Page 108 of Attached At Heart
Maybe that thought was rushing it.
Or maybe that thought was way past due.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
blake
WE’D ARRIVED HOME ABOUT an hour ago, and I was already lying in my bed, alone, missing Delaney. She’d gone into her room to unpack right away, so I showered and then collapsed into my bed, expecting to fall right asleep immediately. But then I heard her turn the water on in the bathroom, and all I could do was lie there thinking about how badly I wanted to be in that shower with her.
Exhaustion had nothing on the way I wanted this woman.
I closed my eyes, trying not to spiral about Delaney and the honeymoon and the plane and what the fuck would happen now that we were back, and when I opened them, she was standing in my doorway. She had her arms wrapped around a pillow that was tucked to her chest. Her damp hair fell loose around her shoulders, and all she wore was an oversized T-shirt.
That was it.
I grinned. “Are you coming for a sleepover?”
“It’s just, we haven’t slept apart since…” She bit down on her lip, bouncing on her toes adorably.
“I know,” I said so she didn’t have to spell it out.
We hadn’t slept apart since the night she’d jolted me out of the worst nightmare I’d ever had—one I never, ever wanted to repeat.
“I wasn’t sure if you’d still want company now that we’re home.” She glanced down at her feet. “I don’t care either way, but I…” Her gaze lifted slowly, finding me. She lowered her voice. “I don’t want that to happen again. I really hated that, Blake.”
Pain swirled in her eyes—pain that she felt on my behalf.
I should have been disappointed that she was standing in my bedroom doorway because she thought I was too fragile to sleep by myself and not because she wanted me to fuck her the way I’d promised to when we got home, but I wasn’t. As much as I was tortured by the way I longed for her, by the tension that simmered in my veins every time I thought about the things that had transpired between us in the last twenty-four hours…the way she cared for me meant so much more.
It gave me hope that maybe our friendship could withstand this change in our relationship. That being physically intimate wouldn’t destroy our other connections but make them stronger.
I had to clear the emotion from my throat before I was able to talk.
“I really hated that, too.” She had no idea just how much. I hated everything except what happened afterward, when I got to sleep with my arms around her for the first time ever. “I don’t think it will happen again, but I always want your company.”
I hadn’t had a single nightmare since that night on the couch. Not since I had Delaney tucked against my chest when I slept. Safe, in my arms. Her breath against my skin. Her heart beating steadily, her pulse echoing inside me.
Not even the sound of the sea outside our rental house had been able to detach me from reality and bring me back to that moment that changed so many things for me.
Delaney kept me grounded, attached.
To her, always to her.
She smiled but then tried to hide it, looking back at her feet as she walked over to the bed and dropped her pillow on top of mine. She was about to slip beneath the covers when I realized what she was wearing: a maroon-and-gold U of M alumni shirt. The same one I’d been missing for God knows how many years.
“You kept it?”
Delaney glanced down at her shirt as though she’d forgotten what she had on. As soon as she realized, a pretty blush spread across the apples of her cheeks.
“You never asked for it back, so I just figured that meant I got to keep it.” She pulled the covers over her, twisting onto her side to face me and then tugging the blankets all the way up to her shoulders as if to hide the fact that she was wearing my stolen shirt. “I’m sorry. I’ll return it if you want.”
“Delaney.” I released a hoarse laugh, turning to lie on my side, too. Then I dropped my voice and said, “Trust me, you do not need to apologize for coming to bed wearing one of my shirts. Even if it is one that I haven’t seen in years. I’m only upset that you didn’t give me the chance to properly appreciate it.”
Delaney’s voice was thick when she spoke, her eyes blazing to life. “Appreciate it?”
My lips split in a crooked smile.
“Appreciateyouin it,” I clarified. “Can I see you, Lane?”
