Page 76 of Sinful Promise
I hear the apartment door open and close while it’s still dark out, and when I slit my eyes open and glance toward the clock on my bedside table, I groan when it reads five-forty-seven.
A. Freaking. M.
Archer sleeps with his body wrapped over mine, his leg on my thighs and his hand pressed firmly to my bare breast. It’s how he relaxes the most: our skin touching, my hair on his face, and my shampoo in his nose.
It’s how I’d like to stay for several hours more. Because my body aches, and my brain is sluggish. My infusion was forgotten last night, because we were at the mayor’s, schmoozing with crazies and smiling for the birthday girl, who has no clue what kind of people were running through her home.
Cops who are mafia. Killers who are doctors. Sharpshooters who claim to be personal body security. And ballerinas who are, beneath the shine, the worst of all of us… combined.
The sound of the fridge opening and closing in my kitchen echoes along the hall, then the shuffle of Cato’s shod feet on the floor demands I’m done sleeping for today.
“Dammit.”
I gingerly push Archer’s arm off my breast, grimacing when, beneath his palm, my skin sweats. Then I inch out from beneath his leg and move as carefully and quietly as I can manage.
Because I don’t want him to wake yet.
I don’t want him to start his day at this godawful hour when I know he’s still healing, too.
Maybe his shoulder isn’t giving him too much grief anymore, but the facts still remain: he was shot because of Felix, and then he was treated by no doctor but me.
Because he refused.
“Must be a stubborn Malone family trait,” I grit under my breath.
Settling his leg on the mattress, I hold my breath as he rolls to find his new comfortable, then as soon as he stills and his breathing evens out, I slip off the edge of the bed and pull on an oversized shirt that smells like Archer.
His delicious aftershave. His masculine scent.
Working in the dark, I find a pair of panties, then yoga pants to pull on over them. Finally grabbing an elastic, I pull my hair up high and open my bedroom door to the muted light of the television in the living room.
Never mind the fact Micah’s trying to sleep… Cato still makes himself at home.
Stepping into the hall and tying a knot in Archer’s too-big shirt at the side, I slip into the bathroom first and pee until my bladder no longer hurts. After flushing and fixing my pants, I wash my hands with warm water and soap.
Then I head back into the hall, and emerge in the living room to find Cato perched on the back of the couch. His feet, propped on Micah’s thighs, and his hands wrapped around a can of soda I know Aubree put in my fridge.
He watches the news with rapt attention—Laramie Fentone is on—but when I move in his peripherals, he peers across and meets my eyes in the darkness.
He has a hickey on his neck, and lipstick on his shirt.
He’s a fucking child, but he acts like a full-grown man.
“Hey.” He looks me up and down the way a man would. The way Archer does. Then he goes back to watching the television. The volume is so far down, I know he consumes the information by reading the subtitles, and not by listening to the reporter speak. “You’re up early.”
“You woke me up.”
Crossing to the kitchen, I grab a mug and set it under the spout of the coffee machine. Caffeine is, and will always be, step one in my life. But while it sputters and chokes out its liquid, I go to the fridge for my Factor pack.
I don’t often do this with an audience. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve even let Aubree see me infuse. But I have roommates now, and I didn’t get a chance to medicate last night. If I don’t do it today, I’m going to regret it.
So I set the box on the counter and take out the two bottles—one with powder, and the other, diluent—then I go back to the fridge and grab my tourniquet and supplies.
“What are you doing?”
Like most seventeen-year-olds, Cato is curious. So when the news changes to discuss someone other than the man I killed this week, he pushes off the couch and wanders closer, his soda in hand and his clothes wrinkled enough to make my lips peel back as I think about how he left them rumpled on the floor of some floozy’s bedroom.
He stops at the end of the counter and leans back to watch me. “What’s that?”
