“What the fuck was their reason?” he asks, incensed for my six-year-old self.
“Relax, handsome, it’s because I fell so bad the first time around the rink, I broke my leg,” I reply. “Kinda hard to skate when one leg is in a cast up to your thigh.”
“Holy shit,” he murmurs, hugging me tight. “Your bones have been through the wringer, haven’t they?”
“Yeah, the calcium in it was weakened which is one of the reasons why it broke so badly during the car accident,” I admit. “But I now have enough titanium pins and rods in it to set off metal detectors around the world.”
He chuckles then kisses my head. “Well, I can promise that I’ll never get on skates of any kind, so you don’t have to worry. I’m also not big on flying, either.”
“I like riding better anyhow,” I whisper, earning a soft squeeze on my stomach.
Abyss is the perfect movie watching partner; he doesn’t shush me, especially when I fuss at the characters for being so stupid. In fact, right now, the movie is paused because he decided we needed snacks. I quietly squeal to myself at how tonight is going. The nerves have abated and even though there’s still a little bit of unknown ahead, the worst has happened and based on what I’ve felt pressed into my ass and lower back, he wasn’t put off by what he saw in the bathroom when he rescued me.
He returns with his arms full which has me laughing as he tries to put everything down without dropping our sodas. “I wasn’t sure what you might be in the mood for,” he admits once we’re snuggled together again, a bowl of popcorn lounged on his lap. “So, I grabbed a little of everything.”
“This is perfect,” I reply, looking at the coffee table that’s got several sodas for each of us, as well as a bag of M&Ms and pretzels. “We’ve got the salty, the sweet, and the crunchy!”
“Yeah, we do. You ready for me to start it up again?”
“Definitely. This is one of my favorite parts when they play hockey,” I admit.
“Oh, fuck,” he says when the puck smacks Doug in the face. “That had to hurt.”
“Just wait, it gets better,” I confide, snickering.
“Let’s get some sleep, sweetheart,” he says, his voice waking me from the light doze I was enjoying. “We can restart this one tomorrow if you want.”
“Mmm, okay,” I reply.
“You gotta get up in order to get into bed, Shelly,” he teases.
“But I’m comfortable,” I mumble, my eyes still closed.
Instead of pushing the issue, he maneuvers me so that he can stand, then he scoops me up and carries me to my bed, sliding me underneath the covers that he somehow managed to pull down. “I’ll be right back,” he murmurs, covering me. “Gotta shut off the tv and run the stuff down to the kitchen.”
I curl on my side, mumbling, “Okay,” before I slide into sleep.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Shelly
I haveno idea how long I’ve been asleep, but I wake up after a particularly racy dream all hot and bothered. The question is, do I wake Abyss up and take what I want? Or do I wait until he wakes up on his own?
His voice, raspy with sleep, asks, “Are you okay?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up,” I whisper to his chest since we’re wrapped up in each other.
“It wasn’t you, per se, it was the fact that you were moaning in your sleep while writhing against me,” he replies.
Now I’m grateful that my room is dark because I know my face is heating up, especially when I realize that my thigh is wrapped around his and he’s definitely wide awake if the hard heat I can feel against me is any indication.
“I was?” I ask, trying to sound innocent when I’m anything but right now.
He rolls so I’m on my back and he’s leaning over me, our foreheads touching and says, “Yeah, you were. But I have a question for you.”
“What?”
