Page 31 of Cheater and the Saint
“What’s wrong?” he asked in a gruff voice. His dark eyes peered at me through his nearly-closed eyelids before he sighed and laid his head back down on my chest. His arms were around my midsection, and he was on top of me. “Go back to sleep.”
“Why are you—?”
“Shh.” Without lifting his head, he placed his fingertips to my mouth and kept them there. For some reason, I had the urge to kiss them. “No talking until at least nine.”
I grinned when I saw it was ten minutes ‘til and decided to give him his last few minutes of quiet before stirring him again. I was still smoldering beneath the blanket and his big body, but it didn’t bother me as much now that I knew it was him.
Something about it was… I don’t know. Kind of adorable, actually. We hadn’t done anything sexual before he’d fallen asleep the night before, but somehow in the early hours of the morning, he’d found his way to me. To cuddle.
He was like a big bear.
The interesting wakeup had distracted me from my dream, but there, wide awake in bed and alone with my thoughts, the dream returned. The memory from that stupid night not so long ago.
I wish I could forget Chase Walker and what he did to me. How he wrecked me. However, it was something a person didn’t forget.
Being around Leo had caused the dreams to start up again. Perhaps because he reminded me of Chase; both were devastatingly handsome, charming, exuberant, and had a way of drawing in those around them with ease.
As nine o’clock came, I decided not to wake Leo and got out of bed as quietly as I could. Once I’d escaped his hold, he turned over, grabbed my pillow, and hugged it to his chest before softly snoring. I grabbed my laptop from the desk and left the room, shutting the door gently behind me.
My work load was intense that semester. I was taking sociology, general psychology, philosophy, biology, and probability and statistics. Already that semester, I’d nearly had a breakdown. I got overwhelmed easily and had broken one fidget spinner so far with the incessant spinning and had to buy another. Hopefully, the new one lasted longer.
After getting settled on the couch with my laptop, I pulled up the online work from my probability and statistics class and agonized over all the formulas and how to apply them to the given examples.
The class was all about the collection and analysis of data in a random, statistical experiment. Like tossing a coin in the air and measuring the probability of it landing heads up, which given there are only two options, made it a 50/50 chance. That was simple enough, but when more layers were added, replacing the simple two-faced coin with a population of people and determining outcomes of a problem or scenario by studying the demographics, like age or income, made it all the more difficult.
It made my head hurt.
Fifteen minutes into it, I decided I needed coffee if I wanted to keep my sanity. Or not throw my laptop out the window in a fit of frustration and rage. The probability of such a thing was ninety-five percent chance.
God. I’m such a nerd.
A little too eager to get away from my class work, I hopped off the couch and went into the kitchen to start a pot of coffee. As it brewed, I rifled through the pantry and then the refrigerator.
I sighed upon seeing there were no eggs, even though I’d bought a carton not too long ago.
In fact, I’d been the only one buying most of the groceries, and Leo would come in and eat them all like the pig he was. He needed to start pulling his weight around there, both with buying groceries and cleaning up after himself. I was not his damn maid.
Then the image of his sleepy face that morning before he snuggled back into me came into my head, and my irritation waned. Bastard.
Since there weren’t many other options, I decided on a bowl of cereal for breakfast before pouring myself some coffee and getting back to work. I finished the online assignment after another hour had passed, and then I moved on to the one for psychology—which I enjoyed much more.
I loved learning about the mind. About behavior. Ever since I could remember, I’d been fascinated about psychology and had wanted to pursue it when I grew up. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a psychologist, a teacher, or go into a different area of it, but regardless, the first step was getting my bachelor’s degree and going from there. One step at a time.
Taking a break from classwork, I pulled up my social media and smiled when I saw a post from my mom.
Turned out the guy she’d met at the rodeo a few weeks back had been a better set-up than she’d expected, and since that night, they had gone out several more times. The picture I came across was of her leaning against his shoulder and smiling with an oversized cowboy hat on—his hat, of course. He was handsome, with silver-streaked black hair and piercing blue eyes.
Mom was dating a silver fox.
The best part of it, though, was how happy they both looked. She hadn’t asked me to meet him yet, but I knew once she was serious about him, she’d ask me to.
“She’s hot,” a raspy voice said from behind me.
I flipped around to glare at Leo and scoffed, “She’s my mom.”
Leo’s brows shot up. “That explains it then.”
“Explains what?” I asked, watching as he went to the coffee pot and got the rest of the coffee I’d left for him. He was only in his boxers, so I got a nice view of his muscled shoulders and those two sexy dips in his lower back.
