Page 70 of Ache for You (Slow Burn 3)
He says softly, “I know.”
His fingers work their way down my spine. His touch isn’t sexual, only soothing, but of course my reproductive tract engages in an elaborate mating dance complete with drums and chanting. My head throbs in time with the pounding of the drums.
“How did I get here?”
“I carried you.”
I try to picture that but can’t. He doesn’t appear to have any major muscle strains, so maybe when he says “carried” he means “dragged.” Maybe he had one of the nice kitchen ladies bring up a cart so he could take me to . . .
Wait. Oh no. “Is this your bed?”
He must feel the sudden tension in my muscles because he chuckles. “I’ll say no if it makes you feel better.”
Oh my God. I’m in my stepbrother’s bed. Ex-stepbrother. Bastard ex-stepbrother. Smoking hot, insanely sexy, arrogant, THIEF ex-stepbrother.
Shit.
I should’ve known. The pillow smells like him. Stupid pillow.
I bury my face into it and suck in a deep breath. Delicious.
The bed dips again. An arm slides under my neck. A broad chest warms my back, and a pair of strong thighs pulls up behind mine.
“Don’t freak out,” he says as I start to freak out. “I don’t take advantage of incapacitated women. I just need to rest my eyes for a minute. I was up most of the night watching to make sure you weren’t dying.”
He stayed up to watch over me? That’s either the sweetest thing I’ve ever heard or a fabulous line of bullshit.
I get distracted from my contemplation of which one it might be due to the strong, steady thudding of his heartbeat between my shoulder blades. Then his other arm winds around my middle, and he pulls me gently against his body, fitting us perfectly together like a pair of Russian nesting dolls.
My swallow must be audible because he chuckles again.
“Bella. You think too much.”
“I’m trying to decide how weird this is.”
“On a scale of one to ten, you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Zero,” he says confidently.
“But I’m mad at you.”
His sigh is a big gust of warm air down the back of my neck. It gives me goose bumps.
“You’re not mad. You’re hurt. There’s a difference.”
“Believe me, Count Egotistico, I’m mad.”
He starts to gently massage my neck again. The bastard.
When I grumble into the pillow, he says quietly, “It’s all going to work out. I promise.”
“Don’t ever say the P word to me again. The next man who says the P word to me is gonna get a major beatdown.”
“So violent,” he whispers. I can hear the smile in his voice.
“You should believe me. I’m super scary.”
