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She nods, her head falling against my chest, and we both just hold each other for a few minutes.
“Are we good?” she whispers to me.
“We are,” I answer.
Her fingers scratch through my hair before she cups the back of my neck and pulls me down. Her lips graze mine as she whispers, “I’m falling for you. Catch me?”
Emotion lights me on fire at the thought of her being mine, and I nod. “Always.”
CHAPTER 16
Callista
Early dawn light creeps through the curtains of my bedroom windows on New Year’s morning. There’s a sharp chill to the air, but the warmth of Warrick’s arm across my waist is enough to keep me warm and snuggly under the covers while I watch the sky brighten.
A brief stretch tightens the soreness in my calves, and I remember how War and I danced the night away under the fairy lights of the masquerade ball.
After we talked in the storage closet and stole more kisses both in there and under the various sprigs of hanging mistletoe around the party, we mingled with friends, ate good food, and gravitated toward each other before stumbling into my house late last night.
I smile at the memory of him telling me about how he found out my name and the stalker jokes his friend Griffin teased him with, along with the grumpy grumbling way that he gave Gunnar shit for not telling him my real name, though he and Sam have known it since I moved to town.
Warrick stretches behind me, his hand tightening on my midsection before he presses a kiss to the nape of my neck.
“Good morning, Imp.”
“Morning, War.”
“I have a question for you.”
I glance at the clock. “You have a question for me at six fifty-six in the morning?”
“Sure do. You never told me why you still go by Chip. Why not go by Callista? Do you not like it?”
I smile and crane my neck around to look at him.
Sleep rumpled looks good on him. His hair is sticking up in different directions, and his eyes are heavy with sleep.
“My name is fine. I don’t really mind it. Chip is part habit. Part nostalgia. Makes me think of Gran, and I still love chocolate chip cookies.”
“The same cookies you brought me?”
“Yeah. They’re the only thing that I really know how to cook without destroying. We used to spend a whole weekend day making giant batches of them in the kitchen. Good day at school? Chocolate chip cookies. Bad day at school? Cookies. There wasn’t any rhyme or reason to them—I think that if we both just wanted a little comfort, either from life or from each other, we’d make cookies together.”
He leans forward and presses a kiss to the corner of my mouth. “I like that.”
“Me too.”
Rolling me underneath him, Warrick settles between my thighs, the thick length of his erection pressing against my clit, and I roll my hips against him, chasing that friction.
He smirks down at me. “We’ll get to that in a minute. But first, what’s the plan for the day?”
Trying to gather my thoughts into something, anything that doesn’t have to do with the desire lighting my nerves on fire, I stutter out an answer. “I don’t usually do anything on New Year’s. I’ll catch up on work if I have to, but I don’t really go back to work until next week.”
“So you’re all mine today?” he murmurs with another small kiss to my lips.
I hum. “Mmm. Yep. All yours.”
“Well, in that case.” He reaches down and tugs at the hem of my sleep shirt until I lean up and let him whisk the material over my head. It disappears somewhere on the floor.
