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“Not that one.”
My stomach does a strange swooping thing, and I can’t decide if it’s good or bad. I hide my confusion behind irritation. Anger is always easier.
“What do you mean, ‘not that one?’” I ask, narrowing my eyes at him.
“I mean that you’re not sleeping in that bed tonight. Or any other night. You wanna take a nap or something when I’m not here? Fine, you can use that bed. But from now on you’re going to spend your nights in mine.”
My blood seems to run hot and cold at the same time.
“Like hell, I will,” I snap.
“You will,” he echoes. “And if I have to take a hammer to this bedframe the way I did the doors just to take away your other options then I’ll do it.”
“I’ll just sleep on the floor then.”
“Then I’ll sleep on the floor beside you.” There’s a smoky tinge of amusement in his voice, but it vanishes when he adds, “You’re not getting out of this, Deirdre. You’re not getting away from me. And all jokes aside, I’ll be fucking damned if I let my wife sleep on the floor.”
“I’m not your wife!”
“Not yet. But I wouldn’t let my fiancée sleep on the floor, either.”
Fuming, and apparently completely tongue-tied by his use of words like wife and fiancée, I plop down on my bed and cross my arms, glaring mutinously up at him.
He doesn’t say a single word. Doesn’t even hesitate. He just bends down, fastens his strong hands around my waist, then slings me up against his chest the way he did outside earlier. Before I can even try to wriggle out of his grasp, he’s crossed into his dark bedroom. He bends down and then drops me onto the mattress.
Instantly, I’m scrambling out of the bed. And just as instantly, he’s in front of me, blocking my way, one of his feet between mine on the floor. He bends his knee and shoves his shin against the bed, turning his leg into a bar that locks me in. I try to stand up anyway, but the press of his leg ruins my balance, and when I halfway straighten up, all it takes is the poke of a single leather finger against my forehead to send me sprawling backwards, arms akimbo.
“You’re sleeping here, Songbird. We’re not negotiating this.”
I lie on my back, breathing hard, watching as the velvet shadow of him starts undoing the buttons on his shirt before shrugging out of it. His hands go to his belt, and my heart leaps rebelliously into my throat when the clink of metal lets me know that he’s unfastened it. He lets his clothing fall to the floor and kicks it away. I know without being able to see him well enough in the darkness that he’s taken everything off.
Everything except the gloves, I suppose, because when he grabs my wrist beneath the silk sleeve of my pyjama top, it’s not his skin on mine.
He pulls my wrist so I’m forced to roll onto my side. Now that I’m out of the way, he pulls back the covers I was on top of with a firmly decisive yank. He forcefully rolls me back into the spot before dropping the covers on top of me.
Then he slides in beneath them on the other side.
I’m so tense beside him that my teeth begin to chatter all over again. I can’t help it. I’ve never shared a bed with him like this. Earlier tonight we were in the other bed together, sure, but we weren’t really in it. More like… on it. Somehow, having sex on top of the blankets feels way less vulnerable than sleeping with Elio in a literal sense this way.
Elio must feel my trembling, or hear the teeth chattering, because he draws me closer, one of his gloved hands sliding against my lower back.
“Shh,” he murmurs against my forehead, and the sound is so soft and gentle it’s entirely unnatural and frankly, kind of alarming. “Shh, Songbird. None of that now.”
“I can’t help it,” I stammer. “If you can’t sleep beside me then let me go back to the other bed.”
His lips skim across my forehead, and I can’t tell if it’s a feather-light kiss or just a coincidence of motion as he prepares to speak.
“I’d rather stay awake all night beside you,” he says, tracing an exquisitely tingly line up and down my spine with his fingertips, “than sleep like a baby in another room without you.”
“And what about what I want?” I whisper against his throat.
“I don’t think you actually know what that is.” He doesn’t give me a chance to argue back or get offended. “Think about it,” he says. “Think about it fucking properly. Do you really, truly want to go to another room alone tonight? After everything that’s happened? Because that wasn’t what you seemed to want earlier, and shit has only gotten more intense since then.”
I don’t answer. Can’t answer.
Because I’m afraid that he’s absolutely right.
In the silence, I try to slow my breathing. Elio’s lips press to my forehead once more, and this time I’m sure it’s an intentional kiss, sweet and oddly chaste for somebody like him. Maybe it’s some kind of peace offering. A way to tell me that this might actually be alright if I could only let it.
