twitch. Conor squeezes his eyes behind his glasses—which somehow managed to stay put—and after a deep breath, he opens his eyes.
And they keep widening some more after catching sight of my curly hair so close to him.
“Um, hi,” I say with a voice raspy with disuse. Conor doesn’t even move an inch, which also makes it impossible for me to guess whether my breath stinks or not. That’s something I’ve never had to worry about until this literal moment.
“Hi.” He blinks fast, maybe not yet processing but certainly not making any effort to let go. “What time is it?”
I haven’t the foggiest clue nor the slightest interest in moving so I can find out. All I do is cast a glance around. Bright light streams in through the windows, which is not at all what I expected. The last time I remember closing my eyes, it was nighttime but early. Maybe around eight? We had only been wrapping presents for a little while.
Crap, did we sleep like twelve hours?
Groaning, I push away from his chest and sit back. Conor hisses and I freeze. “I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”
“No.” He snorts. “The problem is that I like it too much.”
It being that I’m straddling his thigh. As I jump away, I echo what I said last night. “Oops. Definitely too early for that in this relationship.”
Or is it? Because as I watch him sit up, how those wide shoulders of his stretch the fabric of his clothes, and I realize that I just had my head lying on one of them… I kinda want to backtrack and say it’s perfect timing. That we can definitely keep snoozing or…
Conor lifts the knee farthest from me and sets his arm on it, propping himself up with the other one. Does he know howgood he looks that way? With his hair a royal mess from sleep? With his brown eyes staring at half mast?
My eyes catch on something I hadn’t noticed before. The T-shirt under his open flannel shirt has bunched up, showing a sliver of his hip muscle. My tongue is a lump in my mouth but somehow I manage to swallow and not salivate in front of him.
“You keep saying that word.” Conor’s voice is velvet wrapping around me. I have to shake my head to make the words fall in the right order in my mind.
“What word?”
“Relationship.”
I lick my lips to stall, but I don’t know how to navigate this. Every guy I’ve dated has approached me first, but they’ve also left me before things could really become official. In contrast, I have yet to go on a formal date with Conor, but I already know I don’t really need to. He’s more than I ever dared to dream about and for some reason, he has bad enough taste to like me back.
“Is… is that an issue?” I wait with bated breath for an ax to fall.
But this former hockey player turned lumberjack says, “Nope. But I didn’t want you to feel pressured into labels if you didn’t want to.” He runs his free hand through his hair, messing it up even more. “Besides, this hasn’t been quite, uh, conventional.”
“Does it have to be?” I shrug and run my hands over my thighs, trying to shake off the last of my nerves. “Who said we have to follow a formula to be together?”
His eyebrows rise. “Does that mean you don’t want to go out on a date with me after all?”
“Not on one, but I’ll settle for hundreds of them. Maybe thousands.” I scoot over the short distance back to him and grab a fistful of his T-shirt to pull him closer. “What I mean is,I don’t need to go to some overpriced restaurant with you and make small talk to figure out that I want to be with you.”
Conor holds my neck, applying delicious pressure to the back of my head to bring me closer. His eyes singularly focus on my lips as he says, “How funny, I feel the same way.”
“Wait.” He freezes, eyes lifting to mine. “Does my breath stink?”
